good poetry, good poets:

you are all so o v e r confident

“ceaseless, your poetry will never cease”

<>


but the heart, the engine, the brain,
even the decrepitating body,
gives many visible warnings,
we can be done in so easily,
we can be seized.

by a tick bite, the sugar’s refusal to convert,
the minor cuts, that take months to heal,
everything small as dangerous as an artery blockage,
a single cell of an illegitimate growth,
the small easy, too purposefully ignore,
but that does not mean no registration

this, then, about me and a bud of a free-thee-well

<>

Variations on OK: “I'm ok... as in just okay :)“

ah, me making the global rounds,
with the poem interns in tow, observing poet patients,
me, the anti-troll meme, asking the lonely legions,
“what’s up, just checking in,”

responsa included the nuanced range of variations
of the simplest terms,

Variations on OK: “I'm ok... as in just okay :)“

the normal curve of emotional disturbances, falling mists,
category 5 storms and verbal cover-up girl makeup all represented by
OK

this, then, the OK stuff of human poetry, the plain, the innocuous, inadmissible guiltily non-confessions that are the infectious complexity of heartache, humongous jealousy of those surficially
just innocently happy, those who fear of failing,
longing for what was and can not be true once more,
so with not-even-a-serious-word a reminder of our masks when meeting Quo Vadis,
the replies come in summarizing shades of:

OK: “I'm ok... as in just okay :)“

a perfectly good response, shadings and gradations
that shout volumes deserving of interpretations, talmudical exegesis,
across continental contestation,^^^meaning obviously that the contra-opposite is likely what’s meant,
all indirect giving access when delving into their abyss,
as in the rock n’ roll verse states,

“just dropped in to see what condition your condition is in”^

okay.

yes, it’s true okay is better than not okay,
which is better than the catch all meaningless of the
OK....the one, that dribbles off into air hanging, silent albatross

but the insertion of the modifier

just

makes the meaning of the fully, half born, sentence summation diagrammable except
OK
is not valid in life size, grownup version game  of Scrabble(d) hearts

this is how I spend my everyday vacation days
exploring everything human

the graze of a hand, the longest slow journey of a singlet tear,
a child’s shrieking glee, the nightmares gasps
when they woke the awoken,
the intelligible whimpering vocabulary of the new born innocent,
the spackled, patching of the speckled cracking of the
semi-autonomous, wish-it-wasn’t human,
my, busted-heart

so when two lovers continental shelves do not meet,
but graze each other, altering the landscape of emotions,
OK, just, okay is
sedimentary weak but perfect

you are the interloper ghost,
who now asks “how ya doing,”
the famous just “checking in,”
and
in the sliding spaces where mountain ranges get created,^^^

the O in Okay is a black hole disguised

I'm ok... as in just okay :)”

though this is a Buffalo Springfield “ain’t exactly clear”
you accept and understand for aching hearts are the
specialty of the maison

and that is all I have to say on the matter.

OK?
<>

3:21am Monday September 30 ~ 10:38pm Friday October 4, 2019

“when down dreaming ups” (Pradip)

a mysterious phrasing he sent,
the meaning devolving, beyond the obvious,
but slow like, as the mind turns and tastes
these words in different places, ways

when I lay me down to keep,
the dreaming up-ramping, the poems,
don’t know of absent muses, inspiratory lacking,
tongue tied eyes, all banished from the dream world,
where the poems come more than regular,
uninhibited and restless,
begging to be easy birthed,
oh please, oh please!

when down we lay,
up tempo do the brain’s creation ports
turn fiery red, agitated, masses of
tired, poor poems, yearning to be free
disembark all seeking a touchstone statue
to set them free to liberty

my speaking eyelids rapid typing,
placing whole writings in cracks in
the wailing wall, on my own temple mount,
where Hindi letters become stick figures
dancing praises to the lord and  stars and
crescendo crescents interlock their tips,
until one dream complete is downloaded
to moistened, ready lips, for I am up, up,

from my down dreaming





10/20/19  8:54am

safe & sound in sounds beloved


<>

in a chalk dust soft whisper, barely bit more than an
eyelash fluttering tonality, she requested her playlist,
favoritism shown, partial to certain poems, poet,
safety in the sounds of familiarity, melded into verses and poems

“works,” how she nat/notated them, smiling,
for they were not works, but labors, safe sounds,
on a palette synthesized from emotive words coloring all of
her drumming, thrumming skin beating, eyes singing,
lips tingle reverberating, echoing my weeping

I read her the collected, the sure ones, made to eye-tear, her lips,
pleasure poutiest before turning corners upward,
in a haven’t-smiled-for-awhile,
a plush blush so pale red, pores of pavé chips of rubies glistening
each in a tearful diamond setting

one more stanza to remember, mark the page, the collective
of this moment,
what shall we call it, this essence of timing of
lifetimes glory glorious;
a hallelujah crossover, suggested, hints of death after life, no,
I nod, no, vociferously
gifting it to her as a quiet,
safe and sound,
safe in sounds beloved, words, beloved,

beloved for being loved and she, beloved


10/08/19
nyc
early morning