when you poem me,
and the sudden tumble
into a mesmerizing moment,
is a felling of a tree, that
everyone can hear, anywhere,
forest everywhere,
suddenly, I will know you,
no introduction required...
to be with you, and save my
day, my heart stolen, and to my
captor, I hereby surrender,
capitulate completely, quick quiet,
and we are three thrilled together, a triumphant triumvirate,
for each other and a unity of
1 + 1= 3

is a new counting,
a unique
formulation
a formidable forming

a mutual following,
a fellowship

nml
Weds.
June 18 3025
In the sunroom

the isle is surrounded,
one if by day, and
too by night,
a thickening paste
of fog, condensed humidity,
and the mind smiles that
interloper explorers would sail
past by us, unawares,
for the waters are merely a
dirtier shade of green grey,
a "path" to follow and we
would be spared the noisy
pollution of politics and
and injections of identity
that divide, the tirades of
the overly righteous chest
beaters, who never question
their certainty, their compasses
always broken pointing their
"only one way"

sail on, sail past. this piece of
quiet tranquility, a place that
has just one of everything, a
sufficiency, a rejection of excess,
and the only melancholy is
the finality of passing of
the day lillies,
b u t,
the multi-colored irises, the
flowering of azaleas, rhododendrons, and the brevity
of the cheery cherry blossoms
of those;
secure, safe we are, assured that
their peaceful return is guaranteed
by the firmament and its secrets,
that, along with the overwhelming
greenery of this spot, for the
pleasuring enjoyment of all,
even the fog's quietude,
its surround sounds silences the anxious rapid heart beating,
slowed by one thought only:

Here,
herein is,
here within
lies the truths of
shelter

S. I. 2025

"As if everybody knows
What I'm talking about,
As if everybody
would know
exactly what
I was talking about"

Paul Simon
<><><>

test the hypothesis,
get out the glass beakers,
mmmmix the acid and the base,
wear those rubber gloves
and with goggles on,

always paying penpal attention,
we have the first aid kit and
the fire extinguisher
nearby
and handy

As if everybody
would know
exactly
what
I was talking about

what
I am talking about
is self~care
and on a dare,

whispering,,
a modest scream,
an ego soul statistic~all
@it's ok,
"love thyself"

everybody
knows,
...as if...
....as if....

"are never really finished,
they are only due.
Writing may be draining,
never perfect,
but it’s always rewarding."

no buts or exceptions
whenever you think your
done,
you lets the little tickles of
mmmm. maybe a
change, a comma here,
and the madness is
well,
maddening

the reward?
the compulsion that drives
one to exclaim,
I can do better,
and take a clean sheet
and the blood rush,
accelerating heart rate,
the beating speeding up
of pulsing of everything

why that's your reward,
*you fool,
fooling yourself
one mo' time

flux.
a word whose very sound connotes its meaning, a sloshing state of change

a liquid moment,
for we solids,
of bone and flesh,

though
we may be islands of stolidity,
entrenched, focused, organized,
when the surround sounds
of change are all about
you too are
fluxed

the serenity of splendid isolation
is not an impervious shell,
close eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth
these liquid times we abode,
inescapable from the roller coaster of
crashing storms of our
environment

try as I might,
cannot recede into a
white sealed envelipe,
cannot secede from
the froth of current events,
in the age of no distances,
and the rotational revolution of
but one lever,
a single beating wing
can disrupt the
the supply and communication
channels of our normative existential machinations

let me retreat unto my poetry trance,
but that choice
is currently unavailable

be wary of the calm of routine,
we live in a time of
the olympics of change,
and we cannot walk
on water,
nor tread forever

flux.

the liquidity curse of our
ever curving intersections

As HL Mencken put it,
“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.”

<>
You can drop that History course now

"everything in the cosmos was going to be drawn into the poem,
nothing must to be laughed at because it was already laughing,
nothing was too serious because it was already grieving,
the ache and the flirtation,
all this range,
this massive Spectrum ,
what a...what a thrill"

Bono
on Allen Ginsburg, Poet
<>

gotta tell ya,
every time I read this
quote,
two things happen:
get a headache and must
lie/lay down

and no. 2,

people who took a lotta drugs
write pretty good poems and songs


so where did I go wrong?

each to his own, every family a nation unto itself, and genetics undeniable, perhaps my disabilities have infected my descendants and
thereby, I am justifiably guilty of
their sins of commission and
omission

they do not generally like me,
or mire specifically do not
like me stylistically

how I perceive myself,
and how I am perceived,
are in opposition,
and while,
all the while,
it is the sun~sum total of our lives,
added up, divided, pinpointed,
we draw,
we make,
conclusions,
decisions beyond inferences,
and behave accordingly

~for a she who denies it~

c'mon c'mon,
have you ever got a
grade lower than than
A-?

ever stayed out so late,
causing your parentals
angst and  aggravation?

Not go to class,
without being overcome
with an all day long
residual residoo
of big ***
flashing "guilty"
tattooed
on the inside of your
brain?

doubtful
but I'm sure you are unwilling to
confess!
(Shame! Shame! Shame!)

but here is what you are;
a good'un
with admirable qualities
that cannot be denied,
even if you tried to lied,
for you reveal yourself
in every script
you pen,
******,
you are
too
a goodie goodie

good'un...

(that nobody can deny)

I approach this subject with expertise,
for the economy of brevity
is not my forte,
indeed my natural tendency
is to never use
one
when three words seem
so more additional  expressive


but,
economy is to my taste
when delving into the emotional,
which as a poet poseur
seems incongruous

but the verbal deliciousness of
a well chosen phrase,
that one can roll on their tongue,
looking for subtle notes like a good wine,
is a sensory delight,
a provoking nugget of
an alliteration of the senses,
that seeps into your interior,
gladdens the soul,
worthy of jig, or even a
hot **** expletive,
demanding many more
sippings

it may require an ooh and an ah,
and the loosening of teary eyed
moisture,
the acceptance of
acceptance?

the  spreading of a satisfactory warmth in-the places that
welcome heat, allowing both
head smacking grinning,
or deep emotive gestures
to form upon your normally repressed status

~for she who knows ~
<>
The word "likeability" is spelled L-I-K-E-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y., though the inhuman spelling master of this site, deems it a misspelling mistake, condemning it to live in red, and offering up no replacement

<>
it is that time of night, which is also
a time of early day, when dark silence prevails, except for the excessive rumbling of the our old little cottage's environmental devices gut rumbling while laboring to condition our atmosphere

our atmosphere;
is my brain on fire at 2:30am,
with new conceptuals, many contradictory, racing in and about my brain all begging to
write me first, while the mental fluids are juiced, and words are finger pecked into existence with a maddening slowness

but this one,
re likeabilty has risen to the fore,
because it is the last to be born,
and seems therefore claiming precocious precious preeminence

not a quality I deem much in my owned possess, but one easy discerned in others and delicious delighting to the human souls who
recognize it instantly by the smiling comfort of its parfume

what I like about like about likeability is it's a pleasing scent,
that aerosol invades a room and
spreads like a virus of happy,
quite contagious to we old curmudgeons,
who by nature feel put upon by
our aging equipment, and the daily struggle to maintain it, and the forces to countervail it ,
are endless and not cheery by nature

So
I am enlivened and enriched,
engaged and effervescent,
when youthful patois,
direct and with little boundary,
radiates the human existential,
and light shines upon my soul,
awakening in me
an optimistic countenance!

perhaps I exaggerate,
confusing youthful energetic optimism
for a condition,
and not merely a demeanor,
but I rethink upon it,
snd decidedly decide
this for real, this is genuine,
and by its very natural nature
(a lotta nats in nature)
its openness, unguarded,
refreshes and moisturizes
our skins,
internal and external

this special quality is not universal,
or else there would be peace on earth (ain't happening),
but those who have it,
who think beyond privilege and
privacy,
but intuitively,
offer up to all
a pleasantness
rich and original,
will write an indelible script
upon the world
for the better

I like it.

~Primus inter pares~
(first among equals)
<>
the risks
the aspirations
the trial and erroring of
outrageous under appreciation

the silence,
the unabashed frustration
of our inability to right express
the exact precision needed to redress the pile of self~unsatisfying drafts
that need the evermore honing, whittling
curettage of accumulated filing
repeated nip and tucking

T his!
makes us all
first amongst equals,
we,
who throw ourselves again and
again, at Henry's urging
"once more into the breach"
we foot soldiers who but toil alone in grande silence until we satisfy our innermost creativity
are all so alike
all of
^firsts^
among
equals
in this grande society of
poetry addiction!

~for George Harrison~

Very

soon George, I am bound for
a stilled shaded land, a tiny isle,
which knows the
all encompassing fog,
hurricanes wrath that days linger,
and though memorable,
never the first image recalled,

but a mind's eye video of
a perpetual sunset,
agonizing silenced colored fantasies of farewells,
each unique and alike though all things must pass,
a benign benefit comfort suckled this old man's
never fully at rest visions,

for the sunset is perfect perpetual,
always setting, never settling,
ever bound to surprise,
our farewell is another's welcoming,
and each of our days an
A-1 slicked continuum,
a sliding circularity
and
we sigh, ooh & aah
at it miracality,
its genteel reawakening
we admit with pleasured honesty,
yes, sunsets are a corridor edged,

somewhere it is always sunset,
nevereverending,
and its farewells
are truly truthful welcomings

<*>

Shelter Island
May 2025

~for George Harrison~

Very

soon George, I am bound for
a stilled shaded land, a tiny isle,
which knows the
all encompassing fog,
hurricanes wrath that days linger,
and
though memorable,
never the first image recalled,

but a mind's eye video of
a perpetual sunset,
agonizing silenced colored fantasies of farewells,
each unique and alike though all things must pass,
a benign benefit comfort suckled this old man's
never fully at rest visions,

for the sunset is perfect perpetual,
always setting, never settling,
ever bound to surprise,
our farewell is another's welcoming,
and each of our days an
A-1 slicked continuum,
a sliding circularity
and
we sigh, ooh & aah
at it miracality,
its genteel reawakening
we admit with pleasured honesty,
yes, sunsets are a corridor edged,

somewhere it is always sunset,
nevereverending,
and its farewells
are truly truthful welcomings

<*>

Shelter Island
May 2025

as a house in the country,
by the water's edge,
on a clouded, zero moonlit night,
and the handful of light ****** are
far far distant and inform you that
are essential alone

the almost total absence of vision
reminds me that once,
long long, ago, I
stood by a river's edge
in a great big, well lit,
city of millions,
and the loneliness was
so acute,
the despair so
encompassing,
the overwhelming sense
of loss,
so comprehensive,
all made the dark swift waters
a close distance beneath my body,
the equivalent black pitch
of this
countryside night
both purported to
offer comfort,
neither were

Black
is a knot,
non~neutral color

how much poem can
one propose, compose & dispose
of in an Apple watch timed
inchoate incontinent inconstancy
tide-pool of multiplying amoebic minutiae
of a single minute

can you cram a lifetime of
an everything
without filling
the centrific center,
the holy totality trinity ethereal of
birth ~ life ~ death,
one
entirety capsular
summary?

Not I, derided He,
124 drafts accumulated
of a life
heretofore and a
thousands poems scripted
and a thousands yetto come
hereafter!


If only,
I could have loved it better...

a hand without a palm,
a smiley face with a ----
for a mouth, a
headless horseman who
passion rides country roads at night,
but sees no one and no thing

the title is a poem's crown,
full of hint and mystery,
an encapsulation of a poem's
source and origination;
do not mot~send us little pearls
unstrung, for the beauty
so greatly
amplified, when their lustre
is so
great fully magnified
when
strung together in to a lace necklace shape,
clasped by the overture of
the meeting of
the beginning to an end

the title is a mystery, a provocation,
a first bite intended to arouse,
a first kiss upon a neck that tremors
our souls with unanticipated shivering delights, and an ending to which we return with sighed satisfaction, and the cloture and aclosure, and a smile of
ah, I get it!

entitle us to the puzzling delight
that a title hints at what surely will
follow!

~for old poets every where

I'm a short burst deep sleeper,
the woman is a restless wild eyed story telling schemer~dreamer, who drives at night
in fourth gear,
shaking the bed,
with dreams gone wild,
crazed & crazy intermixed stories unhinged but always
real life related

most by morn forgotten,
'cept for the truly bizarre,
where scraps of unbridled unbelievable
remain for head shaking disbelieving

i sleep in clumps,
four hour sessions and thus oft
bear witness to her
charcoal activated dream states,
where physical reality intersperses,
i n t e r m i n g l e s
with her dream life,

when she wrestles with an
unreal
dreamed restlessness;
my fingers find an exposed
body part, arm, shoulder, tummy,
and steady massage a message
from my fingertips to her
brain,

mantra: it's ok, it's alright,
and return her to the safety
of a deeper sleeper,
so the brain can do its work,
washing away the unrefined,
needy for distilling,
overnight cleansing,
of unwanted memories
which generally works

in the thorny morny morning
she gets a questionnaire
and 9/10,
has no recollection collection,
my magic prophylactic
fingertips, each tipped with
a inked smiley face,
look up at me,
know-it-alls,
smirking contentedly,
"our work is done here!"

Nay, May 25
2025
writ by starlight

First Official s u m m e r Saturday,
weather personas correctly (!) advertise two hours of
sunny morning before the clouded
vanilla parchy brow of the sky
occludes any May
summertime fantastical notions

Sun low in the eastern sky crests at
acute angles,
and spills rays thru the tree'd
frothy cappuccino branches, which
under the influence of drunken
substantive gusts, shakes the rays
on the bright green lawn stage, casting a huge patchwork of shadows, and it's easy to conceive
many tall giant ballerinas dancing in a chaotic disharmonious modern choreography

Perhaps it's a Parson's choreo,
more likely the akimbo nature
of the motion motif,
a Body Traffic concoction

But the sun is gone by 9:30am,
the green stage is now just a
plain old green screen,
the shadowy ballerinas banished,
and my hand held porcelain mug,
frames the denuded scene,
only the invisible wind remains
to say:

oh it's you human,
back in para-dise,
did you expect perfection
of hot sun & hot coffee
awaiting your return?

East come, Easy West go,
this version of my true unheated coloration disappoints,
but I wait in on/no human,
said the triumvirate,
that rule the sky,

on this island of perpetual sunsets,
we do not guarantee a seating
of matched sets,
but visit with us tomorrow,
with poem praiseworthy,

and then,
again,
who ever knows?

yes, it's true, I
timestamp each script,
The time the day the year, the moment and where, the location's criticality, para-Mount!

return to your poem, return to that place, remember recapture retain,
regain!
The source, the emotional contagion, rage of sadness, humility of sweetness, the loss of loss, insight to the inside,
inside the insight,
recapture  and regain,
re-attain!

sift the flower of that past emotion,
re~fresh it as if it was a newborn,
with life extant extended,
fully ahead, relive it as
anew...

This is why we write poetry,
to code ourselves, and then upon rereading, decode ourselves once more!

this is why we read poetry;
to decode, replace refresh neverending reimagining

This is how we store our memories,
This is how we wet our face replenish and re~pour our recycled tears, refresh our bodies,
souls and mind,
and perhaps, even regain the perspective that time like a river,
is forever eroding our memory
on the margin, like rocks in the stream, worn down to pebbles...
This is your re~gained!

8:06 AM
Sunday
May 18
2025
~~~
Manhattan

"let us write cleaner, simpler,"
says my heart to my mind,

the mind replies,
(nay, whines)
wistfully professes,

"now, now,
all that's within, accumulated wisdom of nearly a century,
for want, for waste, let us
privy you a taste of elixir
of combinatory emotional
potions of our vast vascular vocabulary,
rambled scrambled
wandering among the
envisionings, insertions,
criss crossed propositions,
lay before you simplistic
complimentary complications,
take the adventurous down
a warren of rabbit holes,
let them happily be lost,
deep delve, into mysterious
confusions
let not the joy of
the unraveling journey
be sacrificed on an altar
of absolutism of
clean brevity
never ever
use but one word,
when
a tapestry
can be summoned!"

so we conclaved
and agreed to disagree,

and we each wrote home

the worldly swirling reverberating, whirlpool whirling, the To Do list,
issuing senior commands, and the poetry dieting and exercise regime
is muffled, though notes and promises atomizing, ideas and excitations, on the cardboard backs of yellow pads jotted, on menus for Chinese and Indian incantations,
assembled in their own corner reservoir,

nonetheless and all the more,

no births recorded, no spawn of the dawn, product of mid of night
illegal ramblings by the
East River

none
achieve a hallelujah *******,
and the pile of drafts messy are assorted and distorted in their own corner of the white writing desk,

stillborn lay, or more accurately they cry out pained:

"no, no, still to be born!"
"not yet dead!"
"permanent gestation is not a destination"
and other survivor slogans,
and mind and body bloated with
need to ex and to in
hale
them,
to let the healing compounding components of
new compositions see a
glorious Mayday morn of a steady streaming of
howling babies, and all agree,
look at you, look at me, look at this
5 minutes sassy essay on your lassoed status,
now force the door ajar and let the nightlight lead you to dawn,
deliver us, satisfy out our cravings,
make us wholesome and then,
with a sacred finishing
wand waving of blessed
Hallelujah
Amen!
Selah!

now get to work,
*** of coffee witches brew,
knock off the stalling,
Sondheim humming,
crying out a
****** recognition,

"send in the clown,
no more; maybe next year,
too late,
I'm here..."

4:07 ~ 4:25am
May One
2025

Here, of course, is New York CIty,
soon enough, my innate 4000 year old
internalized migratory patterns signal,
remind, now be time need to flee to mine
own Walden Pond, no pond, but a wide
bay upon a small river that feeds the
Great Atlantic, and silence & solitude
with assists from animals, the trees,
lovely breezes, the overlord, overloved
sun, will restoreth my soul, when I walk
beside green pastures and forests on country
unpaved rounds, and the poems hang from
the breezes, ripe for the love of a grasping~plucking:

A great reveal though, currently:

Though my soulful body be over 100 miles as the
crow flies from there, here, where I
was/born/bred/educated/nativized/citified/raised/lowered/ be buried/
and yet reside,
the mayhem vibrant+indigenous+unique
to Isle of Manhattan, where the streets cannot never be
clean enough, always, my eyes cloud over at the 10,000
acts of knindness, rudeness, unimagiable beauty, and sadly,
random violence on every street corner, surrounded by broad
ways, temples of arrogant prideful structures of Tower of Babel
ginormity, all pointing up at Him, asking pointlessly, patiently
for an answer that never comes, to
Why Here, Dearest God?

on this Algonquin island, with Indian trails *still extant,
trapped tween two diatomic, fast flowing rivers, do we masses
yearning to be free, live here, a man writes (see below) about
the walks he takes upon it paved banks for soul restoration
and new infusions and certification of the answers you've always, |already have known:

every walkabout
in its own way, is a
gray, grayed, concretized
green pasture unique,
topped off with a combinatory
poem and symphony,
that 90% restoreth my soul,
each art, conducted uniquely,
each in its
own particular,  
genetic birth sac,
nourished by the
atmospheric placenta

in the B.C. (Before Covid)
there was a joy at a city's
restoration, excitation,
after many decades of
wilful neglect; Covid
made many flee to
verified green pastures
hundreds of milkes away;
most have now returned,
like the Hudson and the East River,
their/these tides reverse, what goes North,
changes direction, naked to eye visible

So the population too, two way >flowing<
returnees and departees, always churning
the city's populace; here is a story of a man
who escapes but always returns, whose spirits
tidal wave flow from the sheltered sanctuary
to the madcap foment of a city in perpetuity,
revising its demeanor; from both flows do I
draw the water that feeds my words, and each
poem, differentiated, by the accent of my local

this is a city poem, born and bred, from my very
old head, which was birthed in a hospital by its
central park, and will see my ashes scattered within
its con~fines

(see notes for the story of another New Yorker who walks)

intrguing, this global web site,
when you post at your "odd" hours,
somewhere it is early morn, or the
dreading deading of night,
late afternoon, lunchtime, and the,
this poem slow falls to the bottom of
the front page, into a Found, but Lost,
maybe, some die almost, totally untouched,
some shockingly reveberate, some holy revered,
others, break & brate, forlornly, of unlimited loneliness

this mystery I have studied, and freely admit,
after 15 years, under-the-ladder-stand, and
wisdom goes from zero to less and lesser;
it is time for spring cleaning, amidst the chaos,
in/of a turmoiled world, soiled, cleansing the
palate this year, is harder than ever, and the more
I ponder our exploding litany, I swallow acceptance
whole, pre~forgive most sins, and submit to the burden
and know this:
of time and poetry, the poetry of time,
now, more than ever, is the time for poetry

and the time is:
5:44AM
Tue 22 2025
nyc, usa
and the poem is now!

~for S. Y.~

You, Sir,
are your own armed forces,

Your inner navy army air force
and coast guard,
that guard, defend
the outer boundaries of
your inner self from
the outward shock troops,
and the internal fifth column,
that will betray

You must,
mass personal personnel,
assemble all!

We
are the first
and the last
line of defense

Take Care!
so casually uttered, and yet the most profound command we give
and are given

Yes, we have allies, but we must recognize and admit
that threats exist,
both great and invisible,
minor and insidious,
and it is our own early warning systems,
that need constant recognition!

Yes, you,
take care,
first and foremost
your all eyes,
are your true allies
trust them,

Guard against letting your guard down,
Minor incursions no longer exist!
Every ache and pain is a probe,
and the night watch
must be ever vigilant

April 13,2025

a little

r,

that's all I have,
a hook upon to hang my spirits,
hoping these pre~sleep morbidiities
be by gravity,  
sleep drained, and my
heart restored to wholeness

<>

a tiny single letter separating,
us from them,
it is a handhold, a lifeline,
grasping something for all of us
to hold onto for balance,,
when thinking bout the
hurt we exert,
rendering me near inert:

what we do,
what we let happen,
permit, allow 
 the world to afflict our
children

gasp at the horrors, inflicted,
grasp the enormity of all of it,
curse my brain for this self inflicted pain,
the most vulnerable exposed
to our failures to protect
them from infections
inward and outward<
desirous of infecting

and you claim
"did your best"
with reddened gilded~guilt edged letters
a  illegitimized excuse.
knowing you cannot protect them from the
evils already contained
within,
and the without,
so well hidden,
the bullying torturers,
who are their parents
who go unpunished!

who cares
whose the guit moreover,
all needy for a No, no, No!
the visiuons implanted in my brain,
beg sleep to banish them
from under my drooping eyelids,
but the lightning screams overheard,
infect my eyes,
and the sleep slowed
from
my hopeless prayers of remorse, restitution,
laying bed flat, supplicating
anyone who hears this total body cri,
and no one answers
for the guilt is widespread, broadly shared,
anyone who is parenting,
knows,
the answer will not be forthcoming
and forgiveness will not be granted
by yourself
to yourself
from yourself
for forgiveness
for this
one on the list of multicipity of sins
committed,
is not attainable...

and to sleep,
bit by an asp.
who delivers a certain kind of respite,
perchance, not to dream,
is my only hope...

Saturday,
2/19/25
10:00PM

when the time is best described as
"the morning muddled middle"

for it is the middle of the night,
and yet,
we have crossed over the midnight divide,
the new day is well commenced,  
but the prevailing dark sky says,
not quite yet!

this journey,
from the bed to the head,
is an abbreviated 20 steps,
you fall out of one,
unable to recall,
hours of vivid dreams,
now only scraps of script,
visions, whipped into the void
of the current blanket of a
night cosseting silence

in return for this
adventure travelogue,
you are granted free access to the top of your skull,
where apparently,
a new set, a fresh combo,
has been delivered, not by Amazon
not by messenger, not by the USPS,
but by your own,
fermenting, fermenting, formidable,
yawning
brain cells
and a poem appears,
wholly holy complete
space, typed and neat,
and falls from your lips,
filtered by your eyes
with no hesitation,
"and not a trace of farewell

and this miracle,
is no miracle at all,
for it is routinized,
a daily occurrence,
the mystery of it
long gone,
The How,
dissipated, disappeared,
and delivered unto
You

your obligation, your need,
your urgent pungent
purging,
is strifeless,
and you owe
but you have no idea
to whom or what
to thank for this
bestowing

is this poem a stowaway?
or did it pay for its passage,
in cash, by credit card,
or barter ?

if by barter,
what did I surrender?
what item or thing of great value did I trade
for this permissive missive
that was created
for the soul purpose,
of being shared?

it's birth was painless,
the cutting of the cord,
was never felt!

and within minutes,
it went from birth to babe,
child to adolescent,
young adult to middle aged,
to now,
a senior senile senatorial
presents itself fully formed,
weaned wise and wizened
and served to you
on white porcelain dishes,
with black cutlery

so fresh, so hot, so new,
that you are the first
or perhaps the last,
even the only
to ever taste it…

I ask for your forgiveness,
though invited
on this journey to this meal
and it's many courses
and its mirrored ball of
disco discourses,
it is signaling,
like a wise fool frantically waving,
enough!
telling you that you
have arrived
at an ending,
that we each name,
Our Destination


so be it
so be it
so it be

now a shared property

<>
            

  NML


April 15, 2025

labor commenced
at 2:27 AM
and the poem~baby
with all its limbs, all its senses,
was delivered to you,
its adaptive & adoptive
parents
at 3:22 AM

so good night, good day
and good luck!

Ah, Pradip,
once more, like a 1000 times before,
you submit title, demanding a poem,
daring me to author it's entire body & cell structure,
give it a native language birthmark, and a history unique,
even a name

Un fair!

Is it only me that you burden so, I doubt it.

Each of us has the right to the small tinys, things we see,
the embellishments of our lives,
filling our hives with pure honey,
and letting the other others peek
over our shoulders, as we write to each other,
always one more time until there is no more time

Do words have any boundaries?

How is it that words can cross the seas, the mountains, all the while,
interjecting the fullness of their import?

What time is it you ask?
Here, not yet 5 AM, and once more, here again, roused from sleep after vivid dreams, and finger pointing of my poetic life responsibility to complete this task, you gave me unasked, but know me too well, for well they rang like a bell in the brain,
a burr in the bed,
a gun to the head
Each
and all commanding,
fulfill me!

Do words require a passport to cross oceans? Do words have citizenship?
Why does entry into a different country require each time, a new poem?

yes, the house is dark,
I am alone, but not really…

The words that are conscripted to be issued, in this missive, fall so easily from my lips, that it is as if they were already there,
MRE's
?
pre-prepared, "meals – ready – to eat, "
for voyaging to the Indian continent, not caring if they came alone, or with my body in their person possessed

How is the little granddaughter?
Does she command you to write poetry too?
Does she write poetry too?
Does she learn English as well as her native tongue?
How do you tell her that you love her, celebrate her,
and that her fame and escapades are unkempt  
by real geographical boundaries,
and travel around the world?

Ah, You see
I have charged you now with responsibility!

Ah, the tables have turned, now boundaries must be crossed again with a passport issued from a foreign land (foreign to me anyway),
And I wonder and wander, when they arrive, how will I know,
commit them to memory, and love them with all my heart forever?

Praddip!
Go for one of your walks on quiet nearly empty roads, see the old people beside them, doing the things that old people do,

and memorialize these moments,
you do
so well, so fine, and let the other onlookers hear them spoke, in every language, so many love poems to life, we do not lack for any,
but always, always, always,
demand and require,
n e e d
(he howls)
one more!

Time: 5:1 2 AM
Eastern standard time
New York City
By the Atlantic Ocean
On an island surrounded by water,
That 1,000,000 or more every day pass by,
And here,
h e a r not the flow,
lost amidst
the blaring megaphone of silences
of
city noises, city words, cityscapes, human miracles, and tragedies, it cannot be.
that
I am
the only one so burdened!
And by well traveled poetry,
so un burdened

This semi private, totally public,
Love now,
Love note
is complete as of 5:16 a.m., and after a quick review, will be sent on to you, for submission of a unique-passport for
with its very own
valid entry stamp

nml

One lifts it it with one hand and issue an
"oof!"
it is
denser than you thought, guessing,
two hands gonna be needed:

to the light, hold, hoping for a peek inside,
inside hiding,
what's the weighty substance,
that provides the heft, intensifies the  
                                                           ­             volumuness

twist and turn, humming that tune, but sadly
no break, abcess, belly button hole to garner
an inner deeper peeker, to what's going on
                                                              ­                  downtown

been summoned to Wash D.C., assess the land's lay,
brought an ample supply of Hello's and Goodbye's
cause I walk & talk the-across-the-street talking
                                                                ­                  points

that's me, a puzzled neutrality, a Switzerland in America,
everyone whispers a profane preface,
course, you understand our
points of view and excuse our excesses of excited
                                                                ­                          language

suddenly realize this tension, this incremental sensation,
this mighty manual, is me
adjudged,  writhing striving strife, rife with rancor,
is my life
living in the mid, everyone expecting my honest
                                                                ­                        critiquing

and my total agreement, to the most egregious, either extreme
is the mean, what is, that they desire, spoke in not shouting tones,
givimg the appearance of agreement, without any admission of same

for what's it worth, no need to be words encompassing the truth,
that's why, it is so heavy, tho the center is an aerated hollow, heavy
is the faked heated air escaping, taking with it, freedom to run
                                                                ­                                         away, away

(~for Stella Marie, a newly arrived poet here at HP"
who asks, "when does a poem truly end?"~)

She's off,
to a fancy, long gown, dinner dance, with her dancing partner,
a relationship that predates my arrival, my tired song reminder,
"but don't forget who's taking you home" has aged out from repetition,
and now she slips in beside me 'round midnight, and more often than not
so smooth, so silently, I wake up to early morn poetry writing time
and there she is, a Britbox ****** mystery dissolving on the tv screen,
earpoded and still miraculously,
deeply asleep

before she departs, poses for a final inspection,
demonstrating my wonderful
ability to adorn her gorgeous jewlery,
and sardonically modest, critique her with, an
"as expected,
you looking gorgeous"
which evokes her soft smile, at my soft edged compliment

but earlier, whine like a grown man on a diet (so pathetic).
there is nothing
sweet to eat for my apres dinner just(ice) dessert,
and leaving me chicken soup salty and
aggravated...she in a neutral tone,
a child practiced tone,
"go check the fresh fruit drawer, there is fresh fruit aplenty,"
and I, mentally comparing my desire for a raisin scone,
or vanilla butterscotch swirl,
to the taste bud reaction unfufilled,
find the clear plastic box of fresh blackberries,
like Leornard's tea,
that comes all  the way from Mexique,
and inelegantly stuff my face...

been writin poetry since early morn, pre~sunrise, through first daylight,
and now eventide, she's off, the apartment gone quiet, as I munch on twelve blackberries I have extracted to ease my sweetness lacking

but blackberries are ****, ******, that won't quell my inner needs,
of course, the notion of twelve blackberries, says, mmmm, could
be a poem in there somewhere, and the muses whisper asides, clues,
hints and apparitions of trite not quite ripe  lines and verses that might
be apropos to a poem so ilked and milked (sorry), AND that word hits me
tween and behind my blue gray eyes,  

T A R T
----------
with its mulivariable shades of meaning,
which amuse. and I love,
but also accuse me of possibly be distracted intowriting
bad poetry,

and wonder how the tongue disassembles our food,
separating their essence into the varieties of taste sensations,
sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory

and reflect how wise these tiny tatse buds know
just how we humans sort people into categories that
mimic  
just how knowing, assess, categorize,
our fellows humans
along the same principles,

how can there not be a supreme intelligence,
that designed our bodies so similarly
and yet so differently,
and efficiently?

something if we thought about more,
might make us less inclined to blow each other up
with such genteel aplomb.

apologize for dragging you through this rambling essay,
but it came about when Stella Marie
asks, "when does a poem truly end?"

it ends here, when you captures the flows of the living currents
we surround ourselves with, reaching out to capture their
flowing parfume essences,
the sweet, the sour, the savory,
and connecting them to a larger envisioning,
which how we operate,
why we do not ignore spectacular sunrises, sunsets,
the "curve of a wrist"
how an ankle turns a leg into a finished sentence,
how tears confess true emotion and clarify,
even though they actually intefere with seeing,
and now its time to depart, end this long rhyme
about longing,
for something sweet
and the short answer is,
jumbling and humbling,
"you just know"
for she's back and read this poem,
and tartly replies directly,
and answers your question

                     nml