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"gravity has taken better men than me
just keep me where the light is"...John Clayton Mayer

where the light is...
this lyric gets carried from midnight to midnight next,
from troubled sleep to the bus stop, to and from work,
onto, back to, the homebound bus stop once again,
from solitary man to father to grandfather and cycles back
to once again a troubled sleeper poem writer,
who just wants to know, John,

when I find it, will, does the light fill, complete and heal the cracks...when I find that light...

in the city, starlight been banished by street lamps pointed downward, far too often it is believable that the whole world has been wrapped in white crinkled, filmy, wax paper, then,
how will the light know where it is needed most,
how will it find the empty chest cavity that writes these lines

there is real and artificial they say, nature vs. man made,
sun upon the face that heals for but an eight minute
bandaid summer ferry crossing, the fluorescent that says here, here is the bus stop, tarry, sit and rest, while you wait for
answer unscheduled, on a bench beneath to the street light
that illuminates a small swatch of street
between the dark spots on the x-ray of
this patient patient's soul awaiting,
are either of those
the light I need John?

no worries man, I'm just teasing, well knowing, neither of us,
tables turned, know where the light is, up high, down low,
if it is yellow or gold, if light is real or imagined,
only the sensation of the curettage needed to be healed when the
chest drained and the light supplants the drained fluids,
when it interferes, interpolates, how it found me or I it,
how I recognized it, how it reignited the home fire, and
I'll drop you line how light, lightly to find or be heavy found,
how light supersedes, defeats, the gravity of daily tugging,
and how what happens afterwards is golightly
up to us

2:10am **** it
now children, go back to your silly little love pretense poems and pretend you never read this
The Physics of Love: The Equivalency Fallacy


the poet places his Sunday porcelain coffee mug  
upon his bare chest, purposed to heat the heart to a
higher degree, equal to hers, next door, three feet away,
in their communal bed

two identical alarm clocks, one on each nightstand,
confirms the degree differential, for far beyond time-telling,
it informs on me, providing the room temperature,
and her side of the bed, 5 degrees warmer

the collegial scientists posit theoretical excuses,
the rooms wind currents, proximity to the A/C, body mass,
all refuted after visual and mechanical inspection,
all indelible proofs of the Equivalency Fallacy

despite the visual evidence abounding all around,
despite the surrounding starlike quantity of busted,
love songs, poems and the other artistic churn,
depicting the principle, one requires love physics to validate the
living principle for the living, that love is rarely identical
in quantitative quality, typology, representation and
manifestations measurable

each greets the other with morning declarations of
mutuality, trying to find those hundred different ways
to love her/him today, employing imaginative artifice to proof
the impossibility, that in every aspect your living love ability
is precious capital precision equal
and ha! each love is the greater...

you knew this?
then you knew, his coffee spills (intentionally?) and the
Fighting Fallacy rules,
every thing is fair in love and war, for they too, are
identical and equal, in so many ways,
but never quantifiable exactly

8:33am, 73 degrees, on my side
11/12/17
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jamesingram/onehundredways.html
 Nov 2017 Mary Winslow
CK Baker
mirrored fly-glass
and polished chrome
are tinted
in the blood orange dawn
running dogs of lummi
hush quiet
on this celestial
summer morn

clubman bars
and tan saddles
strapped to
the lowered hind
skull caps
and fitted chaps
for the open flow
and rich peripheral scene

concessions at the peace arch
(from the blue-coat fuzz)
black *****
and maples
cake the bow hill
and chuckanut

choppers launch
at edison
(with their metal fleck
and tuft)
a half moon rises
on the concho
and interstellar cross

cinnamon gulls
and ravens
scour the netted docks
warlock driftwood
and row homes
spot the winding
coastal roads

rumbling sounds
at the packer slew ~
with the redolence
of briny bay
alive
on the overlook
at fairhaven
Spent a couple days in late September on a motorcycle trip with my brother...weaving through the small towns and villages of the Pacific Northwest.  Magnificent!
 Nov 2017 Mary Winslow
Advent
In all honesty, I think about you a lot.
Still.
I think about you while I'm waiting in line,
while I stir my coffee in the morning,
when I remove my makeup after a long day.

I think about you in the middle of meetings,
while I’m waiting for my Uber,
and even when I light my cigarette.

I think about you in the most random moments
But the thought of you has stopped lingering in my head.
I think about you,
but I cannot say I that I could still remember you.

You're just a thought now,
an idea
from the past.

Because to remember―
is different
To remember―
is to travel back in time
and feel the way I felt when I used to walk beside you,
have lunch with you,
and stare at your flawless skin.

You're just a thought now,
a memory
I want to keep good.

I still think about you a lot.
And admittedly,
sometimes,
if you’re thinking about me too.

   —a.t.
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