One day no one will look at you anymore
Those hopeful, surreptitious  glances at the coffee shop
That brave young man's naive attempts to get your attention, little knowing that he's biting off more than he can chew
You won't feel their eyes watching you as you walk across the room
They won't offer to help with your bags or step aside for you at the escalator or staircase (if not for the sake of chivalry then at least so they can watch you climb the stairs)
They won't try to dance with you in the club
And no one will applaud as you leave, in pure appreciation of having watched you dance without an agenda
Some day you will need an agenda
You'll need a reason at all times
They will no longer entertain you just because
You'll be asked to justify your existence and to earn the privilege of their company
And you will shrink into yourself
You will retire from their blind gaze
Their unseeing eyes
They will not notice you
They will not care
It. will. hurt.
More than now
More than the overload of attention
Because one thing worse than too much attention whether positive or negative or just plain curiosity -
Is being ignored
And even worse - being invisible
Being aware that you take up more space than they think you deserve
And trying to shrink to fit into the social recycle bin that is reserved for 'unattractive', 'ordinary', and 'childless' women over forty
Just waiting it out until you find a cause or some miracle..worthy of becoming your legacy
A final shot at being remembered..

<>

“Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much?
Have you reckon’d the earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?”


Song of Myself (1892 version) by Walt Whitman

                                                      ­      §§§

A night of reckoning, calculations repeated-checked, sums divided,
did I use too many, or not enough, words to be understood, verbiage eloquent,
did daytime reveal my poetic meanings, or double-occlude it’s essence?

I have reckon’d Manhattan Isle, circumnavigated its riverbed boundaries, a younger me, by kayak rounded it, from the Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the Battery, 14,500 acres give or take, a lifeatime to complete a dead reckoning, an unfinished full configuring.

but haven’t reckon’d that Earth and I will be entwined/entombed in each other’s arms, until such time, one of us or both, will be reduced to cosmic dust, our pride, our poems, will be equally unimportant and irrelevant, I reckon.

in retrospective rear view perspective, come to understand that we spend every moment of our lives, reckoning, determine the odds of which fork we will take, laugh out loud, for each moment, a poem  is titled, the resultant, a poem - who needs a muse, you’ve got choices!

So, yes, Walt, the questing  answers you’ve requested:
Aye, yes, yup, but no to pride, for pride and poetry in one sentence is
a death sentence at multiple levels, pride, poetry, ego, suicide,...sins,
so better no proud for it is the entree, the invitation to fall-fail...
                                                   ­      §§§§§


12:03AM  Frieday
May 15th
my deadline missed,
but what is three minutes,
but empty pride...
Manhattan Island

what the difference if the ***** coffee cups
in the sink get washed now or later or never,
the stains of each imbibing are added, wearing
is a tearing down, cumulative, so refer back to
your calculus practiced on a shooting range,
the long distance to target is an accumulation
of a thousand points, wind, light, eyesight,
combinatory

many short runs if you wish to hit the bullseye
repeatedly in the long run

life is best when you sum up each day for the accurate totality

he melancholy muses, his hand upon his chest.

a thousand miles
                                        she replies, a thousand eyes winking lying
a thousand quiverings
                                        she denies, a thousand quaverings
a thousands hairs
                                        she sighs, everyone of a different color
a thousand songs
                                        she cries, not any but not the one
a thousand sensations
                                        she implies, by silence, not the same, sensual
a thousand touches,
                                        she asks, slyly, is it your tongue your finger?
a thousand dies,
                                        she contradicts, all mine, not yours, or ours!

<>
and then she speaks, in Italian, a language so musical, it’s melancholy  at its very essence.

I’m no longer of surety possessing,        
Non ** più la garanzia di possedere,
is it my finger or my tongue, is it              
è il mio dito o la mia lingua, vero?
that my finger became my tongue,        
il mio dito è diventato la mia lingu,
all senses at attention, blurred,              
tutti i sensi all'attenzione, sfocato,

the love song enactment, touch
                                (recitazione della canzone d'amore, tocco)

called me in for a consultation,

“lean in,” he suggested, with nearly closed eyes,

“see the youthful optimistic predecessor,
the conqueror, who could not be defeated,
his thin images within still resides

the man of firm voice who when he spoke
above the rabble, all fell silent, and when he looked,
all could share his visionary insights and did not hesitate,
saying, we will do and we will listen,
but to follow, just did, wrapped
in your confidence

I want that boy back, smooth skinned, fearless,
do not return him till the shadows have dissipated,
the bruised lines of worry have evaporated,
the hands look unscathed, then raise them in
self-supplication, demanding satisfaction,
then in success, born overhead, marking appreciation,

let us adventure forth, straightening tilting windmills,
punishing renegades and dragons fearful,
saving damsels who waited just for our arrival,
shedding courage upon those who watch us,
cheering and being cheerful

here is your mighty pen,
cut sharp the poems out from the within,
read them slow, winding to now crooked old friends,
who remember everything dear, their youth of no fear,
the best of past, dreaming poems, mist born, fog vapor gone,
of black and waiting white, worthy words all revived

return to me in blazes,
sumptuous colors of derring-do,
I need that child brave, for perhaps
you have not noticed my flaking slivering skin,
the expanding cracks that cross my images,
just like you!

I need you to rebirth you,
I need you to rebirth me!”