<>
it’s not even 6am, restless night, or wrestled night, ain’t much difference, see the **** geese on the water’s edge, I dutifully slip out of bed, awakening no one, dutifully slide in to my slip-on sneakers, grab the white umbrella next to the front door, dutifully, steadily, my first chore of the day, walk deliberately (and carefully) to make them get them get heck away, into the sound, and to cease polluting the grass where children may play…

standing at the waters edge, task finished, the sky commands examination, there is within the cumulus textured, multi-pastel, thick curdled pastiche cloud banks, overhanging the world as far as one can see, a substantive hole appearing in the sky revealing a blue heaven….what one believes, prefers should be, but what is, in fact,
not a…given and we are a but, partly cloudy day, a partly clouded observant person…

this reminds me that there are holes in all places, everywhere, in my disturbed sleep,  where I spend hours of triangulating in dreams, what I cannot pin down:

who I am, what I am, my purpose on earth, though I know where
I am, though not even, most critically, why I am…

is this a poem?

this thoughtful cursed query sits behind my eyes, frontally lobed, perpetually asking, judging me, these words, repetitiously heard,
one is not fooled,
it is a simple self-evaluation test, only an ask,
what are my justifications, ma raison d'être,
(reason for being) which is an amuse, for I discover

in French, ‘reason for being,’
is a feminine word,
(qui en Français,
c'est un mot féminin…)
and that makes me smile,
for I’m a woman-centric man

(I have no gender confusion,
this is not one of the holes
to which I refer)

perhaps it is, or, perhaps it is a rambunctious rambling of no worth, for no answers are obtained, given, deduced, and holes, skyward and inward are deep, none delimited by neither bottom or a top, just widening gaps and gapes in my existence…and answers are not
forthcoming…

<>

5:50am
Thursday July 18
Year Two Thousand and Twenty Four

Would I do it all again
For the price of joy,
The debts of pain;
For the strains of love?
What would I gain?
It could never be the same.
Not better than we had before,
With entwined lives,
With all we bore.
Yes, all that,
And one day more.

I too will go to you, says the son
to the face of the father.

He broadens his smile
thin and gathering dust for long
as if to acknowledge
he always knew
one day his son would stand before him
resigned and weary
willing to join on his route.

The son sees his father's lips
move in the briefest prayer..

Welcome.

~
"Why is there only one chair in this room?"

"This once was an island." She replied.

"You favor this place then, I take it?"

"How can I not," said she. "The dawn here is quiet."

"Not on this floor, you are much mistaken! The stairs are like an avalanche."

Looking down at herself, she quickly changed the subject. "There are barcodes on each breast now."

"I see. Were you nervous?"

"Only when focusing on the morning break," She confessed. "Otherwise I was much like you--killing what keeps us alive."

"Is that so bad?"

"I wonder. Sometimes I still feel the bruises." She stated. "But I am told this is normal."

"What else did they tell you?"

"To quit worrying about not being built to scale," she stated in displeasure.

"...and?"

"For me to prepare to fall again for the apocalyptic things written in the sky," She admitted with a wicked smile.

"What's so funny?"

"I recognized your handwriting long ago," She uttered into the centrifuge.
~

June was a disastrous month, with no direction but home,
as if it, home, was magnetized, and every escape/avoidance
attempt was refuted, and the irrevocable demanded my time,
my presence, in the city, where all my troubles lay pus~festering
lesions,  yanking me from my refuge, my peace of mind tattered
with bacillus interruptus

She called June the month of clusterf—ck, accurate and uncharacteristically, unlike her, a violent, ***** epithet

but correct.

July, the month that the gods of Cesar jealously rule,
bring Les Surprises, and the pattern recommences and
the mind surgically thinks calm yet knows no peace,
and sleep is contaminated, the dreams violent and
repetitiously, ******… a sure sign of the tumult within…
the eerie and  the unstable interrupting my writing,
breathing and ever constant denial of the peace afforded by
successfully lying to myself…

a minor action bring flaming, flashing warning lights on
my human dashboard, seemingly unconnected, but perhaps
a single sensor has gone detective… for the uncorrelated
stability of this vehicle, my anti-skid system have been triggered and the dread check engine light is ominously continuously yellow…implying worse is yet to come, before the finality of…red

symbolism us everywhere; inescapable, unavoidable and
irrecoverable and perhaps, alas, the worst - irreconcilable!
all this is the slowest excoriation of excruciating…and it’s
everpresent, omnipresent, like an angered finger pointing
a constant thunderbolt of guilt, which points transfixedly
at me…with the sneers of thunder preceeding its electricity

last year, around this time, the heart was near to dare explode,
with no overt warning that was paid proper heed, now I pay
and pay but there is no specialist available to cure, let alone,
properly diagnose what’s ailing me…even though I know
exactly, I cannot openly confess the origins of My Malaise

I recover old poems, mine, that delve into the mysteries of
solace, and they should  offer comforting direction, but the
sticking place is strong within my chest and all topical
creams cannot penetrate sufficiently to offer relief, let
alone, let alone, let a l o n e, provide an effective curettage of
removal…

symbols come before my eyes in formulas I do not understand,
which renders them worse than useless, for if a formula cannot
begin or end with = sign, what good is it, what good am I,
and now post-reparation, my heart speaks to me volubly
with such troubled sadness, I am nearly and dangerous
close to being a being who is nearly *frightened unto death

roundabout poem (another poem, another day)

<>

the notion punches into my mouth when
chilling , deleting and wasting time *pro=ductively
(professionally ducking responsibilities)
with no home to go to, but to write with purposeful
meandering, in a roundabout manner,
on a Saturday, luxury~leisurely in bed with runs
for asiago bagels and blue mountain coffee,
and wondering why you would read this, and
losing my debate internal & and infernal if
this is worth my time, nonetheless the urging
is only purging by clicking clacking on a keyboard,
inviting you to join me  under my cozy
floral coverlet, and to enjoy my pastoral view,
of water, women and why not, a trilogy of

factorials (or is it factorals? permutations or combinations) *another poem, another day)

panoramic bleeding view unceasingly changing,
reflecting god’s mood swings or an atheist’s humbuggery)

and women lies beside me, guilty pleasure, mine or hers😉, becoming part, a parcel upon the land/waterscape/escape, with sun rays invisible yet blindingly make me glinting and squinting,
and wet grass, dripping trees,  and going round and round, so
stray thots evolving/revolving and thus
this roundabout poem deserves a decent burial,
so I thank it, thank you, thank her, and the sky
and the glisten of a wet drenched everything,
a Saturday~Sabbath on which a poem was delivered
from me within, in a cesarean eruption,
my child blessed, sent to you with gratitude,
a much underrated emotion, but which occupies
me frequently when your days go dimmer,
and the

mind is sharply focused/used on about
what is value,
valuable, and what shall be valued on this damp
rainfall rainfull wordfull wonderful momentary
escapery into being together with…you, silly!

writ  pre-noon,
Saturday~Sabbath,
(on S.I., by the Sound’s calming waters
where the poems fall from trees on a glider
of wet leaves, or fly by on a modest mph breeze,
looking for human sense to grab aholt of for
canning and preservation…come see for yourself….*)