~For Lila and the others~

there exists
a subset of us,
those who
for whatever reason
do not write,
but “just” repost
other’s work

Above see the word
Just
emboldened
for this selfless task
is justice inherent

For this act of bringing others
to our over constrained attention is an
action of justice,
or more profoundly
doing away with
injustice  of
our human limitations

We could spend days entire
pursuing the works of others,
but life and the extraordinary demands
of writing anew, when the spirit is upon us,
are oft unable to spot, isolate, and
highlight
capture
the best of the rest,
and bless those
who reorient our eyes
away from our own bounded rivulets,
to the tried and truly,  away from
habitual familial familiar good stuff,
but bring us revelations of gems,
caught within the mass maskings of missives that grows hourly, exponentially to
out attention,
to reorient
our attention,
to their filtered selections

Let us say in unison then
a blessing of gratitude
to The Reposters:
*Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, to give thanks to those who enable others, to reach us this season

Nov. 2024

“For the holy one dreams of a letter
Dreams of a letter's death
Oh bless thee continuous stutter
Of the word being made into flesh”

Leonard Cohen “ The Window”
<>
I, too,
dream of letters flying up to the skies,
from books and holy scrolls of wise men,
in hate,
burnt by
heathens, alliterate, haters all

and yet,
now more than ever
‘tis the season to remember the hatred,
and the inventiveness of the haters rancor

‘tis
truth,
no surprise shocking,
dreams of letters rising are older than one man’s interval of age, it is a tale handed down over generations, eons many,
that “multiple”is
descriptor inadequate and no surprise the
the holy one dreams of their receipt & their  
reconstitution and resurrection

I, too
to the window go,
no bonfires visible tonight,
in the city of my birth and abode,
light pollution is the sun’s inverse,
our ***** secrets sent higher, up~returned

and yet,
the letters clear visible
glowing embers crackling dressed in
shades of orange red blackened outline
and they mix and match re~forming wild
mismatching batches into songs and
lines of
perp<eternal wisdom that’s been condemned as dated

~Jan. 9, 2025~NYC
<•>
The words of Walt Whitman (1)



~~~~
The origin of all poems!

Oh what a sweeping promise
does Whitman, proffer,
you to entice, to succor.
ease out from within yourself,
that which is therein ready,,
to organize
what be the
fermenting stack of seeded cells of
fomenting
stacked
multiple
simultaneous
observations,
poetry lurking, thine owned senses,
a catalyst cataloging constantly
and you happily despair  to
capture, retain, s u s t a i n,
the pieces of a whole that
knowing only you possess,
that only you can
perfect as the combo
expression of
your
pre~owned assembly
as a solitary protagonist, witness,
and audience!

Understand the origins of the poem,
because it is original to you,
comprehension of this principle,
means that you will never be
starved for inspiration,
record the ordinary and the peculiar,
the off drink that when mixed,
shaken and stirred
that only you
can pour and better yet ,
s h a r e!

12:53am,  January 3,2025
New York City
<>
A Traveler notates these words to my attention, but only because I make myself
a convenient target, for truthfully,
it is addressed to one and all,
to the royalty of:

We,

who speake out loud, to all those who ***** these damp woods full of wet words, that spring up overnight, ripe for the plucking, there for the taking, an exacting where & when they did not even exist
the twenty four prior

These purloined overnight creatures are

white and  black

lettered truffles, like the pages on which we inscribe, the letters raw, exquisitely tasty, shaved, measured in grams, but only when shared with others, in the privacy of our open minds, after being spooned from within us with exquisite care upon the pages that decorate our lives, sprinkled
with great care and cunning…

but when consumed, our five senses rage with aromatic pleasured pain, for these letters, so tiny, so powerful, grow only when
combinatory, individual bitty granules,
but when leavened, they enhance, provoke!,
they sauce, the

flavors  of the ordinary

of our experiences,
creating the extraordinary
when interacting upon
our five robust senses

for without the spaces of delineation,
our jumbled words are but the
random jingle jangle of the sounds
of night winds, rustling a tune
pleasant but incomprehensible

Here I take your leave,
with the liberty taken
for speaking in all our names
to a Traveler
who so succinctly captures our work,
the glue of our interactive Us,
Our,
Collective of Individuality

most oft, the
wherever I write,
is duly noted,
it is a due,
due you,
and hopefully,
the why I scribe,
arrives ‘pon your eyes
with Steuben glass,
of diamond tooled curettage,
a clarifying visual of
beauty,

but always
with fair detailed precision
is the
when
denoted,
for it is the timing
of the mining the specificity,
of the exact momentous,
a precious decision
taken by you,
when to turn words
of a few seconds
of a heart’s unburdening,
with
an inescapable reminder,
of the
thereabouts & the whyabouts
the very verity of a serious
causality
that parented the
casualties
we call
our poems

join me then,
in the processional
of denoting the origins,
linkage contained therein
to the work we
c r e a t e

*•for in the recording of the reckoning•
•exactitude of the longitude•
•and l’atitude is the truest revelation•
•of yourself•

•~ A tidal strait is a strait connecting two oceans or seas through which a tidal current flows. Tidal currents are usually unidirectional but sometimes are bidirectional. The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. (Wikipedia)~•

The river by my dwelling is miscalled by all,
in verity, it is a tidal strait, a battling diversity of fresh and saltwater, with currents visible, bidirectional, clashing eddies underway, are
underwater arguments boiling up to the surface,

!a perfect metaphor for a New Year!
<•>

each year seems like a tumult survived,
the currents of joy and its many alternates,
seem to always clash, spot staining
and yet
the estuary of life flows on and on,
the two seas remain connected,
the salt and the fresh intermingling,
waters
surf~officially calm, stoic,
but appearances misleading

every year different
every year also similar,
substance may vary,
the surprises differing,
but we for-see troubled waters
neath the glassine superficial surficial,
and we hold hands,
knotted fingers until
we raise out arms heavenbound,
asking why,
but expecting no answer
for we
knowingly
live our lives in a
tidal strait

flipping channels,
odd conjunction of random itinerants,
mix and mismatched, blend and burr, and the
combination of irritants, annoyingly raucous
pester the barely warmed brain,
by informing me to solve for X,
combine and contrast,
throw all into the blender,
add Fage yogurt, and some chill
ice with interracial combo of
black, blue & red berries
and pour it on you head…

and a breakfast poem is served up…

the utter urgency for civility
rings alarm bells, for it is so threadbare a quality these days, and it is worn by so
very few, and I ponder,
how the quality of civility
could be so lost,
when I diagram said word,
see it
so clear

“Talk in everlasting words
And dedicate them all to me
And I will give you all my life
I'm here if you should call to me
You think that I don't even mean
A single word I say
It's only words and words are all I have
To take your heart away”

“Words” by the Bee Gees
<•>

words are orbs,
living in the airy space just
about above over my head

still plucking ‘em when the
spirits shake me awake,
speaking
“create, can’t wait,”
for if the instance slips by,
a
disparate disparaging displacement
though not fully lost,
the precise
conviction combination
precious precision decision
if not stepped upon with
a codifying immediacy urgency
can result in an
irreparably irreversible irresponsibly
l o s s,
feeling as if a piece of your
owned amazing
has been chipped off irretrievably,
flown away to a
never again
nether land

not lost on me that
the infinite symbol
∞
is sometimes called the
lazy eights

a minute momentous moment,
all it takes, for the loss of
infinity permanence of going
gone gone gone

read of a man,
in a creative place,
songwriter on a crowded California
Santa Monica highway,
with no place to pull off,
sings over again the tune birthing
with no intermission
repeating for hours the tune
and the lyrics
of a new (now famous) song,
proceeds
directly to the recording studio
to lay that track down

been there, done exactly that,
“while doing 85 mph on the
Long Island Expressway,”
(L.I..E. )
and those
everlasting words
live on today

inspired  by“Blame It on Kristofferson” written by Byron Hill and John Wilken,
released 2010
(lyrics below)
<•>
A young teen listens to the
folk/rock during the Sixties,
five few years later,
now all growed up and living, crazy,
on Bleecker Street, the very same,
where these songs were being sung live,
by the artists, songwriters & friends
on the streets’s bars ‘n cafes

And Judy sings a ballad, mysterious,
‘bout a Marianne and all the tea in China,
words written like it was a poem,
and the infection was silent transferred,
still ‘fected, even now, in days sooner to
be reporting to heaven’s door, this blessed
curse will be unrelenting coming along,
we blame it on
Leonard Cohen

Knew the words, learned the secret chords,
which was easy, a-direct line between us,
knew where he got them holy tunes, and the
words he stole stealthy from our prayerbook,
went to Montreal, visited his home,
it was no accident, just the hand of god,
but don't blame the divine mystery being,
nah~nope, half~century, later, this dope
still blames it on,
yeah that’s right, on
Leonard Cohen

And here we are, the two of us, probably
smiling, gesticulating and gesturing, who
in fact is truly responsible for our crazy gene,
that pursues us, to create,
to mate words with
music of the deep soul, and here me be,
I am,
grateful grasping for each latter day to birth a new creation,
going out smiley & feeling kindly and fulfilled, now more than ever, and
zero doubts that the person at fault, fully blaming it all on my Canadian soul brother,
Leonard Cohen

The average person knows between 20,000 and 30,000 words.
~ and for Senor CG~
<>

infinite then the multiplicity of combinations,
and yet we use so few,
and the comforting ones,
we repeat unconsciously
for they apparently applicable
to the boo/hoo/who in Who Me?

messing about in poetry,
an excuse to betray ourselves
to a greater audience with
hints and provenances,
secret’s subtle
could mean
trouble

I have revealed more than
I could believe ~
not the drabfactoids
but the insights

that flesh my self~sketches,
you could ask me anything,
my answer simple and
insane~same!

if you explicitly explain
there is no fun in that,
but the clues writ large,
answering questions you
didn’t know to ask

plenty to hide, some too
well disguised

but the hints are clear enough,
to make sure you’re
asking the correct ones
so,
sorry apology
Senor Carlo
the doorknob to my spotlight clearly
visible
in the portrait of my preposterous
multi~nefarious words

no great reveal
no screaming squeal
for you to decrypt

still requires an
inning of
excavation digging,
for it’s in the over thousands of
psalms and prayers
and a few layabout
poems
who/hoo,
too*
(wink)

~for Traveler & Jo-

they who read,
he who creates,
and supplies a marvelous word fresh born,
and we celebrate a new word’s
nativity:

+agreeance+

if only I could sing
or even write
with Niagara Falls force
of appreciation
what a miraculous joy,
this original pasta and sauce
of letters
that was never/always
meant to be
conjoined

+that nuanced combo+
of
agreement + happenstance
agreeably
connects my
heart and emotions
in my early morn
period of tallying
all the little steps
morning brings
to verify that
my breathing is good
my heart is open and exposed,
for
all the tears
I’ve already wept in but
a few moments already
in but a
few minutes reading
your new
poems and message
that are so
heart rendering

and I can smile
for the world and I
are in a state of
fulsome
agreeance!

~ for the grandson of an extraordinary man~
<>
the supply chain, which unless
you’re a logistics aficionado,
is  
alot of ve-hicles, planes,
trains, ocean going monster ships,
& shaking hands of humans, of a
Heinz variety of colors,
who give nary a moment to what
it is they are moving across a planet

all miraculous in the ordinary
schema, but when you slump
in the recliner, and think about
chains, and the reach extraordinary

you issue a curse of admiration and
lean back and think, with luck,
I’ll never have to move ever again,

and more moment’s preserved,
to serve and be served,
for all us deserving,

to let words and visions get
passed around, and the supply
chain unchains
the human soul for
the best thing us you~mans can truly
produce,
the art of new creation

4:07am

one more critique, too slowly realized,
no poet him,
unamong those who sea the world,
in metaphors and auroras,
in skeins and skins,
from brown Earth to Red planets,
worthy word weavers of
tapestries, imaginary life forms extant,
green skies, bluing floral gifts,

+that jes that ain’t me

nah,
more a working wordsmith,
telling stories in a workmanlike fashion,
medieval scribing, copying downloads of
what might mine eyes seen, believed,
recorded for all for
your accompanied precision tooled pleasuring

no pretensions left, the doc reports,
I’m a technically a heart failure, and
laugh~reply, that’s no surprise to me,
in matters of the heart,
luck ain’t been
overly kind,
(till recently)
and you can flunk that
test just so many times, before you no
longer get~set sir-prised, just reprised,
and that’s when you get clarity,
you “don’t think twice, its alright,”
plug those words in a nice combo
ain’t exacting poetry, but I don’t mind,
you can only do,
for what you got an affinity,
that’s not sinning if light/life is dimming,
and that’s got to be satirical, ironically, both entirely dissing and satisfying

anyhoo, it’s just about 646am,
coffee is made but not yet served,
the kitchen needs some fussing and tending,
bring in the paper,
dishwasher and dryer overnight whining,
pleading for closure finale
from their *** night time
**** wet escapades
THEN
organize them riffraff,
those upending draft detritus that
constitutes a working man’s load, and

a wordsmith,
lights the forge,
forges words,
foraging
in the unlikeliest
everywhere
to turn a phrase from a
dark brazen haze taken,
into a semi-polished stone blade
sculpted by,
heat and hammer and
always tears

maybe a miracle,
into useful shapes, and hope some
tourists stop by, thinking that if framed,
it might look good in their kitchen,
and give me 5 bucks even tho that
don’t keep one in smokes no more

yup, that’s about it,
says the wordsmithy,
no mystery ‘cept them
that one can let mmm,
egotistical notions fool
ya for far too long…
and that’s
entire your own fault…

l
and yet, always,
always and yet,

gave the best of me,
met my own standard,
and that!
is all any poet can say
when employing
only
two prime cooling colors,
black in white,
with the oddity of a
clashing but dashing
modicum elicited,
but not solicited,
pride and modesty

“We could never see tomorrow
No one said a word about the sorrow”
The Bee Gees

a simple rhyme, a plaint familiar,
for those who have never stared
down train tracks, which is a lesson
in recognizing
the uncertainties of
living,
even if linearly visualized,
t h e o r e t i c a l l y

can veer to destinations unknown,
worthy of being dreaded, thinking
what are the odds today is the last,
and maybe now and then, not just
dismissing,them so easily

but it always brings on pain old
and familiar, recollecting of the
way life never asks you first, the

swiftness of two life lines colliding
with the
s u d d e n e s s
unfathomable
of 2 locomotives crashing,
head on
and leaving behind
a desolation breathtaking

it is a well lit winter morning,
cold light, but the direct sun
leaves a general okayness,
and you trudge along,
head bent, respecting the chilling,
calculating the distance to
the warmth of a planned
destination,
but here I remind
all of us:

”No one said a word
about the sorrow”

~inspired by a poem and messages from fellow poets ~
who have ridden beside me here,
for a decade plus,
SE Reimer, & Sally Bayan~

*we take our meds, vitamins and supplements
routinely, faithfully and with a big smile
of self-bemusement at all the times I mocked
those sillys who believed that
hu man
can
override his prescribed
sentencing

record almost every morsel that passes through my portals, reporting quantity and quality to remind me of my human needs, but
more to gauge my wearing weaknesses, and
make confession of
my sins of gourmand commission

and despite this and more, regular checkups, and blah blah blah, No Lies told here, the aging days are upon us, my brow furrowed
by a lengthening To Do list, that is endlessly
refurbished with more additions than
subtractions, ergo, the list grows longer as fast as the days remaining,
grow shorter,
ever faster!

no kidding myself, you feel (really) the cells
slowing their recovery, their fading fastness in every little thing, we squint where we used
to go without trepidation, we twist and turn
to musical utterances and undertones that
are groans and laughter at the old carcass’s
refreshing harmonic epiphany
of time’s passage

and think well,
I’ll do that tomorrow,
handle that later,
deal with that problem surely
eventually,

and the only thing that is attended to almost
instantly, is writing here,
last gasp observations,
that my being demands be issued now!
in time beating to
my slowing heart rate,
or factually,
my rapidly
rising rate,
each a contradictory economic indicator
of the same,
singular portending trend

so here I am ribbing and scribbling myself
before you, prompted by a gorgeously written poem by my friend (1) and the departure of another to a faraway land
where they live, my failure to meet, a shameful delay by an old man’s cautious
fear, that should not be abided…

is this a poem,
a cri de coeur,
a confession -
something of all three, but it is done,
breaths and words rapidly expelled, and for once. I feel like I have, once, now, gambled
against time, and actually

won

this semi-seemingly sad refrain~reflection, more truth than
one can even understand,
for my physical self slowly
disappearing, diminishing
though no visible pieces
as of yet,
gone missing

few of you have come to visit me
in NYC, so you cannot be sure of
anything you’ve been told, for the
great liar claims,
the internet bleeds
disinformation,
believe this
if nothing
else

for I’ve been a dream from my very
naissance, a vision imaginable by
those who contemplate my whereabouts,
my visages, we bemused, while
you imbibe, tongue |taste
mes
written bouche amusante

well,
if you want them pieces & parts,
poems in the fleshes,
seek outa one eyed guy patched
by a rivered walk path,
see a troubadour on his soap box
amusing the real peoples
who pause to reflect
cause
them
give respect to his peculiarities,
listen to his truths bout
himself and them
selves too

if you can’t camp this far,
then believe in your dreams
cause my come and go,
fly out the window
and have reached as far as
the Phillipines, New Zealand &
the Land of Oz

I’m their break from the news,
indeed call me ‘the new news,’
which so cool, makes us laugh,
cause there ain’t no much new
by this foolish OG, ‘cept for the
rhythm of and blues, I spin, the rhymes
that they fet/met/net me with dollar bills,
loose change and half used joints in lieu of cash-is-trash

So I dream, they dream,
together we scheme,
each of us composing,
in separate and equal
prepositions preposterous
and share all who to be heard,
especially those who wish to also
have their dreams be
seen

“the voice of poetry in the conversation of mankind.”

<>
            
“Even nowadays, most of us have speeches from plays and films jangling around our heads, alongside things that have actually been said. Both contribute to what Michael Oakeshott called “the voice of poetry in the conversation of mankind.” Whether in verse or prose, there are some fictional speeches that, once heard, cannot be unheard. You find that you live with them.”
~from~
Things Worth Remembering: Nothing Is Lost Forever
By Douglas Murray 9/8/24
<>

the quote grabs the throat, a two handed grip,
but gentling, to ensure it does not go forgot,
or to the bottom the pile, or just another
never truly born, or premature to die,
guised as a drafty passing breeze,
a tickle too fickle, impersistent,
to be a poem unto itself

my thots impure, for I see, I believe,
that poetry is the conversation in all
we do have,
those that lyric wax when
one of the five big guys,
jive, sensory excited, the whiff, taste,
licks the visionary
of the need to be a completed
exegesis, a work to be telling
told

but I am old, my powers weaken daily,
the resistance training recommended,
by brain muscle, fiercer resisted

so reach for the quill,
blue lined sheet,
a cute puppy looking paper,
up for the “surprise” treat
just for extending a paw,
these humans so ease pleased,
you see,
here comes a poem
bout
poetry being bout every any,
even, the great creator struggling
to put out fresh daily,
new &  improved work,
after a six day historic period,
that demanded a poem-alll-day entity,
entitled as a sabbatical day
of rest.

Here I too rest as well,
too many conversations need starting,
fires requiring verbal refueling,
and my own voice hearing a,
“get up, get out of bed,
drag a comb across your head,”
talk, and plant those newly fallen acorns,
and let the conversations produce
giant oak trees,
and
a plenitude of poems

9/9/24

”in tears, may make other organs weep”

HenryMaudsley, 19th-century English psychiatrist”
<>
make no mistake,
the essaence of
Sorrow
is everywhere:

within the blood streaming,
in each celled nucleus
it etched, microscopic,
to the tear ducts directly connected,
a microbiome insertion everything

so when love torn,
deserted,
merely mentally homeless,
no direction selected,
the weeping originates in
every limb and *****,
though no pain sensation need be present
or available to be nominated or accounted,
the tears can’t be closed off,

the torrential hurricane unceasing,
and through it comes with a wisp of a
smile attached,
for the flooding in a mirror
now gleaming reflected
and at longingly last,
a true portrait
saved,
for a sorrow vented
is a sorrow
freed
and
a profile
completed

~For, Inspired by,
Alyssa Holmes Underwood~

when your scalp is getting pretty thin,
and there’s not much room for a
feather in your cap,
along comes a message,
that a simple poem inspired one of our
number
to commence writing

and I am thunder-dumb-struck
by the piquet power of our
piquant words,
gaming each other to
reach for the pen
knowing only the When is Now,
no What or Why,
nor Wherefore  relevant,
just just just
urgent to compose
which comports
with that rapid higher heart rate,
confirming a burn of needy
incitement

and laugh hard @myself,
for nearly daily one of your writs,
provocative messages, pithy insights
to me, does exact that,
but that I could possess
that “influence”
never ever occurred to me

and I thank this human for
forging a great complementary,
this, is no spelling error unintended,
compliments be sweet,
but to be lucky enough to pass along
the incredible incredulous creation sensation
the sparkling sparking of
another’s human cells

is simply
The Greatest Complementary

two rightly angles pairing,
connecting by a tangential hypotenuse
and go to the rest of a sleep deep
with gratitude
for having lived this day

~a companion to “A Flawless Poem” (1)
<>
time is truly never on your side,
but it lends an assist
with a continual grinding inexorable steady draining,
but that narrowing perspective, clarifies, opens eyes wider, and yes,
simplifies and prioritizes

there is an elegance in simplicity,
and write this as a reminder
to self,
that the beauty of
straightforward brevity,
with a honed tip
is likely the fastest path
to the sticking point,
and there, and here,
will I leave you
to it,
flawlessly

“We all need a promised land”
Carole King, “Been to Canaan”
<>
the lyric tickles
like the worst itch imaginable
and consequently consuming
demands this
old boy pay attention

it’s so true, it’s so devious,
we strike our temples
for failing to see the obvious,
throw, roll
our bodies on the damp ground,
like the dead of whom
it’s said
will roll to the
promised land
when the messiah will come(1)

but meantime
we thrash about
not knowing
what
is
a promised land,
let alone how to get there

perhaps
the promised land
is within the
states of our mind;
need to travel there,
just prepare
to jump, dive deeper
than living a life
of ice skating upon the surface
of wasted existence's of
grinding grinning
day in, day out

unroll our sleeping bags,
our ruksak pillow,
examine the stars locations,
when morning breaks,
pick up you leavings
behind,
and roll
roll ourselves up,
onto, can~do,
Canaan

“We should like Nature to go no further; we should like it to be finite, like our mind; but this is to ignore the greatness and majesty of the Author of things.”
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1715
<>
for my dear friends who amply supply
pictures of the infinity of nature
daily
<>

the comfort food of your
living-loving-eyeshot
screenings  of moments preservations of

the delicate and the roughened,
the mystical and magical of
our creative globe’s ad and mis
ventures,
oft far from the paths of human ruination
trafficking

these photos

the first of the day,
signaling white smoke rising or
the full fledged regular milky
insertion photographic
into the mine daily awakening
of the
purpled majesty of the world
when ******* pleasure of
first coffees of life’s days

and how it pleases me,
that there is no
conceptual conceivable,
that there will not be an
finishing enthralling,

a last never-before-witnessed
visionary submission
without
a never finite ending to this
infinite processional!

thus no need to say with
them ordinary wordy pleas of/to:
“keep them coming,”

for by your read acknowledgement of
this here poem,
you have cosigned this
contractual
o b l i g a t i o n

and I say
an ecstatic
Thank You

she pretends~polite irascibly
enquires:

“So far, and so early,
when your day begins,
when the main brain
rebels with that creature of energetic ether,
be it midnight or any hour
thereafter,  
before daylight

brings you new clearer
and brighter brilliant visions of the
hereafter,
and the earnest hours allow your disquiet
pre~tense that you’re going about you busyness, which is a plain brown paper wrapper guise,
to write more poetry’s
that thy thine, your
“eyes~command, nay, demand?”

“And where are my love poem daily promised, premised that it’s a requirement
for our cooperative living arrangement?”

“I am familiar with your many ways, poet,
all your names, viewpoints, specialties,
your secret personas, insider insights that
fool no one, so start your every twenty four on a left foot forward, questioning us, yourself, where shelter lives, even inviting any and all passersby to come inside your scheming mind, and stay awhile, jointly

compositing

upon your uncomfortable
Adirondack thrones, while permitting the sun to burnish brown caramel your inner sweetness, and the wind to bring you scents
from faraway places, to pluck and insert in a variegated languages plurality, to spice up
those written words you ridiculous store in your tiny iPhone, typing one letter at a time,
trying not to fall behind what the mind is
churning and breeding?”

“Furthermore and finally. confess, confess,
your shame, shame,
shame!!
it is my
name
that
deserves the unvarnished truth,
without my
everything,
your poetry will
wither like
a week old roses,
that she/me/da boss
is the one true
authoress
behind the
boy/oy/toy/pretender
to whom I give my very
soul’s inspiration…

~for Paul & Art~

<>
melancholic, contemplative, introspective,
put on the songwriters of the Sixties,
looking for the comfort of old songs
that I once knew complete, from the days
when I believed, knew my own true self complete,

the tablet lifted, the spirits keening, a forth
will be coming, to soothe and purge, commence to dress my own wounds,
Whitman would be attentive, perhaps
a tad sympathetic, tho my wounds are
entirely self-inflicted

and alone, cry out for an assembly
of words, well chose, smoothly chaotic,
mirroring the lathe of my sharpened
disarrayed confusions, two old troubadours
come to comfort, with sweet harmonies,
and simple, but novel rhymes &
syncopated rhythms that all can
carry, sing along, all of us smiling

with ease, we cross the borders of each
other’s mind, paring snippets into
poetic clasps that keep us well attached,
filing away the roughened edges that
we all in common posses, and like
jigsaw pieces, we finish each other’s sentences, and we emote satisfaction
with smiles, laughs, sighs and sarcastic
groans, our words grasp, connect and

ease is in the air, there but for this grace,
we go together, you and I,
sailing away from
troubled waters

this trip
homeward bound,
riding the Q (subway) train
from the messy grime of a
never fully repossessed
cesspool misnamed as
Times Square,

to our apartment
near but yet far,
a poem short & sweet was
born complete, on an 8 minute
fast track victory lap to periodic
successful urban planning,

that even and
even though
with and/of
which
no speedy highly
disrespectful witch
on a broomstick,
nor a midnight traffickless
auto trip,
could ever hope
to compete
<>
roses red, violets blue,
all the passengers, revelry tired,
both becostumed & be plained,
Hallowed eve festivities
again, lesser than expected,
life be, eager awaited
legal moment of crazy-
-inness-inward-permissed,
never quiet or as good
as hoped,

we tired riders
all look worn from the
aggregated
infidelities of a
a hoped-for
missing-out happier life

nearing midnight,
the new immigrants,
in subway platform
patrolling,
offer us candy for sale,
their toddler children,
beside them
at this midnight hour,
to drive home
the desperate willingness to

survive in a city oft hostile

no longer eager to be
beacon beckoning
to the world, we rethink
to our minded selves,
our Statue of Liberty
engraved invite:

"Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door”
<>
we exit the underground rout(e)
and the walk from subway to front door
is another 8 minute travelogue segment,
we cover the quarter mile on foot,
covering a skimp of distance that
our urban transport  
of many mileage covered
in the same units of minutes
in flyer miles

<>
late at night,
we walk fast, with eyes wide,
our lives to hide,
from the risks of the
unpredictable
when the street parade
of stragglers
gives not the comfort of a
rowdy crowdy,
and the existence of crime
is not
entirely fabricated

<Did>
I offer short and sweet,

Oh well I only misled,
the trip 16 minutes
and the poem
in my head,
complete emerged
with minutiae attending
et. al.,
in far far less mini~minutes,
for it was
a product of
silent back labor,
from first staggering
screaming pain
to
successful unexpected birth
that can take maybe
minutes five,
to mentally survive
plus,
physically complete the birth,
introduce this poem to life.
when the photos of my mined mind
make images from negatives
into words,:

collect, sort and report the
output picturesque
now in colors black & white,
of a trip from a Broadway theater
through to a high rise building
astride the river
which gives me
a theoretical cleaner space to breathe
<>
rather than short and sweet?
I really reseed,
redeed it as/is:
not too long and a tad
bittersweet

a night in the life of
the mixture of successes and
failures of our troubled world
in
living technicolor,
a few seconds of film
of which one could fairly,
and in fairness
bless/write/curse/
each sight
twice,
uttering:

”mine eyes have seen the glories,
as all come to look for America”

the thought seizes me awake,
after a heart powered hour of sleep,
rise in silent reverie, nary a peep,
though my heart rate breeeches
150 miles per hour, each beat

yesterday wrote of the eloquent
sensibility of simplicity, its natural
native appeal, and when I think of
things that world needs most urgently
which is, for poets a de rigeur activity,
fyi, that more common than uncommon,
sobelieve in my expertise,
we need badly, another Hobbit movie pretty please!

we need rallying after the tallying,
we need fellowship among the species,
a crossover inclusive of the animal kingdom,
require fearless leaders who value selflessness
over personal gain,
less optimism rhetorical,
and some plain honesty to give the world
the equity of equality,
what it wonts,
and not what pro poli’s
tell you think
which slogans sell…well


whent to the corner store,
bot all kinds of fall
colors of berries and tiny flowers,
went all-in unreasonable
on clot colossus seasonal,,
oranges, yellows and quiet quilts of
hardy little greens,
bread, OJ, larger uncaged eggs
a-dozing,
and though my impossible orders all fulfilled, the boss,?her list defeated,
by crossing off
my abbreviated illegibility scribbling,,
it was still insufficient for missing was this:

what the world needs a fresh Hobbit triumphal,
where self~sacrifice always come first, and duty rightly prevails, over evil,
always a close call,
and the chill of fall,
the dint of wint-
er
is warmed away by
love,  justice for all,
besting every close call,
and for a replay of the
World Series where them
Yankee underdogs emerge
victorious and the city lifts
its chin, and says OK to the
new day, week, and that
extra hour of…mmm…
daylight
sleep

call me naive,
it is an honorific
terrific,
great fully
accepted