Conditionality (All love is conditional)

All love is conditional.
Even unconditional, a state in and of itself, is conditional.

So many love in silence, or unrequited,
or fear expressing the finest emotion, less rejected,
And precurse it by commencing with,
If.
And that is the worst condition of all.

When she whispers I love you,
And I ask each time, Why,
She answers me the same,
Just because....

And as I ponder that, I realize,
That is the only answer in the universe of words
that is without even a hint of jasmine, of cinnamon,
or  conditionality.

Happily, I have proven myself wrong, yet once more...

8:48am
June 2

HP 5000 (a thank you note to you, yes, you)

Less than half a month ago, miracle, knocked on a door, a beggar looking to share the little I had, was embraced full on, and now, my addiction to celebrating life in words, is stronger than ever, for found a new kind of joy, community, and these words writ last year, rise up and in the clouds I see them fully formed, ready, ready, so ready, to send to you via the sky, my slow and steady messenger, and that sun shower, worry, not, my very real tears of gratitude


"my heart lips speak peace unto us all
and my eyes see my dear ones, beside me,
in my envelope of words, you are embraced...
you though distant, grow closer,
and I will ride through the nite
with two lanterns to announce our reunification
after so long, what could be better
than to fall upon your neck, and lips parted,
whisper words of thanksgiving"

Thank you.

When I win the lottery,

Gonna buy a new wardrobe,
Go shopping in my new Bentley
For a diamond necklace of my name
so big it touches my navel on one side,
and the crack in my *** on the other,
A watch so big, gonna have to hire
Somebody to carry my arm,
And a mansion just for my stuff
And another to live in.

Nah.

Gotta car, born in 2 double O three,
Runs fine and plentygoodenough.
My watch maybe runs fast or slow,
By a coupe of minutes,
Course never can't be sure,
But tells me the hour around and that's
plentygoodenough.

Got me plenty T- shirts and shorts,
All in readiness for the summer a coming,
Pants and jeans in every waist size I ever been (Don't Ask)'
Over the last ten years, no needy for more,
plentygoodenough.

The house I live in well, the closets,
Scream when opened, empty me out,
But that's not (mostly) my stuff,
As you may have guessed,
So I when it comes to dresses n' shoes
We shouldn't be singing the blues but maybe
plentygoodenough.

Got a better idea for when I win,
Gonna get in my car,
Gonna take my watch off permanently
Gonna clean and box all this extra stuff,
Take it down to Goodwill,

No need to wait, till I win,
Gonna be doing it this morning,
Right after I give you this poem,
plentygoodenough.

6:43 AM
June too, 2 and 0 and thirteen

The Breakfast Fairies (a humorous treatise)

Summoned for to break the fast
of sleep-and-dreams that can no longer last,
As the clock to noon draws nigh,
I happily paddle off to the cabinet
Where the cereals that I CHOSE,
Since I am now a grownup,
faithfully await, calm and in repose.

The refrigerator, in nearby proximity,
sources a Stony-field yogurt,,
A yogurt that I CHOSE,
light and sweet with processed fruit,
due to the miracle of Aspartame.

Distracted, back to the kitchen for
Some multi-grain slices to hail and toast,
Which I prefer dry (no butter)
and ready for anointing with oils of
Strawberry jelly.

To the table return ready to sound
The horn of plenty,
When I see the ****
Breakfast Fairies have struck yet again!

Cousins first to those that reside in nearby dishwasher*
The nefarious fairies guard my health
tho nobody asked them too!

My Crispix, with its malty sweetness,
And the ***** aftertaste of sprayed-on "enriched vitamins,"
has been smothered neath layers of
Granola, with cranberries and nuts,
Contaminated with a hint of cinnamon.

My processed yogurt,
vanished, without a trace,
replaced by their bacterial cousins from Thrace,
which is in Greece,
who, tho white, taste like plain yogurt sourpusses,
Even when littered with blueberries,
Nothing can replace the taste of my
Artificial Sweetener!

Dry toast has been sheeted and shined neath
A tribute of fattening butter,
rationalized by a commonality,
"Everything is better with butter..."

The last indignity is that my coffee,
Not the light brown I cherish
When kissed by whole milk,
Now muddled and muddied by skim milk, so named,
Cause they skim off all the taste.

Because they are fairies,
With fluttering wings,
Hasty retreat they beat,
But I know where they hide.

The next time it be for the morning meal,
I will eat it in bed,
far from their kitchen hiding places,
And celebrate my heroics with original
Frosted Flakes and milk,
And extra sugar just for spite!
The bedroom fairies, living under the pillow,
Emerge to beg in iambic pentameter,
Won't get nary a bite,
Until they they return the poems they stole
From my midnight dreams.

Knuckles

Caressing your knuckles,
Without a doubt the least pretty part
Of the body human,
Even the word lacks grace.

Yet, I'm pleasured by these hillocks,
Where your veins come to rest
From their long journey up from the ground,
For
The spaces in between those knuckles are where
The words hide that I mine,
A mine that will n'ere be shuttered.

Words needed to create another love poem for my beloved,
Nose and toes, ******* and eyes all regularly poetically,
Cherished,
Now I have knuckled under
And competed a full poetic body scan
And have paid tribute to each n'every part of you,
Even your knuckles...which I am busy kissing
While writing this poem in my distracted mind.

June 1st
Just now.

The Night Table

The night table, the night stand,
Too small for all it must yeoman hold,
Something keeps falling down

Lamp, bottle of water, a single tissue, partially used, a clean corner held in abeyance for future tears when poetry writing, writing tablet for when the impulsion strikes, lamp that goes on n' off when it so chooses, a straw-woven coffee cup thing to keep off the stains of liquid time, a watch that tells you the time only when it is falling over on the way down to hit the ground, a picture frame of mother and child from thirty years ago...

if there was more room,
this list would be longer
but I already told ya,
this night table is just too **** small
which was told to you twenty years
when you bot two of them!

Re-decorate, she replies
A single word
that strikes
terror
In the heart of a
grown man.

Good thing I am still a kid
And don't any need any of those grown-up things
Listed above.

Keep those night tables babe,
Perfectly serviceable and a metaphor
For two kids like us,
Cuddling in the bed those night table stand astride,
Guardians of the place where we tell each other tales
of twenty years ago...
(I told ya they were too small)


June 1
6:54 AM

Thank you for the best present I ever got

Our oasis by the bay,
Was ravaged by storm and hurricane,
And the men came with earth moving equipment
Built us a renewed sheltering wall that,
Soon enough, will be tested.

The earth movers have long gone.
But a malted milk colored mound,
Broad but not too tall, of the good earth,
Smack dab in the middle of the lawn,
Somehow was left behind,
Like the stickers, the new car dealers plant w/o asking.

This mound, conspicuous like most of us,
Seems very out of place.

But like the box the toy came in,
The young children come from houses all around,
To climb upon it and declare for now,
They are the victors over life.

Even the **** deer that eat
The most colorful plants we raise,
Come in the early morn,
To climb to the top,
An advisory from the animal kingdom,
This place, this land, this isand,
You think is yours,
Was ours before and
Has never left our possession.

So I call the contractor,
Come take this vestige of the
Future and the Past off my kingdom of grass,
And when he picks up the phone,
And asks what he can do for us,
I am looking at the children
Dancing, scrambling, climbing upon
An obstacle perfect-sized to let them
Learn the pleasure of success,
I remain silent for I know not
How to say without sounding weirder than
I already am,
Thank you for the best present I ever got.



June 1st
This day, this morning at 5:55 AM.

From Hand to Mouth, A Man Gives Birth


Sometimes the pen, unnecessary.
The poem, fully formed, in his mouth, born.

Silent back labor, unbeknownst the existence
Of such a thing, yet knowing now
His contractions, coming fast and furious,
Eyes many centimeters dilated,
The sac's fluid breaks upon the poet's tongue,
He pronounces in a single breath his
Immaculate Completion

When his hand to mouth, goes,
Like Moses, when he touched the burning coals,
The words are signaled, freedom!
The words announce:
We are now created, conceived and
This new oxgenated atmosphere is now our
final resting place.

This child, the poem, this exhalation,
Once freed, is lost to him,
It's been renamed, retitled,
by hundreds of newly adopted parents as
Ours.

So
When you hear the poet-man exclaim,
I live hand to mouth!

Weep joy by, for and with him,
For his true meaning now clarified,
An ode to joy has
Been birthed this day,
A child for the people.

We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident


My life is bequeathed to me alone.
Title passes to me,
With my first breath.
Thus endowed, thus entrusted,
T'is my duty to throw off the
tyranny of fear and despotic rule of a
Life of looking over one's shoulder.

Therefore,
My life is mine to take,
Should I wish to choose the
Place, date, the time
To let the poetry cease,
I will announce it mostly gladly
with a blessing of
Shehecheyanu* and a
Smiling "by your leave."

Thrifty, stinking-thinking, I could hoard joy
Until such time, when best savored.
Backload the best for the latter days,
When worry was deceased,
Self-preservation necessity not a daily awakening curse,
The daylight-reminder, of my human status,
Check the box next to human stiff.

Choice,
Picking the time and place,
Freed me in away I had ne'er known,
Confounded the mind's logic,
For the heart murmured, joy is not
A penny earned and a penny saved,
But a disposable with a short shelf life.

Spend and spent it fast,
Be a spendthrift of life,
Viewed the miracle of the
Canister of oil and the burning bush
(Neither could be consumed)
Become me, and my song's refrain.

Ode to joy and self evident truths,
Owning this truth gave me
Pleasure without measure, for it
Replenished itself by daily use,
Evident then to preserve one's self
**Best served by wild, mad living.

Things I Don't Know How To


bathe the sick, the elderly, too weak to bathe themselves

raise children right, equality to tender n' tough love

believe tomorrow will be better, every day

look in the mirror and say good enough, proud

leave something of me that will be cherished it for its universality

drive soul weakening jealousy from my brain

one I know,
is that two is the greatest idea ever,
and that every touch makes me just brave enough
to try things I don't know how to do

To write a poem, a single word select,
embrace it with a fullness that lovers, family and friends
and the *** who cut you off in the middle lane
do daily provide

Grasp said word, walk it onto a yellow, blue lined, legal pad,
touch said word with the whisper of a single tear, a single curse,
like a pebble in a pond,
said word will miracle expand
hugging you with concentric circles of lines of poetry,
visionary words and stanzas that almost complete themselves
and you

The rhymes you will require, the meter you will select,
no need to struggle, hug your child and as Abraham told Isaac,
God and Google will provide

The simple trickster, a wordsmiths, even your average poet laureate,
got nothing on you that you don't already possess, to offer them
plenty stiff competition


Example: How


How to Write a Poem

To write a poem, a single word select,
your fingers will do the rest.

The Little Black Dress


The concrete city summer-heat will beat
most men into a state of distraction,
confess their sins w/o waiting for Miranda,
to warn them of their foolhardiness,
to warn them that silence is golden.

Some men will torch, not touch,
themselves to gain relief from city street heat,
Their loosened ties look like used nooses,
that have done some good hanging.

but not you babe, not you.

Sleeveless,
your shape shifts
effortlessly within,
a cool container,
your black sheath,
and what's underneath,
a knife in the heart of
most mortal, immoral men.

Black is the color of choice,
of les femmes fatales,
in the summertime, when we drink,
on rooftops, in search of a breeze,
and the lassies order silly drinks
with silly names, looking refreshing and
fetching, in their little black dresses.

Manhattan, my beloved, misshapen,
fingerling of an island-city-fortress-playground,
named such by the Algonquins,
the original poets-in-residence.

In a city of stone and brick
gets so **** miserable hot,
Good Humor melts instantaneously,
and the toasted almonds taste fried,
the papers report of Poets suffocating,
unable to exhale their own fiery breath!

But not you babe, not you,
in your Little Black Dress,
you suggest all is well with world,
perhaps I should try one as well

We fight the temp rising with
white linen, white shoes,
straw and seersucker,
not you babe, not you.

Black silk that rustles,
Black silk that mocks the sun,
Stirring up rustling in faint-hearted men,
observing your languid promenade across 57th Street,
we the idiots, panting, tongues extended,
standing still like Frozfruit bars,
cry out in unison, I have been released!

Contradictory miracles still occur,
disbelieve me if you want,
from June to August,
this isle ruled, by tan goddesses
in a uniform of a Little Black Dress.

May 28, 2013

Things I'll Never Be

So many things I'll never be,
elegant, tall and thin,
with an Englishman's confidence.
Blonde and beautiful, transformational, radiating,
possessing a Marilyn Monroe spell magical,
nope, not me.

Some things I was, I'll never be again.
Never be a sad-eyed teenager again, and for this,
in my morning prayers, I utter a blessing,
(tho my hormones have yet to be informed!)

Soul of brevity, poetically,
I'll never be, this insightful critique,
("Your poems are too long")
I've received in multiplicity, from sources internationally,
perhaps, lucky me, you've read this far?

Surely still a chance that an angel will touch my lips,
my internal parts sign a final treaty, inside an armistice,
night sweats sighs a thing fully forgot,
poetry writing can now be dispatched,
maybe that will be my Act III,
if I can stay awake for it.

Switches in my brain are shutting down this elegy,
knowing that a dozen stanzas will die stillborn,
so herein and here now, the door closes,
a parting shot escapes over the door sill.

A joy thin threads within, pumped thru my ventricles,
brook springs from sources non-DNA, holy external,
oft hid, well disguised under actor's white face makeup,
this peculiar joy, as long as it embraces me and I, it,

I'll never be unhappy any more.

iPad Love

4:49 AM, and by the light of the silvery moon
and our iPad screens turned down low,
we snuggle side by side, our fingers glide so softly upon each,
each of our own devices, this technique,
it could be an app, teaching how to caress a human being.

No need to tell you in sound, out loud,  
how you turn my heart upside down,
I'll just post a note of appreciation on Facebook,
you will see it faster, and besides, you got your earphones on and
could not hear my sweet nothings if I screamed them in high definition.

The newspaper arrives on the electric "doorstep" -
no longer will do we venture outside in
pink bathrobes and curlers, or boxer shorts,
a legal gesture of neighborly disdain.
Americana, losing another icon, as well as  
insuring the unemployment of thousands of newspaper deliverers,
boys and girls, on bicycles, their first job, now obsolescent.

Your feet, so cozy and warm, touching mine,
the sensation, lovely and fine, duly recorded in a poem
that on my iPad I scribble, as my typos disappear, out of sight.
your ear, I nibble, something you hate and I love,
but electronically, it's done with no fuss or muss, and
I don't even have to move!

Sadly, I can find no app that will bring the warmth
of a cup of coffee to my night table, and the gun metal casing of
this invention is chilly, but still Steve, with almost God like vision,
you brought us closer in ways prior unimagined.

So baby,
shut it down,
turn me on,
make me warm for real,
glide your now practiced fingertips on my grizzled cheek,
whisper a phony "ugh,"
cause I know, you will read
this iPad love poem
and cherish us for evermore.

Nothing, something, even as thin as my iPad 2(!)
will come between us and the holiness, the uniqueness of
the human touch.

2011

Three Minute Warning

A messenger delivers
A three minute warning
As I lay in bed at 10:30 am
(Resting in preparation for,
not from, our oops, early morning hike).

Breakfast will be ready in 3,
Get your **** in gear or else
It will be cold, I'll be mad,
And you will answer to a
Higher Authority.

No problem cause I already know
All I need is two.

Splash water on my face
Now I'm presentable
enough to the human race,
current company probably won't be happy,
But I ain't telling her, are you?

Shave! You crazed?
It is a three day weekend,
Every day a July Fourth,
Celebrating freedom from the European tyranny,
Of shaving smooth  every day!

Splash water on my head, count with me,
Five brush strokes as you can plainly see
Is a classic case of overcompensating
In my geling n' hair stylin'

Brush my teeth, well,
I hope 2 full minutes of rinsing with  CVS
Green stuff, mouthwash, will have to suffice.

Blast my deodorant both sides,
Long and strong, wearin' now
My bold blue *** husk of musk,
Cause I am a very considerate fellow
Who happens to really have stunk.

Clean T- shirt and shorts,
Yes, clean underwear too,
Leaves me a whole minute to write this scribble.

My flip flop noises coming down the hallway,
Are the butler announcing our joint arrival,
Me and my poem.

Lest you think this is paean to men
Another grand male boast,
Be advised this ditty be writty
By a man who, while no longer gritty,
Just put jelly on his scrambled eggs
And ketchup on his toast!

Mmmmmmm there might be a poem
Lurking in that too...

Just now, you've come to bed, 1:00AM,
Watching your fav Sunday night shows,
In our bed, been awaiting patiently,
You slip slide in, experienced, unclothed,
So there would be less friction,
Just a sensation of more warmth,
But waking me nonetheless.

Not upset, not at all...no mad men here...

Presenting me anew with an annual question..

By annual I mean, a question posed
Every night of every year
Of the rest of our lives together...
Which is not the same as
nightly, perpetual or forever

What is my favorite part?

My hand is drawn immediately to
The back of your neck, where hair wisps unruly,
Refuse to obey my gentle stroking and tidy up,
Joining  all the rest which you have upswept for me.

Like every child crayon-armed,
Begin at the beginning and
Draw circles upon circles,
Caresses disguised as art,
All over your newly presented tableau,

But you know my truth,
Searching, searching for my favorite place again.

Pretend I've discovered a
Checkerboard where I seem to win
Every game I've ever played,
Practicing double and triple jumps
Turning all of my captured pieces into Kings.

A snuggling presentation, a white skin canvas,
Mine to draw upon, what's my vision ce soir?
My pointer, my paint brush asks for directions,
Who shall we be! Mondrian, Chagall, Raphael?
Tonight I am Michaelangelo, my finger shall be the
Finger of God and with it I shall anoint and draw
Our names on my favorite place.

Sighing, you message me multiples,
Let me sleep please, but don't stop yet...
Understood.
If you have a job to do,
Get to it man.

Because we both know long ago
Selected my location were my fingers five
Will end this charade, this pretense.

The inner space that curves serpentine,
Where your back meets your hips,
Your waist so delicate will be stroked
And stroked till I hear your heavy lidded breathing.
Signaling me the game is over,
We have both won.

1:55 AM
Every night

Dear God:

Re Eva Cassidy

Been waiting/wanting to write you for a long time
About Eva Cassidy.

Had to let the anger settle,
Had to find the write words.

Many months have past, perhaps years,
Since I stumbled across the voice of this angel,
Memorial Day, it seems like the write time to
Try once more.

But my anger has not settled, it has trebled,
It has risen and is unquantifiable, irrevocable,
a line crossed, a feud, that can never now be amicably settled.

I have a retinue of good curses, experienced friends,
Looking to meet up with you, who understand that
Blessings and curses, for full effect, should be rarely used,
Especially inside a funereal poem honoring the truly great.

But for Eva, there's no question, you dude,
Got a fleet of F bombs coming your way,
When the children have gone to bed.

When Eva sings "Imagine,"
The purity of voice, miraculous,
I know you were afraid
And so took her young,
Lest her voice raise a generation of questioners.

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to **** or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You got the power,
You make mistakes,
We all gotta die sometime,
But you better not take the special ones too early,
Or I may stop writing to you, and then,
What ya gonna do? Who will comfort me?
Eva will, that's who,
When we walk together in Fields of Gold...

Shelter Island 5:00pm
May 26

When I hear Shakespeare
My own voice is stilled, it's poverty exposed,
I am ashamed of every word I ever wrote.
Hush me not, for tis true,
Yet I write on for an audience of one, on but one subject,
A subject, a life, mine,
yet, still unmastered, even after decades of trying.

My poverty exposed, unmasked
for what it is worth, or not.

Going Off To War (a/k/a Washing The Dishes)

When its time to wash the dishes,
I make proper preparations for this serious business,
I strip down to my skivvies (shorts, in a prior generation)
Cause there will plenty blood and gore afore too long
Soap and water flying about, the ceilings and the walls,
Not to mention big, big puddles on the floor.

Multi-colored sponges of sizes varied,
Some Brillo-sided, like extra armor on a tank,
By Dawn's early light, turn the clear water
Into a heaving, breathing soapy concoction.
Woebegone and woe betide, dried and sticky maple syrup,
You are no match for super-strength orange dishwashing solution,
Of the Greeks did praise, a single dollop packs a mighty wallop!

Ain't afraid of any stain, decomposing, half chewed, culinary rejection.
Don't even bother with rubber gloves, cause that's for sissies.
The dirtier the better, cause I love the sounds of
All out war, the rushing water, the futile screams of
Grease departing this world, down the rabbit hole,
My gleaming, victorious sinking of the enemy shipping

You think I am the first to celebrate in verse
This storied fight of right over dirt?

Recall please this famed couplet, for now be known its true inspiration!

"Oh, say can you see by the Dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?"

Though Men Like to Load the Dishwasher (You Didn't Know?)
Is another poem of a similar ilk, when technology is unavailable,
It is fact verifiable and unassailable,
That if you give a man some room and some privacy,
Ignore the shouts and war cries from the kitchen emanating,
Male aggression can best be expiated,
When playing war games in the kitchen, a live action movie,
A video game that never grows tiresome,
And violence is necessary, for the enemy's complete annihilation.

Thank you my dear, no medal need be awarded,
Scored this poem as my just reward.

By now you know I am no spring chicken,
So why am I taking tennis lessons at the age
Of two grandchildren?

Makes me wonder though,
What else should I be taking lessons in,
Perhaps something more important?

11:07
May 26th

The Straw Furniture (Summertime and the Living is Easy)

The ancient straw furniture, yellow-white, cracked,
My boon companions from the Sun Room where I write,
Give me a welcome back embrace and purposely snag my sweater,
Crackling a laugh and tween boisterous gasps, all wish me a hearty
Welcome back ancient mariner, to your cottage
On the bluff overlooking Peconic Bay.

The deck furniture exhumed from the garage,
Accompanied by a parade, nay a slew,
Of spiders and insects waving Adieu to their winter palace
Climb aboard to get a better view of their new deck digs,
And of me, the anti-hero of their grandparent's tales.

I go down to the basement.
Chagrined,
I come back up the twisty stairs
which designed, aimed to maim,
vowing never to return.

The refrigerator says do you like modern art?
Mold of multifarious colors, heavenly hues worthy of the
Museum of Modern Art,
I bequeath to you freely, no charge!

The clean laundry left out from last summer,
Looks so forlorn, asks politely,
Make me gone, wash away the winter's dusty grime,
Besides, traces of aged balsamic suntan lotion, still inhabit.

The golf clubs say nice meeting you,
Tho we think we met you once before,
Five or eight years or even never-years ago, was it not?

My obedient servants?
No, my friends, my helpers, my guides,
For in their sheltering embrace, in this holy place,
Inspiration floods, overcomes me and I am compelled alive,
Poet renewed, ****** why am I crying...


May 26th
10:15 AM
Shelter Island
In the Sun Room, weeping.

How to Read a Poem (Hint:  Not With Your Eyes)


Touch

You cannot lift or load it, over your shoulder, throw it,
to best assay its weight - is it ponderous, full of big *** gravitas
or a snack, a parfait desert, a haiku delight?

You cannot touch it, but it can touch you,
It can grasp both your shoulders, shake you from complacency,
put its hands upon thy throat, gasp emit, a scream demanded,
paint whimsy lines on thy face, from ear to ear.

See

With yours eyes, by a mere glance, true reveal its length,
stanzas multiple or an itty bitty ditty, but this gives no value clue,  
Ogden Nash vs. Tennyson,
in two minutes make you laugh,
in twenty, make you beg, mercy!

Smell

Some Poe poems do stink, befouled mushrooms in
a dank place, some require nerve to read,
but your olfactory be ill suited for
poetic deconstruction and criticism.

Hear

Wake you with kisses upon thy face, inject love poems into thy ears,
straight to the brain verbal crack *******
yet even the hearing the whisper of words from my lips,
is an insufficient, sensorily speaking methodology,
of how a poem, to best comprehend

How then?

If touch, vision, smell and cursory hearing alone
can't essence capture, what then, weary reader,
is the supposed Laureate's approved analytical tool?

Taste

Each letter, a morsel in your mouth,
Each phrase, a fork full of pleasure,
Each stanza, a full fledged member in a tasting menu,
Perfect only in conjunction with the preceding flavor,
and the one that follows,  and the one that follows.

Taste each poem upon thy tongue and then pass it on,
you know how....

Each word, whether chewed thoroughly,
or lightly placed upon a bud for flavor,
needs the careful consideration of your mouth.

Feel the light pressure of the tongues tip upon the roof of your mouth
and the exalted exhalations of air rushing past thy cheeks
as you messenger breath from your chest to be shared with the world,
over the poem's interpreter, your tasting lips.

As I lay each word down, a brick by brick edifice construct
of mine own design, I am sated, fulfilled only,
when with I see your lips move as you savor my words,
my taste you share, and we are closer for it.

Deaf, dumb and blind, all such travails can be conquered, assailed,
but when I cannot, no longer anymore taste
my poems upon thy lips, then I breathe no more.

In the theater, awaiting the curtain rising,
My woman looks at me and I say
Tangerines.
She punches me in the arm,
Cause once again I read her mind,
For I know she is silently making her shopping list.

In the kitchen, looking confused, she is
Thinking what the heck did I come in here for,
Smiling, I suggest a cuppa tea might be nice,
And she looks at me queerly and says
******* it, stop doing  that!

Driving home she turns to me
And I say, yes, a veggie burger at Houston's
Would be a great idea for dinner.

She can't hit me cause I am doing the driving,
But she does make some laughing, teeth gnashing noises,
Which are most comical.

I am no Houdini, it's quite simple,
After 5 years, I read her like a book,
A book of my poems that she has inspired,
Entitled the Mysteries of True Love.

6:00 PM
In the sun room, smiling.
May 25, 2013

Why I Kissed Your Glasses (A Love Poem)

I went to kiss your forehead
missed my turn off,
instead, connected,
with a seeing-eye tortoise
made of plastic.

Went to kiss your toes,
but the stunning purple hue that
decorated your toenails
shocked me into limp rigidity,
in-articulation, inactivity

Kissed your lips tenderly, longingly,
but Coco's formulation haunted me the whole day,
Her interference needed, but let it be noted accordingly,
It was you I loved, not her!

I kissed your fingertips so delicately,
with tenderness great,
enjoyed a vigorous nibble,
as your compensation,
received a poke in the eye,
accidentally, of course. (Right?)

Could go on and on,
but decorum forbids further revelations,
worth noting, but not composing,
still laughing at my just rewards,
the bruises resulting from my failed escapades!

All I can say is
En Garde!
I will be coming back soon enough.
because you are my best poem,
and the there will always be another stanza needed...

10:00 AM
Shelter Island
Memorial Day Weekend 2013

Why Men Like to Load the Dishwasher

We are the artists of shape and configuration,
puzzle masters solving riddles of physics,
worshipers at the altar of labor saving devices,
this is a love poem of sorts, a Bazinga salutation,
to men and their undying love
for **** machines.

were it in my power
all cups would be handle-less,
the dishwasher time-space continuum
would be non-interrupted by black holes
where handles pointlessly protrude,
requiring endless rearrangement,
a soul destroying exercise.

bowls of any sort should have bottoms that retract.
indeed, the capacity increase, a visible fact,
is so enviro-friendly, eminently sensible,
that the loading for mechanical scrubbing
is deserved of a wing in the Smithsonian.

perhaps the budgeteers of Congress
should be tutored in this artistry,
how to make any limited resource,
better used.

the rub, as the bard would have writ,
is that this roaring tempest-tost,
our love for hard labor lost,
secret sacrificed behind a locked door,
of a Sanctum *******,
is entirely due, all glory to,
the secret society of fairies who
hide-reside inside,
freeing us to write more poetry.

in so many ways that I cannot reveal,
less the other gender members squeal,
men live to love to load the dishwasher,
for the ingenuity challenge, and of course,
the side benefit of the excusing coverup,
"I helped clean up," a relationship saver,
proof positively that the dishwasher inventor,
was surely a brilliant woman

~for RK, for now~

Until you have bent your ear to Shakespeare's sonnets,
Till you have laughed with Ogden Nash,
Wept with Frost, visited Byron's ghost,
Read the songs of King Solomon,
And once you
Despair of being their equal,
Shed your winter coat of worry,
***** your courage to the sticking point,
Begin to write then with reckless fearlessness,
Unfettered abandon, make a fool of yourself!

Scout the competition.
Weep, for you and I will never surpass
The giants who preceeded us, and yet,
Laugh, cause they thought the same thing as well...

Six Minutes

Created: Jun 18, 2011  2:27 PM

Finished: Jun 18, 2011 2:33 PM
-----------------------------------------------

In every breeze, in every blade waving to me,
I hear the poetry that encompasses;
the insects brushed off my tattered t shirt
are eavesdroppers, premature sightseers,
over-the-shoulder peekers,
wanting a preview of what has just been scored
and written up and how big a part they have.

shadows upon the lawn,
dancing a modest but frothy salsa,
my heart lips speak peace unto us all
and my eyes see my dear ones, beside me,
in my envelope of words, you are embraced:

to all, I say now you are bound to me
by thoughts of tenderness no lawyers can sunder,
that needs no caveated blessing from
city clerk or prepaid spiritual diviner.

my forked branch twitchs where wells,
nay, reservoirs of all cherished natural vitals
are awaiting for us to drill and drink,
raw, direct to the bloodstream,
which when warmed by a warmth
I have no words to describe other than
it is given and stored within for consumption
when sad moments arrive,
and when called upon, restores and soothes
when hugs and words cannot,  
but for now, for knowing, for keeping.

you though distant, grow closer,
and I will ride through the nite
with two lanterns to announce our reunification
after so long, what could be better
than to fall upon your neck, and lips parted,
whisper words of thanksgiving

Holy Crap,
They Sold My Name!

No big deal, your name, your email, bought n' sold daily,
Like a baseball card, your picture and vital stats are on the internet,
Your credit card in the fine print tells you they love you much,
But the data they collect, might get credited to such and such.

You're fair game if your sign up for anything.

Now I know I am getting on in years,
Tho spry rhymes with die, I flatly deny
Any notion that
My great beyond is just around the corner!

But Holy Crap,
They Sold My Name!

Got a color brochure
Suggesting that when my travels are over,
A nice place to rest my head might be
St. Michael's Cemetery.

St. Michael's Cemetery
7202 Astoria Blvd, East Elmhurst
(718) 278-3240
Friday hours 7:00 am–5:00 pm

In case you want to check it out too...

Tho I live not in the Borough of Queens County,
My zip code but a hop, skip and jump away,
The cemetery adjacent to the Grand Central Parkway
Which is actually quite thoughtful of
The mass marketer who dreamed up this scheme
(And got paid a plentiful amount of bounty).
My kids could wave as they drive by,
On the way to LaGuardia or JFK, (airports)
And say, guilt free, they visit me regularly!

Sadly, their plot foiled,
I will be buried in
New Jersey soil,
Near to my pop, who liked the
Wide open spaces of suburbia
And shopping on Route 4,
Where the selection is great
And there is no sales tax.

But Holy Crap,
They Sold My Name,
And I am now target marketed,
Niched, pretty soon the boys from AARP
Will come calling, reminding me of the gap
Tween Medicare and the poor house!

Ok ok,  grow up you say, tho your hair is full,
And not even a hint of baldness shines forth,
Nonetheless, its color is zebra striped gray,
And when someone says they got my back,
I think, please, please take it and keep it....

Oh yeah,
Dear St. Mikes
You might ask for some of your money back,
Cause this sily scribe is a member of the tribe,
Some call "those ***** (hint: it rhymes with Mikes),"
It starts with K and ends in yikes!

But thanks for thinking of me anyway.

I sit in the sun room, I am shaded for the sun
is only newly risen, low slung, just above the horizon,
behind me, over my shoulder, early morn warm

Slivers of sun rays yellow highlight the wild green lawn,
freshly nourished by torrential rains of the prior eve

The wind gusts are residuals, memoirs of the hurricane
that came for a peripheral visit, your unwanted cousin Earl,
in town for the day, too bad your schedule
is fully booked, but he keeps raining on you,
staying on the phone for so long, that the goodbye,
go away, hang up relief is palpable

The oak trees are top heavy with leaves frothy like a new cappuccino,
the leaves resist the sun slivers, guarding the grass
from browning out, by knocking the rookie rays to and fro,
just for now, just for a few minutes more,
it is advantage trees, for they stand taller in the sky
than the youthful teenage yellow ball

I sit in the sun room buffered from nature's battles external,
by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization,

and my thoughts drift to suicide.

I have sat in the sun room of my mind, unprotected.
with front row seats, first hand witness to a battle unceasing

Such that my investigations, my travails along the boundary line
between internal madness and infernal relief from mental pain
so crippling, is such that you recall begging for cancer or Aids

Such that my investigations, my travails along the sanity boundary
are substantive, modestly put, not inconsiderable

Point your finger at me, demanding like every
needy neurotic moderne, reassurance total,
proof negative in this instance, of relevant expertise!

Tell us you bona fides, what is your knowing in these matters?

Show us the wrist scars, evidential,
prove to us your "hands on" experiential!

True, true, I am without demonstrable proofs
of the first hand, my resume is absent of
razors and pills, poisons and daredevil spills,
guns, knives, utensils purposed for taking lives

Here are my truths, here are my sums

If the numerator is the minutes spent resisting the promised relief
of the East River currents from the crushing loneliness that
consumed my every waking second of every night of my years of despair
                           divided by
a denominator that is my unitary, solitary name,
then my fraction, my remainder, is greater than one,
the one step away from supposed salvation...

Yet, here I am sitting in the sun room buffered from
nature's battles by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization

I am a survivor of mine own World War III,
carnaged battlefields, where white lace curtains,
were not buffers but dividers tween mis en scenes,
variegated veins of colored nightmares, reenactments of
death heroics worthy of Shakespeare

Did I lack for courage?
Was my fear/despair ratio insufficient?

These are questions for which the answers matter only to me,
tho the questions are fair ones, my unsolicited ******,
they are not the ones for which I herein write,
for they no longer have relevance, meaning or validity,
for yours truly

I write poetry by command, by request, good or bad,
this one is a bequest to myself, and also a sidecar for an old friend,
who asked in passing to write what I know of suicide,
unaware that the damage of hurricanes is not always
visible to the naked heart

These hands, that type these words are the resume of a life
resumed,
life line remains scarred, but after an inter-mission, after an inter-diction, an inter-re-invention
in a play where I was an actor who could not speak
but knew every line, I am now the approving audience too...

But I speak now and I say this:

There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away what belongs to you,
do your own sums, admit your own truths
query not the lives of others, approach the mirror...

If you want to understand suicide,
no need to phone a friend, ask the expert,
ask yourself, parse the curtains of the
sun room and admit, that you do understand,
that you once swung one leg over the roof,
gauged the currents speed and direction,
went deep sea fishing without rod or reel
and you recall it all too well, for you did the math
and here I am, tho the tug ne'er fully disappears,
here I am, here I am writing to you,
as I sit in the sun room.

Memorial Day, 2011

Hasta La Pasta!


She stands in the doorway
As is her wont,
Bidding adieu to the retreating figure
Who spent the night in
Adoration of the Magi,
Her charms, her hair,
Her serpentine figure most fair,
And scribbling on Hello Poetry
Till his eyes said, no mas!

The retreating figure that be me,
Late for work at 7:20.
Over the shoulder I exclaim,
Hasta Mañana!
Which is silly because
My return is faithfully guaranteed,
Every eve for as long as I live!

She laughs and replies,
Hasta la Pasta!

Stop in my tracks,
About face and in woeful Italian,
Do exclaim, in a deeply serious timbre,
Hasta la Pasta?
Basta!  
(Italian for "that-does-it")

You can have my love, my soul,
But leave to me the labor of poetry.
Loving you with words is
my domain, the speciality of my terrain,
So no more hasta la pasta if you please,
And by the bye, I would love some
Tonight, say around eight,
At a restaurant where the moon is
The only light illuminating our faces.

7:45 AM

I heard a story that moonlight was no more,
And I wept for the forlorn stars,
Forever now,
Orphaned, lost and fatherless.

For the man in the moon had
To galaxies uncharted, gone off,
Feeling unappreciated by the human race.

He found a milky white galaxy,
Where the light of his moonbeams poems
Would illuminate the nighttime sky,
And that is where I wish to be
Too.

The poem is the afterbirth,
A conflicts resolution, an outcome,
Battlefield debris, the residue of
An exacting vision, a sentiment surging,
And your army of words, inadequate to the task,
Fighting to capture that insight flashed,
Each word a soldier, disheveled,
Crying, let me live, let me be saved,
Let me make a poem,
Let it be inscribed upon my victorious flag.

The poem is the sweat left upon the brow,
Having exercised the five senses,
The salt of struggle and debate,
It's completion, each word,
Both a victory and a defeat.

To write down any old notion,
A la de da rhyme of late and fate,
To write to garner points and pins of glory,
Is just, well, ****** awful....
And
Mocks us all who ache
To write but a single line,
That uplifts the heart,
Eases pain, gives delight to strangers,
And makes you laugh out loud
With shivery pleasure,
That usurps a whole day and night,
That is a poets true measure.

Mastery of the poetic,
Measured not in quantity,
But in tears of satisfaction
When others love the taste
Of newly born stanzas
Upon their lips,
couplets born and transcribed
In the wee hours of the morn.

Used to tell 'em not to cut my hair too short,
When I was young-old,
Nowadays I just tell him cut it short,
so it
Spikes...Yikes!

Makes me realize,
Vanity is one of my
Oldest friends,
And also, one of my
Oldest enemies.

I like Bob Dylan's songs,
Like him better these days,
When younger voices cover him,
And I hear his word-songs differently.

Oh I love to laugh,
Especially at myself,
Silly boy in the mirror,
Who the heck are you Grandpa?
I am,
The Times They Are-A-Changin'
Nowadays, I'm  growing down

As long as there are teenagers extant,
Anomie and alienation of
an unripened generation
Shall spill upon this site in cliched cries,
Dabbling with threats of pills and lies,
The endless pain felt gives one fright.
To this old soul who wonders silently,
Will these thousands of pained children
Make it through to their next incarnation

So much angst, so much anger,
I wonder if God created poetry
To salve their wounds

Their unknown futures loom,
But all I read is  hurt and doom.
You shall survive, children.
Awful poetry, some good,
you will write.
But write and write
till your heart be calmed

For even ancient kings felt the anguish  of the soul,
And we profit even today by King David's psalms.

This wizened fool has his hands full,
Mouths to feed, bread to earn and bake,
As midnight is almost nigh,
He rests prone and adds a verse to this old poem
He long ago scribbled down, grimace-smiles now,
Realizing there is little difference tween him and the
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland.

For poetry salves his wounds still, even now,
Unashamedly, he thinks, quiet like, praying,
Hallelujah, spoken in the original,
The tongue of his ancestors

Hello Poetry


Yearned.
Ached.
For so long, for a community,
That values the ineffable wonder
Of a wordsmith's creations, intended to
Repair himself and the world with bullets of
Verses.

And here you are.

Like/Dislike, matters not,
So long as we value each others work,
And the the heart echoes within
What the eyes read and the mouth whispers.

The array and disparity of your names,
A delight,
Each name a poem
In its own right.

So I resubmit a question for your consideration,
The answer is now known,
The answer is all of us.
May 2013
---------------------------------------------------------


­Who's Who In Poetry  



T'is a curious thing,
these verbal peddlers, tribal members,
famously well known to no one,
perhaps at best,
a kindred few, fellow-travelers.

Each a troop,
bloodied, purple hearted,
word-wounded,
anonymous unto each other,
yet all bonded intimates,
in solitary struggle united,
yet sea-parted by the very nature
of the solitude of composition.

All poets are Cain scar-marked,
purposed for everyone to see,
a warning to rabbled boors,
imagination suppressors!

World:

cherish these flawed ones,
gentle these frail but gritty,
the Lord has tasked them
to be prophets in one tongue untied,
undo the strife of Babel's division.

Poets!

Be the harpooners
of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody,
comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy
to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders
into crinkly eye-lined smilers.

With clinical observation,
dense and demanding,
make us laugh at
the comedy of our situation,
teach us our free-to-see peep show,
reveal, unseal us
with **** empathy!

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
tastes his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
and becomes one who was,
yet is,
because of you,
in poetry.
---------------
Postscript (1/25/17)

Even more true today, than four years ago.
Thank You.

You ask me how I find the time,
But time is not the issue,
For they, are all prepared, needing only recognition,
For they, are all in readiness, needing only composition

I see a toddler swaying, see him to disaster lurching,
Somehow avoided with last second seer-like swerving,
Ten times in a ten foot walk across a patio,
My eyes code red at the incredible risk/reward ratio,
It is nature at it most incredible, miraculous, ordinariness

A young girl of ten wears a pocketbook across her forearm,
In the style of an elderly woman, as she plays with Barbie,
Tho her body immature, her psyche, says note my
Iconology, her accoutrement, texts a message subtly,
I am preteen, I am near woman, treat me accordingly

Dueling iPads in bed is a poem in my head,
rhymes accurate of screen reflections of an
X factor that stimulates my cerebral cortex.
Verbal ointment that I posses can't fix a flat tire,
but sets me up for a personal review, self awareness
Gone mad and with finger, on gas station floor,
In the grime, words are realized/written concretely,
what my heart speaks freely

Within each day, miracles present themselves,
Gauntlets thrown, note them well and be justified,
Visions, external to my physical self,
Yet product of internal chemical reactions
That blow through my veins, swirling,
Word leaves, on a November weekend,
Windswept from a thousand directions,

So you ask me how I find the time,
The question proper be amended,
How do the times find me,
How do I know them,
And why, do I share them

For Al, who left us, Nov. 22, 2014

With each passing poem,
The degree of difficulty of diving ever higher,
Bar incrementally niched, inched, raised,
Domain, the association of words, ever lesser,
Repetition verboten, crime against pride.

Al,
You ask me when the words come:

With each passing year,
In the wee hours of
Ever diminishing time snatches,
The hours between midnight and rising,

Shrinkage, once six, now four hours,
Meant for body restoration,
Transpositional for poetic creation,
Only one body notes the new mark,
The digital, numerical clock of
Trillion hour sleep deficit, most taxing.

Al, you ask me from where do the words come:

Each of the five senses compete,
Pick me, Pick me, they shout,

The eyes see the tall grasses
Framing the ferry's to and fro life.
Waving bye bye to the
End of day harbor activities,
Putting your babies to sleep.

The ears hear the boat horns
Deep voiced, demanding pay attention,
I am now docking, I am important,
The sound lingers, long after
They are no longer important.

The tongue tastes the cooling
Italian prosecco merging victoriously
With its ally, the modestly warming rays
Of a September setting sun,
finally declaring, without stuttering,
Peace on Earth.

The odoriferous bay breezes,
A new for that second only smell,
But yet, very old bartender's recipe,
Salt, cooking oil, barbecue sauce, gasoline
And the winning new ingredient, freshly minted,
Stacked in ascending circumference order, onion rings.

These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger, by force majeure,
Declares, here, 
poem aborning!
Contract with this moment,
now satisfied!

Al,  what you did not ask was this:
With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me.
__________
(this poem more than most,
for its birth celebrates
my loss, your loss,
which cannot be exonerated 8/7/18)


__________
written at 4:38 AM
September 8th, 2012

Greenport Harbor, N.Y.

Glint

Reflecting mirrors,
Each leaf glints,
An illuminated individual
In a stadium pool of
Waving faces.

Paying homage by shining,
Mutuality of existence,
Chlorophyll for oxygen
Light for life,
A fair bargain.

S3

Sleepless, Shuffling In Stockholm

Somewhere in my body,
A bifurcated clock ticks,
Two clock faces,
White on black,
Vice versa.

Mixed media messages,
Crazy train station internal,
Brain activity fevered,
Arrive/depart according to
Somebody else's schedule,
Somebody else occupying,
Every street of my body

Lying asleep,
Typing these words,
It is the middle of the night,
Bright daylight suffuses the room
What part of my metaphysical schema,
Ain't jet lagged legally,
And poetically entitled to be
Stockholm Syndrome Confused?

Times have really changed,
Oh my, when you propose,
Let's go to Stockholm,
Anything goes!

So my schedule reordered
In the land of either all
Light or Dark, twenty hours four,
I turn to my boon companion,
Who soothes at any hour,
My music, my Nano,
And I find myself, musically,

Shuffling in Stockholm.

Meatloaf and Piazzolla,
Muddy Waters and Purple Rain,
Marvin Gaye and Pink Martini,
Beethoven, Straight No Chaser,
Beatles, Stones, Bennett vs. Buble,
The lack of sleep a permanent fixture,
Courtesy of this Bach-us admixture,

So should you see a gappy, khaki, clad tourist,
Meandering o'er the islands of this charming city,
In Ingmar Bergman fashion,
Black and white erratic,
Alternating, swaying and shuffling,
No tongue clucking,
Nah, he's not drunken,
Just dancing while sight seeing,
In a sleep deprived manner,
Someday a movie to be,
Sleepless, Shuffling In Stockholm
A/K/A
S3

June 30 ~ July 2, 2012
Stockholm, Sweden

"a canvas, which reflects
sunlight in rays unseen
before submitting itself to a life of color"

Razelle McCarrick
--------------------------------------------------
From­ memory she painted me,
Tho we had never met.
She painted my biography
On an easel of paper, brushes of pencil,
Exposed, bereft, inexorably delighted
At being dissolved in words that were not mine.

My annotated notes herein ascribed
To her revelations of my secreted stories,
Were written as I gazed upon the multi-blues of
California's beaches, neckline decorated with
Strands of white pearled beaches
Opposite contusions, bruises of
Orange terra cotta roofs, a burnt coral,
Colors that demanded attention, preservation,
Salutations, all hail the penetrating gaze of
Razelle, betrayer and savior.

His moniker was a borrowed line,
Still crazy after all these years,
How could this unknown girl of twenty two
Clear capture, undress me in the poetry of her canvas,
The instant and constant self-examination,
The rapture when transcending the fears
Instilled from birth of how I ought to be,
Which sixty two years on, the wrestling never ends.

Color me flesh ****,
Color me blue bottled,
Red ripped asunder,
The sweetness ascribed to my love poetry,
A subtraction of the bitterness of a failed life.
Colorist of my seams, my woven words,
I am white now, my canvas completed,
Waiting for another poet to write over it,
And chaining new words to what was prior writ.

N.M.L.

--------------------------------------------------­-----

Razelle McCarrick · Sep 21, 2010
Biography of a Man
Someone wrote a biography of a man. Said he liked to write poetry and spend time in nature. But there are many things its readers will never know about. The streams of thought, the analysis, confusion, the Sadness, sprinkles of joy, the Transcension. A strange man he was..sweetly strange, but strangely bitter. At odds with the halves of himself..or perhaps thirds. But who will know? Someone wrote a biography of a man, but didn't say he was crazy. Or that he had a sharp mathematical mind and tried to add up the components of life to find it wasn't an equation in the first place. It was omitted that he was not merely a man, but of some other kind, often missing his home and his people, though he didn't know who they were. They didn't say when he became deaf, that he still played his favorite songs because he could feel them all the same and see them in colors. And no one knew that he refused to write in pen, but pencil only because one day his work would be rubbed away by the sands of time, just like his body. Someone wrote a biography of a man, but there was no account of what he did on a beautiful day, like the time he sat by a stream pondering his life and rewrote the biography of a man.

The Compact


Some of us are given to,
upon our person to secret
instrumentation to adjust
the patina of our ****** tones,
lest the glare of man made light
lend a shine undesired and worse,
uncovered windowed pores allow
revelations undesirable into our souls.

In other words, a compact and its constituents:
puff, powder and mirror.

Observed a compact in use
between Act I and Act II,
the deft use of the mirror,
angled, moved back and forth
to provide perspective,
close-up and/or total.

The Gods of Metaphor,
Deities of Derision
force my unwilling reveal
thru the holy confessional screen:
I too have a compact.

My compact, a deal, a treaty accord
between the white rigors of life daily,
and spasms of black lies
to make appearances tolerable.
My compact is what I cover up
with powder and puffery.

Aged sixty two years, life nonsensical,
perversely inversely, the dependence upon
these cracked hands grows,
dying cells dividing like newborns,
worrisome weariness make the lies
come faster and more frequent,
which is why my compact has a mirror.

No matter what perspective enamored,
In the mirror, my reality check,
No powder upon my eyes,
the brutality and the joy,
of life is undisguised.

Nonetheless, I have more,
Morethanless, the balance
is favorable, the outlook positive.
My compact with you is to
remind us all, through
music, dance, words and love,
This is the only compact
with the power of human law.

Multi-tasking

Kissing your eyes,
Sensing the tickling of your trembling lashes,
Between kisses and breathes
Utter word-wisps of
Love poetry.

Right hand strokes thy chest,
sensing/sending heartbeats upon my palm to the
Forever keep part of my
Treasury memory chest.

All the while my left finger indexes,
Mesmerized, it memorizes
The curvature of the face
To be stored in the
Never forget always place.

My tongue restless to participate
Goes whatever it feels like,
For the tongue is the only body part
With a mind of its own.

My eyes, my eyes, see only the
Totality of this moment.
When mastery of multi-tasking
Is the single best poem this man ever
Penned with his entirety.

May 19th
Laguna Niguel, Ca.

The Weather Channel, ubiquitous,
Who among us does not have this app,
On their phone, computer, mobile device
Ready for a quick scan..

Odd topic for an essay,
Strange, that your poetic silence
Should be broken this way,
Then again, you didn't inquire,
Or even notice it had gone missing.

Yet the channel/app of which I write,
Is mobile, and certainly, applies to each of us
But cannot be found on any device but in our hearts..

When we awaken,
The temperature is taken,
A glance upon your visage
Reveals rested or irritable,
Blue clouds or storm warnings,
Better dress appropriately...

But even this is not the forecast
Of which my heart and words speak,,
The whether I need, the thermometer reading,
The barometric pressure that needs knowing,
Measures whether you love me still,
Love me more, love me better,
Than the last poem/day we just wrote/recorded,
Yesterday...

The waters we will yet navigate,
The sky we shall observe,
Cloud shapes to design and designate,
A fortune to prognosticate,
Is the sum of the fortunes/forecasts we create daily.

Our weather is our good fortune,
And strangely the forecast is the same daily,
Whether fair or hurricane,
Whether gladdened or pained,
Our forecast, ours,
Our forecast, unique,
Our forecast, let us record it into reality,
When we awaken entangled,
Looking out the window and envision,
Predicting our life-scape.

In Orange County


In Orange County, Californiyay,
When you arrive at John Wayne Airport,
No need to show driver license or passport,
But be prepared for inspection to gain entry.

Are your teeth white enough to light the roads?
Is your navel hairless and clean enough to be licked?
Do you have two tats, if not, get going back
to whatever!
If your not blonde, produce pictures of your parents,
In any event, law demands, go directly to the colorist!

At the John Wayne Airport,
Religion is everywhere,
Who says God is illegal
In the great state of California-yay?

A flimsy dress, no room to guess,
Sashays slowly before the lines of the waiting,
If you are a believer, all is revealed,
A thong is the path to the Promised Land,
All you do is silent pray, Good God,
Mine eyes have seen the coming of The Lord!

A middle aged woman with many large bags
Dances a pas de deux with the luggage carousel,
Wrestling those black devils to the ground,
Her less than flat physique is displayed,
All you do is silent pray, Good God,
Please tell me she is pregnant!

Everybody smiles and says hello, so friendly,
But having mastered the technique of doing so
While looking over and past you, rest assured,
Your New York sensibilities of ignoring the movie star
Sitting next to you on the subway feels like the ultimate,
True cool.

In this place the sun never sets, which is why the citizens
Have sunglasses surgically attached to their heads.
Have not seen a big nose 'cept mine
Being looked down on from people who by law
Must be a minimum of six feet tall.

Need my gritty, need my cabbies giving me the finger,
Need the senior citizens fighting tooth and elbow for anything on sale,
Need my rivers, need to bleed orange and blue,
Need my ballet, my museums, my rude compatriots,
Who rush to your side when you sidewalk stumble,
Who never judge a book by its cover,
Cause the **** next to you is likely the author.
Who open their pockets and hearts to every needy person,
Hand extended, give 'em a buck, genuinely wish 'em God Bless,
They who let us share the fabric, woof and weave of our
City streets, their homes...

I got beach, I got mountains,
So maybe they're not visible from my living room,
But I got more living in the hearts of my fellow Yorkers,
Than there are grains of sands on the beaches of
Orange County.

There Is But One Law (The Dancer's Coda)


There is but one set of laws,
One that need be obeyed,
One that brooks no heresy,
One that gives no absolution.
One that needs no priests, no canons,
One that that refuses disobedience.

We all bend knee at altar invisible,
Though feasance never requested.

The Laws of Physics.

A body at rest, a body in motion.
Laws immutable, unconditional,
Equations, proofs, demonstrable,
Inequalities inexcusable, banished.

Dancer says:

I am heretic, even these laws I refuse.
My body denies limitations,
My mind believes I will make do
What it could not, but yesterday.

Defiance from wire to wire is the
Fuel in my veins, fear but a detail,
Leaping from from ten meters more,
My Declaration of Independence.

My body plastic, my mind ethereal,
Some mock, call it trickery,
Some hail, call me hero.

There are forces greater than mine,
Forces irrevocable, mathematically superior.
Each day my force grows as well,
Visions imagined supersede the
Tedium of definitions, of boundary lines.

Bend the law, conquer the null, fill the void.

Each day sketch, devise, organize a
New rebellion, follow only one command,
Honor but a single battle cry.

Leap, then fall!

That dancer, your only law,
That heretic, thine only coda.
Action is freedom.

For you are dancer,
Whisper as you leap:
The Fifth Freedom I possess,

The Freedom to Fall.

May 17th, 2013

My Solace

when every aperture is a tunnel narrowing,
a light pin diminishing when nearing,

when the desk drawer yields up unused theater tickets,
for performances concluded yesterday,

when the denouement is nothing new but worse,
revealed in the coming attractions trailer,

when the rusted unborn poem notion is almost done,
but remains unpublished,
for no beginning, no title, can be found,

Then I recall the cornucopia days,
when poems spilled forth like
there would never be a when they wouldn't,

I revisit my old friends, couplets, twins and triplets,
seeded inside every tear, happy or sad,
sweetly and freely,

my old friends, reread,
words rearranged in new combinations,
old poems, plants bearing new fruits,
re-titled all of them, one name,
a collection entitled,
My Solace.

Cast a Vast Million Colored Words, a Canvas of Solace


Dedicated to Tajudeen Shah
who wrote those words,
a fellow poet, a comrade in words.
----------------------------------------

With words we paint,
With syllables we embrace,
Tasked and ennobled,
We are forever fully employed,
Missionaries to all,
You too, are one as well,
Your fate can't be renounced,

So,

Before you pen words of
Lost love, woe begotten troubles,
Nature's royal blues and purples,
Spirits, demons, speeches, mumbles,

First

Write the uplifting sounds,
Cast a million colored words,
Upon a canvas of solace,
Bring one molecule of comfort
To the misbegotten, to the downtrodden,
In any way you can, form matters not,
But let this be our mantra shared,
Let this be our only morning prayer,

A prayer we are obligated to utter,
A prayer we are obligated to fulfill.
Solace, given,
Solace, granted.

Ineffable: Too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words; Too sacred to be uttered.
-------------------------–-------—----------------------­---------------------------------------

The whimpered cries of the dying
in the rubble of Bangladeshi avarice,
announcing we were worthy of life,
to which we think to ourselves,
agreed upon
with our,
a whispery, silent
amen.

The still alive cries of children,
tornado-tormented parents screaming unfair,
teachers body shielding their charges, whispering
save us Lord, from your inventive toys,

to which we think to ourselves,
a whispery, silent
amen.

But here comes the Oklahoma tornadoes again,
now four more dead in Houston,
selecting the innocent, the brave,
logic in any of this, none,
nonsensical at its worst

to which we think to ourselves,
a whispery, silent
amen.

~~~~~
The first I-am-alive cries
of new born lungs,
I have grandson, stain-less, perfect,
recovering in the stainless steel delivery room,
I hear the all babies in the neo-natal unit in unison
pronouncing a Hebrew blessing,
the Shecheyanu...

(Blessed are You, Lord our God, Master of the universe, who has kept us alive and sustained us and has brought us to these special moments)

to which we think to ourselves,
a whispery, silent
amen.

These unspoken poem devotions of adoration
of the sleeping chamber, that cannot
be heard or answered for they're dreamt and
perchance in the morning thankfully recalled,
enough to be transcribed,

to which we think to ourselves,
a whispery, silent
amen.

Ineffable.

A day, just another supplying an average day
to the mass of average.
Birth + Death = an average day.

I thank a God for the
birth of a newborn perfection

On this day the newspapers report
about silence of the God others pray to,
could be the same deity,
reporting that in his holy places,
Jew spits upon Jew,
Muslims usurp Christian lives,
all for none,
all forgetting in
whose image they were created.

to which we cannot say nor think
anything.

Ineffable.

too sacred to be uttered,
so instead of the paucity of these unuttered words,
know that each tear in
the reservoir of my eyes
is my unspoken poem prayer.,
my amen.

*Instead of answering
amen out loud,
wipe my eyes
with your fingertips,
silently.