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...

embrace the stones
that obstacle the journey,
gather them in, together keep,
for they are the markers,
you have used,
you have been,
you have exhausted,
so long after the body ashed,
these words will trace for
those that follow the path
you marked with
these same stones
you gathered in
olden days of
simple joyous embrace

His name was Bing,
one eye grey the other blue
an Australian Cattle Dog
the best I ever knew.
Cows or Sheep he was the man.
Nipping at their heels, heading
them where you bid them go.
Smart as a whip, quick as a bullet,
Work all day for a pat on the head.

One early day no Bing appeared,
Strange 'cause he was always the first
into the truck bed, first in the pasture,
first to work, the last to quit.

We called out his name many times,
began a search, buildings to barns, silo
to shed. In the center of a cut hay field,
I saw him, hunkered down not moving.
The boss and me approached and called
to him, yet still, he did not seem to hear.

At twenty feet he stood up quick,
turned to face us with a ****,
his eyes burned with hell's fire,
his muzzle and jowls were awash in foam,
his deep-throated growl a caution warned.

Not much doubt he'd been skunk bit,
was beyond redemption touched in rabies fit.
I was sent on the run to fetch
the long gun from the truck.

We approached him careful like,
I was still panting from my run.
The boss cocked the lever,
chambering a round into the gun.

Bing's eyes looked to be pleading,
as if to ask that we end his pain.
In his crazed anguished state,
he could have reached us in a flash
spread the contagion to our flesh,
yet through instinct or love
old Bing held his ground,
awaiting his inevitable fate.

I tried to swallow but had no spit,
and then the rifle thundered
and stung my ears,
One shot through the head
took old Bing's pain away.

The Boss, a hard-edged man of fifty
began to silently weep like a child of five,
the loss of his dog too much to abide.
I must admit my tears weren't far behind.

We bore him from the field
like an honored fallen warrior.
Buried him in the yard by the house,
He deserved that respect and more.

<>

with raggedy old words, this is how I write,
in a raggedy old navy t-shirt,
upon a ragged edged old chair,
whose splinters will soon enough,
seed themselves in poet's unreceptive,
but just asking-to-be-barbed
flesh bared

splinters asking with the phony politeness ,
in the manner of a steady, but  minor irritating
would-be-a-friend, annoyingly, but cloyingly

"am I not a poem, yet Father?"

Poet has no answer,
mixed words
deemed satisfying suitable but unusable,
unconvicted upon the hard hearted
mixed wood

poet waits for the ragged clotted cumulus
of old grey ladies shaped clouds
to dissipate

clouds shaped like the
puffed up shopping bags
that the old ladies clutch
while crossing mid-street
making the traffic play
"dodge'r the codgers"

bags fill with the odd things
that old ladies treasure,
objet d'art of empty
Oil of Olay Ole! and mindless dribble,
mementoes of completed containers
of emptied out hopes

expired coupons,
that they refuse to surrender
even under threat
by sour faced bossy
supermarket manager dictators,
who hate their lives and  
in the deepening creases
of the elderly clientele,
foresee their own fate inevitable

poet's waits for them,
these images,
these clotted bursts of sourpuss,
to depart his skin, sky's.
yes, his sky's

wits and wilts while he waits,
for he always has much to say,
of what lies above,
the unseen,
hid behind the bland uniform of  the overhanging
one-no-color sky
of blanched meh and feh crinolines

thinking to no one now,

this is how I write, this is who I am,

waiting for insight inspiration foam to form,
from the multi-variable model that predicts
with a high degree of confidence,
failure with tainted certainty,
even as clouds are shuffled along,
a new poem will pass
that haha, no one will read

but nonetheless, arguing among his several selves,
better to be more fulfilled by the emptying of himself
upon padded cell of paper, of his staining,
the piece of him now
un-chambered & un-containered
thru magma fissures, steaming & cleaning,
providing a penny's penance
for his disparate gloomy idiocies

the gray ladies always smile at him,
always so nice and gentlemanly like, that poet,
underneath his cowardly disdain,
against his pretense's  grain,
contempt for old grey ladies
with old lady odors emanating

is this who you are, is this how you write?

*with raggedy old words, that splinter our delight?