for Jul
<•>
your style, it is who you are

some can dance only to the music of haiku,
some, in anger birthed, can only call out, cursing the world,
with poems beginning and ending with a rousing fk you

your style, it is who you are

most guilty of only perspective inward,
micro-scoping to the cellar cellular level
where in glass stained slides everything revealed, criticized,
the tissues of selfish, the cancerous fears, the shocking
discovery that we are mostly mineral water of kindness galore glory

your style, it is who you are

a few see a solitary leaf,
gravity kissed, flutter to mother earth,
and write of a voyage re-versed,
life in ascendancy,
upward bound, and cyclically, seasonally hopeful,
a reminder that the straightest lives are but a composition,
a series of rainbow colored curved lines,
connected dots on an arc of two by two,
say it's so, Noah!

your style, it is who you are

a handful see the morning daily in their first cuppa,
thinking
"when I look up it is quite possible,
will see the moon and the sun simultaneous occupying
a sunrise and surely more miracles
are possible, unseen, unnoticed, god bless"

your style, it is who you are

some will have their inscribed words endure as long
as the Georgia granite, their retainer, resists the elements,
overlooking the marks left on the human brain that
are a poetic monument invisible but far more
everlasting

your style, it is who you are

one or three, will write daily, chasing music, trying to forget
what just cannot be, and the abased case, there is no
The End
when offered a choice
to chase reborn every time, or not, always choose,
just another photo or poem continuum
for memories are multi-generational in both

your style, it is who you are

are you the one who loves to write, but more so,
writes of love over over repeatedly, for the words
exotic, ******, poetic and ultimately infinitely~intimately,
one and the same?

are you the young one who needs to expiate the sin
of a broken heart, a broken home, a brokenness so
persuasive there will be no relief until someone
person n e w will be a stumbled-on, and the earth will be
torridly recreated and the prior ache just a discarded bandaid,
come the go-morrow

your style, it is who you are

some write to heal, just to feel, to be sure,
they are who they claim to be, wise old young men who've seen too many big rivers that cannot be man-made dammed,
and even the tiny eddy flows of their skin will generate electricity
in praise of nature, never realizing that the human kind is
always the ever greater

your style, it is who you are,

those who are confined by the ropes of rhyme,
or to a script pentameter beaten and measured,
to you, gift the freedom to scream any way, any time,
that pleasures us all with words jointly treasured

your style, it is who you are

some in their garden write in both wistful
contentment and dissatisfaction of things
never to be crossed off, sallied forth, on the list,
but no mind, no matter, the generational ladder climbed,
looking ahead is a looking back of a life richly deployed,
and even the many...in between the poetic words,
and the poetic days, when one day, will be filled in,
these...
will be will be the pits, the seeds bearing still
more of the ripened fruit of that tree

your style, it is who you are

me?
as if me mattered, the littlest bit,
surely the o'clock nearest,
a boundary that cuckoo states
like a good ole friend,
dummy, as usual, you've gone on too long,
but that's your style, it is who you are, so leave some choice,
Grade A, poetic cavalcade of noises for the better poets,
who come everyday, new babies for a better day,
leaving me behind, so happily contented, to be just another scribbler

in my style, it is who I am
  
<•>

September 3rd, 2017
2:01am ~ 3:01am

before~after / conception~completion (my coordinates)

<•>
for the caretakers of the next generation
<•>

comes the everyday, the mundane,
the profane, meeting at
the X,Y ordinates of
ordinary sweat and struggling tears

oh! this stuff of life,
makes me groan and wonder out load,
what is the purpose beyond the
existence of being a
constantly in need of maintenance,
sustenance machine

then I hear but do not see
the hallway pitter patter,
the thrumming of purposed
direction certain,
four little feet
who between them don't posses
even a decade yet

on their way to the
sunroom, now renamed,
the playroom,
expropriated by their toys of eminent domain,
on their way to the life between the
before~after / conception~completion
and this point,
of a single moment,
an invisible sound,
of this particular life,
this extraordinary ordinate,
this X,Y locus,
this precision perceived location of something real,
it is a realized abstraction,
the exact point,
where my **coordinates are
harmonized

9/2/17
5:11am
SI

~~~
for Lucy: who gave me the title, three poems, a compliment, and the X Factor {inspiration} then disappeared
~~~
the spume,
the sea foam concentrate, a greener white,
from the the salt and the souls of million dead organisms,
the natural compost of its formation

it, watches the poet, who watches it,
the spume,
come ashore for its final act of
immolation by evaporation

which is why the random act of
an unseen ministering force,
fills my ears with humbling glory of

Samuel Barber's
Agnus Dei,^
my fresh reminder that this
fooling, swelling chest
in this temporary abode of mine human shape,
by the sea,
its passage and welling swelling,
is prepaid for too
expiration by evaporation

as all the white wooly lambs march to the sea,
transmigrating,
returning to spume

~~~
Lyrics to Agnus Dei

^ Alleluia Alleluia
For our Lord God Almighty reigns
Alleluia Alleluia
For our Load God Almighty reigns
Alleluia
Holy Holy
Are You Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
Worthy is the Lamb
You are Holy
Holy
Are You Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
Worthy is the Lamb
Amen

all poets are human, therefore, all humans are  
poems*

<•>

"In logic, a tautology (from the Greek word ταυτολογία) is a formula that is true in every possible interpretation."

<•>
hardly a tightly taut tautology,
yet true this, in every possible instance

all humans, poems,

as if their portrait painted

from words dipped in a vocabulary palette

which is why,

you my million muses,

are so oft the themes of *who I write

and when foolish think there is no
inspiration in the air,
your names
each and every,
a title awaiting
finishing

~ For Eliot York~
& Sally and Patty m
who convinced me to post it


The answer my friend is
but one,
just one.

Blessed are those who bless you.
I say it.
20 times a day,
and sometimes 2000


I have lived this life,
afraid to fail,
and in doing so,
in deed, because of it,
failed repeatedly.

yada, yada, yada,
in a gadda
da vida,
baby,
don't you know that I'll always be true.

nine lifetimes
all, longtime gone,
yet, I still talk among you all,
for which the
requiring, surviving,
is
a tiny tablet daily,
of swallowed pride, history and
adult/e/rated luck.

omnipotent natural forces,
pretend to manage human affairs
most unnaturally,
sandy gods of wind and storm
bring dämmerung's
Sturm und Drang.

these forces are the
placers, surveyors, tabulators
and ultimately the
takers
of the divine sparks within us.

yet,
before them,
on bended, torn knees,
I am humbled.

for knowing just
one read
is all it takes,
to be acknowledged and
thus begins a commencement of a life
of indentured servitude
in gratitude
to
le rêve poétique
(the dream poetic)

yet,
I.am read more oft
hundreds of times a day.
~
who could have foresaw,
prophesied this outcome,
a statistical anomaly,
that the taste of me
could be so,
miracle of miracles,
wet warm and well received.

know not this craft,
unaware of its conventions,
meter rhyme and to the
other laws of poetry,
I plead a woeful countenance,
even a willful ignorance.

yet,
here I am bowed
by the weight, of the good graces,
so many have bestowed,
from the four corners
of this Earth
and worlds beyond.

a nubile newcomer,
who long wrote to himself, for himself,
audience of
one + one = two,
the man and
his foolishness in words,
now betraying publicly
what no counselor, doctor judge or lover, lawyer ever knew,
even family.

but who are you?

plainly admit,
do not understand.

ok there is a handful times five,
we are well connected,
a small coterie who
share each others
most private painful secrets,
pari-passu-mutuel,
mots friends of faithfulness,
dare not, deign, diminish them
ever
by calling them followers,
for now they are friends

but who are the rest of you?

step forward,
identify yourself,
that upon thy neck
I may fall,
whispering in your ears,
sweet I.am thanksgiving yam-words

none of us can be a sweet poem pie
unacknowledged,
unstated, unsated, untasted
and forever believe.

it takes lioness courage
to present your naked self,
place thy head in the guillotine,
expecting the silent applause of ignorance,
expect to be ignored,
just another head in the collection basket,
accursing those who curse you with
the now quieted slaughtered lambs,
the scribe's swords of smoke,
plaintive waterwords vaporized,
seeds unplanted,
the bleating sounds silenced.

He crouched, he lay down like a lion
    and like a lioness; who will rouse him up?

I am a poet of the present,
you have brought me out of Egypt.

you have roused
my present days dying,
making my days of dwelling,
in the tent of Jacob,
an encampment of palm groves,
as a present
unto me.

The answer
is indeed just as you expected,
blowing in the wind,
through cedar trees beside the waters,
in the gardens, beside a river...

just one,
how thankful I.am to say,
blessed are those who bless you,
each and every
One.**

<•>
written so long ago the date was erased,
back when the journey of a thousand too long poems,
was just beginning
posted only because
a few of you insisted.
If perchance you think this is some kind of self-glorification,
then you don't get me at all.
<•>

the undulating structure of the sea, woman

~for Megan Sherman~

you message me a brief, sweet like of
my poem's structure,  describing it as
"undulating like the sea."

you deserve much more that I can now provide,
the hour late, yet your succinct observation
engages my retinas deeper into oceans of imagination.

but told to "turn off the light,",
a standard life intrusion,
so for once in my life,
perhaps brevity, may here gain the upper hand.

but probably not.
no, this poem does not undulate.

I live by the sea, and its habits, guises and habitués,
her stockings and high heels, and come hither looks,
well known to me. Ha! most nights it even feeds me.

as I compose, she hides quiet, fifty yards away, no more,
causing no trouble tonight, yet seen it don and unmask
a schizophrenia of multiple personalities most terrible
in minutes as short as seconds.

rage and frothy spit, begging she be allowed to
swallow whole men and ship, harboring monsters,
that populate the nightmares of one called Jonah me.

her murdering riptides and lunar tricks
that are mathematically calculable and therefore predictable,
even then, wise man still most helpless charmed by
the fake news of the surficial, gentile, ladylike, curtsying, cutesy lapping, waving oh hello waves,
drown us with the greatest of ease,
which is what I think you mean when you say
the sea **** be undulating, performing its best and finest trickery.

yes, the sea is a women and its fluidity, nonpareil.

Have you ever seen a woman undulate?
see my notes below;

when the sea or a woman undulate,
things too oft die.  

this poem is unstructured, its heartbeat,
arrhythmic, and now, well, lady past midnight,
indeed, unhappy, unsure of the why of this poem,
its purpose undefined but you said:

                          un   
du
                    lat
           ing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

causing the sovereignty of my un-conscious
to see a ballerina, her arms, moving unnaturally,
laying herself down to die

did I forget to mention
this poem was born on the ferry crossing the sea,
required to reach the island keep where
the home that I now lay prone in bed now writing
almost, soon enough,
"the end,"
having read your words, felt a poem instant birthing,
as the bow cut thru calm, undulating waves
while a storm in my eyes, the rancor of experience screamed,
my aminotic fluids joining the waters beneath my feet,
your words caused

and a ballerina waving arms swept me low,
asking, imploring,
watch me undulate unto death

and better now I understand the why of you,
for we both ****** addicts,
enslaved by the undulating
arms of our muses, and this then,
the nature of our
shared genius

so be wary of the sea, and writing, the ****** of poetry addiction,
given half a chance,
you will quite happily drown
when they both beckon,
come hither.


<•>
8-19-17 ~ 8-20-17
11::04 pm - 3:24am

when a lost muse is no excuse,
when the mundane and the profane
are away on summer holiday,
and you are currently on the divine’s
'u **** - no write list'

nonetheless the itch in the private
spaces is driving you crazy,
write a poem, write a poem,
in the way a grandmother
(or a mother to a grown child)
whiny nags,
its a nice day, go outside and play
with a strange man,
whatcha ya gonna do, the walls are all painted,
and the good bad boys are out of town, all with the  
other bad good girls,
who got there first,
but we will write of
******-rings and
other crazy songs you sing

it is not important you the reader understand every verse,
like Patton said, "it only matters that I know,"

which line is a joke,
which around your neck is
your customized yoke,
which is why:
plaintive wail to no avail,
the regret that never can be sated,
the frustration cratering inside the chest,
which is just,
(and unjust)
just enough
to make a semi-satisfactory smile
upon the lips appear

whose lips?
who cares?
as long as you don't have to hear me sing my poetry
but hear me smiling at
the power of whimsy writing
and the return of
my no longer muzzy^

Ms. Minx A. Muse-me
<£>
2:13pm

for Harlon Rivers

the river potion,
the river portent,
the river potent

it is all of these and not one

he is bank sided,
observing the false idols,
the image mirrored
in the glass of the river

transfigured molecularly
he becomes something ferried frothily, forcefully

as if a twig
or a small thing of human manufacture,
an object tossed up airborne-repeatedly

his poetry:
the clash of particles at the many junctions
of objects and water, eddies and the currents,
ceaselessly circumnavigating,  
searching revisionary pathways

directed,
but randomized,
prisoner of the flows,
servant to the wind's directives and the
earths magnetic indivisible undulating waves

thinking,
this life,
its unsteady gait, 
the irreverent wavering of drunkenness
resultant from potent potions,
portents of inopportune position

in him,
my own histories, 
my poetic recordings
also become
water borne,
watermarked,
replayed back for me,
for erasure, censure, closure
and rededication

this River
is a tapestry,
a torn map,
drawn on broken shards
of slivered water,
living with all the others

but we,
are the untitled,
we,
are the un-entitled,
and he is the
Rivers

<•>

as promised, a tip for and to nolly



•<>•

“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”
David Foster Wallace

•<>•

it is as if I've been stripped bare and their is no air or
barrel handy,
bankrupted by exposure of my less-than-clean ***** secret,
scrapped from under my tongue, my genuine creativity,
it is no different than yours or hers or anybody else, but

"I need to believe," he screeches, "say it ain't so!"

time again to tally up the wins and losses,
check the standings, the numerical columns,
nope, wasn't selected to be MVP or even loved by the
algorithmic ridiculous secret sauce
"poem of the day" blah blah blah

bottom line: "You’re Pretty Normal"

comfort or consternation, exhalations of relief,
or just another nail in the shutting of
your depression coffin calculation

this no longer unspoken arrogance undressed
brings me to a quiet place,
where you are welcome to sit beside,
this puzzle together, nuzzled,
perhaps more soluble

they don't make Advil for the mind,
so read the good ones,
and be reminded of this

your published spoken courageous poetry need satisfy
only you, and no one more

in there lies the rub, the vive la difference, we identically different,
no longer a secret,
every poem is the difference you make

August 2017
in the sunroom,
Shelter Island
<•>

BONUS POEM!!!

Nolly's Haiku #17/#70

with good knowing that
distress and forethought,
are its mother and father
that this poetic output but a derivative
of your unique self,
see,
maybe, you be
maybe
just wise enough

to curse the birth of poem at age seventeen

but just wait Nolly,
till you are seven tens, and poetry's folly,
make you even more practiced in cursing,
still asking, why
and getting the sendoff, kiss off,
of the one true answer,
nobody knows
so scribble a life time when you start at 17
and when the ripe and wizened answers in your old age
have yet to arrive

then you can call yourself an accursed
wizened but wise'ed old poet

<•>
  For A:

The Pleasure of Infection

10:53 pm

our all about
is to be the whittler of our personage,
to both hold the knife with care,
but with risky, reckless artistry,
as we shape of what raw materials we are possessed,
into our own reshaped, reformed
most prized bejeweled possession

never mind the shavings and cutaways fallen,
they are fast away, castaway choices made and cannot be retrieved,
for when we whittle, whether our shape desired
which may be prior envisioned or a vision
from the discovery of performing,
they matter no more,
let them go, in their absence too,
they are part and a whit of you,
but not of you, no longer

our commonality in this: everything,
in everything else, so little

but your honesty and crafted, almost dishonesty both ring true,
and infect us with pleasure of recalling
when we
being cut designed and preparing our statue for
an unveiling, but with no date yet set,
and the loveliness of our mistakes,
were precious do-over opportunities

seek out the infection, the infection of discovery,
the risk of pleasure exposed and
your poetry may be either  
the antibiotics
when the result is red and unpleasant,
or a celebration,
an invitation to us to be a
semi-silent beholder of your artistry

infections heal after pain and discoloration
but new skin always forms,
but at a different pace for each of us

I see the faces in my carpet nodding agreement,
"always new skin"

oh boy. time to go to bed

go seek out the pleasure of infection,
sadly, happily, it is the only way

good night
from an old man who dreams and schemes of
new skin nightly
but never mind me,
my piece long ago writ
and in need of just a tweak here and there,
call it one too many close shavings,
his poem's treasure trove,
a list
of life's minor irritations
and major lifts

<•>

11:16pm

market report: spinning on an axis of complexity

phrase captures and enraptures, buried deep in one of the
countless market reports that arrive every minute out of date by the time they press the end/send button but this rises
up from the forged gorge throat and all the rest falls away

spinning on an axis of complexity

sticks like Elmer's glue, white viscous, good for paper & skin,
cause you knew precision revision incision instantaneous,
they are intended for your eyes only, pasted to your eyes,
tinged tongue screaming you man, you poem
there is no
difference, for both at 1:55am 
 where time is sleep verboten,  
when words are blood platelets in a mystery entitled

spinning on an axis of complexity*

human must eat
human must work
human must love
human must sort the juggling orbs,
too much new information constant and brain incapacitated

while falling-spinning
when eyes now fully glued shut by the
complexity of clashing algorithms
writing this market report on the state of me,
the passionate impartial analyst who boldly reveals, he proclaims
he owns stock in himself and issues a
sell recommendation

the complexity-situation trending signals crash a-coming,

and at 1:59am after composing this hissy fit writ,
he downgrades the official outlook to sell and
lies down on the kitchen floor and laughs
with the angel dudes eating bagels and holding their sides,
cause they have  been running a short position up in heaven*

6/22/17 2:05am
nyc

asked the gathered dancers of the choreographer?

This was back in the 70's,
when we naively thought the revolution had been won,
and a gay black man could walk the streets of
NYC
holding hands with his  
white jewish partner

The choreographer,
a gay black man,
pauses before answering
considering
what he believed,
and what he knew to be reality.

"How much freedom can you afford?
How much freedom are you willing
to die for?"

 In the days
when men thought freedom was everywhere just for the taking,
freedom for
daring to just be,
meant
new wars on new days.

The choreographer was/is
Bill T. Jones.  
He related this story to me tonight.

<•>

wikipedia.org/wiki/BillT.Jones

Sad,
but even surrounded
by my kids,
wonder what century this is.
where did my world go
all the values I once knew,
I'm sure I instilled them.
I'm out of touch I'm told,
I guess I am since women
now-a-days don't
work, cook, clean, Iron, *** I iron,
I'm patriotic, and I pray,
believe in meals on the table.
Yep I cook from scratch
not something boxed
that gets delivered daily.
Dayummmmmm
I am out of touch.
But it sure feels good
being able to
fend for myself,
able to cope,
with what the hell
ever is thrown at me.
Yep, I'm out of touch
with some of the
crap they watch on tv
Their reality is
not my reality.
passing the tissues.  
hugs
Patty m

•<>•

we wince inside,
more than smile,
when we venture outside,
outside being anywhere
our eyes take us

the simple notion we carried,
the simple notion given us,
see me, watch me, learn from me,
be like me, for my model is
a not-so-bad one, even if the
styling is so retro,
with its yes ma'am, no ma'am,
can I help you with that sir,
and with a wave and a smile,
let them go in front, cut in,
even though our time is far not, closer shorter,
and hurry is not in the
top ten list of our commandments

be not wistful,
or
unforgiving,
from your window
you can see a green land, well endowed,
where speech freedom yet lives,
not a half bad achievement

perhaps we did not suckle them perfect,
for they are and err in contented
perfect surety
intolerance of anything but newer ways,
that too oft are the discards
of older ideas born of a
disproved arrogant new math
of selfie-righteousness


but let us no croak too much
like old people croaked about us

for we both fear for them,
far more than we silent chide,
the days to come seem so fraught
with excesses we tolerated

wonder if
they will be forced to buy their manufactured water in masticated plastic,
drinking tap water a dangerous high, or food of any kind be plenty after
seven decades of famine

wonder if
they will work for the robots,
those labor saving devices that will
steal the honor of labor, the dignity of a paycheck's message, the honor of rising early to work

wonder if
the madmen we tolerated,
that we chose to ignore,
will return to them
a racked and ruined world

wonder if
they will recall, renember
the kindness of soft spokeness,
the tolerance for a well reasoned argument
and be open to the bounty of
thoughtful persuasion
and the relief in and of
hope

wonder if I despair?
do not!
for daily they come here,
where good word's rule,
tender their fears,
leaving behind the arrogance
perhaps reading these,
even these words
and realize that the good we have the good we struggled to bequeath,
was born from
good struggle,
in more struggle,
is the only way to be
less afraid

nattyman

half ring*

a present, a thank you compliment by way of a poem, for the zealous, tiny, poetess spark who writes exquisitely and calls herself Cynthia Henon*
~~~
strange old night-stands, a stained tan blonde wood
that's going ancient grey, but still handsome in a fitting way,
the front drawer hand painted floral in what I choose
to believe are by Italian hands in Italian reds and greens,
not so fancy as I make it sound, but worn and durable and
not overly functional but two silent, uncomplaining eye witnesses to a ten year ancient, greying love affair

wood ages, human eyes squint, failing to counteract the minute, advancing daily dimming, not paying close attention to the
Richter magnitude of the accumulated changes

the morning coffee ritual as catholic as morning mass,
a straw woven coaster to protect the sun blanched top,
hardly necessary, just a good habit, one of the  rituals that glue,
that couples use to keep the coupling intact

the cumulative subtle changes, the crackling sound unheard, the cracks in everything, even in the human tissue,
breaking, the papered over filler of purposeful ignorance,
cannot forever resist the erosion of the cancer of the
taking for granted

place the coffee cup half on, half off the coaster, un-noticing,
leaving half a ring that will now never disappear, never be
completed, causing her to fly into rage that rips the
complacent band-aids, worn dikes that were holding back the barricaded tears, but the sea~see
level was always rising and though visible, the revelation remained unchosen


later that day, I drive away forever with Yo-Yo Ma riding shotgun,
in charge of map reading and consolation music, thinking
half ring, half ring, half ring, half ring,
an embolism of symbolism, good for a play on words,
and a couple of poems about uncoupling

8:22am 7/1/17

transitional times

midst the ordinaries, not paying close attention,
the yet to be baked batter of chatter while driving past the familiar,
a plain pasta with butter conversation,
the human carbohydrates of our racing consuming energy,
she slips me up, by slipping in two words,
her icing on the cake phrasing

"transitional times"

pull over to the side of Menantic Road
in the early of the late afternoon, Saturday's reclining sunlight,
question her closely, CIA taping her words to my brain:

did she mean the late afternoon hours of our lives when
reflection of sun sprinkles on our bay voyages us as voyeurs
past the old longings and into the future recalling?

perhaps, the au contraire, the steady stepping,
sneaking away of the sheltering night so that the earth's
inhabitants and organs may be revived in yellow golden greens of damp grasses and the whiteness of a Sunday's fresh milk?

of course, of course, the times when the horizon calls,
saying come to me, cross the transition to the newness
of everything, in the ages and days of celebration of
unfamiliar entrances?

No, no, she answers, bemusedly grinning,
not everything is a poem,
you thieving wordsmith, simply did I observe
that having an extra pair of sunglasses in the car for
transitional times*
was a good idea!

pulling back on the road that goes past the
Tuck Ice Cream Shoppe, the island treasure hunt Dump, the ordinary homes on the range, all  along the way to the boatyard where are kept and stored and stockpiled each summer colored sunset evening along with the drinkable French pink Rose wines and gleaming yellow Sancerre and golden ales of Nantucket,
I think to myself,
nuh uh,
every transition,
every glorious mindless conversation,
even in the town dump,
treasures in each word, in everything, especially the
extra extra-ordinaries,
is a poem*

June 25. 2017
5:20am

two grandkids, five pigs, six cows, 18 chickens, four cats, and a lonely male duck*
~ for my friend, a gentle man who farms certain moments~*


heard the word that a certain poet of the day
has a secret crew who aid and abet his perspective,
the precious precision to understand and retain
the flashes of color that need painting albeit in words

read that some animals develop regional dialects,
so it is with humans, we listen, like and learn subsets
of vision and that even every collective moment, nonetheless,
each speaks differently, but only the few, the very few,
have the mellifluous tongue to translate those private seconds into syllables so essential human and we learn that skill from careful listening to our heartbeat's singing response
to love and pain from all living creatures, great and small

6/24/17 5:06am
S.I.

~~~
Nivek: "there are no stats for poetry"
~~

I live with a woman who loves statistics and how they reveal so much about who we humans really are...

I live with a woman who too often weeps when she reads
my poetry...

so when I google "Statistics for Poetry,"
it leads me right back to this poem
and there you have it,
a matter of fact
a single stat for poetry,
courtesy of nat,
with all credit to Nivek!

you don't hear from hear from him for
years
turns out he has been living two little blocks away

a strange lawyer calls Sunday morning,
your presence, requested, suggested at the arraignment court,
as soon as possible, to get him
released from overnight lockup on his own recognizance

sure enough, the Judge asks is the father present
and I stand and he sees me and says set him free
into the custody of that old ghost in the last row

a month later
we sit in my car,
at 11:00pm
engine running,
our mobile phones, side by side
charging from the same source,
waiting for his lawyer to call

somewhere in your huge file of poems
entitled but as of yet unwritten is one called,
the words rational and children are rarely used in a single sentence
together

oh yeah, Leonard's  reminder?

some hallelujahs
come cold and broken
~
5/31/17
500am

~~
The Trial of His Worthiness 2017

for betterdays, explorer of my complaints to the heavens,
and Patty, who asks,
who writes like this...answers from an old man



~~~
the 2017 baptism yesterday, by calendar dictate,
to my park, nature's commune, the poet wills himself to be
forcibly removed from city, greeted in solemn robes of blue/green,
by the triumvirate of bay, animals and flora & trees interlocking,
who stand in judgement of the humans interloping off-islanders
summer internees

to the double entendre dock removed,
so the bay, the Chief Justice, now a bit hard of hearing,
from the thunder and lighting of cymbal and drum crackling of the winter waves clashing, can hear my deposition clearer

the chief prosecutor, the tallest tree, wraps her branches,
around my legs, my feet, my heart, my head, not to restrain,
but to listen to my internals to adjudge the electrocardiogram
veracity of my words, a natural lie detector machine

the animals requested and sequestered to jury service,
large and small, from forest, the beneath-the-deck rabbits,
all learned in the human language, after 5 centuries of
less than social *******

put to me queries only I could answer

why have you returned?

humanity wearing me so, come to nature that knows only natural laws where existence is primary, good and evil are undefined and premeditation of ****** for no purpose of one's own kind is rare

will you write of us as in years as past?

will write of the commingling taffy of your
salt waters and my salt tears,
taking of your oxygen gifts, returning my dioxides,
both of us sharing the munificence of a warm sun goddess,
will plant my irises and kiss your cherry blossom leaves,
will step aside, over the ant mounds, harming nothing living,
for rightful life is not accorded by precedence or size
or your chosen version of a holy book

will you play for us your human music?

contrapuntal canons, adagios of Barber, Adele & Dudamel,
"a song for you"by the master Charles, some by the
poet Cohen, and even of a Rocky Raccoon, and for our kids,
a tale of a Yellow Submarine and the Dr.'s Mississippi Mud,
dash of Joni's pure voice, Eva Cassidy's unreal, none better,
rock to Elvis, Beethoven, Mozart and the Zombies,
**** deer demand Pavarotti (who knew)
all but  a chocolate sauce for a sundae of your own air strings,
waves baying, rabbits madly dashing, and birds texting,
the bellows of trombone honking of the
s-hit and run Canadian geese,
multi colored seagull's violin-like protestation squeaks of
'feed me human,
my survival share of the catch'

the tree limbs released, to now stroke my skin, pat my head,
the ants perform an arabesque, the gossipy fish come to the surface as
his Honor, Justice Bay, pronounces my sentencing term:

come,
stay with us warmed and welcomed,
shaded in our attentive embrace human
and of us
be a witness deposed, testified,
of our true nature

go,
to your unattended, impatiently waiting, Adrionack throne, go,
(once of us, a living tree departed)
observe and record, without distortion and human bias,
as you have so oft in years past,
tho mere eye-blinks to us,
life and death and preservation can coexist in a harmony

perhaps your infant species may learn from nature & beasts,
that bounty well fair shared is what humans call
the worthiness of living
~~~~
5/28/17 11:09

Oh Sally,
on the day you "disturb me,"
the messiah will, must have come,
anything else, but a minor inconvenience,
a foolish distraction

Lola! Grandmother!

the things we say with out thinking,
quick retorts that boom an
instantaneous, say hey Willie Mays,
mutual concern cognitive proposition,
and you foresee the child conceived within

"should be a poem in there somewhere"

in the handed pen, drawing heated inspiration,
from the confluent patty platelets of the
shared single river
of heart lungs eyes flowing as one into this
busy subgle poetry pointer finger @ 4:18am

your secret safe well hid within this writ,
you, mother laureate to a thousand at minimum
so many secret lovers and children in your posses,
the eloquence of your kindness world renown
your behind the scenes presence,
I am smiling, stupified, amazed discerning,
and stand awed,
the global Amazon store of only good

so late nite/early morn the clarity rises with sun
so many secrets lay before me in plain sight - prior unrecognized,
what was obvious, delayed, as sometimes I hear,
messiahs are

one more, maybe two, perhaps as many/few as a minyan ten
of grandmother queens raising up the children,
poets all, such as yourself
then, Messiah will be choice-less, compulsed, compelled
to return and bless us all

course, even when that happens
you still won't be disturbing me,
for you will be right-sided beside him

but not to worry for at this continental crossover hour,
most are sleeping, others feeding the babes,
some returning from church or mosque,
no one looking here at ShePo,
a secret of glory disclosed,
revealed,
only you will see,
so as promised Lola,
your key to a certain stairway,
safe tween
just us three

no tears please,
for this but just,
a just confession, an overdue library book,
a poem resting on my night table
awaiting reading, composition, completing,
arrival?
and that's between
just us three

~

who knows the definition of a poet?
~
for my friend, S.Y,
who I will embrace with both hands,
both eyes, when he hands me a signed copy of a book
that answers the question

weighty subjects deserve your best work,
expressions of affection and introspection,
need careful reflection, a proper set up for the
tumult inevitable when delving in the unopened recesses
where the answers kept

so, of course, the writing commences well after 1:00am,
when the darkness of night clarifies the process,
for I work by day but live by night,
when summoning up my one tool no one can take away,
the joy, the relief, the spectacular exultation  of
rearranging the aleph bet in new ways,
when the quietude of reflection transports me
across the continents in visions of what will be

I don't know if I know the answer, perhaps, any answers,
but when this man demands
the ebb tides of soul to depart,
to make him stand alone on the shore of endings,
forcing  him to acknowledge his reckonings,
lonely, only humanity and frailties

I hear a voice gruff growling and me laughing-
"cut to the chase, make your point, get out of people’s way"

so in your honor, this simp fool who asks questions
no human has any business, the answers knowing,
will one last stanza grant and give and
yours to keep,
and commence countdown waiting for that day of welcoming

from the underground comes a chorus of voices,
in one voice but many languages, chanting:

all humans are poets
who acknowledge and freely confess that the
blood and stuff, the kisses and the touches of family and friends,
parent and child,
are the ***** and the egg,
the beginning and the circulation of the never ending,
the open entrance that penetrates the berm surrounding real life,
all these are the root and the stem and the blossoming,
of poetry writ large, for they who have these in their possess,
are surely by definition certainly

humans, poets

~
5/14/17 2:05am

~
from the anthology of the unwritten,
from the tombs of the stillborn,
where carcasses of idled titles and orphaned stanzas
do not compete for proof of life,  
and
nameless birth certificates unissued,
yellowing and wasting midst
crumbling aleph bet spawn

here
comes a poem of concession
comes a poem of summation
of a life lived, knotted poorly, not well,
worse cursed as vanilla inadequate

the satisfaction in the writing,
the gleeful breaking of the sac,
the gushing relief giving way to
the childbirth of a new moon-poem,
arrested, wrested

a single plague affliction,
the cancer of weakness,
means Pharaoh wins

the cancer of weakness
no cure, no pharmaceutical poultice,
spreads insidious; one day - pain in the remote,
your big toe, then
next you can only street stagger
begging forgiveness and the kindness of strangers
hoping for the accidental cure of touch,
the miscellany lottery ticket probability of low chance

the visible mark you leave,
a weak indentation upon a pillow,
it is the dented head, cut deep by the shadow,
shake it out and you're a disappeared one,
nothing to show,  
did someone once sleep here?

you were once upon a time
binary
a 1
now a 0 -
flip flop bottom top,
listening to Frank's "That's Life"^

my litany too long;
woeful work this business of flailing,
posting a tired-out self help love poem
ain't no cure for the falling-out-of-love
black and blue, self-inflicted bruising blues,
the wrists ache
the bones don't freak
but squeal, somebody's squeezing me

the alarm clock, a death knell,
everyone saying don't worry  
you got a proven record,
the boss's eyes twinkling
"but what have you done for me lately?"

funny

Death says
Hey, aren't you the boss?
Who shall over rule thy Dominion?
What have thy done to yourself lately?

Answer: never end a poem with a question mark @
3:06am

~

pass him the newborn,
not the first, indeed, the third of five,
almost a regular comet occurrence,
happy poppy,
grizzled veteran of the nine lives foreign wars - then

The Inexplicable  

Yellowstone geyser eruption,
Vesuvius of wet tear ash Pompeiing,
overfilling the overcrowded hospital room,
brilliant flashes of eyes emitting lightening,
tornadoes of an unpredicted hurricane,
that no weather service forecast,
hinted of imminence,
unprepared, thus, for which
they had no name but Baby Girl,
but the older man turned sudden singer had one,

The Inexplicable  

for as sudden as thunder,
the hospital room is an audience,
the old man, a bawling crooner
stunning the assembly into
nervous tittering laughter,
backslapping self-comforting,
so out of character
for the usual so quiet workaholic,
the secret poet whose shoulders
upside U-bent from decades of writing and
recording the momentous, the

endless worrying,
the foolish fleeting scarcity of joys,
the slowing ways of sad aging to wisdom gained,
foreseeing the struggle/joy inequivalent insolvent equation
of love and loss,
the forever pleasure of hopeful rebalancing,
a perpetual motion machine,
the seesaw of torrential ups and downs,
of the yet-to-come
for which he could compose, recite, in formal rhyme,
stanza and line,
chapter and verse,
blessings and unheard of
original poems and curses
and this peculiar blessing

this old man lad could so easy close his eyess,
recalling being
seven years, ageless and sageless,
sure in the ways of a cocky confident boy,
who is now succumbed to

The Inexplicable  

singing - humming - gasping - weeping - wishing true
the oldest rocking, children song in the entire world

"row row your boat,  
gently down the stream,"

but choking on,
unable to release the songs signature line,
from within his body,

then finally,

the truth and the lie,

"life is but a dream"

so the watchers do it for him;
unintended but fully comprehended!
the crazy man formally anoints the child's forehead,
with handy tears on a pointer forefinger,
a salt solution upon a slice of flesh containing
secrets and wisdoms
knowledges of historical continuations

nervously, they ease the babe, prying her
from hands tremblingly, his and theirs,
too late too late!

the secrets and the history personal
has been passed, the bonding genetic certified
the oldest fool in the room,
wise in the ways of the now transferred

The Inexplicable  

*dispatched home,
go, write a poem, they say,
to late too late!
it has been writ,
in a coded inexplicable manner,
that only two humans
can proper read

~
for yasaman yohari
~
salute jahari,
jewel flowering faithful in our desert of the quiet misbegotten,
where more most eyes closed by sandstorms torrents of...

this child Jasmine girl, oh!
how I adore her happiest melodic smile,
eyes are opening, gleaming black dots so white bright,
explicitly explicably mystery perfect,
either could substitute for our shared sun master,
or our shy, face changing, hiding traveling moon

listen so carefully to the melodies
of a tired old man, why, no idea,
it has no literature, can paint no drawings,
yet somehow, his yasaman heart blossoms
pricked to revival, renewal, at your devotion,
deepest affection
so a bargain struck

*the old gent,
wise in the way of words,
gladly will tutor you in an  
accented peculiar New York English,
if you can teach him how
a brother can - to- for-
a sister, a family,
love with joy brimful pure,
an added recompense,
I will take her Persian name as well