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Hebrew calendar says Summer Sabbath,
the day of rest has, as scheduled...arrived
wryly, ironically, bitterly,
poet rhymingly thinking nowadays...survived
more apropos,
#even survived alive,
for therein is a concomitant, under-the-surface implication,
of the uncertainty of forecast future,
for no matter how theoretically normalized and organized,
even a trip to a shopping mall...deadly
survive - a far, far bitter...but better fit
not sure of the why-well of my being here,
poem composing scheduled, always on this day of pause,
this week-ending demarcator of the who I am
I am among the many of little understanding,
who having garnered no solace nor rest,
that a seventh day supposedly, is purposed to beget,
for the world is in a ****** awful mess
with neither the rhyme or the reason,
the single breath I expirate, as proof of life,
is this season's perfect, sufficing hallmark,
symbolic of the reign of unceasing confusion that has left our minds
damaged and contused,
secretly selfishly thinking to oneself,
#my life matters
this Sabbath, I speak German,
the language of my father and his father's,
all my ancestors, even unto the years of the Age of Enlightenment,
today, spoken in the ironic dialect of Munich
Am Morgen borning glorreiche
the morning borning glorious
poet seeks an answer, mission to permission,
to rightly explain
how he visions in unsightly confusion
how he divines loving in Munich's tribulations
sitting in the poet's nook, upon the ancient Adirondack chair,
nature listens to the poet discordant chords
of musical tears upon musical chairs,
wet-staining flesh
all around, the other noise makers gone quiet as well
for they are pityingly, eavesdrop listening for what happens next
The Chair speaks:
"this day,
I am happily,
made of wood,
my living cells
long dispatched,
so that I can no longer
weep in time
with my poet-occupant's
struggling lines,
verses upon the decomposing
of the worst of times,
though in compathy,
my silence, by and to him,
is gratefully unnoticed"
the poet has no visitors this fine day,
none human or divine anyway,
but not alone
for a gaggle of old ones have early come,
from Rebecca's and his mother's Canada dispatched,
my regular geese guests southbound have returned for their
summer stopover,
but so early,
for the calendar must be telling lies,
it says these are the days of July,
so named for all to recall
another murdering assignation~assassination,
that of a fallen Caesar,
another-man-who-would-be-god
my summertime flying audience comes yearly to share the bounty
of this, my sheltering isle,
good guests who in payment for their use of our facilities,
honk Facebook "likes" in appreciation
for every writ completed in the nookery
this year of fear, the geese are newly self-tasked,
seeking solace to share and understand the world weariness,
so strongly encountered in the roughened atmospheric conditions
newly facing all of us
everybody's needy for respite from the next
where next?
a plump audience of eleven
on this grayed sunny day,
greet me, honking, feverishly, excitable honking, but!
auf Deutsch,
in German
full of questions about predatory man
which I fluently comprehend but of answers,
have none completed, none sealed as of yet,
any writ by my hand to give away or
even keep
so when the temperature cooingly cools,
on their way further south, them, it sends,
they will not be burdened with the empty baggage
of inexcusably and poorly manmade
naturalized, pasteurized, synthesized,
crap excuses
the poet's own reflection in the fast moving bay waters,
is not reflected,
these, no calm pond waters, but his own internal reflections,
beg him, explain this poem's entitlement,
this designation of confusion and its inflection,
confusion as something lovely?
no good answers do the witnessing waters or the winds sidebar provision,
the geese, the chair, all unfair,
only have similar quarreling questions for him to dare
foremost and direst first,
where is there loveliness in confusion the poems sees?
poet stands on the dock, as if in the dock,
noticed, the waters pause, the winds into silence, swept,
the gulls grounded, the geese aligned in rapt attention,
all to the poet, as jury, they steadfastly attend
to his creation, this poem's titled curse,
an answer even barely adequate, some solution?
In Munich, ****** born and welcomed,
Dachau, the very first death camp,
sited a mere ten miles away
one could conceivably could demand that
this poet, this Jew, this could-be-Shylock,
having seen a pound of flesh extracted,
might accept this balancing as a compensation
of history's scales weighted by the concentrated demise
of millions of his very own flesh and faith
but he does not...
a nation takes in a million strangers and refugees,
not without peril costly,
visible now, these side servings of risk,
that noble gestures so oft bring
what he feels, why he cries is for the
loveliness of forgiveness,
he unashamedly honest borrows the words he confesses,
any innocent man's death diminishes him
now the winds kicks up, the waters refrosted frothy,
the gulls go airborne, the geese fly away,
searching for another poet to respirate, infatuate and inspire,
clearly, neither satisfied or enchanted with the one
presently available
only the aged Adirondack fair, his aged long time companion chair,
remains moved - but unmoving,
in the domaine of their unity, in the vineyard of
their conjoined, place of quiet contemplation
a woman observes tear stains upon his cheeks,
noticing them upon the chair's open arms now all-fallen,
tho a surface wood hardened,
the tears are softly welcomed and storingly embraced,
absorbed
the three,
the woman, the chair, the poet-me,
all as one, tearfully, no longer cry in vain,
having found a white coal seam amidst the black bunting
that decorates their glum apprehension of tomorrow's tidings
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Saturday,
July 23, 2016
10:29am
Shelter Island