~~~
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

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

watching her deep water,
pilled sleeping,
her chest congest,
her cough, orange,
clockwork regular,

watching tv,
an old Law & Order fav,
major crimes gets an
innocent man freed from jail

watching me
in the tv screen reflection,
write bad poetry,
and laughing at his own hair,
rebelling in sticking up shapes
that would make Einstein jealous

occurs that this mot not
multitasking, that multi-inaccurating

Nope

multi-sensing, multi-asking
for
moments of quiet crumbs,
of seconds of satisfactory,
merely passing unpadded grades
would be sufficient

life needs no cogent reasoning,
no over arching philosophy,

but if Sheldon were to
find the unifying string theory
that could tie and string these moments
together,
that would be most excellent

cause "whatever"
just don't quite cut it
as a way,
a purpose to exist,
but moments like this
do

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

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...

The first cut, indeed, the deepest, for when they cut the umbilical chord, and a life forever, alone, now forever commenced, another
sea of troubles, a cursed journey begins.

"Judge, O you gods,  how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all"

julius-caesar act-iii-scene-ii

(seep yourself to leak away)

all reveals are feints;
I take you right
but I am moving left,
always left,
then left again

when I turn the faucet of me on,
brown, rusty pipe water comes out,
never turning clear,
even if the flow
went on for a millennium

someone traveller passerby
reads my excellent explicit illicit words,
with kind sweetness
observes a valid conclusion:
Poems take.a lot out of you

correct+wrong

not take, give
they are the slow seepage
of my overburdening
which is
yes, yes, I know, all relative,
but perspective is a
sometime summer thing,
and all the springtime streets
filled with filthy frozen slush

having  come from some rusty water leakage,
never turning clear
no matter how long the street runs away
from you

so you take yourself to give away,
seeping and leaking

ah words;

so useful and so inadequate
crushed petals from the Tree of Life

you ask me If I have read my brother,
the prophet-poet Jeremiah?

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

When your words came, I ate them;
they were my joy and my heart's delight

Then the Lord reached out his hand unto my mouth and said,
"I have put my words in your mouth."

these are those words

life has plenty of bad dreams
realized and foretellable,
predictable, inevitable,
typos that go uncorrected
or cannot be corrected

but from time to time
magic appears in an email header,
mistakes intended
for what would life be without
the occasional,
surprise from him,
a Sirprise apprised....

and her, she, her,
knowing his mind
occupado by life's laundry,
sends him a notice of a
Herprize.
-----------------------------
To:            Him
From­ :      Her
Subject:    Herprize
Please hold the evening of April 25th on your calendar
for a Herprize event.  Tie and jacket will be required (too bad!).

To:            Her
From:       Him
Subject:    Sirprise

Tie and Jacket, no can do, as all my ties were accidentally
thrown out by some crotchety person on New Years Day, 2014.

Please mark the whole day, May 12th,
as busy on your calendar for a Sirprise event.
Casual formal (casual formal?) dress attire, please.
Popcorn and other refreshments will be provided.
Socks and **** stockings optional
but recommended for the evening portion of day's events
-----------------------------
the waitress inquires,
"theater tonight?"
She replies,
"oh yes, indeed,
an 8:00 curtain,"

"great, what show are you seeing?"
"that I cannot say, yet,
for it is a Herprize evening!"

the waitress says nothing,
but her smile indicates understood,
and they stupid grin at each other,
at their crazy ways and that the world
appreciates their typographical lives









.

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...

spend /broke

I am here.  I could spend all my days reading your wires.  I could spend all my nights writhing writing responsa psalms.  
perhaps I do, for after all, I am here  
{~for Mara, Denel, Liz B.; Patty~}

I string fences too, bury birds, insects, living sons, tho just out in the back of my ex-mansion brain. want to write simple, effectively, like you guys, and want to live simple ample effectively. cant cursed, cursed canticle Kant cant.  so the day commences   2000 plus emails chirping read me and I've just arrived, but I do not, bury them in a mass grave with an effective 'delete all,'  not even thinking what might be missed, missed

what happens when u run out of fence, land, good silences, and spending becomes broken? spending, breaking, chicken, egg, simple, too many words, to read, to write, so which will come first?

738am

the disagreement palpable
gotta seriously disagree
the reversal is the course proper
*** backwards you are, right back at ya
forward forward, never confuse what’s past infused
never go back to old, it’s a dead weight carrying
the past is now a pretense, what we saw, believed and wrote
shuck that mao shirt, those cowboy boots, older vista visions,
the capsule you saw gone immediately to forward the blessing
get some slim jeans, fancy sneakers, a new way of seeing seeking

then the music muse interferes interfaces!

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who stand looking.

Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune,
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long,
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.

“Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear,  can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?”

*exactly

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


that which used to take ten minutes
now takes an hour or
two

something's that used to take an hour or
two,
now take ten minutes, give or
take,
(mostly I do the taking)

(or as the little voice whispers, the mostly
faking)

betcha you'd like to which is what
and what is which being bewitched,

I ain't spilling no beans
cause I value my insanity's privacy,
and I don't got to give that up just yet

but if you want the worst of what little I got left,
unhappily I will approach the old muse
begging me giving me something to use,
bad she turns away bad she say

"You all tricked out,
you wares worn,
ye old styles from yester last month
you been styled by
  H&M;
30 days max,
then
ring in the new, and if all sold,
or none-at-all,
too bad for you

then you gotta decide:

wear a watch
or watch the wearing
with  small
pleasures sighed,
confirming,  night-moves,
gonna
Keep On Keeping On
Living

some times I believe,
not think,
but believe,
that there are indeed little figures in the grass,
brushing my ankles with tickles and laughs

sometimes in mid of velvet black,
can see them waving their six fingered hands
in front of the lights across the bay,
for the twinkles are different, their winkles,
semaphoric, euphoric, random but patterned

every know and every then,
could they be inside me,
inciting riots, sugar sharp pains,
in places where pain has no place purposed,
feel them lifting my-back-of-the-neck hairs,
at scary movies, making an ear itchy, why?

these elusives
are fairie godmothers,
personal angels,
hobgoblins,
shoulder sitters,
amusing muses
ear whisperers,
of new poem titles

sock stealers,
shoelace knoters,
giggling self-amusers,
ever present, ever invisible,
hat hiders, wet spot slider installers

you say you know them too?

cousins perhaps, for my elusives,
could not be here and there,
for they are:

as I write,
as I speak,
this very second
fluttering my eyelids,
those rascals,
to lay me down to sleep,
in cherishing tenderness me to keep
for they know too well,
sleep,
is an elusive of a different kind,
like peace of mind,
but they do their best,
to distract me unto rest

no plea here tendered,
long time are we past
the boundary of cooling
cooing brotherly tenderness

reason has been Joseph sold into slavery,
nary a Moses, who talks to God, is answered,
be seen or heard, to reconcile the divisive souls
of our fratricidal words

a morning’s reflection,
soon to be gone, passing,
of two pockmarked differing clouds,
scratching this morning blue drenched sky

a white, rotund cumulus rose,
one gray, rough, tumbled, worn,
ill tempered, of rain possessed,
but both clouds, each purposed

but this Sabbath day,
as this pale land reopens,
to bitter cries, minor rejoicing,
wise counsel, foundering, ignorance prevailing

forbearance, a weighty silence, circumscribed,
daytime highlights, disregarded, heads closed,
nowhere to found, just, a colorless pallor, a rasher
of fratricidal words

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

"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...

"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

_____


another mourning morning, usual signs of warning,
wanted to wash away the distress signs of no sleep,
turned on the tap, out came only troubled waters,
my only friend, the voice from the mirror, pretending
to be coming from me, speaking: Oh Lord, Oh Lord!

is there no surcease for me, somewhere, can I find,
little bites, small plates, pieces of peace, the kind
of kindness that eases, repairs the dividers of mind,
the country stone fences that been growing wilder,
when, troubled child of 10, window breaking, beyond
youthful mischievousness, evil streaked, so deemed

Give me a boat, give me a bridge, give me a road, a home,
one of those things poets, songwriters about, wax lyrical,
Oh Lord, give me time, 45 seconds, even two or three,
Being strong, being confident, am I not entitled to that,
a boat, sturdy mast, cause sailing from storm to storm,
just glimpsing dry land, is that too much, a pale beyond?

love, nah, a bridge too far, not even on the menu, not blinded,
I am off key, not well enough, between the peaks between,
I am out of sync, bubbling discombobulated, a **** besided, behind,
lend  me a finger, not even a hand, a kernel, not even a cob,
a string, forget a rope, a washcloth to bathe and dry,
lay me down, lay me down, to live, even just not dying.

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

trust in the shape of a key,
good god how corny is that?

satisfactorily nonsensical, a Pharisee phrase,
so offal illogical,
it borders on the poetically reprehensible

who has time to state this stuff,
pretend it is worthy of something respectful,
work it into a Nobel Prize awarded script,
nominated for "really bad ****?"

an ordinary hardware key, brass gleamy,
and the squealing grinding noise
heard while a blank progenitor is reimagined,
so so annoyingly ludicrous in this century
of plastic replicators but the noise,
comfortably familiar as a sound of
things being made

run thumb test over the cuts,
as if your thumb should know
what order the points and bevels,
the toothy gap spaces should be,
the correct disorderly order of the teeth

there are very few locks on a farm;
indeed the front door key
has not
been seen
in many a year

what's that you ask?
ok ok - I get it - in harvest time
it is early to bed and earlier to rise,
conclude this mystery key,
red winter wheat needs laying down,
stop your word seeds germinating

there may be few locks on a farm,
everything rusts so quickly anyway,

but stop to comprehend just how many locks
the human body employs  -
at least 613,
maybe many more,
and only one master
for them all

a shiny gleamy thing,
strangely,
its cuts and grooves seem to
spell a word
trust

go figure

1:05am in the city