~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

~ for the poet Lorca (1)~

<>
we spoiled citizens of
our
United States
have little facetime,
nor hands on familiarity
with fascism
even less with global geography,
and that tiresome subject,
h i s t o r y

but it’s a disease
just like malaria,
that has never
been fully eradicated
(ya didn’t know?)

and yet,
malaria has a treatment,
a cure, even a vaccine,
as does
fascism

something muy valuable,
free for the taking,
but not freely necessarily,
freely given,
a commodity
with its own supply and
demand curve

it is
commonly known,
but not necessarily
commonly available at any pharmacy,
generically labeled
f r e e d o m!

this disease
is however
attractively packaged,
it is not embodied in an
ugly mosquito,
so many eager to embrace
its potential praises,
ignoring the deep sea
trenches of pitfalls
that encase it

for it has the elegance of
simplicity
the simplicity of
eloquence  
whose glittering
is an attracting
disguise of deadly poison,
the infamous elixir of
a “cure-all”

Once Upon Another Time, a Song by
Sara Bareilles

<>


Once upon another time
Somebody's hands who felt like mine
Turned the key and took a drive
Was free

I recall the sun sank low
Buckley on the radio
Cigarette was burning slow
So breathe

Just yellow lines and tire marks
Sun-kissed skin and handle bars
And where I stood was where I was
To be

No enemies to call my own
No porch light on to pull me home
And where I was is beautiful
Because I was free

Once upon another time
Before I knew which life was mine
Before I left the child behind
Be
I saw myself in summer nights
And stars lit up like candle lights
I made my wish but mostly I
Believed

And yellow lines and tire marks
Sun-kissed skin and handle bars
And where I stood was where I was
To be

Once upon another time
Deciding nothing good in dying
So I would just keep on driving

Because I was free

<>

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Sara Bareille

~for S.,
who needs to look up
nada et. al.,
for & cause,
she was the
implanter-in-chief~
<>

by now
you know exact my meaning,
the daily diurnal,
the witchs why you keep
a log, a journal,
of the all memories mundane,
pleasurable and pained,
the stuff of life
which morphs into
the stuffing of your
scribing,
aged pages
of endless fascinations,
of the tiny artifacts,
the dance habits,
muscular sized,
from moment of
first arousal,
to the last thought
clanging,
all are impressed upon
your closing jail door eyelids,
all these minutiae
now nightly benightly
locked in,
the actions and reactions,
that choose you,
or vice versa

the A to Zed
of who you be,
what summaries get kept
in your head,
of who you
were, was, when,
now storaged
in that stainless steel
attic of
you actions
in living color, the
terrible and the tedious
all these seedlings of amoebas,
of unending routine edges,
that define
your selving delving,
and shelving of
yourselves,
the best mysteries
of your personal histories,
that you’ll take to your graveriueries^

t h e y
are the original origins of a life,
you who walked you out of the sea,
to become the
salt of recorded history
sprinkled upon
your poetry…

<>

and those ****
they
said you
couldn’t rhyme
worth a dime


ah well,
they~them
last seen
entering
the hated gated
halls of hell
sighing,
while I’m
laughing,
Rolfing^
on my
Armstrong ceiling tiling^

disclaimer:
a long poem, tumbled out complete,
feel free to *** along

<!>

a poem that does not need writing,
scripted once before(1), sung this song,
nonetheless the heart purges,
then
newly urges
for fresh eyes to revise

for each second, four new babes come
into these world, estimating that one
will be infect by poesy, and there is
and yet,
no-known/cure, there be no disturbance,
no Cain mark distinguishing,
no sign from heaven,

so this enlivening disease, sometimes takes
almost a generation to bud, blossom (4) and pollinate the world with its unique nectar, uncontained, unconditionally & uncontrollable, and naturally,
incurable

by you awoken & aware of yourself
as a carrier, the strange heart rate
display of your EKG, that the doc
cannot explain, with that extra heart
beating beat (2) revealed, tell them not
to worry
it’s ok,
it’s a genetic
that makes you
tick
that’s yours
distinct,
and

there is no cure expected, no foundation advertising for dollars to lead the fight,
maybe one that does exact opposite, but no
matter, the infection becomes a condition,
with symptoms diagnoseable by the
colored gleaming lights in your
aggregating eyes

then comes the days of
frustrated declination
when every undisciplined
***** ditty wordy rejected,
crumpled and to the round
container sailing,
that’s the pain for the gain,
though all natural talent marked
by higher standards
self~imposed,
for only you can judge
when it’s good enough to satisfy
the judges observing,

the ones astride you
on each shoulder,
censoring the trite,
******* you back into the fight,
and soliciting you to go easier
on that body
for it already contains
all the nutty nutrients
that will combust
into a poem
that will be any equivalent
to an
******  of
new life breaching the
mind’s cautious customary warnings

so much more to tell,
by way of example,
who are the
predecessors that give me instant inspiration,
in the expectation of periods of
Saharan drought, (3)
the need to jot every random thoughts,
for oft
we compose in drips and dabs,
every birth owns its own timetable,
took Cohen ten years
to make Hallelujah satisfactory,
theiving so/too much of your time,
until the best distraction arrives,
announcing the following;

“if I did not truly loved her
it would be causas belli
should I fail not to
bring her an ember of
coffee”


but writing in the moment
is a stupendous momentous
so smile sweet,
tell her where to go,

where
the mug with Hawaiian scents
awaits, and let her lover
decompose what needs saying

immédiate
right now!

so by way of closure
I ask you
why
are you still reading this too **** long
soliloquy
and not
stariing into a world
of words
all your own?
<>
for
inscribed upon your every breath,
are
your words,
a trickery uniquery
to which

nothing will ever compare

~for Lori,
they await you~
<>
be:
of two minds, a peculiarly human
distressing and wonderful
characteristic s~trait,

straightforward and regular,
as hu-man was intended,
or
be:
truly crackling delighting
twisty like a river bend,
with a flood plain,
defying nature illogically,
here today,
and new direction on-the-morrow,

the creativity of time
making its own best laid plans
that either wash over you,
or wash you away

what you may not be aware,
as I too, was overly innocent,
that the sidewalk cracks are mini-seas,
full of overheard words, true tales,
a depository of the stories,
of tithes of titles
beckoning, becoming fables,
left by millions of
endless passer-byes
and passer~overs,
a repository of human insights
held inside them cracks,
under cover of
thin brown line
of ***** grime, soil and ****
& history

for this ugly surficial,
environmentally rocky but semi~
solid environ, is perfection personified to
retain. restore all the power memories & glories
of those who tread upon them
in flip flops and snow boots,
spilling the detritus that is all of us,
thus,

a gold mine of poems for  asking,
a vein of jewels for simple taking,
no secret word, no library card, just a
few taps of the shoe’s soul, will kick up
the dust of disorderly unused words,
to be easily inhaled, or cab~hailed, and then
by gum, yous for the making

so walk with me, eyes open, nostrils wide,
ears keen, tongue open to lick up the dust,
impress them upon you skin,
do so!
so they be
not forgot,
nor slip away to a new street line,
and be lost again until someone else
comes along to use
what was rightfully yours
for a moment of seconds

bring your sheaf of blank memory sheets,
scribble madly for the volumes are supersized, stupendous, and you
will never lack,
wander for hope,
nor
wonder too long
for the whereabouts of that next poem,
for lives-it, beneath you,
awaiting and aging,
pry it out by by fingernails
if too well hid,
but trust an old fool,
thee best me-kind there be,

the grimy grinning grungy pallor
is the best camouflage extant,
the dust is gold, a miner’s delight,
speckles of glassine letters
sapphired and rubied,
all yours, when you fall to your knees,
and finally witness, finally see
wide eyed
a new flood plain
of satisfied tears pooling,
*****, hard earned,
falling, forming
from your own
flood plane

seethe ~ bubble up as a result of being boiled,

<>
sunrise was 714 am in nyc
this perfect fall day,
chilled to perfection,
a white wine of a day,
so imbibe,
only later does it
heat up up and onwards
to the temp where the
walkers/joggers/runner recite
hallelujahs and hosannas while
moving at their own chosen pace,
in a state of warm southern comfort,
never a racing

lest
the poems
now seething, boiling-burning
bubbling up inside
into the atmosphere explode!

all of these
early warming~warning inspirations,
now~expressed,
realized flickers of
original ex-impressions,
cannot be contained in
an open field unsupported,
these
breech babies each,
in a pediatric ICU,
demanding an
instantaneous airy concoction
to Earth’s atmospheric
literary intoxication

they use:
up hard, a dice roll,
who lives
who wilts,
that docs cannot but
obey
the fetus’s insistence,
many instructions,
push pull breathe,
must the. be given forthwith
through to our
servile waiting
uterine fingertips,
for we human are just be
~ings,
nurturers of
verbal artifacts
that never die

in
an~always~at~the~ready,
in service to
the great conceptual,

poetic in/justice

“What information pertains:
The thought that life could be better
Is woven indelibly
Into our hearts and our brains”
<>
Paul Simon “Train in the Distance”
<>
a songwriter inserts a precise scalpel cut
in the nether part of the brain
where we bury
things we-wish not to recall, but
that particular
poem-scrap-dagger/byte

must remain a permanent
guest on a cruise ship
going around the world that can
never return to your
hailing port

“indelibly”
that which we hope
that cannot be
removed or forgotten
or in a reverse
of a kinda curse,
this hope stabbing
is springing eternal

when I need to be bleak,
quiet on all fronts,
silence the voices
desirous to speak
in tones moving me
from down sided
up, to up and away

that **** thought
life could be better
“if f—king only…”

is a cut that never
ceases to bleed~leak,
can’t be curettage away,
never healed,
it’s indelible

it’s a saturday morning
bright and chilly
indelibly
incurable
stamped and stampeding
on my mind
that this arctic exploration,
is self-exploitation
and curse my
heart and brain that won’t
accept my explanation
nor my pleading pleas
wet knots of
begging to anyone in particular
to please
leave me alone
&
this is how the week
ends

October 2024

“What does baking require of us?
It requires patience, thoughtfulness, an eye to your surroundings, otherwise known as
simply paying attention and responding accordingly.”

more gourmand than gourmet,
who believes like the firmament above
that the transportation of
the human soul is enlightened,
enlivened
by the aroma of scent of
an endless freshly baked loaf of bread

need to confess,
never held
a rolling pin,
nor had a mustache white
made of flour
upon my face,
and if ere the toaster oven
had not been
installed invested or even invented
in a kitchen,
the only thing
I would ever have
preheated is the body
of a woman who truly
was loved
complete and insane
daily for
sixteen
years

but the perfume of a
newly baked brioche
can bring me to
tears
just as a newly unearthed,
the child of a poem
writhing within me
emerging, even surging
from the soiled placenta
of my
souled~soiled mind&heart,
borne and born
yeah,
even
bre(a)d

so I read an article about
a baker from France,
reading the words above
and wonder
what did I miss,
forfeit,
after a lifetime liftoff of
a badly chosen careered life
that i did trust love
or so I thot!

“wondering why bakers are the way
they are. There is a quietness, and a kindness, to their lives that veers into almost monastic behavior. Perhaps it is simply the ancientness of being a fire maker — tending a hearth really brings something out in a person.”

how I glowed and flowed
with recognition of the
esprit de corps
(borrowed identically
from French to our
Anglais lexicon)
in all acts of creation,
a fabulous trade,
a new conception
eye spied on the streets of
My Manhattan

understood the mesmerizing
heat of a crackling fire
for children of all ages
and the why~when
the birth canal opens,
I must be alone with
the quietude that
tries and fails
to hold the raging
heated hot juices inside,
kept nope, not in check,
so formatting them into
a disc shape,
lest they spill unseeded floored,
a pour of ooze,
crisping the lost flesh
of flames eradicating
from
the plenitude distractions of
short term, this modern life

<>

Sunday,
in my America is a holy day,
a sabbatical
marked by rituals sacred,
brunch, football games
or maschostically
even two on a
Josephian
coat of
many colored  channels

all this followed by
with a desert tray of
patisserie,
PBS (1) ****** mystery tv shows
of British origin
for a somewhat lessened
yet still violent contested cultural
amuse bouche

In between,
the ladies squeeze in
a Great British Baking Show,
which says when suggested
you’ve been bested
and
‘Yo Boy,
time to ****, Nat
them deserts make you fatter,
by mere visual osmosis’
and contemptible contemplation

and that contested kitchened
atmosphere
antithetical to introspective
inspection
which life ingested in you
overly oveyly
aplenty
in placed,

so now I wonder
if this,
a career chosen
by youthful me,
the maledom masculine shouting of the
traditional trading room,
where ego was nourished
within a veneer of analytics,
rationed rationales reasoned,
was down to the nearest $ sign,
was it
the right place for me,
and how it sponsored within me,
a need ultimately
to sit
in ancien worn
by fig & vine
in uncomfortable Adirondack thrones,

a bright need
to sit by  the
saluting salutation waves of
a constant lapping bay,
and the conversation of
a current thrusting empowered
tidal basin rivers
waters both
lightly salted fresh water
in piety poetic
combination,
all fed by genteel
small mountain streams,
all flowing, by gravity sent,
to assemble ingredients
of
verbs, noun words in
an adjectival temple,
unkempt kept simple,

in different voices
well  hid **** deep
beneath his skin, his bone,
for to simply order up;
a bake off up,
a meringue of
poems

and to better understand what
our well definable,
oh so human
l i f e

requires,
even demands
without surcease,
of us?
all the while
we
twogether
areexpelling the rap we
breathe
and the scented heaven
of holy wine and
unlimited
loaves of
yup,
b r e a d


nmlipstadt

“You are under no obligation to remain the same person you were a year ago, a month ago, or even a day ago. You are here to create yourself, continuously.”*
Richard Feynman
<>
perhaps
you are among the many who state,
I will do things differently today!
or
amidst the few,
who actually do

most of us satisfied by our resolution,
go back to sleep and let our
daily dissolution succumbing
pleasantly ****** us into
the nirvana of familiar
repetition

We speak not of the little compromises
that satisfy for periods too brief:

denying yourself a meal,
or having just one less cuppa
of English Breakfast Tea,
Blue Mountain Java beans,
or skipping breakfast entirely
a face saving gesture to the
odyssey perpetual
of losing those friendly
five pounds that “just”
snuck aboard

<>
know that we all peer
into my famous
bathroom
mirror
conducting a head to toe review
of our very deepest buried
burdensome “to do list”
that charge you to be changed,
that discharge your guilt long lasting,
Oh, those things that truly matter

to which we,
thanks to Richard,
we reorganize and add a
first poem, the top priority
of this new mewling twenty four hours:

today,
I will continuously
wright/write
be a maker & builder,
yes, writer,two,
of
myself anew
and not copy
all that I wish not to;

here goes my first daily,
a myself poem of every new day
of my
interval upon this green Earth
a seed step tiny
to grow a forest
continuing

“humility, the capacity to listen well. It requires building up trust”
<>

give me your most precious,
time
when the pensive, contemplative,
spirits are present
the strength of introspection rising,
the remarkable willingness to say
with humility
there is so much I have
yet to experience,
that
I am
needy for human exchange

I,
we,
must be willing to
trust
each other for the investment in
each other,
especially that
first time;

it is both instantly invested,
and forever spent,
and can only be recovered,
with lubricant ,
the sealant,
of
humility of
the most basic kind,
more!

a belief that each of us
in possess
something
of value,
each desirous of the
equality of exchange

THIS
is why I love these new poets
so, so much:
they come with the opening intra-opposition,
~
the debating team internal, infernal,
of fear, failure, rejection
but put the courage
to enter the sticking place,
and let themselves be adjudged

ah, we enjoy the risklessness of
faceless anonymity, escaping into the
void of  gone, never-was-here,
but that is only your failure

for who you are is
the courage to reply:

I think…
therefore
I am

<>
the wee little ones cry out loudest
fearful of being dying unnoticed
for they're not the stoutest
or profoundest

“we’re always among the forgot,
for we come so quick, oft left to rot,
as you street walk in the early morn
composing on and on and on

and our
sweet little rhymes, smaller than a dime,
oft arrive as twins or even triplets,
so fast and so furious,
they go unwitnessed
so we can’t be recalled,
stillbirthed, unborn,

therefore
we’ve decided to take you hostage,
treatied with your leggings,
no home return permitting
!
until we are recorded,
and given up for adoption”

P. S.
how do ya like them shorties now?

~it feels good to keep a promise~
~for AV~

<>
my expertise is at the PhD. level
for mine own experiments have
been less than successful by the
feedback periodically provided
O & Co-vertly over forty years

but a poem triggers, go figure!

and making morn coffee,
a task that teaches well,
that doing the prep is essential,
no shortcuts
for which we spend/waste years
looking for, and
realize that’s a hint to settle in
with a hot beverage,
this feels like it’s a longy coming

we know so much,
most i m p o r t a n t l y,
even how little we actually
do comprehend, and that
is importabt beyond belief,
learning to
choose counsel
that should be allowed
to pass under the bridge that filters
the crapshoot crap that pretenses
as smart and sound,
that should be
burnt & buried in an open pit

so what do fathers know?

- that finest firsts are so youthfully
under loved, under appreciated,
misperceived as endless,
the flush the rush the the thrusting
piercing of your composite composure
practiced protective skin,
cherish them firsts cause
they don’t last
because axiomatic that come
lesser, fewer, with every wrinkled day,
and sorry, time doesn’t make you bolder

- luck is a lottery ticket, the odds preposterous against you, but we
buy a ticket weekly because you
thinking this time is your time, sorry,
this lady sleeps around, a lot, a  
borderline *****,
who never asks
honey what’s your nane, because
they are thinking ‘bout the next
customer,you want it? you work for it,
and that never ever ends,
the odds
against ya never improve

- invest in discipline early and big time:
later when it will be desperately needed,
and twice as hard to obtain (can’t be bot,
no matter how much moola
you will
inherit)
and it make it habitual;
and discipline
is the entry card to unlocking the
unknown, the exceptional adventure

- thinking ‘know everything’ is a giant
no-no; this body of knowledge
you think you’ve earned by being
learned, is not as
valuable as one might
think (or feel)

cause knowledge is like a breeze,
on its way to somewhere else,
the cooling skin it leaves in its wake,
cools too quickly
and when you whine
“I know”
think this
”I no NOthing”

- that fathers oft say little, wordily,
so keep an eye out
for a raised eyebrow l,
a crinkling around the eyes,
a wrinkling nose,
they be  clues
meaning
ask me
more, later, when we deux
can pas alone

-peace of mind is
like watching waves
coming in;
ithey are long in the forming
and faster in dissolving,
they arrive piecemeal
but they keep on coming
in different shapes,
from different places,
but they do keep a-coming
and their power,
(erosion)
is the result of thousands individual
moments,
additive,
so you get pieces,
thru the unconscious
habit of accumulation
/\
here I’ll pause
to preach
makes a father thirsty
a fresh cuppa
seems highly desirable

oh yeah,
warmth can be received from blankets,
expensive ski jackets, wooly socks,
but its best when freely created
from within,
worn as you own & owned creation,
a reward for being wide open
ready,willing & able

one more thing:
find the best addiction
that bests you,
that thing will live
within forever,
like
writing poetry?
😉

so what do fathers know?

a lot, too little, never enough,
sometimes too much,
mostly good,
some awful,
just ask
find out
wonder
who will be more surprised
when you
do

a companion to “why do men cry in the bathroom? (1)
<>
even harder to understand, for it’s almost
unnatural, alone, unshaven, first glance, a small smile creeps ever so slow from
ocean to ocean, cheek to cheek, while the
lines on the face join in, quiet applause,
a satisfaction acknowledgement of mini~
minor proportions, a quick stock taking, a putting aside of the futures worries and the
currency of ever present daily woes,
a small pat on the back

<self administered,
(minimal) self admonishment>

we made it this far, while
juggling
so many acting parts
that we/he learned on the fly,
good luck and good instincts
for this exercise in adapting, becoming
an on the cuff, father, wise-man, little league
coach, protector+defender no matterwhat,
a font of knowledge who gets ignored,
cept
for delayed hugs that slowly dawn and get
inserted when never expected,
shoulders for carrying two at a time,
a reassurer when the world is spinning crashing and
the watch alerts stop this blurting
and get
the their act together again for the
curtain going up when the individualized
symphony of alarms, buzzers and rock ‘n roll anthems pronounce the blessings of morning and
another opportunity to get it wrong,
but make it right,
saying no with loving reassurance
that someday the yeses will be for real,
delivered with that same smile when the unexpected delights and in the eye corner
he observers a version of happy love in an unreservedly small  format that has value above everything else

and even with all the deep day saturations
and self salutations
he cuts himself carelessly
shaving and the focus of wskeup calls and
tender shaking, comes back like a slap to the
fresh bleeding face, and all of the above took
maybe
10 seconds
ten great,
and!
all of  ‘em
firsts ~
no seconds here

for patty m(mombo)
who will be laughing
out loud, spilling her sippin’ coffee~
after she reads this~

woke up o f f c i a l l y “fully rested”
per the devices that monitor the body,
   hoping
that’s all they do, unless they are
writing this?

don’t think but can’t be sure,
cause the poems planted here,
were seedlings elsewhere, and
the Gatherers, my senses, be working
   overtime
as we (me & them) trapse
through life picking up the discards,
of songs. tv pundits, (see title!)
overheard snippets of street
conversations,
your poems & comments,
(as I walk among you)
almost everywhere,
anytime
anyhow,

to add
days to
my life span
because

the poem notions
hit me so fast,
hanging fruitfully
needy
for picking, need
more time to love
them so fulsomely

so maybe one or two
are Rem insertions by
my Apple watch, but
not many cause I write
in a funny style!

my son asked AI to write
poems in the manner of
his dad, and it replied,
“can’t help, his poems are
too weird, not reproduceable,
borderline crazy(!!!!);”

give us someone easier
like Whitman or Plath
or Leonard C., no problem
doing dat”

so this poem was an off chance remak,
heard in passing by my digesting ears,
and like Noah’s Ark,
loaded up with alphabets 2 x 2,
set sail to your receptors to bark at ya
awake baby

with hopes
that you rise and read this,
laugh way
out loud,
and suddenly you tutu,
feeling well-reset, rested and very
a very,
moderate modicum more

appreciated enuf

nml

What is known as the Great Divide?

The Continental Divide, also known as the Great Divide, is one of the most iconic and essential mountain ranges in the Americas, dividing the continents in half and extending all the way from the Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska to the Strait of Magellan at the southernmost tip of South America.

<>
Perhaps.

I have seen the Great Divide
from 30,000 feet
and not known & appreciated
what I
had seen,
voyaged across.

For sure,
I have
watched witnessed,
crossed and embraced,

no doubt

and have breathed the new air over
our current continental divide,
though some will say it always was,
and never
disappeared

this divided country,
a deep rendering,
more a
sundering,
a shearing trench

where the state
of your statutory residence
maybe a bad bad,
color

so don’t
drink from the same
walter  fountain as me,
don’t **** in any toilet
I might use,
and keep your kids far,far
away from mine

or I’ll make their corrupted minds
happily ill at ease

enough.


you get my
drift,
that’s a big
hint
go live among your “kind”
stay not my side of the line,
drift away
for I be overeager to
show you the contents of
my democratic
gun collection


oh yeah,
God Bless America

humor, irony, metaphor,
many other language twisty
stuff makes our poetry fabulous,
intricate,
wordplay that humans
themselves
oft finds themselves
stumped, even stupefied but most
importantly,
delighted…

no piece of *****
computer program will ever
feel delight, nor learn how to write
better than
what I possess
in my souled
consciousness

no matter how many times that
neural connect,
is electrified…

“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.”

— Daniel Kahneman—

indeed
but every number
has a story,
perhaps hidden,
sometimes obvious.

and yet,
there is a certain
elegant simplicity
a beauteous
e c o n o m y
to the numbers
that define
our choices
<>
betting you know
exactly
my subtle
meaning

the enforcers,
them austere grammarians,
interrupt with urgency,
when choosing wrong:  
lesser or fewer

which punishes me hard!!

makes me contemplate how
much better
in my life,
one would have been
if
only I had
employed
both
as a living philosophy,
a methodology

would have more closet
space,
would possess a less
cluttered life, with more
space
to breathe freely,

the
moreover
would be
my desire
to be kind
to others
more
easily
realized
<>
the economy of
fewer and lesser
needs

Poems
1706 published / 43 drafts / 14 hidden


no matter how much spillage of
inspired words are perspired
into poetic
existence,
new ideas push themselves
to the top of the line,
with every eyelash
flutter to falling,
so there seems
always a restless but consistent cohort of
43 draftees
in my lipstadt persona
(one among so many)
inescapably
demanding,
like a dentist happiest
when commencing to
drill you in to submission
but smiling since
the novocaine
hasn’t fully…


that when
a poem,
even a  new tooth
is c r e a t ed
in the gum of you,
seed~ed but not fully form~ed,
somehow
a new title is
auto~entitled,
whisked into
a never cold cup of
“what’s next.”
a laundry line
of the great
washed
but needy
for drying out,
not yet ready
for prime time

thus this
never endingness
is one more
perpetual eternal,
a cousin to
gravity

a direct order to be
born/resolved/loved/
only to be sent away
with a firm loving
push
with
no word of
farewell

(and not forgetting
to mention the thousand
of half breeds,
started, left
writ incomplete,
in my official
cemetery
a/ka
my actual draft file)

awas amidst
the bits and bobs of my pseudo-sleep,
check my watch oft and habitually,

understand
that the actual time is not what I seek,
no, what I desire is reassurance of
some sort,
that time is present,
that it is yet measured,
in my about, breathable,
that time is there,
for it is the wonderous of wonder,
it’s a
present of and is love itself,

love is time…
(think on it)

it is all possibility,
the future in
slow motion is both
realizable & visible even
as we daily practice realizing it,
as if
time is
snuggling us

as a glove,
asking us each,
place your hand inside,
and waving yours
airy about
into your
new existence,
that we dare not waste,

so
write and right
are no accident, but
equals, friends,
brothers and sisters,
one is both

awas amidst
the bits and bobs of my pseudo-sleep,
check my watch oft habitually,
understand
that the precisive time is not
what I seek,

no,
what I desire is reassurance of
some sort, that time is present,
that it is
a measurable actuality in,

my about,
a breathable actuality
woven into my
Body’s  Constructional
Constitutional Cconsciousness


that time is there, here,
for it is rhe

wondrous of all wonder,
it is a
present of, from,
and,
is love itself,

love is time…
(think on it)

it is all and only
butpossibility,
the future in
slow mo
is both
realizable & visible ,
even some part knowable;
its somes & sums,
as we daily
practice realizing it,
as if
time is a
smuggler of snuggles,
comforting but not
for too long
like
a new lover’s
exploratory
beginning beguiling explanations
reforming our ardor
into
viability

or

a glove
asking us each:
slow s l i d e
your hand inside,
then,
newly commence
waving yours,
airy all about

conducting a new self
into your
precious moment of precarious
existence,
that we dare not waste!

so:
write and right
are no accident,
but purposed
equals,
friends,
brothers and sisters,
one and both
coexisting
at
in
the same time…

messing with perfection,
you critique yourself,
why do it yet again,
a single choice, *******

yet every time them words,
penetrate, they instigate,
and you want to let~vent,
burst busting out in glory

bible student, we both. so
understand that titled reference
instantly, the secondary hid, secreted
a hurting with hallelujah familiarity

I weep. missing the singer,
his poetry delights, paralyzes with
a *******, indescribable, ecstaticly
indebted to him, his chosen words

he chose, I chose,
this decision to accept,
the need to expiate, explain, to better
understand our whys,
therby grasp our wherefores,
to give ourselves up entire,

thereby making, giving and even
t a k i n g,
the very chore so human to accept,
that surrendering,
f o r g i v i n g, one
accomplishes a chance to uncover the godliness within

that sparks
our frail humanity
to blossom to fruition, that our
fragility is the thinnest tissue of
diamond iron strength
encasing and encoding us unique
but yet united by
a single commonality,
that we are holy,
born to be
to be celebrated
and to share our voices
so differing
in an
unceasing
harmony