the server (waiter) raps
praise upon the sushi,
its integrity,
the harmonic
of its construct,
the curated singularity of
each rice grain

the innate elegance of
the thin sliced,
nearly translucent,
au naturel, organic,
ginger root

the skin smooth paste of
green wasabi,
grown naturally
along stream beds in
mountain river valleys in Japan

genuinely puzzled,
when he,
the old erstwhile poet
unabashedly weeps before all

no hero he,
just an overcome one,
his tears flavoring his food

mourning the
celebrated abuse
of his verbal children,
those natured nurtured babes
the stuff,
the words of his definition

each weird word,
loved for their cultured,
unique quality of their history
grown in languages's
perpetual petri dish

asked if something was a matter,
answered yes,

"this plated performance,
such an extravagant essay
on the beauteous wonder
of life's bounty,
left me wordless"

and she, burst out loud in laughter

one would think these old owls might have learned
a hoot of wisdom, and shut off the bright lights,
concisely concession con-seceded to the simple *******
of the union of the night and moon, its sleep crowning ownership
of these particular hours

let me not false claim that I speak for all the grandfathers,
nor raise myself as a caesar among them,
for there are too many shrieking claimants of all knowing,
know-nothings these troubling days

no longer do we revere or agree upon
the certainty of any incontrovertible self-evident,
truths and beauty we from early ancestors inherited,
fore-seeing the risky possibilities of a freedom-less future,
a melting planet without enough air or water to be shared
for our fast contentedly, asleep babies

no, no, I speak only for myself, and those few million of grandfathers who message each other in the wee hours about silly trivial concerns that keep them awake and writing foolish poems

my father moved through dooms of love
E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962



my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if (so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who, his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly (over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father’s dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no ******* wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and (by octobering flame
beckoned) as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he’d laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men **** which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine, passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear, to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit, all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why men breathe—
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

I, (Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself)


how I would, honor this with ecstasy joy effervescent,
the simplest of methodologies, if only I,
reasoned how one safely permits  
to love myself, if only I,
knew how to love an
I

to self love well,
not a university course,
no simple answers like thirst, yet how I thirst,
hunger, burst, curse for this peculiar wisdom, please,
instinct me to navigate murderous shoals of take but give
I

who teaches this to the children?

I, parents, teachers, not ****** or pastors or
TV the great substitute for all of the above,
myself is not a selfie, no glorying got in I,
I, burdensome, never comprehended,
love thy neighbor better, love actually, no mere pretense,
if well executed, perhaps is when the trapeze line is at last

cleanly indistinguishable,

your I, my I,
both wicks will be joined, brighter lit for it,
one flame, one godlike burning, fusing,
with neither consumed, wax fusing,
but teaching easy loving
to explode the
I,

~

9:24am EST
6/2/17
airborne over the Western US of A

for Karlotti

~
And a flower on the borders of winter.
an unseasoned sign that the singular erupting bud
will lend the lens to see, give the courage to accept
the greatest joy of man will ever be
anticipation

there will be seasons that the singular erupting bud,
be the bitterest truth nail gunned into your temple,
the perversity of a mockery, an uncrossable boundary
a flowering sign of skull & bones meant to teach acceptance
the greatest curse of man will be
the changing seasons

La mayor maldición del hombre,
Las estaciones cambiantes

“I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men.”   Sir Isaac Newton**

I can, but only of my own,
the orbits of the stars
within my envisioned mind,
this anti-expanding universe
this black hole of anti-matter
collapsing inward, the gravitational pull calculable
where I, madman creator,
am the sole witness mine self-destruction

I summon fate, luck, random numbers to the dock,
but all pleadingly state it wasn't me,
"I was somewhere else, had to be,
you cannot see my mathematical probability,
ergo i am definitionally
not capable of being guilty-
my orbit of madness
non transferable to you-mans"

who then can I blame?

for-seen poems every where,
upon on every face lay dime store words of bad novellas,
awake to work in dread,
return from it more deadened
and the piety pointy poetry pills
refusing to cooperate,
and the madness equation
has too many answers viable

what shall I title this poem?

her morning pleasure occasionally actually exercised,
a substituted delight for gym-going work with Lulu exercised,
no man can, will ever, understand

the nature/nurture debate over,
in my mind resolved, nature, hands up and hands down

RR's^  query, is god dead,
no longer rumbles around in my head cause when he speaks,
I can't get a word in edgewise

what i did in the sixties, lost to time in memoriam,
especially some really bad poetry

but this gender differentiation
a matter that Aristotle dutifully, so wisely, philosophically avoided

there is no Socratic method rationality in what is just crazy insanely meiosis,
there is no comprehension of the essence of  elemental genetic division,
like the NY Mets,
ya just gotta believe, or just accept

but from the other side of the bed
comes a surly, dry rejoinder, a gelled spike

thanks to modern science,
why don't you come over to the
right side, maybe then,
you'll understand the true meaning
of pleasure

transgend your self,
show your willingness per the bible,
to be god's new and improved version of a human being

So,
a pretty little, light A-line,
with a summer floral pattern,
a size 12, (20? ***)
I,
will wear with great
human pride,
come June

"Be the harpooner of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody, comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders into crinkly eye-lined smilers."



l<>|

writ many years past, just another dusted off phrasing,
composed from life's lecture notes, collected by eyes tired
from the hazing,
eyes wearied by the addict-strong,
incessant observational needing,
of celebrating the loopy,
they who make this planet
capable of laughing at itself,
a helping habit for mutual survival...

should you spot a man ungainly wrought,
weighted down by a harpoon cross
cursed  'pon his Cain-marked back,
you need not move to the other side,
'tis only a make-believe poet,
with his recording device,
seizing your rhapsodies to rhyme,
his collected artifacts, your crinkly smiles,
his meat, his metier, his chosen career,
a comfort caresser of your illusions into
a shapely sculpture of words for you to keep,
a token of your now examined worth,
a celebration for the keeping...

none more than I,
surprised and wary,
that my all-my-life
urbanized body,
be so unnaturally well attuned
to a slight degree
temperature modification

I,
proud city dweller,
born and bred,
urban dust,
the sandblast used
to erode and etch-a-sketch
my body's skin pores hollows,
by definition, pride and myth,
a tough skin necessified
to survive where
plants cannot

the chill of fall,
and the follow up of
it's 'whiteout' afterwards,
faintly dimly but
remarkably present,
unmistakably different
from the chilling moisture
forming on the ice bucketed bottle
of dinner's colden, golden,
waiting white Sancerre

the lowest, coldest single note
any viola can exhale,
I,
hear coming from Itzhak Perlman's
so close, Shelter Island retreat,
a foghorn warning
clearly felt, smelling its deep fried heard mournful warning,
tonal hum, swelling from the outside in,
not despite, but to pointedly spite
the surrounding humidity condensation of August
on the air cooled window panes

the very same humidity
that makes humans
curse the blessing of sweating,
registering slews of
no-one-cares complaints to
no-ones-listening people,
about the drying out everywhere
wet dampness of the end of the
simmering season

a sliver, a musk,
a prophet's portent,
so subtly well entrenched,
secretly by nature sent,
a realtime single line of code,
message that winter is indeed coming,
but not to the Seven Kingdoms,
but to the Czar's literary summer palace

I,
the sole prosecution witness,
to winter's germination
as the evening cools,
testifying about the acorn droppings
felt beneath flip flops,
like hurtful peas
beneath a princess's ten deep mattresses,
reminders of too soon time to be mourned
as gone, gone, gone
the summer,
the peak of the foliage, the zenith, the crest
of this old and very peculiar man

but one?

how can this be,
one **** degree
of Fahrenheit
leads directly to
sniffles and endless
gesundheists?

one **** degree,
separates the operatic arias,
the shower sing-a-long songs of his summer soul's
contented tented revival,
which now, in these sultry days of  August,
he sings, so swell,
practiced with an artistic style of
summer lazy's 'doing nothing'
so, so well

soon to suffer the mysteries of
the longest day
of wintery night,
where silent snow falling,
beautifies but makes the man
put down his pen and
reread his summer poetry

tonite,
we fine and dine
dressed in summer attire,
sock-less, coolest linen with cotton blended,
only ******, good natured,
political discussions allowed,
some daring souls,
bare their left shoulders,
more tan skin out than in,
while others defend
the natural human right
of man to wear in tandem,
white socks and ugly cargo shorts

all the fabrics, all the friends,
crinkling wrinkling upon the tannins
of sweet brown sugar of caramelized skin

some wearing bright pastels
clean new white T's,
so eye brightening-whiting-delighting,
that they are legally required,
and illegal to wear anytime else,
except for this one abbreviated quarter
of the best days of his life

smell the snow,
hearing  the boots and parkas,
making tramping noises upon snow cleared paths
swimming unhappily across
slushy street corners, almost mountain pass impassable
all these molecules, wafting in the coolness
of the August shore breezes ,
fedex'd  up from the polar south winds
of wintertime Argentina

all of these hints,
present and accounted for
in the atmosphere,
but of them,
I,
do not speak
not out loudly anyway

why,
to be lost beneath,
under the munching noises of summer corn
summer fruits, tongue exploding,
clinking of happy glasses,
toasts of "what a great summer eve!"
the wisdom of silence loudly asserts

for who am I to
rob us the deceit,
the human natural conceit,
that the future is the identity of our
permanent press present

that the unpracticed pleasures
of lapping up breezes,
the genteel salted aroma of
heated sweated forehead beads and sea water,
the cocktail odors of barbecue sauce,
fishing boat's diesel, Campari,
root beer floats,
strawberry shortcake's speaking of its peaking,
little children laughing with carousel joy at
running unshod and free upon bunnies and frogs,
all words and thoughts somehow miracle rhyming with...
forever

soon to end in the
disenchantment of reruns on
a flickering black and white tv night,
once again, no longer obsolete,
unlike the man

the eyes glisten from held back tears,
all come to give me hugs, thinking
the old man, in his white apron is
joyous simply happy or simply,
grill smoke got in his eyes

but that one **** degree...

.                                                       <>

in my middle life, more than ever, I need a once upon a time.
I forget how easy it is to forget—can’t imagine starting
     Anything new. I used to love the satisfying finality
At the conclusion of movies when a giant The End

Flashed across the Big Screen. Maybe one solution:

We could all change our names every day.

A verse from
"Coventry Lake"
by Bruce Cohen
                                                           <>

before I knew why,
before Bruce explained it all,
wink! wink!
change my name quite often

way past the middle years,
can't remember what I forgot,
so a new poem looks sorta maybe
**** familiar, another guy's guise

maybe, can't be truly sure,
but the grasp of time upon my croaking,
gasping voice box, youthful insistent,
give it another parting shot!

yeah,
I still need a once upon a time
e v e r y d a y
rap you a rhyme friend,
crank it out, one more a time,
before hitting the Dead End sign,
gonna sweat one more script from
the po-ahem pores

do it so
it will be your call,
when shouting out,
it's a wrap

when you complete,
and Declaration signature swirl
an emboldened name,
whichever, no matter

everyday
you need
a once more upon time
to indelible a full throated,
Yahoo!
It's mine going out, writing out loud

The End!

What I Mean When I Say Chinook Salmon

By Geffrey Davis

My father held the unspoken version of this story
along the bridge of his shoulders: This is how
we face and cast to the river — at angles.
This is how we court uncertainty. Here, he taught
patience before violence — to hold, and then
to strike. My fingers carry the stiff

memory of knots we tied to keep a 40-lb. King
from panicking into the deep current
of the stream. Back home, kneeling
at the edge of the tub with our kills, he showed
the way to fillet a King: slice into the soft
alabaster of the pectoral, study the pink-rose notes

from the Pacific, parse waste and bone from flesh. Then,
half asleep, he’d put us to bed, sometimes with kisses.

~~~
my diet of ideas
is without carbs
that convert to saccharine;
a life filed by the pauses of milky hot coffee sips,
these are the protein compositional periods,
in my otherwise,
stuttering life

when they come to me,
these escapades of poems~moments
'tis the only nutrition this man needs

only I know
when I email you
tidbits of life,
that I need only
address you as b,
for in a nano second,
my tablet will acknowledge
that I am writing in secret code to mine own
beloved



~~~
7:05 am
NYC

for Tascha

deep in the pond of unhappy, swimming,
drowning the next contemporaneous
depression thought quickly swallowed,
desperation in quick glances everywhere,
dawn is no consolation but just another
daily drawing tighter of twine cutting
disillusionment


dear god, commences every thought,
delayed answers have yet to arrive,
**** the deity's non-responsivness,
dare not say out loud lest,
deserved fates be worse, be realized,
didn't know? how can that be?
disguiser par excellent, I am the original
deceiver

But I never think about

death or dying, for that would be
defeat finale, a statute to, a status of none, a
destiny some wick spark, still insists can be
deferred

differed always,
diffidently, but grasping yet at the
double entendre that is my
dark vision of a future already past

May 2015

nearing midpoint
and looking
twice backwards   -  once ahead

leaning ever so - modestly bent forward
in keeping with a
past and future futile balanced,
sad bent with weight of passé tragedy,
to leaning forward with speaking eagerness
a future anticipated,
dearly beloveds,
trundle to and from thee
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
burdened and yet unbundled,
eyes in the head back and front
who is pushing this carriage?

old love stories well recalled,
new love poems unwritten
I roll along, slow trundle
the human condition -
love failures only make you more
needy wanting
to run
faster away and towards
love poems

and you want to believe,
that the restlessness will disappear,
new days new ways to conceive
readily for purchase in the five and dime stores
that they did away with
in the years forgotten

shake your shirt sleeve hoping
you can rid the body of the naysayers,
the hangers-on eager to deceive,
leeches you once begged please-come-aboard

asking only that eyes only perceive
what your soul demands it needs,
pants legs flag waving for pocket change
falling out, roll under the bed, thus discovering,
new ideas for old hopes like
peace,
start the world over, you the creator,
signing onto a new lease on life

take best medicine doctors never seem to prescribe,
mirror-stare till you weep from rawness bare,
relief grief honesty, immolating exercises,
un-calculated but accurate, letting your
near dears watch so no explanations buried
for angry revelation years too later after

days and nights of no rest,  
a few hours here there
clumped hours but never conjoined,
and you swear off usage
of conjunctions

all spoken now just verbs and nouns
I was
I am
you laugh cause you know,
mirror nods in certifiable confirmation
this is not the best work you ever ecrived,
but when madness, laced with love regret,
what you will emit, you take it plain,
with lots of ice, the idea-words poured,
clinking each other as icy cubes misshapen,
write it no down, don't look no up,
no editing required, can't go back
and get those too late spoken words

alarm rings buzzes beeps all devices
slightly off time agreed, it's Saturday Sabbath,
thinking good god it's against the law
to think this way on a weekending day,
and you want to believe

in fresh starts but all looks old familiar
desperate inmate things of a discharging
what? and you don't care for any answer
that isn't intimate enough to say out loud
why! why? Why  
                             do you want to believe...

one foot in every world
one foot in every word

prophetess of yore,
foreseeing farseeing,
recoding recording
mundane supermarket voyages,
become paradoxical
holy lover spats

for all of us
become her
become her poems,
travelogues, snippets
of marvel at the DNA
each thinking
wanting to think
tween us and no other

she does not know me
but she has felt my
foolishness here

connecting like no other
in a long time,
have listened to each record
in the Queen-bee's collection,
she unknowing, mine,
her favor returned

verbal scientist
she uncovered discovered
a small gate on the edge
of the map of her brain,
that led here her her here where
t her e

am amazed
she sees me

like no other
voyageur ******

but I cannot
Write like Deborah
no but I can
Write of Deborah

upon request,
first coffee served
in China teacup,
chocolate chip
biscuit
snuggling tween
saucer and cup,
probing warming proof that,

Philosophia Sensibus Demonstrata,
(philosophy demonstrated by the senses),

achievable, realizable, and
civilizing,
my left foot now smiling,
my divas singing me
to places where the headlines
disappear...

"Utter Nonsense"

these are the

first ordered syllabic constructs
that breach
the vocal chords
this day

thereby establishing
the mirror of the
Descartian Principle:

ergo cogito, ergo sum
je pense, donc je suis
I think, therefore I am

these words prove logically the
Left Footian Principle:

incredulus non ero
je n'y crois, donc je ne suis pas
I disbelieve, therefore I am not

this is all just
utter nonsense