my best poems came:

in months, days of desperation,
hours, moments of elation, it was the
always imbalance that just was, that
was/when the karma-was in-balance

my best poems always, always,
came accompanied by tears, many,
before, during, certainly after, even
twice, when a later returning stumble,
brought the sentries to open old gates

never, at any time, was a man with many
friends, reasons plenty, reasons mine,
it was an imbalance that just was, that
of the karma-when-in-balance, except,
the creative offsprings became children,
painful to raise, coming to visit occasionally

hear no quiet trumpet moaning, nor a violin
shed the human cries that only a man-made
instrument can be forgiven for being better at
than their own creators.  Much by choice, or
criminal laziness, all tinged by a fear so subtle,
don’t think anyone knew it existed, yet, always
humming “see the man running against the wind”

there you have it. no summing up necessitated,
because how the numbers add up, the total is
just the total, and know, you can finish this one,
the total is just a rose by any other name, it’s a
number that by definition was the of, the when,
“when an imbalanced karma-was-in-balance.”

—

neglect and respect do not rhyme,

{will grant you one,
will give you none.

will demand one,
will send you some.

you poets,
always thinking
you can get away
with murdering
the English language.

***** of assonance,
you do not fool me,
I’ve killed a thousand
men’s “original”rhymes,
while you’ve been
fast sleeping,
they’ve been
fast seeping.

I’ll give you no quarter,
won’t spare a lousy dime,
my spare change,
is poet-unaffordable,
cheap suited hucksters.

work and ****
do rhyme.  
you can be one,
if you do not
put in some.

work by day,
slave by night.

awake to the sun’s
inquiry, what have
you done for me
lately?

IF

all you have to show is this
scribbilus miscellaneous,
tear up your lice-ence,
poetic and DMV, you
ain’t going nowhere.

was branded by hot iron,
early on,
brandy channing.

your best nightmare,
guidance counselor,
extraordinaire,
great big fairie,
poseur, exposer,
m u r d e r e r
of awful poetry}

WHAT,  
what do you stand for?

the bookies of High Street North will give you odds,
1000 to 1, our paths will never cross, a simple notion,
we’ll never meet, it’s a sucker’s bet they’re happy to take,
despite, shhhhh, not that hard, truth be told, airplane,
Terminal5,  Heathrow Express, Paddington Bear Station

and yet, there are oceans to fly over, viruses in
every nook and cranny, and the biggest risk, those
what ifs...and the worries viral multiply as imagining
grows more spectacular than wild flowers on the
heath, bogs conjuring up Holmesian fluorescent hounds

she’ll know for whom this poem tolls, but
will never understand that my envision of her world,
through her eyes, unfamiliar words mellifluous,
for me, they, a nectar, the special Ritz teatime,
but don’t be mistaking me for an Anglophile

no, this Yank plainly loves her garden of nature,
and her own nature, beloved as well, floral blooming,
how it grasps his heart with her two hand’s nouns,
seizing and ceasing its beating, nicks it, his rhythm for
poetic composition, so little more to add, other than
writing this made both a young boy glad, an old man sad...


postscript

someday she’ll crook her finger, like the crook
of her hair, and this Tom, will no longer be waiting

to the edge and back (inverted diversion)
——————————————————-

your life may throw you curves,
mine, straight edge blades,
lines galore, like sidewalk cracks,
jumping from safe to safe place

but always teetering tottering on
edges, like verses in the next poem,
trying to make it just to the next line
without falling in cracks, China bound

you can follow my lead, don’t though,
if I could, would willingly plunge, deeply,
for there is no safety in safe spaces, only
in the holy dark, cracks is the true safety

you seek, where poems roll on a highway
like Reno tumbleweed, humble before snow
capped mountains, these are the contrasts
where you birth procreations, poems yours

and mine die in childbirth,
returned to sender,
returned for retuning,
despair not, they’re coming
back to this world

guises in a different colored skin,
a different alphabet, script,
the meaning yet unchained and
unchanged, despite the

inverted
diversion