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“These are really the thoughts of all men, in all ages and lands,
they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by WALT WHITMAN

                                                      ­­      §§§

exactly, for if not to mystify and to demystify,
why do we write, opine large, secretly confessing,
what is know to all soto voice in the chamber of secrets
that lies between the brains four chambered ventricles,
that leads to a Grand Canal through which flow riddles,
all these thoughts, yours, mine, and overlapping crazy

solitary, they merge within the river of combination,
then known to all, colloquially named Ours, then too,
answers arrive in the scrivening, when each plain to see,
once the riddle posed, the answer is freed to exposure,
like veins blue to red, when oxygenated, our mysteries,
all colors, untied, there is but one color, reddened blood

these thoughts, become yours, more than mine, for
in the taking is the additive chemical that enhances,
making the distance closed to only closed, here I pause,
fearful, I hesitate, you do not understand, sunshine can
blind any man, sickness humble any body, we are alike
in commonality, more than different, we are all riddled

and next to nothing is everything, all worth knowing,
you, write my poetry, as I write of you with breathless
ease and comfort, for the thoughts of all men in all
ages and lands, are original to where our eyes espy
each other, where our lips kiss to cross, cross to kiss,
what is the what, this simplicity, the great difference

                                                    ­   §§§§§


Fri. May 15
Manhattan Island,
Isle of Man
10:26am

”Well, my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not comin' on.
I'm just payin' my rent every day in the Tower of Song”

Leonard Cohen lyric from The Tower of Song


§§§

this lyric hits, it’s a ten fingered cheeky ****** marking,
fits like a new white t-shirt, clean~perfect in every aspect,
I’ve just changed song to poetry, so nobody’s complaining

axiomatic, slept less a than three shambolic hours last nite,
don’t ask what I was doing or even a simple why, even the
vultures grew tired, helplessly hoping for solutions to start appearing

water pressure ok, poem spigot strong but the words desiccated,
it’s time to revisit roots, back to where I’ve come-begun, bury losses,
seek no consideration, write in isolation, a-quiet niche, a shhh! beach

my silent reverie owns me and the angels, biggest fans, just can’t
get enough, know their faith is strong, never proofing reads required,
content to wait till find my lost chords, comforts of only fresh truths

so arrivederci, until we meet again, when cadences have resumed,
rolling in unbroken, won’t need other’s words recirculating my blood,
till my slip sliding over, direction from arrows stabbing new openings

rented a storage unit in nearby woods, empty shelves greet ya with a
‘ready, willing, and able,’  many open arms looking for fulfilling, a job, that don’t even pay minimum wage, but the benefits are just fan-tastic

So:
should you spot a man ungainly wrought,
weighted down by a harpoon cross, resting,
‘pon on his cursed Cain-marked back, fingertips,
you need not move to the other side, or hide,
'tis only a make-believe poet, no longer believing,
with his recording device, seizing your rhapsodies
to rhyme with his own collected artifacts, your crinkly
smiles are his meat, his metier, his chosen career,
to be again a comfort caresser of your illusions into
a shapely sculpture of words be-loved, keeping-worthy,
tokens of a reexamined self worth, a new girth, leaner,
a celebration for the keeping, dug up with pail and shovel,
a best left hid on his treasured island, in a treasure chest, only his new-no-good-best-most-satisfying-new-no-good-best-mystifying-sati­sfying-cursing-muses-who-got-two-knee-on-my-soul-I’m-
howling...
­
Monday Jun 1, 2020

my grievous faults
————————-

~for SJR1000~

the sun is out after a week of island fog,
(different from regular citified fogginess)
days seasoned with rapacious, hard hitting
all-night-long-rains, steady winds of
fifteen miles per hour, made “outside”unattractive,
yet, even now, sun inside with me, writing you

listening to Tupelo Honey, sets me awondering,
have you figured out how people work,
uncovered the source of human misery,
so we can get that vaccine asap, for something
a 1000 times more deadly than coronavirus?

my grievous faults, many, well catalogued,
but one of the chiefest is a side effect of a
virulent ego that cuts off vision, thoughtfulness,
letting good people slip away, and when called out,
I’m aggrieved, my faults, they wicked, embarrassing

so I’m asking, you, myself, anybody else, eavesdropping,
if this is true, for me, for you, you got the experience, if

”It don't make no difference
Escaping one last time
It's easier to believe in this sweet madness
Oh, this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees”^

write me, enlighten me, and if the answers are
still a fugitive escaping, no matter, just way it is,
no pressure other than the sixteen tons of mining
life’s coal dust vicissitudes, its mysterious way of tilting
the scales, then escaping, side venting, through poetry

“think on it, to be called child once more, how glorious this unknown!”^



<for Terry C.>

I dreamt on it, awoke refreshing my perspective,
as if the chance, the wish, was already granted,
rose from the bed, fully rested, a musical tutorial
of loving delighting lifting me up and once again I,
believed, no, more, re-conceived, reconciled, mind,
body, slated-clean, by my parents was I embraced,
forever protected, and the joy of simplicity of a future
unspent lay ahead, glorying in the beauteous unknown

she don’t read my poetry no more


not that I blame her, she’s in the majority,
moreover, she’s got ESP womanly seniority,
sensing what I ain’t saying, before I’ve even
had a chance to think it through ain’t it clear

these double negations,
for the rest of you,
reflecting my slip slidin' away,
a slowing indirection of virulent
side effects spiraling sideways, ain’t it clear

everyone’s shouting
the end is yay! nearing,
but the  endings risk is trebling,
meaning meanings be altering,
all the same, ain’t exactly unclear

she asks me where I’m going,
to the pharmacy replied, perversely,
feeling unlucky, a sure sign it’s high time
to buy a lottery ticket, given my inversity,
gods of fortuna singing ain’t it clear

****, she says, you went to university,
you know the odds are just plain stupidity,
not in my favor, my reply, meaning exactly,
ain’t it clear, everything and so, nothing to fear

**ain’t it clear

~for V~


time for a quickie?

her ever inquiring, always so refined, mind, ascheming.

sure, we respondez, after all, like I’m America’s Got Talent,
scratching out a song and dance number poem shouldn’t
prove to be too difficult, ain’t even 11 o’clock, just near enough

how ‘bout some pigs perambulating, or, some humans juggling
other humans so rapido that the eyes are auto fast forwarding,
magic tricks that I swear I saw on another show, years ago,
but just to keep up with the high jinks and the...

then, I fell asleep.
awoke to find this poem pinned to my chest.

“not your best, but lest,  
you think, not good enough,
don’t get yourself all depressed,
I’m here to inform you,
there are a few cherries^
gone into hiding, under the bed
on my side.

bet you can make them magically disappear!”