for she
<>
"I choose to love you in silence, for in silence I find no rejection.
I choose to love you in loneliness, for in loneliness no one owns you but me.
I choose to adore you from a distance, for distance will shield me from pain.
I chose to kiss you in the wind, for the wind is gentler than my lips.
I choose to hold you in my dreams, for in my dreams you have no end"

Rumi
<>

writ in a time, for when
there is never enough,
and yet,
always, waves of too much,
needy for
filling feeling fulfilling

We must learn,
be self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

ah the tender time is nonetheless
rightly and wrongly
rightly now,

for I have stumbled,
overheated, sweaty, from the night bed,
at 4.30am into another darkened toom,
and I have smacked~stumbled into
Rumi
and her

our paths continuously intersect,
in the same but
in different cities, continents,
and yet,
diffident, differing,
we silently choose
never to close those lady~last few miles
and tie the knot of
eyes, skin, lips
the instruments
that transmit thousands of
neuronal explosions that
seal the deal

so we write in poetry,
in silence broken by the gentility
of fingertips soundlessly
and yet,
boundlessly rocking,
explosively soundings of
tap tap tapping

my music mocks me,
it is definitively god interfering,
advising, conspiring,
wiring into my brain
better lyrics,
idealized notions,
exactly appropriate
and appreciated

with the lyrics urging me on,
and that we must be
self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

but my heart trembly refuses,
insightful informing
that now,
now! is
the moment to exchange
vows of words,
though un spoke,
they require
written completion
through
& though
apart, alone,
to finally out loud confess
what has always been known, only to each other,
to be
so real

and yet*,

we will never exchange
these sentiments
in out loud words

but though this be lacking,
it will never
diminish
their  ultimate
intimate
truthfulness

and I ask,
is this a poem?

surely
it is that, and
so much more,
an essay, a letter on
invisible NML stationary,
a heart carving in
an oaken barrelling of
ancient vintagery

and that interloper,
Him again,
eavesdropping
on this private communication,
insists that I draw deep
from her favorite
singer~songwriter,
words that say it better,
that for real seal the deal,
in the saddened perfection
of total, enwrapped,
silence:

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence"

and
it is time
to finish this task,
it is exactly one hour,
no time at all,
to complete a love poem that
is/was complete,
even before its
composition
and yet,
is never to be be familiar with
the finality of
completion
<>

postscript:

I taste your private shed tears,
hear the howling sigh,
but most of all,
'tis the explosion of
a deep smiling creasing
your lips,
spreading in all directions
saying and stating:

at last, at last!
a lasting, a confessional to you god,
though,
a through and through
silent
jubilation
                                              ­             nml

April 8, 2025
530am
New  York  City

We see ourselves
as a house of mirrors—
each reflection warps
to fit its frame

What else can we do—
we trim the edges
smooth out the light—
If the curve is wrong
we bend our sights

Do I add too much—
a borrowed shadow
stolen tints and mismatched colors
remove too little—
leave out the seam

We are never as we are
only as we fit
within what we let others see—
patched by memory
tilted to survive—
from shame
from fears
from the raging battle
of wanting to hide and be seen
all at once—
never finding balance

I am tired
of self-adjusting—
I want to get caught up in the rain
with someone who can walk
through mirrors

~ for the poet by the same name,
Melan,
a name derived from the Greek "melas"
meaning "black" or "dark"~
<>
oft have we warned you, be wary,
every phrase, a provication,
a cribbed script from a message,
a poem, even a pen name, says,
marke me man, the notion of the
Melancholoy of Innocence
a burr buried in my head's bed,
a sleep robber, a pseudo~scholar,
so intriguing this grand challenging
notion...
of the purity of melancholoy's essence

my oldest friend from an early age,
before I knew the word to grasp~capture it,
in my youthful tristesse grave,
what rendered my soul so vulnerable
to an emotion that had no direct visible cause,
but powered me with a puzzling
strange insight of keen visibilty,
that filtered a glow about all, about what
my eyes saw, my heart felt...

nearly now, the better part of a century,
I recall the first days of exploration,
of a world, that
dished out equal portions of
ecstasy and misery,
and well taught me the value
of silence
of observation,
and how to record
a memory so that so many, so many decades later,
is crisp with its original fraglity
that overwhelmed way back when
I was but a toddler

a world that was cruel,
a lesson, that came very early,
but made me quiet but not surly,
observant of the human quirks and their potential,
the people surrounding acting in an up dated version
of a Bible Tale..

where guilt and innocence were precise and clear,
and there was no middling muddle,
to confuse, or be abused,
to obfuscate or obscure

lines of demarcation in black clearly drawn,
so it was soon gone, the innocence,
that was gifted to us all at birth,
and though I mourned its loss,
very quick came the silent thought of,
well, that's no surprise!

that melancholy matures, extends and distends,
now and then, even shocks,
by the newness of returning old sadness,
and the ceativity of its constant reintroduction,
accompanied by a startled,
well, that's no surprise!

and here the shocker though,
acts of human kindness are not so far and few between,
just perhaps, less well advertised,
so when spotted. self similar words emerge,
even happy shouted,
well, that's a surprise!