this poem didn't come easy. written amidst buffeting emo's, V will not be natural flow, probably flawed. You, self-chosen people, will come along, please, to see the process, and the proceeds too.
But as usual, the poem was write before me, needing only human kindness overflowing to guide the way.

V

V words lord, excluding all others,
phonetic juggernauts,
never met a V word
that had no personality.

victory is the one word that
my/our brains
think of first.

sure there is vortex, victuals, veer
and *valor exam,
the latter,
what ever it means is a gift,
curtsy-courtesy of auto-incorrect.

but it is victory
on top,
victorious in its own way.

try it on another if you must...
what is the word that starts with a V
that first comes to mind?

so let us talk of victories.

so oft, I write in the dark,
even as I do now.

came home soul weary,
face worn-worry,
gotta go out to meet
Peter Bogdanovich later,
to chat about his latest movie.

woman looks me over.
X-ray glance,
an MRI of my heart,
no deductible charged,
but oh yes, a co-pay due, indeed!

Peter will keep,
tonight you're-mine,
to bed I send,
right after we consume
Large Thin Mush,
cause pizza with shrooms contains
mood serotonins,
that erase the
"pain of the day"

that be a victory nonpareil.
a Waterloo, a Normandy landing,
that be a victory where
both sides hug and kiss,
and make with their long,
stubby Churchillian fingers,
V's all night long
with goofy grins,
cigars and bowler hats,
just to go along.

so here I am in the dark,
having been "put" to bed,
one mo' time,
slicing and dicing letters
into a word-salade,
instead of resting.

dreaming of the day
when I can no longer need to
pretend to be a Seuss, but truly,
can be writing poems for all my
children~friends.

one for each letter
of the alphabet,
teaching us to write
upon our faces
laugh lines thin and fine,
mine, ours, yours.

product of pizza poems,
some that come not circular,
but tonite shaped
just like a woman,
just like a
*V.

when I disclaim that
there be no poem today
I suggest you
put me in the dock,
hit the chess clock,
to time the length
tween my lies
sit me down in
the witness stand,
to better see
the holes in me,
from which word seepage,
grey matter leakage,
blackened white slush mush,
covers my face and hands,
and with fingers splayed
in the V
of a Spock like Cohenic blessing,
I make

my beginning and ending
Commencement Speech,
a recitation of incantations,
an eye on the pyramid inspiration  
of cockeyed cantorial hymnations

Like this:

there is only one Godhead
that the spirits that allow me
breathing space in this world
and the one yet to come,
demand of me, worship -
It would be at the altar
of momentary fears
that clarify the whole,
the unifying principle,
that my blinded eyes,
my Pharaoh hardened heart,
my closed and deafened ears
see, soften and hear and believe!

I am slave to the
Gods of Poetry,
their truth, my lies,
stirred in one ***,
and as I live and breathe
I am rewired
with a new poem every day,
an addict who cannot obey,
who cannot afford to pay
the judicial costs
of the cease and desist order
of his own common sense

Jan 2, 2011 10:05 AM

Took the bus home.
Paid my $2.50,
no special discount.

Spent my day selling my wares,
But did not sell enough to
Pay the daily rent,
Hell, to even pay for lunch.

Gave up my seat for sweet,
Baby-child laughed at my
Gallantry, I think,
For his exclamations were
Of the shrieking pleasurable variety.

Saw Macbeth last night,
In the end, he dies,
Same as when I saw it
Last year.

Le plus ca change
The Frenchies say,
Wonder if they still wear berets
And say "Le Weekend?"

In the winter,
The buses are overheated,
So winter coats become furnaces.
I am rendered,
Ash and smoke.
Nothing new there too.

Missed my stop
Writing this,
Happened before,
Hope it happens again.

Came  home to the customary
What's new,
So I said
Not too much
But,
Somebody decided that ole
Poem I wrote two years on,
Should be the
Poem of the Day.

That's sweet, my love ,
You surely will be
Insufferably happy and
Impossible to live with
for at least the next
five minutes.

So take the trash out,
Before we leave,
Then pick a place to dine,
For not a thing in the fridge to eat.

So to the compactor,
I strode, thinking Shakespeare
Didn't have to do this, I'll bet,
But started smiling,
Ear to ear,
A ***** eating
Big ole
Grinning,
Nonetheless!

Thinking,
The question is,
How does it feel,
This poem of the day
Accolade,
The answer,
of course!

It feels, like,
I am,

**I am just like {you, man}

In 2008,
I lay upon the floor,  
disabled,
pain hobbled,
my back
unable to properly space
the Lego discs
that keep a man
upright


king and absolute ruler,
was I
of the carpet.
in the little blue room
off the kitchen,
where solace
in loneliness,
was my little
heaven in hell.

It was my blue period,
When you decided to leave
And try to take everything
But hang around our apartment
to practice, practice
making misery your profession.

It was the same
little blue room,
years before
I ran to,
for a few hours rest
after tending to you,
nursing your cancer needs,
fetching, most fetching,
I fetched and fluffed,
shopped and tended,
and comforted,
after working all day.

Now three years on,
on the floor
of the same little blue room,
unable to move,
weakly, wounded,
brokebacked,
I was a soldier,
in a deep trench,
almost paralyzed,
caught tween desk and bed
called your name,
even though there was
nothing you could have done.

Role reversal,
years later,
roll reversal,
roll from the bed to the floor,
fallen, immobilized,
I rued
the morning light,
for men must work and
women must weep,
work and weep,
this morning,
I was responsible for both.

I called you name repeatedly,
in a peculiar voice, agreed,
the voice of wrack and ruination,
after hearing you slippers
shuffle a two step at 2 Am,
outside the little blue room,
oh for many a minute,
in the middle of the night,
calling, calling
perhaps, you would help
me to rise,
oh yes,
just to help me stand,
on my bent back,
my own legs

Somehow one finds a way,
is it not always that way?

Later, I asked.

Did you hear me call you name
in the middle of the night?

Oh yes.
But your voice sounded so weird,
I would not go in.

Years later, I asked again.

Just get over it,
you replied,
matter of factly.

Today, years later,
I ask again,
right now, right here,
I ask
but a different question.

Do you think I am over it now?

Oct 15th 2011

Ethereal: A Commissioned Poem


This one knocked me askew! What do I know of
"an ethereal world created through the poetic imagination."

I am a flea of simplicity, a blunt and direct man, who scribes the small, cherishes the little, grabs the middle.
So many here are so far linguistically superior, when matters light, airy, and heavenly are involved.
Hell, I even call god, my buddy, by his first name when ****** stops by to make confession.
But first take nine minutes, patiently, to listen to this, all the way to the end.
http://youtu.be/xxTF2umRtqY
Then, and only then, read.

— ethereal (adjective)

light, airy, or tenuous; "an ethereal world created through the poetic imagination;" extremely delicate or refined: ethereal beauty; heavenly or celestial; gone to his ethereal home; of or pertaining to the upper regions of space.

My ethereal is:
Autumn leaves, piled,
wet and slimy,
stench rotted.

Human waste smeared,
in the the diaper
of the olden, enfeebled.

Burnt flesh,
the sulfuric acid kiss
from a rejected hand.

Cigarette smoke stains
yellow post-it's stuck
on human skin.

Men who live in cardboard boxes,
knowing this is
the all of their days
existence.

Scowling smiles, a
coin of death,
on the faces of those forced
to sell themselves for money.

Cursing accident traffic,
until you pass the overturned car,
see the car seats, teddy bears,
just litter now, amidst the
safety glass highway tree decorations.

What did you expect,
some of your favorite things?

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages ******* with strings
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs

Ethereal is Sandy swollen-springs
drowning mother and child in their SUV.

Froze dead vagrants
under white pristine,
suffocating,
beneath lovely snowflakes
that ****,
no strudel for them.

Mean ones pouring punch
on white prom dresses,
ruining dreams,
such a big scream,
put it in the yearbook,
don't forget the smiley face,
*******.

State troopers ringing doorbells
with so sorry so sorry ma'am,
she is not coming home
any more.

Stop!
Why?
You all grown up, learn the real,
this ethereal is the real too.

Wipe that *** look off your face.

You want gossamer and lace?
Wrong poem.
Beat it.
Go whine about your heartbreak
to somebody else,

Ether is the aromatic odor and sweet, burning taste, derived from the action of sulfuric acid.
Look it up, disbeliever, if it matters, it is so
real.

If you gonna use a word,
then know it.
If you gonna claim
the title of human,
try being it,
earning it.

Ethereal is the orderly,
cleaning the *** of the helpless,
one more time,
softly singing.

Ethereal is a car seat, belt,
that saves a child, a teen.

Ethereal is soup,
not a folded twenty,
hot hot soup for the
lying on the sidewalk.

Ethereal is miles of flags
receiving our dead
from overseas.

Ethereal is writing a poem about
someone else's pain
in your words.
just once,
straying away from the word I.

Ethereal is saying,
hey, to the blind,
careful,
wet leaves ahead.

Ethereal is human justice,
most un-divine.

Ethereal is not a thing,
nor even an adjective.
But a way of seeing the world.

Part II

Went out into the night,
back to The Village,
Bleecker Street.
where I used to live (#308).

Heard voices. Human voices.
A Room Full of Teeth.
They sang a Partita.
"A simple piece.
Born of a love of surface and structure,
of the human voice,
of dancing and tired ligaments,
of music, and of our basic desire
to draw a line from one point to another."

It was ethereal.
As I wrote these words in my mind,
My ethereals did not battle but blend,
the ugly and the beauteous.
They coexisted in peace?
I think not.
They coexisted in humanity.

All that is delicate,
is only because there is rough.
All that is soft,
is only because there is hard,
Listen to the lines drawn from points on earth.
You cannot choose which points to connect.
For all point to
Ethereal.

Ethereal is not a thing,
nor even an adjective.
But a way of hearing the world.

Ethereal: A Commissioned Poem


This one knocked me Askew! What do I know of
"an ethereal world created through the poetic imagination."

I am a flea of simplicity, a blunt and direct man, who scribes the small, cherishes the little, grabs the middle.
So many here are so far linguistically superior, when matters light, airy, and heavenly are involved.
Hell, I even call god, my buddy, by his first name when ****** stops by to make confession.
But first take a nine minutes, patiently, to listen to this, all the way to the end.
http://youtu.be/xxTF2umRtqY
Then, and only then, read.

— ethereal (adjective)

light, airy, or tenuous; "an ethereal world created through the poetic imagination;" extremely delicate or refined: ethereal beauty; heavenly or celestial; gone to his ethereal home; of or pertaining to the upper regions of space.

My ethereal is:
Autumn leaves, piled, wet and slimy,
stench rotted.

Human waste smeared,
in the the diaper
of the olden, enfeebled.

Burnt flesh,
the sulfuric acid kiss
from a rejected hand.

Cigarette smoke stains
yellow post-it's stuck on human skin.

Men who live in cardboard boxes,
knowing this is
the all of their days
existence.

Scowling smiles, a
coin of death,
on the faces of those forced
to sell themselves for money.

Cursing accident traffic,
until you pass the overturned car,
see the car seats, teddy bears,
just litter now, amidst the
safety glass highway tree decorations.

What did you expect,
some of your favorite things?

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages ******* with strings
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs

Ethereal is Sandy swollen-springs
drowning mother and child in their SUV.

Froze dead vagrants
under white pristine,
suffocating,
beneath lovely snowflakes
that ****,
no strudel for them.

Mean ones pouring punch
on pristine prom dresses,
ruining dreams,
such a big scream,
put it in the yearbook,
don't forget the smiley face,
*******.

State troopers ringing doorbells
with so sorry sorry ma'am,
she is not coming home
any more.

Stop!
Why?
You all grown up, learn the real,
this ethereal is the real too.

Wipe that *** look off your face.

You want gossamer and lace?
Wrong poem.
Beat it.
Go whine about your heartbreak
to somebody else,

Ether is the aromatic odor and sweet, burning taste, derived from the action of sulfuric acid.
Look it up, disbeliever, if it matters, it is so
real.

If you gonna use a word,
then know it.
If you gonna claim
the title of human,
try being it,
earning it.

Ethereal is the orderly,
cleaning the *** of the helpless,
one more time,
softly singing.

Ethereal is a car seat
that saves a child, a teen.

Ethereal is soup,
hot hot soup for the
lying on the sidewalk.

Ethereal is miles of flags
receiving our dead
from overseas.

Ethereal is writing a poem about
someone else's pain
in your words.
just once,
straying away from the word I.

Ethereal is saying
hey to the blind,
careful,
wet leaves ahead.

Ethereal is human justice,
most un-divine.

Ethereal is not a thing,
nor even an adjective.
But a way of seeing the world.

Part II

Went out into the night,
back to The Village,
Bleecker Street.
where I used to live (#308).

Heard voices. Human voices.
A Room Full of Teeth.
They sang a Partita.
"A simple piece.
Born of a love of surface and structure,
of the human voice,
of dancing and tired ligaments,
of music, and of our basic desire
to draw a line from one point to another."

It was ethereal.
As I wrote these words in my mind,
My ethereals did not battle but blend,
the ugly and the beauteous.
They coexisted in peace?
I think not.
They coexisted in humanity
All that is delicate,
is only because there is rough.
All that is soft,
is only because there is hard,
Listen to the lines drawn from points on earth.
You cannot choose which points to connect.
For all point to
Ethereal.

Ethereal is not a thing,
nor even an adjective.
But a way of hearing the world.

Consanguinity: A Commissioned Poem
(How Well Do
You
Know Me?)


This request, from wolf spirit aka quinfinn, accidentally hit the spot of what was foremost on my mind.

Cosanguinity:  A relationship by descent from a common ancestor; kinship (distinguished from affinity).  A close relationship or connection.

Poetry, mine, yours,
Ours,
Invades my consciousness.

We write poems on the same subject,
Even the same title,
But a few days apart.

Insanity,
Coincidence,
or
Consanguinity?

Perhaps we are reading each other's stuff
Too much.

But that's crazy,
Or
Consanguinity?

Yet,
And yet,
We see the same things
So incredibly different.

That is the answer.
We see the same thing and I am
Struck down.

A billion sights.
A billion words.
Yet, the human computer,
Sorts, collates, and generates
A billion different writes
In a similar spirit,
Employing the same phraseology.

All right.

Alright.

Malaysia.
Minnesota.
East Coast.
West Coast.
Geographical differences.
Time differences.

No difference.
A billion differences.
The stylistic differences enable,
No, correction,
Ennobles us to coexist,
Value each other,
Learn.

Observable differences.
But more interesting,
More pleasurable,
are the incredible, visible, signs of
Consanguinity.
Mere affinity?
Kinship.

A poem?
Nah.
But at 1:11am in my location,
It's what's on my mind.
Now that I know the meaning of
Consanguinity.

If you should ever see my face,
Be curious enough to
Venn diagram it with all
The intersecting particles of this
Leaning, listing world.

Should you happen to notice,
It also appears on the list of the
FBI's Most Wanted,
A kindness requested:

A twenty four hour
Head start.

Worth at least that, no?

insouciant
— adjective

free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.

Can barely pronounce it,
Vaguely recall it.

When I was twelve,
Lived by the Atlantic Ocean,
On my red cycled steed,
Disappeared, roaming for days.
My parents were not insouciant,
Tho I surely was, by definition.

Perhaps
Someday,
Will feel that way again,
Recognizing the carelessness of living life
Without regrets, worries, all kinds of
bills to pay,
Re-collecting payments made
From my freedom, my early days.

But I wonder to you, H.
If my life was indeed insouciant,
Would my poetry be any good?

Nothing give me more pleasure
When one of you 'likes' an old poem mine,
Buried under the uncountable new arrivals.

I go back and reread it myself.

Nothing gives me more pleasure,
Becoming reacquainted,
Through you, with myself, and
Liking it.

More amazing is that someone bothers,
Wondering, crazy-making me,
What have I missed.

So when I stumble on you,
Don't be surprised if I am
Free falling through each and every one
You ever penned.

That is why I love to, love the
random walking thru this site.

Refreshes me, through you,
Refreshes me, through me.
7:20am

One whole extra
Hour of life.

What matter it
Be a mechanical illusion.

No, make it real,
No delusion.

Write us a happy poem,
Extend our lives further.

To those that good eve
Be more apropos,

When you awake,
Bid you good day,

Long life and hopefully,
Some new no tears poetry to read.

Fire: A Commissioned Poem

Deceptive appearance,
Countless predecessors,
Poems built on towers of strength,
Of and on
Fire..

Who am I,
A beleaguered working poet
Dared and daring,
To add to what Dante
Already has writ,
Has fire, his, not ennobled
All man's fears and lives.

What new can this temporal man add, on something so holy as
Fire?

On the altar in the Temple,
My ancestors brought sacrifices,
Guilt offerings for sins committed,
Asking for real forgiveness from a deity unseen,
They set themselves on fire,
Through animal sacrifices.

Let us not critique them by standards of today.
Let me celebrate their faith, their truth that
Asking for forgiveness required sacrifice,
Not just tithing, not just check writing,
But by acknowledging that they understood,
That nothing is for truly real until
It has been crucibled of, in,
Fire.

Dump: A Commissioned Poem

Someone commissioned me to write a poem about the word, dump.  Not a pretty word, but a workingman's word, full of possibilities and mystifications.  Gratefully accepted.

so many, endlessly endless.
bringing paper, cans, compacted
words,
all in need of special disposal,
special handling,
individuation of caring.

I split myself into multiple personas.
blue, green and some other color,
divine myself into receptacles for the sounds
you write, that must be read aloud, slowly,
in order to properly, allocate,
to dispose,
of.

sustainability.
not the planet,
something smaller,
more
man-ageable,
man-agreeable.

your verse!
you in verse is multidimensional,
yet unified,
one theme,
single answer to a questioned couched
a thousand different ways,
a thousand different poem titles!

how can I sustain myself?

sustain
— verb (used with object)
to support, hold, or bear up from below; bear the weight of, as a structure.
to bear (a burden, charge, etc.).
to undergo, experience, or suffer (injury, loss, etc.); endure without giving way or yielding.
to keep (a person, the mind, the spirits, etc.) from giving way, as under trial or affliction.
to keep up or keep going, as an action or process: to sustain a conversation.
to supply with food, drink, and other necessities of life.
to provide for by furnishing means or funds.
to support (a cause or the like) by aid or approval.
to uphold as valid, just, or correct, as a claim or the person making it

you are in the dictionary,
did you know that?

now I will answer in a free man's verse,
written without hesitation but with plenty of
tears and tissues
and rememberings of his own
wasted days, major successes,
bathtub ships,
righted
and passengers saved.

Words written in a single breath,
no exhalation just simple purity,
best wishes that any man can have,
if daring, he reaches inside and,
rips himself open,
saying it's ok, and meaning it,.

so here I am
standing looking you in the eye,
sitting with both arms draped
over your body,
saying
dump,
dump it all on me.

Cause I got a billion words that rhyme with
comfort.
Bring me the past and the future uncertain.

I already told you
never read a poem I did not like.

got slots for cans paper and compost,
got slots for fear, heartache and a big ole wide one for
pain.

got a heart shaped dump
that never closes.

The city council complains,
your name ain't Moses,
you are a city boy,
why you hanging in the wilderness for forty more,
didn't you do your time?
ex wife that brutalized your soul.
two sons who barely speak to you.
let someone else take over,
and I smile saying exactly,
I got experience,
I got Kleenex,
don't know nobody else better
Boy Scout
Be Prepared.

See,
even you can dump on me
effortlessly.

So.
ask not what you will bring.
cause I got an opening for anything you can
dump,
and land fill of me that has so much space,
billions of acres and neurons that will lay fallow,
until your poems, plaints, sailings and wailings
fill them.

so that is my poem,
dump,
even,
I like it.

May even dump some of mine on someone
like you.
after all
who in this world cannot use some
sustaining.

New/Knew/Rebuilding
You

4:18AM

not sure where to start,
so I will begin at the end,
rinsing and repeating,
till it makes a dime's worth of sense,
even if helps for just one minute,
I'll take it happy for
giving you one minute of better,
rinse and repeat,
60times, an hour to which we can only but
try
to build a single day.

You are new to me.

But I knew you a long time.

Don't ask silly whys or how's.

This won't take long.
Less than a minute.

Saw a few Picasso's, Chagall yesterday.
Even a Basquiat.
Estimated to sell for
$15~18 million dollars.

You know he once said,
"I thought I was going to be a *** for the rest of my life."

So here is my art for you, girl,
Whom I will likely never meet,
But is deep inside of me,
Unmasking provoking, couching, courting,
Crouching, springing
me to care.

If one new/knew/rebuilder of you
Is writing words of caring, artful encouragement
At 4:18am,
What is that worth?
I'll tell you cause I won't let
bitter answer for you.
Everything.
So **** art.
But open heart to the art of
Accepting that I just wrote you a poem,
Message on point,
I care.

Awesome Young


I stumble, catch myself,
But my breath is still short.

Skip around,
go back and discover,
uncover.

Incredible.
Awesome
in a way that overused word was intended to be
used.

There are so many miracles,
young poets, whose works
lost in the shuffle of the ordinary,
who don't get read, liked or
loved like they awesomely deserve.

One day,
someday,
I will write a poem,
naming names,
before a Congressional Committee,
getting them on the record.

Done it before,^
will do it again,
got take a week off from work
to get 'em all.

Odd,
even then,
will strike out,
can't capture them all,
they keep a-coming,
from all over the world,
places I never heard of.

It almost makes me believe
world peace is not just a
Saturday Night Live joke.

I brush the hair off your face
While you are sleeping,
Risking everything.
Risking waking you,
But I think,
You would do
The same for me
To make sure nothing
Ever disturbs the dreams,
you
are
dreaming
of
us.

Missing the whistle of the teapot.
A big tin thing, dented, spouting
Warnings, careful baby, I am
Really hot.

The hum of the microwave,
The machine noises of coffee being made,
Them noises just ain't the same.
There is no poetry in
Whirring hum, beans bump 'n grinding.
They don't talk to me.

But in the middle of night,
When I rise, get dressed,
Still put on mismatched socks,
My t-shirts inside out,
The same jeans been wearing for weeks,
Cause they are right handy,
Lying on the floor, feeling so good,
Covering up my old fashioned
Keds.

Someday, I guess there will be
A machine that hoses us down,
Shampoos the mind while your fingers idle,
Then becomes a wind Chunnel to dry us up.
Will it have octopus arms
To dress us, having  looked at our daily schedule,
Taking into account the weather channel forecast,
Where n'  when we gotta be?

I suppose that if I ask nicely,
The replicator will make me perfect coffee,
And even whistle if that's what makes me happy.
But as long it don't try help me write,
That ****** function, that ****** need,
Human,
And only I can
Whistle while I write.

6:13 AM

His Grandpa writes poetry in the tub.

(See the banner photo, please)

His Grandpa writes poetry in the tub,
Clearly a skill and ability
that has been passed
to the next generation.

For who could conceive successfully
Of writing something so exquisitely
Joyful as his smile,
A poem par excellence!

I am sure it is but a matter of
Days and weeks,
After the newbie begins to post
His œuvres écrites,
Here on HP,
That the debate will commence
Who is the better poet sweet?

No worries.
My conceit has already conceded.

Dear God, The Boston  Red Sox Win The World Series?

My congratulations to themselves from Bahstom,
I am sure you will wear your crown with classy
NY Yankee Pride and not riot in the streets
As has been known to happen in Beantown.

But I though I would let you know,
Having spoken to god on Yom Kippur,
He confessed it was a typing mistake.
He meant for the Chicago White Sox
To be resurrected and to win,
Not noticing he was auto-incorrected,
Reassuring me that he was
Installing IOS7, so it won't happen again.

Pride goeth before the fall of 2014.

The Gift of the Sleeping Magi


"But in a last word to the wise of these days
let it be said that of all who give gifts,
these two were the wisest.  
Of all who give and receive gifts,
such as they, are wisest.  
Everywhere, they are wisest.  
They are the Magi."
O. Henry

The woman, traveling alone, thru dangerous
West Side badlands, dancing lands,
where resident fairies, ex-ballerinas all,
magical mystify a passerby's thoughts,
mesmerizing them with their mercurial maneuvers,
tango dancing upon shimmering glass pieces,
enslaving all who gaze upon them forever,
turning their captives into sleeping beauties.

Restlessly awaiting her return,
the hombre-lover early retires
to the bed chamber,
weary from another day's
woeful world worries,
long past midnight, he awakens,
disoriented, discombobulated,
and alone.

Fearing the worst,
he summons her return with text spells
and magical ringing cell's bells,
all to no avail.

He dresses,
readying for the search,
to bring her home.

Ready to depart,
he opens the door,
only to find the woman
asleep before their door.

Unwilling to awake
her sleeping hombre,
she gifts him a
rest undisturbed.

Shoulder grasped, elbow guided,
her eye glasses surgically removed,
he returns her to their bed,
to complete her own rest.
instantly, she is re-gifted,
colliding with a gravity pulling her,
into a pleasurable deep sleep.

Now wide-eyed awake,
the hombre muses and
poetry pens this tale
of his restless confusion.

O. Henry's words refurbished,
rise up, infiltrate his consciousness.

Of all who give and receive gifts,
even the simplest,
rest undisturbed, rest completed,
they are the wisest,
everywhere they are wisest.

They are Magi.


2::03 AM, a few years ago.

Once upon a time
in the Great Hall
of the Metropolitan Museum,
my woman wan~pale,
doozy, woozy, about to grace
the floor marble, with an
undesirably inelegant fall.

Steadied her, a quick diagnose,
Low Blood Sugar + Dehydration,
her condition I pronounced.
The antidote in my possession!

From my pocket left,
withdrew my emergency tangerine.

She looked, quizzically, upon me,
even a bit weirdly,
marveling and marvelous,
as I fed her bite-sized orange curvatures.

Who walks around with a
tangerine in their coat pocket?

I replied, doesn't everyone?

besides, that juicy tangerine looked
mighty good, so I took from
pocket right, another one,
laughingly, which we shared.

Henceforth she has called me,
a partial mocking homage to a former actor,
who should have stayed that way,
the one who was thinking you can always start over,
The Anticipator.

If you ask me what is the secret
to keeping love alive, my answer permanent.

Get thee a coat of many pockets,
like the one Joseph had,
fill them up with with the things
that will shelter her from the storm...^

No longer the season of the tangerine,
In my pocket in the fall,
a Fuji apple and a box of
raisin~poems

When I was bad,
I mean young,
The summers in the city were
Mean hot,
Ran with the bad boys.
Not bad bad just teenage bad.

So the cops came and got us
Where we were hanging,
Took us down to the precinct,
Till around midnight.

Came home at one am,
My pop heard me come in.

Asked me where I'd been,
So I told him that I'd been arrested.

He thought for a second and said,
"Good. Now go to bed."

We never spoke of it again.

A thousand years later
I figured out why.

I had never seen my formal pop
In his underwear till that night,
And never saw him that way again.

He was more embarrassed than I.

Considered the matter closed and
My heart, full, finally, now.

They had not seen each other in fifty years.
In between, a world war and a concentration camp.

Then my pop,
Erwin of the Homburg hat clan,
Went for the first time to the land of Israel,
From the safety of the United States.

A side trip, an unscheduled tour visit-stop,
A private memory to re-collect,
To a special hospital,
Where the survivors who did not really survive,
Live in tender care until there are no more.

A childhood friend to see, a dust to be disturbed.

In comes a man, now an American, a family man,
But with a European goatee, un-accented English,
Yet a boy, a young man from the Hamburg clan,
When last seen in the 1920's.

A voice calls out happy,
A miracle I call it.

Meine kleine Ervin!

My little Erwin!

What can I say other than
I weep as I write.

Wallace Shawn

Three hours of thy ******, mastubatory,
Fantasies with women and cats,
Too much for a working man.

Can we not freeze you in time,
Please be a Sicilian boss named Vizzini,
Obstacle to the savior of
The Princess Bride.

I know that you know that i know that you know
That 1987 was a crash year, but your raspy
Glare, minutiae of a face expressive made it easier.

At the Public, not in the private,
Tales of ****** escapism make me
Drift to sleep, and I know
That you know that I know that you know
I am asleep in in row B center,
And see you weep.

But the play must go on...
Which is why I will rent a memory
Tonite, you, Vizzini, and me,
Will drink a cup of poison wine,
In celebration of the trajectory of our
Mastubatory writings.

Nope. No more.
Inaccurate, you are not a noun or an adjective,
But a verb transitive.

My love is not static,
Not a thing,
It is man-in-motion,
A process, a play,

From henceforth,
I shall address thee thus:
My Loving.

Yes, loving this accuracy,
Amended ways, coming to you
With all my loving,
My Loving...

My poems, where are they from?

Westerner.

An appellation, of the 'hood of my nation,
Customary identity association,
But not one that springs to mind,
When they inquire, as they do,
Hey man, tell us about your "self."

But there is no deniability,
At least three hundred years,
That my father was aware,
Europe to America,
Westward **, the seeds sown.

From the banks of the Lippe,
Ocean crossing to NYC,
From the Krakow Ghetto
To the shores of the
Manhattan Indian Reservation,
By the banks of the grandest river Hudson,
They journeyed, they sojourned,
Staying for awhile, scattering across the Midwest,
"Coming to America."

Yet out West,
I am an Easterner,
My hometown teams,
In the East Division,
And this schizophrenia
Is non-problematical.

But where are my poems from?

I have studied the time zones,.
The AM's and the PM's.
I know when I deliver this to you,
If the sun is rising or setting,
Whether to greet you with
नमस्कार or magandang umaga,
Greet you with a "Good Sabbath!"
Or an Insh'Allah...

But where are my poems from?

Bog of technical definitions,
Matters not, my poems have no
Passport to be stamped,
The Customs lines they cross are the
Customs of mine and yours.

The are both immigrant and emigre,
Experienced, well travelled, they familiar
With the right satellites to
Grace thy welcoming space.

Tap dance, recitations of evasions,
Answer the question man,
But where are my poems from?
You tell the when, the how but not the
Where.

We can't wait much longer,
The inbox heavy with homework,
Your poems to love, like and take.

Don't you see?
They, born in the West,
For lack of a better answer,
Clock and setting sun racers,
Surfing the Atlantic, Indian,
Circumnavigating the Pacific Isles,
Is just the course they take
When out my window sent.

But is that your answer,
Their path, to the single quest,
From the West, is that the best
Answer you can equivocate,
Where do they come from?

**No.
Obviously,
They come from you...

Why employ an ordinary word
When an extraordinary one
Excels?

Let us wed, let us vow,
Henceforth, let us never
Wish ourselves away plain humbly,
Goodbye.

Let us end our day,
Bid our lovely comings,
The tragedy of our departures
With a gentling
Fare thee well.

In the company of the dawn,
Let us greet the one
Who lies besides us a stirring,
Not with merest hello, morning or
The accursed howareyou,
Replace haste with a deliberate
Welcome, well comely,
To this newborn day!

Tho do confess,
That like numerous others
Who have counted the ways,
There is no sweetener substitute for
I love you.

I will n'ere address thy grace
With appellation dissatisfying of "girl"
When woman suits thee best,
With all its attendant glories.

Should we encounter upon the street,
Address me as man,
For of that word I am a fan,
But say it not with routine irrelevance,
But in tones of softest reverence,
For I am not a child or dude,
A sir or sire, a mister mister,
But I am a man.

Our lives are not a game of chance,
Yet chance aplenty do we countenance.

Having stumbled, fallen into a subterranean,
A place where I know thee well
But likely not your face, your visage,
Thy honest name,
Accept these excelsiors as mine
Poeming opening gambit,
My closing statement,
Summary of the that, that has and yet to pass
Between us:

Peace be upon you.

Phantom Fierce Pierce

For Sally

Do have the courage of fear?
What!
You heard me.
Admit that we are all inhabited,
Admit that we are all inhibited.

Fear, the eleventh plague visited upon the Egyptians,
Nothing more paralyzingly complete.
Walking down an average day, an average street,
A median day, a medium day that a
Black disease from whence unknown,
And you are a froze shadowed chalk figure
Drawn upon the concrete, unable to move.

What would you pay, anything,
What would you give, everything,
Cleanse it all
Cut out the incisions
That with precision
Haunt your every
Waking and sleeping moment.
The deeds that did not get done,
The deeds that cannot get undone,
Both your undoing.

A plague on both, a plague on me,
My plague, unique to me,
Free me from this whatever the cost.

But it can't be arranged.
No devil to sell back the things
Of which you are ashamed,
No stain stick extant to guarantee success.

When the hollow is so great
You feel non-existent.

But you do not see what I see...
Courage, raw and plain, admits
These phantoms are not phantoms at all.

Those figures try to break you.
There is a beach, a path, where you know,
Safety.

Not easy to get there. The bus schedule unpublished.
But the bus line exists.
And you have the courage to wait, patiently
Until it arrives.

There is value here, if you read between the dashes
And the dots.

I see you for who you are.
You are the phantom fiercer piercer.

Shown us the way.

The High Line (Pearls Before Swine)

is located on Manhattan's West Side. It was an elevated train track, that runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District (wholesale butchers) to West 34th Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues, near the Hudson River, running parallel to the river.  

The High Line was originally constructed in the 1930's, to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan's streets. The High Line, nowadays, is open as a public park, owned by the City of New York. The District is now a night life hot spot of elegant shops and restaurants, among the few remaining meat packing firms, a "scene." If not in a hurry, and unfamiliar with the High Line, look it up (see notes), to get a visual of image. Or not. I can't remember who I promised I would dig out my High Line poem, but a promise kept.
_________________

Walk­ed the High Line after work,
early summer afternoon,
a pubescent evening-tide,
the teenage colors
of the setting ball,
seize your breath,
your eyes, enthrall.

On Little West 12th Street,
climbed up to
breathe the green,
thriving railroad earth-beds
tucked so cute,
tween the rusted ties of
intrepid railroad tracks.
still working in
service to humanity;
nature supporters now,
a new kind
of freight carried.

Climbed up on the backs
of a jumbled combo of
dressed beef carcasses
and yuppie carc-*****,
both obedient to the
Law of Consumption:
Consume or be consumed.  

Looked down on them,
grazing,
gazed upon them
pseudo social-dancing,
they are all prowling,
cat burglars,
searching for felines, roosters,
to tango/tangle with till
the shameful dawn walk,
a final tally of who,
was consumed,
and who,
got consumed.

Watch with bemused fascination
at the children,
swilling and chilling,
some liquor, some swill.
nonetheless  admiring each other;
their Lauren cut and Hilfiger heft
the finest of fat veined lines,
decorating their svelte,
but very attractive,
full figured appearances.

USDA Grade A,
a genuine meat market,
humans and
animals guts,
intertwined.

The Highline,
an architect's composition
of summer grasses,
planted in nooks and crannies
of man's discarded invention.

Summer grasses in unison,
stadium waving to
the music of summer breezes,
Manhattan sounds,
clinking glasses,
goods and services exchanged.    

The view admires you -
Oh baby you look so fine,
Your hair, like the
Hudson River's aquas
is a shining, streaked,
by High Line highlighted
late afternoon,  
sun-setting golden sparklers.

Your gold chains entwining,
fire crackers on top of a
the blue ribboned river,
exploding, dazzling,
your obedient admirers.  

They complement your skin,
aglow, one of nature's works,
soon to be painted on a canvas,
across a horizon of a
pinkish-tinged lavender sky -    
a gift of the oh-so-refined
refineries of South Jersey.  

Cool summer afternoon in
the Meatpacking District,
traffic, human, automotive,
clogs the Gansevoort piazza,
a NYsee zone pietonne,
a Manhattan cocktail of
young strivers and Eurotrash,
where you check me out,
and I return the favor,
using a pre-certified checklist.

Are you young?
Are you hip?
Are you beautiful?
Do you possess
what it takes
to undress me?
Reservations and a limousine!

Everyone who's there,
by definition, is in,
otherwise where else
would they be!

Pearls of perfect people,
perfect lives,
in, around and
before, swine.  

Am I the only one
who gets the joke,
or is the joke, me,
because I just don't got it
in order to get "it"?

Am I the only one
who sees the dead,
ancient and newly arrived,
human and other kind,
the living,
sharing the animal spirits
of the Meatpacking district:
some animated,
some haunted,
some summer tanned
some blood drained,
ghostly white veined?    

In this city,
my sweet city,
city where I bore
my first breath,
city where I'll be laid down to
my permarest,
the hues of my life
are city pastels,
colorful shades of asphalt
and concrete gray and
dried blood,
interspersed with the
speckled glitter of the
potpourri of human creation.

The Highline, an architect's
composition of summer grasses,
planted in nooks and crannies
waving to the jazzed music
of Manhattan lives,
its history, summer breezes,
emblem of the city's only coda:

Transform, rebirth -
survive and prosper,  
or else,
be slaughtered and die.

Summer 2010

A way of life (you say you you are not a poet)


A way of life.

A not uncommon phrase.

But still, an *uncommon concept.

What is our *'way' of life?

What is my way of life?

Beyond the supposed-to-do,
Which is a way, pre-charted for you
By others, how does one live
Above and beyond, the day to day?

You say you are not a poet.
I say way.
I say you have chosen a life,
Where words are jewels, choices,
Public choices, to be very praised,
Kicked or worse,
Ignored.

That is a choice. Test is:
I have a way,
Of speaking in my voice,
Saying what I need to say.

I have chosen the way of a poet,
For better or worse.

Don't tell me you are not a poet!
You are out there, to be read.
Courage is not lacking.

You have a way of life.
It is distinguished,
It is dangerous.
Only the brave
Dare come this way.
Craft can be learned,
Courage, never.

Sat down to write a tribute to this soldier, and a critique of our nation's leaders after watching this CBS 60 minute segment.  But as is my wont, I listen to music as I compose, but this time the song was the exact answer to what I wanted to express, much of want to say, almost all of how I felt.

First watch the segment, then read the lyrics to one of Willie Nelson's signature songs, written by Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, and Jim Dickinson. Added the YouTube video of Willie singing as well.

If it helps, change the Rio Grande to Afghanistan.

---------------------------------------------------­------------
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50157505n
---------------------------------------------------­------------
Across The Borderline
(Ry Cooder/John Hiatt/James Dickinson)

There's a place where I've been told
Every street is paved with gold
And it's just across the borderline
And when it's time to take your turn
Here's one lesson that you must learn
You could lose more than you'll ever hope to find

When you reach the broken promised land
And every dream slips through your hands
Then you'll know that it's too late to change your mind
'Cause you've paid the price to come so far
Just to wind up where you are
And you're still just across the borderline

Up and down the Rio Grande
A thousand footprints in the sand
Reveal a secret no one can define
The river flows on like a breath
In between our life and death
Tell me who's the next to cross the borderline

But hope remains when pride is gone
And it keeps you moving on
Calling you across the borderline

When you reach the broken promised land
Every dream slips through your hands
And you'll know it's too late to change your mind
'Cause you pay the price to come so far
Just to wind up where you are
And you're still just across the borderline
Now you're still just across the borderline
And you're still just across the borderline
------------------------------------------------------­-
Here is the YouTube of Willie singing the song.


http://youtu.be/vi9sXy9eRyA
-----------------------------------------------------­--


More on Capt. Will Swenson

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445162-57608305/a-heros-tale/


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563162-57603788/medal-of-honor-winner-shows-bravery-tenderness/

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-35277_162-57607565/william-swenson-afghan-war-veteran-awarded-medal-of-honor-by-pres­ident-obama/

The wallet where the hidden secrets are to be believed

The boy, a lap climber of some renown,
Age, could have been six or seven,
Had a favorite cliffside to ascend and ride,
When done, down to earth, slide.

Up he would go, on a treasure hunt,
A game to play, called pickpocket,
On a forest of a man of coffee smells and a tickly goatee,
Hamburg born, a man who actually wore
a homburg hat on his head.

First the glass case, the snappy kind,
From the snap, crackle and Pop days.
Inside a cloth, good for emergency cleaning of
Runny noses when it was crying time.

Into the crevices and pockets, he dug and delved,
Jangly keys guaranteed to somehow disappear,
A silver and gold fancy pen and pencil set,
A money clip, folded papers he didn't understand.

But the bonanza, the jackpot was the wallet,
Finding pictures of himself, asking the goatee,
Slyly, smiley, all grown up likely, kiddingly
Who's that?

Between the pictures of him and his sisters,
Was a weird discovery, five twenty dollar bills.
His money was in a clip, so these twenties
Had no earthly purpose being there.

There is nothing more unstoppable than the curiosity
Of children under the age of ten,
So a grand inquisition of nagging began,
Centering on the age old torture tool,
Why?

Goatee said someday you will see men,
Lying on the street, some with hands outstretched,
Some, hands beneath, hidden neath their legs.  
They won't smell as good as you,
They may even be a tiny bit *****,
with no bathtub to play in.
When you should see such a man,
If he asks or not, our job is to give him
One of those special notes.
When its your turn to have wallet,
You will understand better.

Dissatisfied was the explorer,
The words did not fully explain,
Why this money was different from all others?
Upon these five bills, were hand written bold
Three words, which he could read.

God Bless You!

Goatee smiled and hugged me that hug,
Where you can't breathe and its a-ok,
But please be quiet now young one...

This poem a total fantasy.

Someday Izzy and Alex will be forward scouts,
Investigators and detectives with prying frying fingertips.

If they get to Poppy's wallet,
Between the pictures of them and the West Coast team,
There just maybe, five folded twenties,
Magic marker signed, but not by a Treasury official,
With words of a similar ilk.

If they should inquire what's the point,
Poppy might answer them with one particular
Poem.

In the morning, shower.
But at nite, yo, burn off the fright,
Super-Soaker I become.

As hot as I can stand,
Till my face is a strawberry field.
An hour or two, easing on out
Collected aches and mistakes,
If doable, think on how to make them
un-mistakeable.

Slip slide, music and shampoo,
Tablet baggied, ready armed,
To read and write,
Of and if and about
Us, our poetry,
At the intersecting crossroads
Of life.

Sometimes, I let the water out,
But down don't get out, just sit there,
A sticking stone.

Woman comes by round midnite,
To check if I am
Dead or just well done.
She sees me in the empty bird-word bath.

She doesn't have to say a thing,
Having seen me read your pleads,
She knows, I am drained,
The symbolism, too obvious.

Dedicated with great pleasure to
Stephen E Yocum and Ilion Gray,
Don fans both.*
---------------------------------------------

Created: Mar 26, 2011 10:56 AM

Written the day after a Don McLean
concert at Town Hall, New York City*
-----------------------------------------------

We stood shoulder to shoulder,
for our voice was soon to arrive,
we were friends of Vincent's friend,
a starry night decorator,
chronicler of our youthful days,
who tonight, returned to us,
harmonizor of memories
of long ago,
one more 'last' time

our bodies we pledged to him,
our allegiance we displayed
via our uniforms,
most of us decorated with badges
of our mutuality,
medals of weary grey,
lives worn, patient sat to hear our
youthful anthems and
dormant dreams,
re-populated in our hearts, live,
alive,  resurrected, babes once more

Chevys and levees and then
by God,
we were dancing in the aisles
Like we used to,
one more time,
grassy odors enhanced our
recharged our voices,
we swore fealty to our memories,
said goodbye one last time, again,
to our youth and American Pie

I swear it's true that
this anthem of tribute and attribute
to who we were, makes
tears stream down my cheeks,
a taste mixed, salty
but also, bel canto sweet,
always simultaneously

forty years blink disappear
and I am ****** on
a summer nite in Sixty Nine,
sitting on my porch,
high up in Cleveland Heights,
and "future," was not yet
a ***** word

My red 65 Mustang makes me
a big shot,
I fall in and out love
and/or so many woman's beds,
pillow talk of how we won't be
like our parents cause
we are gonna make over this lousy world
they bequeathed us,  
how we're gonna let the Cuyahoga River
burn off fifty years of industrial waste,
the future will be born anew,
the urban orbs,
we will plan and rebirth,
they will be human beautiful

Earned my summer wages in
a Republic steel warehouse
where this college kid
who then was car-less in Cleveland,
a sin, hippie bicycled to work where
he was mocked & crowned
on his hard hat,
"The Macaroni Kid" -
he had foolishly revealed
to his ha ha,
Fellow American Co-Workers
his student budget dietary staple

but when in he was deep in the belly
of the railroad cars
where they lowered him
to chain together
the custom shaped steel rods,
on their way to be
the skeleton bones for the concrete blocks
to build the Jane Jacob's
neighborhood-killing bland apartment buildings,
that we both so despised,
building blocks of the
USA's cities of anomie

In the railroad cars, this kid
sang Don's songs softly
to himself and was happy

Lamenting the loss of our
carriers of hope to the
trajectory of assassin's bullets,
I cut my hair, shaved my beard,
for the music had indeed died.

Returned to the NYC in '72,
lived on Bleecker Street,
scrounged the streets
of the Village by nite,
a seeker of urban truths,
loose women, and junk "wood"
to burn in the fireplace of
my third floor walkup

working daytime office jobs,
at night, we drank new drinks of
tunes of english imports
and unbelievably, later on, disco

but we never forgot a single word
of our Bye Bye song,
ode to our wonder years

So on a March chill night, 2011,
the now all grown ups
were petitioned to come,
meet at Town Hall,
on the agenda,
a motion of recall
to bid one last
fare thee well
to the glory days before
we crossed the line from
rebels to voting citizens,
from spirited rock n rollers
to grumbling taxpayers,
from kids to parents

So I weep and smile and
do so for all of us
for I will go out
booming, singing, way too loud,
no decorum for this adult,
bid adieu to our best days,
one more good old boy,
now just a good old man
drinking whiskey and rye
smiling, crying, all mixed up,
sad, happy, touched inside
one last time, by the lyrics,
you know 'em well from
from so long ago,
so long, Bye Bye,
My American Pie

The bed head of the old and dead

A little tougher to comb and thread.
No matter, you should see god's.
If you want to really crack up,
His long and white beard is outrageous,
It Is Perfection,
Cause it gets brushed
every time
A new poem
is written.

What I learned yesterday...

The curator, surrounded by object d'art,
Told me a story, how he had to re-learn to see.

Da Vici said,
Paint what was visible and what is invisible.

Fancy and fantasy, same Latin root.
We are all subject to the tyranny of
Form and function, unable to find the time
For seeing beauty in places easy-dismissed
As pretty but pointless.

Today, they preach against gold, delicacy,
Beauty for beauty's sake,
Want clean lines of steel and gray.
Dismiss the objects that are glorious
For the patient skill needed to create,
But have no purpose obvious.

What I learned yesterday?

The next and the next time
I visit an art museum,
Will walk the corridors
Aimlessly but purposed.

Will stop before a single creation,
Matters not the period,
Sculpture, painting, statuary, jewelry.
That would have been prior ignored,
As dated, just another...pretentious piece,
Among the twenty like it on the wall or in the case.

Before that objet I will sit,
For hours, till I have understood
Each pore, inflection of what
Inspired a man to labor over it.

If I am disciplined,
Might get ten or twelve done in a year.

But now understand, that there will be greater value,
In taking ten randomly, living with them
Body and soul, and treasuring their nuances.

When I return home,
My art to write, seeing new in a new way,
Perhaps I will set aside the urge to fast complete,
Instead, craft and care, labor over each sound, syllable,
Kiln bake, hand paint, each letter.

Ran into Chuck yesterday,
Rather he ran into me.
Ran the wheels of his chair
Right over five toes of me.

Apologetic, he said.
No matter I replied,
You keep painting,
I'll keep writing,
Call it even.

Got me five more,
And here is one
To commemorate our
Interaction.

The groove, the rut, and the cut
were walking down the street.

As good friends do oft,
Cousin in name and in shape,
They strode sided, but said not a word.
Still understood that three
So different, nonetheless, one design.

The cut was old yet still bled
From time to time.
The groove and the rut, always in touch,
T'issued spear-carriers, armed and
Loving, dabbed and blotted the cut clotted.
For that is what the friends are 'the for,'
For the clotting, the knitting and the closing.

The bleeding came when it came,
They jested that they could never leave him,
For tho he bled regular, there was no schedule,
No knowing the when, but the why, that they
Understood. They would not have left him anyway
Exception of course now and then, but leave
Their man, their cuz, was not to be conceived.

The rut was long, thin, you had to look down
To see his full length, for he grew bottom-down,
Every day another ring, another inch, on the soles
Notched, they dared not, count them, so many days
Rutted in the tedium of a blood count of unable,
Incapable of being broken, his enemy, arch, was his friend.
Tedium his companion, his drug dealer,
When groove and cut were at work, failing to supervise.

Rut could only sigh. Sole solitary sound, except for the
Quiet ringing only he could hear, rings forming,
Day after day, and he could not count that high,
So instead each rut was given a name,
For blessed endless the world of words that say
I am a daily existence, nothing more, nothing but less.

The groove, hero to the cut and the rut,
Had his moments.
But he had secrets he did not share with them,
But as an outside-looker-in, I was privy to the
Privy of everything.

The groove was oval, wiry, snakey shaped,
But prone when prone to twisty turns when
Objects like objectives met, in counter ed.
But when groove was grooving,
There was full blown full mo, the world observed.

Strict silence for the poems that
Shook lose from his frame,
Bad his eyes, wept he,
Lines of ones and twosies,
Fat and wide his fame,
For when the groove was
Cooing and cooling,
Life infused him and sips of tea,
Each transformed into the heat of ooh and the ahh,
When the cup was empty, he had his finished 'aha,'
Of a new parting, gift giving in his heart.
For he she see saw the angle of simple, and thus could
Groove on grooving.

The rut and the cut were happy for him,
Watch with incredible incredulity and an itty bitty
Jealousy of which they never rudely spoke.
But they would board his poetry-train sled,
Down they rode, the white snow
Of being a a lookalike groovy kid,
Even if and but, for just a few minutes.

Everyone loved groovy, and watch his every movie,
Licked the whiskey wooden snowball words from his lips,
but would not admit they kept them hid,
So they could be reread when they were at home
In the closet with flashlight, and the weeping was easy.

The three cuz went to the carnival.
Fun house with mirrors that made you look like
Who You really were.

But not them, for "the for" was different,
For when they strode sided before those mirrors,
They could plainly see that the
Groove, the rut the cut
Looked exactly alike,
Exactly alike,
All looked
Like
me.

They say
Words can leap off the page.
They say
Words can cut like a knife.

Come home from watching Lubovitch's dancers
Doing crazy eights upon the Joyce stage,
Rat-a-tat and seconds to bed tablet two-handed,
Some of thy words to keep, relish and visualize.
Tongue-taste delights, imagery dreamed, conceive'd!

Read four or five and I am
Crucified.

Anguish
Unrelenting - knocks planet Earth
Off its axis.
Star watching observatories call
NASA
"What's going on?"
But hey, they don't take the
Call
I don't make
Explaining soular word flares.

Anguish
Black and bold apropos.
Its asexual attendants,
Greet me, as I lay me down to sleep,
Souls inferno'd true confessions slap
Reality TV down to a pathetic joke.
Words, thorns without roses,
Bodies ready for extreme unction,
Punks puncturing peace with no punctuation,
Respite, none,
Spite, aplenty.

Google "sayings about words," thousands exist, pithy.
Amusing, insightful, but can't uncover any that relieve
Anguish,
the way needed now, for this crisis state.

Anguish.
Say it slow with your hands clasping your head,
The electric **** stabs connect your ears, but
Like water seeking release, head southbound to test the
Cavities of the heart's boundaries, probe for the
Satisfying silent ******* screaming weak spots.

Anguish.
Say it     r  e  a  l     slow,
feel the sounds of a summary of
Many other words, subsets of misery etc. etc.

The Aingsound,
Reminder of the dinging ringing stinking stingers,
Happy in their ***** work,
Here a hurt, there a hurt,
Everywhere a hurt hurt.

The shhh sound,
Is the bitter taste residue down sinister,
Ends in it,
No wash of the body or the mouth
Removes the endless shhh sound that is the exact
Opposite of a silencing hush.

I say,
I have words too.

Though I am not now,
Next to you,
You will hear my voice,
Out loud, out now, speaking
My words, recite or
Stop.

My words:

Feel just like those squeezing hugs parents
Give their kids when they are six seven and eight.
Hugs so tight the breath stops, but no minded,
For the message well received,
You are mine, my always, unencumbered,
Safely will this hugging touch see you through the night.

Foolish parents thinking those hugs unnecessary,
When children are "old," you know, like
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, when
Anguish
Needs defeating then, needs them hugs,
Now more than ever.

My words:

Are the arm unexpected slung fastball of simple affection,
Over and around a shoulder sent and spent,
A best friend's gesture that says, I know, I care.
A costless measure that measures in caring
What no precious metal could dare contend.

My words:

Are hands, a corps, a division of single soldiers,
Stroking thy cheek, caressing thy forehead,
Corpsmen coming for the wounded with comfort,
Antiseptic syringes, stretchers to take away
What needs taking away.

My words:

Are a neck architecturally designed to take your
Head, be a pillow resting place, your bird house to
Shelter or hide, as you need, see fit.
There is no rent charged,
Except for what I pay you in the coin of comfort.

My words:

Drum beating chest for your rest, each beat a
Message of connection, my beats purposed to
Remind you that thousands beats more yours,
So look up raise up refreshed head, to listen
For it's the song of steady, a reminder, a remainder,
So many much chances yet.

My words:

The drowning pools where anguish suffocates,
For it cannot breathe in a world of words of
Pure oxygen that resuscitate, filter, restore.
Each breath a clarification, each one  word speaking,
No more, no mas, done, enough,
Anguish
Extinguished, banished.

They say,
Words can leap off the page,
They say.

No, you try, you hear it, the voice clarion,
These new words that travel up thine arms
Holding until the until, no end demanded,
Awe and then some,
Some more,
Healing words, meant to be read back to me,
So I can rest knowing you've lesson-learned,
Homework done, cause it is your words speaking,
Out Loud!
My words,
Become words of yours,

Your words.

You can't handle the truth.

Tell them that when they ask,
But don't really give a ****,
Not wanting to really know.

Do ask me, ******!

**You can't handle the truth.

That beautiful glorious space of
"me loving you,"
That's where
We won't both go.

Yet my heart goes there
Often, when swollen with the
Wondrous, Wonder Ours, of our
Emotions.

But when that refuge closed,
I shrink beneath the pain
That is now homeless, like me,
For there is only a pace and a place called
Nowhere,
For them to go.