I live on a small (25 sq. mile) island, accessible only by ferry.

                                                  <>

“For we are dear to the immortal gods,
Living here, in the sea that rolls forever,
Distant from other lands and other men”

—Homer, the Odyssey (translated by Robert Fitzgerald)

                                                    ­  <>

sea air inoculates the slowing breath-taking ferried voyager,
our landed cares felled, fall into a wake, trailing, sunk & submerged,
a ferry’s ramp contact-clangs, belling a “Here, Here!” alters our mien,
the softening airy enveloping, fragrantly, a greeting of immortal gods

no matter that we can vision-easy the neighboring isles, with
their trafficked-light busyness, the to and fro of mainland life,
bustle necessity of hustle, our riveted river moat cancels out
imposing surround sounds, our untucked flavor, floating free

wafting perfume of quiet inlet, creek and harbour, touch us safely,
alternating currents of gentle breeze, stiffer sailing winds, gusts,
bending us, these reminders, we humans too, creatures of elementals,
water, sun, forest, sand, animals, singular upon co-hosted menagerie

the brackish water, where fresh + marine waters mix, live + die,
reflecting our pooling diversity, so few of us born here, yet so many,
adopt and adapt the isle’s peculiarities, endearing all without any
distinction, we blessed together by Immortal Gods to shelter together,

by, from, the seas that roll us into one peaceful island, nearly, dearly,

and now departed

                                                      ­ <>


Shell Beach,
Shelter Island
August 2021

muse,
she/her has no master, only a mastery;
she, comes compulsing, a physical pounding,
a throbbing impervious resistant to logic or medicine,
which is the so very ever, the peculiar throbbing
of a principled particular “present participle,”
write of compulsing is her mocking suggestion.

a presence, punishing urging, pas de choix, obey,
submission; write freely but not free, compose or
decompose; is there a difference, no, not, and so ordered,
demand surrendered, how? how? this taking and giving,
can a single act dichotomy be so fulfilling and so emptying?


<>

wake daily to water canvas, the waves, dabs of paint
protruding, irritating. provoking yet presented silenced,
repetitiously calming, motioned framed within the
white edged sand, the bound-surround of the living painting.

eyes alight, eyes delight, this daily emergence unto
a tapestry devoid of human interference suggests
a differentiating reality; now I understand the how of a
world’s imperfections constituting, tooting its own perfectionism.

this is not lake water; no single flat stone skipping nor
a concentric rippling to a slow death; this is seaward-
bound, an oceans subservient tributary, contributory,
a river, bay, sound - precursors to a vast atlantic infinity.

this is metaphor; this a still life of the perpetuation metamorphosis.

<>

the muse exhales; as do I subsequently; what difference?
none, she replies to herself, tween painting artist and
verbalizing poet, the un-still life creation, always, always,
different, the essence of diversity in a singularity sameness


                                                     ­     






7:13 AM Thu Jul 29
2021
S. I. Sound

A mirror will suffice, no doubt.
The high furrowed forehead,
The heavy-lidded Asian eyes,
The long-lobed Indian ears.
Brown skin beginning to spot,
Of an age to bore and be bored.
I turn away, knowing too well
My face, my expression
For all seasons, my half-smile.

Birds flit about the feeder,
The dog days wane, and I
Observe the jitters of leaves
And the pallor of the ice-blue beyond.
I read to find inspiration. I write
To restore candor to the mind.
There are raindrops on the window,
And a peregrine wind gusts on the grass.
I think of my old red flannel shirt,
The one I threw away in July.
I would like to pat the warm belly of a
Beagle or the hand of a handsome woman.
I look ahead to cheese and wine,
And a bit of Bach, perhaps,
Or Schumann on the bow of Yo-Yo Ma.

I see the mountains as I saw them
When my heart was young.
But were they not a deeper blue,
shimmering under the fluency of skies
Radiant with crystal light? Across the way
The yellow land lies out, and standing stones
Form distant islands in the field of time.
here is a stillness on this perfect world,
And I am content to settle in its hold.
I turn inward on a wall of books.
They are old friends, even those that
Have dislodged my dreams. One by one
They have shaped the thing I am.

These are the days that swarm
Into the shadows of legend. I ponder.
And when the image on the glass
Is refracted into the prisms of the past
I shall remember: my parents speaking
Quietly in a warm familiar room, and
I bend to redeem an errant, broken doll.
My little daughter, her eyes brimming
With love, beholds the ember of my soul.
There is the rattle of a teacup, and
At the window and among the vines,
The whir of a hummingbird’s wings.
In the blue evening, in another room,
There is the faint laughter of ghosts,
And in a tarnished silver frame, the
likeness of a boy who bears my name.

Of ***** roasting pans and racks and island fog!

if you love me, then you know poems wright themselves when standing, driving, bus riding, love-making and especially when
doing manly battle, ******* ***** dishwashing midst island fog

a passing remark goes noticed and summoned to a
Friday night feast, roasted fowl, wild rice with golden raisins and mushrooms, English spring peas, was it a Montrachet?

for dessert the washing up is obligation mine, a traditional desertion,
separation of church and state, her cooking a church  in which I worship, she states eloquently:
“Unto Caesaria , Render Her the cleanup”

this is hand to hand combat, no dishwasher mechanical
can scrub like the human hand, and with body english,
water hot, but no gloves employed for this is ***** man’s work,
not for sissies, cleaning roasting pans and roasting racks
that are at least twenty years burnt and crusted with a blackened
finish, residue of other lovers and dinners P.N. (pre-nat)

array three kinds of sponges and some human & metallic *****,
no one asking which came first,
the scrubbing away of life feasting residues,
or the poem writing that comes with pre & postscript sleepiness

when I say the dark stains and the grease buildup are
flavor enhancers, am beknighted with starry stares of
“how stupid do you think I am?” and sadly return to the
Battle of Agincourt, the one the American lost….


but they do source poems that flavor life

2020

the truest love: ask me about too perfect*

this I believe:

that part of we humans
that intersects emotion
& memory retains a video

not frequently reviewed,
placed deep in an unlocked,
unlabeled chest of drawer

surrounded by keepsakes, hidden
letters, scribbled napkins and
a less-than-handful of stills,
plain poems of raw delicacy

infrequent summoned, preceded
by a stray, strong thot asking
no one but you, why now? what
was the trigger synapse?

the love, the being, blessed, cursed,
known by its call letters:
TOO PERFECT…

the body is atrophying,
rising from the bed is an
exercise in handholds, comedy physical
wall-grabbing, flail to fall, laughing at myself, still

my super quiet whispers in the bed
of imminent death go unheard,
as somewhat desired, but not entirely,
3/4 tween unsure and surely and surly.

the blood don’t circulate fast enough,
streams slow, sad songs Pandora accumulates,
and Spotify artificial intelligence finds more,
certifying a usual unusual, feel dust mites breaking off of me

<>

mind running in rivulets, fear floes,
courage-drowned, easy stuff
impossible, hard, beyond pale, summer melt,
drowning in self-disgust, hapless hopeless harmonic wastage

every deadline passes, dying,
easygoing no screaming, the
minimal, hard, past the behind, the pale,
the poetry is untraceable, untranslatable and never-good-enough

the easy out is steps away,
illusions are illusory, delusions offer no comfort,
stories you tell for amusement, leaving whimsical
dreams are practice runs, for the longer run, will shortly come do-due

the poem words die on the vine,
scorned silence, best is past,
appropriate ignominy is red-****** iced,
so it goes, no minyan for the funeral, no ten friends

the query repeatedly reappears,
how did I mess up so bad, some part
lazy, part afraid, humans, so much effort,
the voices-in-head saying, we’re plenty good enough

shelter can become a prison, an island,
fortress or prison, a salvation pretense,
osprey overhead, preying, feeding next gen,
hear-’em discussing options when “sleeping,”
his affairs in order?, which smile provokes the provocateur

my affairs long dustbin guests,
sand and atmospheric disbursed,
your next poem probably, granules contained,
for this is how all life is transferred, I’m in a tiny minute, in you…

We Are So Lightly Here

“So come, my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here
It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear
Though all the maps of blood and flesh are posted on the door
There’s no one who has told us yet what Boogie Street is for”
Leonard Cohen “Boogie Street”


                                                     <~>

my body, my eyes, my entirety, tattooed, with a city map,
here, at this exact place, our eyes glanced, our eyes closed,
who among us does not possess such a living guide,
memories presented in a 3-D versions, constantly edited.

placed your hand on my privacy, bid you enter, not a dare,
more an invitation to risk, become a true love of mine,
share exhilaration, desert valleys that pockmark unexpectedly,
changes us to we, regresses, you and me, post-survivalists cut.

2 gather, modify highs/lows, meet & peaking@peculiar tunes,
ever embraces residuals a sour film upon our lips, a puzzling,
what excites, pacifies, returns us street corner, X’d our map,
glances exchanged across an empty street, seeing each, not.

First Boat


first boat off the island @ 5:40 am,
the sun, savvy and knowledgeable
makes sunrise @ 5:14 am for ‘late’ is
not an adjective extant in its stellar lexicon

a safety check, sunlight invades every crack,
pilings vested & secured, ferry engine hums a
warming, morning cranking tune, a sailors
favorite from the global ******’s hymnal

those early morning voyagers, who are exchanging,
one island for another, note their coffee steaming up
coordinates with haze, burning off, all to see the first
waves come to rock them voyagers to “all awaken”

sunlight then slow spreads its envision, from the Heights
over to Mashomack, rousing, disturbing, nudging the
remaining, for there is work, living aplenty, we who stay
to tend to the most appropriately named isle in the world

6/12/21
Silver Beach
Shelter Island, New York

What Walt Whitman Knew About Democracy


For the great American poet, the peculiar qualities of grass suggested a way to resolve the tension between the individual and the group.


When Walt Whitman began conceiving his great volume of poetry, “Leaves of Grass,” in the 1850s, American democracy was in serious danger over the issue of slavery. As we celebrate National Poetry Month this month, the problems facing our democracy are different, but Whitman still has a great deal to teach us about democratic life, because he saw that we are perpetually in danger of succumbing to two antidemocratic forces. The first is hatred between Americans, which Whitman saw erupt into civil war in 1861.

The second danger lies in the hunger for kings. The European literature and culture that preceded Whitman and surrounded him when he wrote “Leaves of Grass” was largely what he called “feudal”: It revolved around the elect, the special, the few. Whitman understood human fascination with kings and aristocrats, and he sometimes tried to debunk it. But mostly he asked his readers to shift their interest away from feudalism to the beauties of democracy and the challenge of sustaining and expanding it.

Whitman offers one metaphor for the grass after another, and one feels that he could go on forever.

This challenge is what inspired him to find his central poetic image for democracy, the grass: “A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands.” Whitman says that he can’t and won’t offer a literal answer to the question. Instead he spins into an astonishing array of “guesses.” The grass “is the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven”; it’s “the handkerchief of the Lord…Bearing the owner’s name somewhere in the corners, that we may see and remark and say Whose?”

To Whitman, “the grass is itself a child…the produced babe of the vegetation.” “Tenderly will I use you, curling grass,” he writes. “It may be that you are from old people and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps / And here you are the mothers’ laps.” He offers one metaphor for the grass after another, and one feels that he could go on forever.



But mainly Whitman’s grass signifies American equality: “I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,/And it means,/Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,/Growing among black folks as among white,/Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff,/I give them the same, I receive them the same.” Whatever our race and origin, whatever our station in life, we’re all blades of grass. But by joining together we become part of a resplendent field of green, stretching gloriously on every side.

Whitman found a magnificent metaphor for democratic America and its people. Like snowflakes, no two grass blades are alike. Each one has its own being, a certain kind of chlorophyll-based individuality. Yet step back and you’ll see that the blades are all more like each other than not. Americans, too, are at least as much alike as we are different, and probably more so. America is where we can be ourselves and yet share deep kinship with our neighbors.

And who are our neighbors? Kanuck, Congressman, Tuckahoe, Cuff—Canadian, legislator, Virginia planter, Black man, all of the teeming blades of grass that we see around us. When you stand back far enough, you can’t see any of the individual blades, but look closer and there they are—vibrant and unique, no two alike. We say “e pluribus unum,” from many one. But who could have envisioned what that would look like and how it would feel before Whitman came along?


MORE IN IDEAS


The grass is Whitman’s answer to the problem that bedeviled his contemporary Ralph Waldo Emerson: how to resolve the tension between the individual and the group. Emerson is sometimes hopeful that the two can cohere. When you speak your deep and true thoughts, no matter how controversial, he believed that in time the mass of men and women will come around to you. Each will say, ‘this is my music, this is myself,” Emerson says in “The American Scholar.” But mostly he is skeptical, believing that society is almost inevitably the enemy of genius and individuality.

Whitman’s image of the grass suggests that the one and the many can merge, and that discovery allows him to imagine a world without significant hierarchy. Can any one blade of grass be all that much more important than any other? When you make the grass the national flag, as it were, you get to love and appreciate all the people who surround you. You become part of a community of equals. You can feel at home.

We can look at those we pass and say not ‘That is another’ but ‘That too is me. That too I am.’

In “Leaves of Grass,” soon after he offers his master metaphor Whitman rises up to view American democracy from overhead. The poem’s famous catalogues of people doing what they do every day are quite simple: “On the piazza walk five friendly matrons with twined arms;/ The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold,/The Missourian crosses the plains, toting his wares and his cattle,/The fare-collector goes through the train—he gives notice by the jingling of loose change.”

This is your family, these are your sisters and brothers, Whitman effectively says. In general, we walk the streets with a sense of isolation. But if we can move away from our addictions to hierarchy and exclusive individuality, and embrace Whitman’s trope of the grass, our experience of day-to-day life can be different. We can look at those we pass and say not “That is another” but “That too is me. That too I am.” Or so Whitman hopes.

Of course, the benefits that Whitman promises do not come for free, or simply by reading his poem. We’ve got to meet his vision halfway, by being amiable, friendly, humane and nonhierarchical. This repudiation of hierarchy is not so easy; it’s not clear that even Whitman himself pulls it off. Isn’t he trying to be a great poet, the first truly American bard? But his effort matters. He knew that democracy is always vulnerable, that the best hope for human happiness could disappear from the earth. But Whitman would not let that happen without a fight.

—Mr. Edmundson is a professor of English at the University of Virginia. This essay is adapted from his new book “Song of Ourselves: Walt Whitman and the Fight for Democracy,” published this week by Harvard University Press.

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the April 17, 2021, print edition as 'What Whitman Knew About Democracy.'

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3983306/who-by-fire-after-leonard-cohen/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1844090/for-leonard-a-man-cleaning-up-after-himself/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3319252/never-lament-casually-leonard-cohen/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2714710/for-leonard-cohen-two-and-a-half-years-on-11716/

Aug 29 2020

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2187204/all-ive-learned-from-love-for-leonard/

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1833538/for-leonard-cohen-the-musicians-minyan/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3932910/when-leonard-cohen-met-charlie-daniels-the-devil-went-down-to-geo­rgia/

!!the links repeat below, so no cut and paste required!!

I’ll be brief (about poetry writing)

giving up:

expelling of textual agitation in my breast,
expulsing supplies no more the longest relief,
its medicinal efficacy, worn down, placebo equal,
run its course, a good grief, displacing tired belief,
loss of poetry, boon companion, not too late, nor
too soon, conceding, everything due a finalization


woman prevented me from walking in the
tropical storms frothiness, opining to my whining
“that’s no way to cleanse a soul, you’ll lose your life,
not that weight that’s moved up inside, up from the gut
into hearts blocked chambers and clogged spokes.”


thinking the vocabulary, needs a thrift store trip,
to give it all away, besides, prove it, a good taxing,
donating  might be quite righteous undertaking, like
flushing of the ewes, needs some new nutrients for the ole
two handed sleight legerdemain.


promised brevity w/o levity, no floating, keeping my feet’s grounded, my animal kingdom, my editorial staff, says a good quitting time is hard to find, addiction, a rolling stone, needs a coldstone fence immovable.


grabbed rucksack, inside Hafiz, Ogden and Walt Whitman, all very good company men, head to the poetry nook, to get my soul brown deep tanned, and enjoy excellent conversations with the Lord,
‘bout childless women, why cancer, and if there be a decent chance we could work out a real substantive cooperative truce between
deity & humans,

one that could hold for longer than a day, a good working relationship ‘tween sky, sun, water and wind, ok, fractious occasional, but on the whole works ok, gotta makes some more notes to keep my new boon above, my new oh lordy buddy well-contented, non-grumpy.


p.s. being an admirer~reader is almost as good as being a writer

9:00 AM
Mon Jul 13
2020

<>

11:03 Sun Sep 20 2020
2nd Day Rosh Hashana 5781
S.I., N.Y.

when I was twenty years younger, I wrote oft introspectively,
nowadays, today, provoked by the High Holy Day, the New Year,
it is my only filter, lens, and this solitary perspective that this moment affords, permits, demands, commands, insists on,  
prepared by this confession, so that I may better return to the union of my divine spark, unify body and soul, recover my true self,
by acknowledging that I am
not beholden to anyone,
therefore, thereby,
     beholden to everyone

how inconsistently wonderful that additional experience, alive in a time of upheavals, pushes me past the first stanza, where most often, my poems, prayers, go to rest uneasy, incomplete, only to be buried alive in me.

Yet, here I am stuttering, sputtering, words that come unexpectedly!
I have reached a second stanza, with the ending well sighted, nearby. The collective, overlaid wake of each passing boat, finger pointing, a road line for following, to a larger directive, a river emptying into a great ocean, birthplace & graveyard

premature celebration as it’s weeks till I return to this poem-in-progress on a bleak week, the winterized grays have dominated, the freshness of sunlight is just an occasional peekaboo.

The larger directive now suppressed, the pilings of damp brown leaves, multi-message; funeral. mounds of good days gone to hell, the inward perspective has returned me to a deep, dark place.

(Stutter, stutter, each day asseverates solemnly with tinges of rancor, no, no, no, still no answers yet, the second and third stanzas are *******, suns of no man.)

~For Ayesha~

for simply put,
or
simply taken,
they’re a disguise...

eternal guards on duty,
alphabet soldiers that
grow more vigilant

standing reef,
a barrier,

a thousand years to erosion complete.

this is the right poem, but the wrong words. Mystified me, how
can this be? such a young person, whose words speak to me?

If we are not our words, what will we become?

things she doesn’t ask...

are they things,
she doesn’t know to ask,
or
are they things
to which,
she does not want to know
the answers.

my not knowing the answer to this puzzle,
drives me to distraction, her Mona Lisa smile,
accompanied by her noncommittal “whatever,”
hiding the answer, nearly leads me over a blurting edge,
but for my inevitable retreat, for the true question,
has a  truer answer, that comes as well, 
in question form.  

Why do I,


or do I,

want to know?

just before never...

my last performance,
the words came original
and easy, unlike all its
predecessors; someone
drew me a map of my
life and times, cities,
countries, and roads
well travelled and a few,
not too. Mountains, each with
a woman’s name, who carried
care, until she couldn’t, didn’t, and
time’s weathering returned us
individually into hillocks, and then
rain eroded us back into old soil.

the broad highways and back roads,
always snaking away, fork-forcing
directional choices, usually taking the
wrong way, the easy and safe one,
and how I have come to hate those
words: easy and safe, for they
are the pill combo that leaves you
for dead, dulling the questioning
one inquires of oneself, late, reluctantly.

But there is always the unexpected.

Today I saw a sunset on the Hudson
River with a humpback whale blowing,
running beside a river ferry, plowing the
waters back and forth tween two states.

Lived by this river for s e v e n t y years,
and have seen the whales in many places,
but here, in my city, in the river of my youth,
never.

and I got the sign, message received, there
are still sights and poems to behold, arms to
embrace, youngers to guide if they’ll permit it.

so this title, these two, just before,
this day, poem, came to remind me, the
days map remains unfinished, there are lands
and voyages and poems still awaiting drawing,
and it is tomorrow, and just before tomorrow, that
recording insistent demands, and a map is just a
moment in time, until just before...never


5:28 AM Thu Dec 10
2020 (a year deserving
of its own line and ending)

Manhattan, between two rivers.

These are the endless days of endlessness
These are the days, when time is just present
There is a disbelieved past, a future unimaginable
Here is the only now, a permanent-present-tensing-participle

Faces smiling semi-graciously present, desperately seeking coaxing
The winter dark, living room occasional lit by one, mostly TV glow
Radiance lives inside only, but well remembered songs cause
Cry outs for who, the what, the needed, we’ve forcibly memorized

Observing winter’s river from kitchen window, it’s colored
*****-dusk-blue, like my eyes, add overlaying images of sparkles
But my magic not powerful, my love can’t see them
My bag-o-tricks can’t bring her sunshine, 2020 sorcerer’s gold

These are the days of endless dancing alone,
Longest walk from bed to kitchen, worn the weary wood shiny
True romancing still abounds, but so well hid, 99% invisible
Even when you ask without asking to be held oh-so-tight

These are the days, riverside, when slow flowing waters offer
No hinting of faraway treasures to be someday discovered
The magician vain struggles to find loving tricks to unlock
Her loving grace, her water-to-wine breathing demeanor*

These are the days, that forever need remembering, saving
No savoring, the absence of joyous everyone, everywhere
These are the days of absence+abstinence that lasted forever
You've got to hold them in your forever heart, lest we forget

~for those who can’t sleep, and know why~

you say “how much is too far?” and I think yes, more scars,
a man surveys a lifetime of errors and cowardice,
my soles, scarred from nite-walking new york city sidewalks,
days of haven’t slept in years, weakness is my prejudice,
tally sums-ups as no forgiveness, the pavement paying is a
continuum of  paying on, there is no atonement for wasted life,
the concrete cracks wedded to my body, stepped on each one

marvel at the disastrous disappointment that I’ve engineered,
how creative in disguising a life of accumulated self bruising,
applaud my season’s greeting card, 2020, me meeting me,
in a laptop I am contained, global boundaries thus defined,
crumpled coffee cups, emptied wine glass, zoom loops of repetition,
still I wonder why, every day, how, so many missteps, wondering
not at the lackluster will that carried me;  every minute sorrowful

so much hidden begs for revelation, murdered souls, theft, jealousy,
but the punishment is brutal; a conscientious conscience continually
punishes my blackened hours and there is no retrieval, retrial,
just a grounded plot with neither headstone and grass,
for I’m marked by no marker, and the wounds inflicted are my
afflicted leavings, my bones+soul confined, and the hallelujah
word excised from my vocabulary, forbidden me, justifiably so





————————————-

Mr. Tambourine Man
Song by Bob Dylan

“Though I know that evening's empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand, but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me,
I'm branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming...

And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time
Far past the frozen leaves
The haunted frightened trees
Out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
With one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea
Circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate
Driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow”

~dedicated to the old poets here~

the addictive pairing of certain words, a line,
a lyric, slap-snapping you to full attention,
unfailing decades of instant recognition,
an adrenaline + caffeine shot that powers

a chance, a tensile injection that causes

the lips to commence a new choreography,
the fingers to tap, a jumbled, hurried, embattled
disorderly mess that regenerates, reformulates,
concords into agreement, a harmonic consistency

a geometry of many differing angles that equate

a hard physical, a soft mentality in a singled work,
coexisting in a sacred state of singed confluence,
though imperfect, satisfies mathematical boundaries
of a random outpouring, crowning the stripe inspiring

the spark that finally satisfyingly silences an ignited

filament a-glowing for years, that holy happens
to cross your antennae, fulfilling the need to honor,
the sacred geometry of chance, the honor to need,
the joy of saying, at last, this unwritten debt, paid!


————————————————————————-
(1) a favorite of many years, a lyric from “The Shape of My Heart” by Sting

(2) Dec 3 2020 2:53pm  NYC

when you accept the ‘I love you’ invite, coolly quietly
understanding this is but a summarizing way of saying,
let’s enter the gated fence to friendship, locking in & out,
the delving reveals to follow are truths more costly than
any fiction, you see only the too real, how much pain can
exist, survive, be survived, quietly thrive, just beneath the
skin’s preternatural strong thinness, holding us in, together
while yet a sieve, separating the granules of our composition,
the coarser fail to penetrate the finer cells, the molecular level
is where the sensory Alice in Wonderland world coexists with
the blunt exhaustion of so much agony, too much, and in the
early morn these words appear of their owned and freed volition,

do what you must do to repair yourself

...and you confess to understanding that to heal oneself,
you must heal others, and that separate and unequal
sorrows can somehow heal each other, praying for ex,
exfoliation, exhumation, excalibur, expelling all the ex’s
so new skin self repairs, a great miracle that, and that
human reparations are a thing you alone initiate, inhale,
fostering a belief that !we! is the solution, the only...

5:46am
11/28/20

This Voyage, This Resurrection

I cannot sleep, thinking:

I cannot give you short, bittersweet, sad, delighting, whimsical love poems.

I can give you short, bittersweet, sad, delighting, whimsical life poems.

In cold, rushing spring and river waters, ash and water-borne soil mix.

A voyage endless.
We too, voyage. Endlessly.

Examine the crevices and ravines that
are the map of your hands.

Your voyage's log, memory storage.

Indestructible.

In the clouds's moisture,
ever recycling, it is kept, stored.

Your hands well recall
the very first caress,
the softness of the skin,
the sweet of the lips,
thirty some long years after.

Dare to dispute?

The original animus,
the anima and the persona combination
the byproduct of blood and tissue,
some call spirit,
some call soul,
is matter that cannot be
destroyed,
nor created.

It only voyages on, the conservation of mass,
our body, our enlivement, our spark.

In cold, rushing spring and river waters,
ash and water-borne soil admix.

From this natural brew, renewal.

The voyage is the resurrection
Life ever after.
Life even before.
Life for ever lasting.

Our voyage is without destination.
Our voyage is our destination.
Our voyage is our resurrection.
Endless. Perpetual.
Eternal.

5:46 am
12/18/18

the entirety of my feeling is resting on my tongue,
asking for birth, release, freedom:

here at the border post, the guards have fled, and the memory dreamer refugees, previous detained, hesitantly, gingerly, step across a narrow invisibility, a legal fictionalization, courageously frightened, but words of “at last,” “if not now, when,” and “god bless” blend into a merging crescendo of “yes!”

the road chamfers, dusty gives way, all the traveller’s shoes, now wetted, stained and staining, make amusing sounds of connection and interaction - squishy, distinctive, known in every language, dialect -  unrealized but known, spoken, somehow comprehended.
 

why is this heaven wet?
is truth moist?

indeed, for this place is truthful, and sensory networks cross, senses are both heightened and bluntly realized- and this confusion delights in human land mines
exploding.

let me explain:
my tongue has eyes,
my tongue speaks the words we have in commonality,
my tongues hears your sounds,
my tongue penetrates parts of you
that no other-part touches in the
same way.  

though you might think this is simply ****** subterfuge, it is not.  

simply you need to understand how
deeply this human connects, in his way.

<for my friends>

Poets, let us examine this friendship thing, again.

This is a poem of humans, regardless of our natural multi- flavored striations, that tend to over-define us, thus separating, instead of celebrating commonalities.

Like most things we enjoy, our five senses are the gateway to pleasure, even the pleasure of friendships.  They act in concert, a symphonic interplay that reenforces and heightens so that in combination they create a whole greater than a single sense could provide singly.

This is on my mind this week, as I wrestle to understand the meaningful possibilities, the limits of friendship.

Poets form bonds without hearing each other’s voices.

Poets connect despite geographic distances that makes grasping each others sinewed arms, caressing the softness of hard cheekbones, without ever having been granted the unique, all encompassing satisfaction of embrace, hugging.

Poets sometimes can hear but not see each other’s words.

Poets sometimes can see/read each other’s words, but never hear them voiced aloud in the authors own, true voice.

Poets sometimes cannot smell or taste each other’s words, though it can take a poem to another, higher sensory level of coloration.

And yet, a bond so strong forms that defies the conventional limitations of the physical. Should we share such a bond, them you know it, no need to ask for confirmation.

Words, can be gifted, without teleportation, even when and if the bridge of a shared spoken language is not extant.

This is nothing short of miraculous.

Just like friendship.

All my wrestling to true comprehend this state, for naught, for the miracle of words is like the color of water. Universal, invisible, but so varied, that it too bridges and is shared by every ! human body regardless of any human shape, color, form of the billions conceivable.

But wrestle I do nonetheless, for the pleasure of this (non?)soluble problem that both creates queries & quenches simultaneously, so I break off this thinnest wafer to share with you, offering this notional:

All humans are poems.

All poems are human.

Solve this poem for human.

(And ignore the wet spots of my watery, clear tears staining this poem).

<>

”What worth, dear man, are thee to me?
Of Brotherhoods eternity,
Esteemed, thy worth, from whence thee came?
In consequence, by any other name.
Whence laughter creased and cracked thy face
Wouldst sadness flee to lesser place?
And wouldst thou rather, not have been?
A thought we all would curse....obscene!
Of what thy vaulting valued prose?
In essence, beyond scented rose.
Perchance, dear friend, that thee should die?
Hot tears would rain from blood red sky”
MARSHALL GEBBIE

<§> <§> <§> <§> <§>

the reconciliatory process, never ending,
one seeks to estimate his worth on this earth,
harmonizing his consciousness with an undated
human elegy, appraising his qualifications on a
malleable but fixed scale;

fixed are the qualities:

kindness, kindness, then courage to be more kind!
honesty, honesty, the honesty of rigorous estimation,
the excess of giving love always more, eradicate selfishness

malleable is the scale!

an instrument that measures more, always more,
the little lines on our ruler, meter stick, are but a
ladder to a ceiling ever visible but luckily unattainable

the highest grade attainable is glorious failure that
says, back to the drawing board, redrawing thy image,
the singular constant, a grail with no final location,
an equation that is a starry palate of moving loci:

we are each an each
formed by all the points satisfying a particular equation
of the relation between human coordinates, or by a point, line,
or surface moving according to the defined conditions of what is
truly human, hands touching, skin to skin

here is the wondrous rub, the most excellent complication!
the human equation by its very conceptual essence can be solved
by numbers of two or greater value, one, is non-viable, worthless,
a zero equivalent, no solution to all you seek to understand

in this then, we summarize:

you can be a successful human, if and only if, you comprehend that
we exist only, we are defined ourself by the plurality of friendships,
thy own worth, is not yours alone, existing only in the grasp of others, and thus we answer the riddling question:

* What worth, dear man, are thee to me?*





5:15 PM Mon Oct 12
2020

Location coordinates are:
Latitude: 41.048513558171045
Longitude: -72.36516056990725

I think, therefore I am.

(5) the possible poems lurk about, here a title,
there a verse without a home, and, despite
cogitating brings no fusion, no unity or home
heading, where the sigh of conjoining both
brings mental *******, organic relief, worth.

(6) the temperature now cool regularity, enough that
a distinctive line crossed, setting from Cool to Heat,
an inflection point of persona, weather, aging,
daytime whispers can no long be avoided,
a choral crescendo, delayed by lazy summer illusions
that permitted us to put off abnormal life as normal.

(7) I think, therefore I am, but I do not feel,
sufficiently, therefore I write a title here,
verse there, but no poem completes because,
as I update my list of people I worry about, I am,
ineffectively yours, lacking answers for you, in all
our present tenses, some of you are on it, even if no notification
sent, selfishly pondering if my name appears on someones list

ah, these miscarriages of miscellaneous mumbles don’t
qualify as worthwhile, so I pre-apologize for wasting your time
trying, pushing myself to go from thinking, of you, so, therefore
you exist, but if I cannot give you the feelings deserved, then,
what good am I?

conundrum.

11:26 AM Sat Oct 10
2020

if all well,
no need to reply


if family well,
safe and sound,
no need to reply

however(!)

if you feel the need to ***** and moan,
demonstrate a cantankerous orneriness,
displeasure at the state of the world,
well then shoot me an urgent email!

just don’t expect a re-ply,
cause then I’ll be 200%
painfully certain you are
100% A-OK!

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2427648/the-patti-smith-poems-the-alchemy-of-his-prescriptions/


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2346726/how-i-honor-you-notes-from-a-conversation-with-patti-smith/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2351121/honor-you-stumble-where-gods-get-lost/

none of us would lie like in  history class,
our equations would always be easy & pretty,
everyone so introspective, multi-language fluent,
precise explanations that obscure clarity, now that’s
something worthy to discuss endlessly self-importantly

ah, well! even if schools tawt  ONLY art and music,
we would still fight wars, arguing about important
things like proper spelling,
now that’s worth dying for....

the first time we make love



your body will tremble, from behind, my arms’ will, to encase,
I, sponging up every tremor, shush-stealing each shuddering,
the outpouring of sounds will grow softly and steadying,
as gasps slow lessened, till the breathing is regularized.

you will sly ask for words, but I will come prepared and you,
will laugh when so informed, happy by my thoughtfulness,
wondering if they are being reused, and knowing this, I will
coax you to feed me morsels will I shall then embellish, proofs.

there is a first time in almost every aspect, but for one, which
you won’t refuse, forgiving my experiences, a history to become
now partly yours, the priors paying forward my debt to serve,
a gentling interplay of eyelashes *******, fingertip confessions.

you will alternate tween fragility, regretful solitude, emptied but
then refilled, you’ll want to define, identify, label for storage and
reuse, classification for acceptance, thinking that will make this
moment lasting, but it won’t, but it will, last, under closed eyes.

when the need to sob returns, one or two may escape, unelicited,
but won’t go past that, you’ll hear me saying “Hello in there, hello,”^
and ten thousand skin cells will in unison firm gel a single sensory,
not a trick or strategy, an honor bestowed, medaled, molten medaled.

that you were held captive, it will be a proud mark, for freedom only
comes from being released, and an anthem will start to form, words
all raw and wholly yours, then you will sing to me “good bye stranger,”^^ granting me a pardon, for being who I am, a wonderingly, somewhat familiar face...

Sept. 5th, 2020, 6:35am (wondrous palette)

the sun risen, but a solid foothold as of yet unestablished;
the new day’s skies borrow coloration from nearby sources,
no unique identity bright enough as of yet to call its own;
thin cumulus streaks, striate against an unidentifiable blue
paleness, more to contrast than to claim,  “here we are!

the bay is in labor: multi hues of blue intermingle, as the
light illuminates each part differentially; soon enough,
one hue will come to dominate, just like you, soon enough,
a single hue will dominate, and this day will be distinct,
and who knows? perhaps even distinctive enough to be
memorialized.

minute to minute is the ever changing interplay; unlike a
human, this rapidity maturation is unafraid to experiment
with new combinations but-based on prior recalled self-
examination; something on the water, a small boat low and
close flat to the surficial; a skiff, a rowboat with no oars,
drifting, languishing on the fishing spot, unmoving unhurried
humans aboard, thinking, this is the good way to start living

last comment; tiny hinting shades of violet, pink and orange
exist, hard to discern so well blended are they with the norm
of broader blue and vanilla white and then all readily apparent!
this is the new days message, we are what we appear to be,
one earth, one sky, indivisible but born from a wondrous palette;
and so yet another first poem of the day is created, a verbal
prélude, étude, unique but a product of its many ancestral
predecessors, just like, we the people.

~ per la bombardiera italiana di Vienna~

you want a poem of (a)side dishes, instead of a main,
you prefer a side vent, instead of a main event,
but always commence at the commencement ending,
another day begs for the first poem of the day (FPoTD)

the sky produces another hue, a whitish blue,
with violet shadings, majestic clouds slow moving,
heading north, Northwest by North(NWbN)
to New England, onto Toronto, then west to B.C.
but me won’t be there for that new course correction

sent some messengers your way, umpteen Canadian
snowbird geese, returning home, Florida too **** hot,
hurricanes not to their liking, quite the sight, brave old
man in dracula cape-flapping bathrobe, clapping and heehawing them intruders into the bay waters, off his land, their partying
in my no-noise motel against a law, not to mention their
empties and plentiful droppings, but I side vent digress

from where this Mariner’s tale began, but the mental alarm
signals seven bells, return to port, now a mess mate, inside,
delivering coffee in white china teacups to the Captainess,
who in time of war makes tremendous sacrifices, par example,
who due to the pandemic, graciously deigns, accepts paper(!)
napkins, a sign of the gravity of the times, no ironing!

god, I do not understand how you do it, vast eternal patience,
every way, every day, a new shade, you musta been an art major,
or very bored, either way, this goose chasing, cook, exterminator,
driver, poetry-writing no-maven son of a Canadian woman, is
your devotee, morning glory audience, who accepts your sky tapestry, your cloud interweaving laddering, with humble gratitude, a still life never stilled, my eyes, my tongue sings your praises like King David, and that other court-appointed Canadian psalmist^ who  understood, conversing with you is where all hallelujah poem songs main event must begin, fiddle middle, and perforce must conclude, that! the! main event

everything else just a side event, a side venting, a prayer-in waiting,
a get-in-line for another paradise, where poets play cards, smoke see-gars, checking their stockings for runs and new poem ideas, word worshipping the gifts of existence, a child’s ice cream dotted nose, a body’s curves, but I digress...he LoL’s to himself, wondering why his eyes are tearing...as usual, he is clueless, the last to know, but the first to weep because the winter is coming, yet again, a sky will be less frequent friendly, but the know-nothing-man will digress yet again, once more unto the breach...


2020
8:18am
Sat Sabbath Aug 29

The Joni (Mitchell) Collection


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1692219/a-case-of-you-joni-first-datelast-date/


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/957041/write-like-joni/


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2185836/still-be-on-my-feat-for-joni/

Warning! This poem is too long for certain elderly gentlemen.

A blue haze morn, pleasant in the transition
from the ides of sensual summer to the
broken, busted curled dead leaves that now
decorate the half & half scorched, mottled lawns,
that soon enough will fall to full-on browning!

All this my eyes see when first I wake, only
the calm morn waters unchanged, thank god,
for the mind is fermented, the brain full on,
three, count ‘em, three born baby poems, all
simultaneous being birthed, triplets from one
****** working overtime, yet, only paid the hourly wage!

The mind interweaves the three, and yet subdivides,
only I, the landlord of the brain, failingly and flailing
struggle to keep track of these wild tenants, each:
a curvature, a tangent, a sibling and a stranger to
each other, sharing  a common single parentage!

Poem #1

Poem #1, a bright child, yet, poorest in vocabulary, more humming
than recites, but below its tuneful melody one just perceives, a refrain
born in the refracted sun rays that first opened our  eyes to this day, in
great gratitude, a morning prayer, a mourning poem, bidding adieu to the great  nighttime where the conception and inception inseminated within the ****** of the brain, and welcoming the warmth of day that cracks our body’s outer egg shell with praises of hallelujah that this one word poem gives so easy, in glory!

Poem #2

The toes wriggle, the eyes rapid-blink, the mouth yawns revealing
a still sleeping tongue, the stomach rumbles a basso tune reminding
everyone that their continuous sustenance comes from it alone, no
matter what those other body part snobs claim! An Uproar ensues
(bien sûr!), everyone roused, slumber a thing of the past, a cacophony
of disharmonious noises, no Greek chorus this, purely 100% American,
each party convinced of its self-worth, its own vitality, a ball park of
loutish fans, hawking vendors, an amalgamation of colorations, a
tapestry of humanity skin colors, though in a single voice upon this all
agree and shout “**** the Umpire!”

Then the bladder whispers “uh,hey people,” and all grow silent knowing
who’s the boss, and the man, stumbles from bed, wondering silently what
the heck that huuge racket was all about and how come no one else heard it?

Poem #3

A subcommittee of the senses convene a meeting and on the agenda, in
no particular order are the following, items of varying importance, but
needing speedy resolution:

The always very touchy skin asks: what shall we wear
today, it is warm outside and overly cold inside, should
we go short or long, stay in our overnight dressage, or
get a fresh accoutrements (clean Tee and sweatpants)
just to celebrate having made successful passage to day?

The aural receptors (who always insist on being addressed
in the plural), state that can wait! first let’s us determine what
music we shall receive, that must match the nature outside
and the nature within?  A Joshua Bell violin concerto, or some
retro greatest hits from the 60s, 70s and 80s?  Let’s vote..

The Gallic nasal passages (Les Passages, as they snobbishly prefer) sniff
in derisive decision, non! to yesterday’s clothes, a shower and a shampoo
dear skin, a nasal necessity, let’s try to remember to use deodorant today
please, and no more feral cereal and milk, something more fragrant s’il vous plait!

The Buds, as the tasting cells preferred to be called, said indeed,
some fresh cafe au lait in a proper bowl, to accompany les croissants frais, une baguette au beurre, and do not forget the red crisscross jar of Bonne Maman (Orange Marmalade/Confiture d'Orange)

The Eyes, waited and listened, and then proclaimed, all well and good,
but realize that after all this, we are the instructor, the instrument panel
without which you cannot operate in concert, let us see what we can see,
in the closet, in the kitchen, read the playlists, prepare the necessaries
for bathing, check the thermometers and then we will decide!

Then, the Mighty Brain, said “folks, we’ve been busy all night and tho
first light has already penetrated, we are going back to bed, as we are exhausted by all this noise herein encapsulated!

"همه جا" از حافظ / "همه جا" توسط لیپستاد


Hafiz                                              ­           Lipstadt
(1320 ~ 1389)                                            (20th ~ 21st century)
——————                                           ———————­——

Running                                                    Si­tting
Through the streets                                 On the sidewalk curb
Screaming,                                                Ob­serving,

Throwing rocks through windows,     Rocks falling all around,
Using my own head to ring                  Striking my head, ringing in
Great bells,                                               Great waves of thought,

Pulling out my hair,                               My hair stands straight up,
Tearing off my clothes,                          My clothes’ fibers come alive,

Tying everything I own                        All possessions, the poems, yet
To a stick,                                                Unwritten, less valuable than,
And setting in on                                  The air that feeds the flames of
Fire.                                                         Their burning.

What else can Hafiz do tonight        What else can Lipstadt do tonight
To celebrate the madness,                  But acknowledge the truthfulness,
The joy,                                                 The madness,

Of seeing God                                      In~Exhaling God in each breath
Everywhere!                                         Everywhere!

In the year 2016,
Yom Kippur was celebrated on Oct. 12th.
Leonard Cohen passed away on November 7th.


~~~

faint knocking heard at the heavenly door of the Tower of Song

the ministering angels, hearing a rhythmic,
lyrical rapping, sigh, thinking the atonement day,
the holiday/holy days, are supposedly over,
the human balancing act, the rush to judgement period,
all tallies totaled, the busy sale season for souls,
at last completed, each fate inscribed & sealed,
in the book of life^

but, always one,
the itinerant straggler, the last reluctant sinner,
a judgment resister, flaunting an almost expired coupon,
trumpeting demands for a recount, waving it,
claiming it, the bearer, entitled to a
mercy discount and an extra 30 days

"who shall we say is calling?"

the Angels are stunned to hear the responsa,
a familiar raspy, growling, almost indescribable,
yet, stammeringly beautiful voice enchanting,
equally asking and answering, (how both?)
with a strident humility, "a man in search of answers"

this voice, instantaneous recognizable,
the asking superfluous,
all beating wings now, all in vast excitement,
this psalmist, long awaited, one of His best,
a chosen one, a courtly singer in the Temple of his people,
blessed with the curse of seeing and believing,
the comprehension of beauty of the human superior interior,
never being quiet or quite satisfied,
in capturing, its multifarious variations,
in every language spoken

this is the man who took ten years
to compose just
one song,
one poem,
one word,
Hallelujah,
whose faith was strong,
but still needed proofs,
whose every breath of oxygen inhalation,
brought more questions,
every exhalation, only releasing partial answers,
and yet, still, yes, yes! finding hidden verses inside

a simple, everlasting
hallelujah

the hubbub subsides,
the man sings~speaks:
how came I here,
was I one, who by fire?
that fire afeared, that my finality
was spirit consumed?

in one voice, answers the angelic choir,
in one voice, the swaying back-up singers answer,
not by fire, not by water, not by stoning
or even drowning,
in tea that came from all the way from China

when sing we Angels,
the Judgement Day poem,
we alone, on high and above,
we, keepers of the books
and records of everyone,
are permitted this special query:

Who by Sufficiency?

you, the sidekick of the creator,
special commissioned by him, anointed to live a life of research,
record in word and song the mysteries of musical gene strings,
that intertwine the skin cells of man and woman,
man and his fellow us-human,
your soul commandeered, ordered, to delve deeper,
into the consolable chasm tween divine and mortals,
all those who are so poorly but perfectly constructed
in his image

you, who has earned his place, his best rest,
his works adjudged sufficient,
you, who best answered
this judging,
this calling out,
this calling in
incantation

Who by Sufficiency?

now forward on, write only of answers,
wade in the troubled waters no more,
no more passports, or borders to cross,
no more measuring the days,
the last road trip finale
finished & feted,
fate meted

no more changing thy name, changeling priest,^^
sing songs of solution, salvation,
for the questioning hours of confusion,
the urgency of revolution,
no longer need a hallelujah resolution,
you have been judged sufficient...
it is his will


                                                    | | |
Who By Fire                             Who By Fire, Who By Water:^
(lyrics by Leonard Cohen)     (A Yom Kippur Hebrew Prayer)

who by fire                             How many shall die and      

who by water,                                how many shall born,
Who in the sunshine,                 Who shall live      
who in the night time,                   who shall die,                      
Who by high                                Who at the measure of days,
who by common trial,                    and who before,
Who in your merry                            
                                                          Who by fire
month of May,                                 and who by water
Who by very                                 Who by sword,
slow decay,                                       and who by wild beasts,
And who shall I                      Who by hunger,
say is calling?                              and who by thirst,

And who in her,                           Who by earthquake
lonely slip,                                         and who by plague
who by barbiturate,                      Who by strangling,
Who in these                                    and who by stoning
realms of love,                               Who shall have rest,

who by,                                             and who shall go wandering,
something blunt,                            Who will be tranquil,
And who by avalanche,                  and who shall be harassed,
who by powder,                            Who shall be at ease,
Who for his greed,                           and who shall be afflicted,
who for his hunger,                      Who shall become rich,
And who shall I,                             and who shall become poor,
say is calling?                                Who will be raised high,
                                                         ­     and who will be brought low
And who by brave assent,                  
who by accident,
Who in solitude,
who in this mirror,
Who by,
his lady's command,
who by his own hand,
Who in mortal chains,
who in power,
And who shall I,
say is calling?




^From the liturgy of Rosh Hasanah, the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, the  Day of Atonement, there is this truly stunning prayer (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unetanneh_Tokef) in the Jewish liturgy. The Book of Life contents the fate of every sinner. From the first day of the new year, until ten days later, on Yom Kippur, depending on whether the sinner repents or not, his fate is sealed.

(from the beautiful messages some of you send me, this my unintended answer, my thanks, my concerns, all brewed and blended, emerging in this the first second of this say, this day)

the day’s light is undecided. Alternating currents of cloudy
and peek-a-boo sunshine are reflecting outward from my insides onto the world exterior as personality is the best envisioning filter, making you and reality mirror each other, and there are no lines, no divisions.

you awake and instant watch water moving; the currency of
water are the surface wavelets, like wind blown hair.  So, what notions  I have going on is that the water wears wigs (shhhh!) just to keep its integral integrity of constant dishonesty, that being its
natural state.

and
recall nature is just your insides eking, leaking out in...wavelets
and wigs.

all this wonderful nonsense is my heart deeded  eking, leaking, in droplets, in constant motion, this water is never placid, never perfectly still, always moving, sometimes rumbling...and she and I talk about not having a child to take care of in the morning as a sad freedom to
pamper and experiment ourselves even as we co-exist in sweats and t-shirts which segues into a conversation how we moderns crave simplicity over the complexity of living in “modern” times, making us vulnerable to leaders who offer promises of draining, return to the good ole days, forgetting that in just forty years the world fought two wars that killed millions, destroyed the landscape, left billions in miserable existence, and yet shaped, still shapes, the world via today’s unraveling global structure...

so I return to the water, marveling at its life long deception...motion
constant, to the human eye, random and disorganized, yet balletically
organized with synchronicity and yet above and underneath is a whole world in random cooperation, but not necessarily peaceful coexistence...

a mobile, ever changing jigsaw puzzle where the pieces fit together
for just a second before devolving into a new puzzle and on and on...
the surface calm of our appearances, flecked with expressions, our body reshaping with every step is a testimony to the inconstancy of living and I think I could never write a good enough poem to explain how we each inside and outside coexist with engines of turmoil inside, churning, and the oceans and the rivers exist only to remind us that water comes in many colors, and when we dip even a finger in running flows, we  alter the course of history, humanity, eternity, and all words that end in Y, that are really big, the all encompassing ones;

every thought, every blink, every word, is so revealing and I rejoice, secure in that knowing, for it is the source of creating and here I am creating this one second’s summary and I must stop for here comes another second, another glance asking for love,

like a child climbing into your early morning bed, ear to ear grinning, announcing their presence as their gift to you and the world in general, and of course they are exactly right, like every fluid body of water...

we write now past anger,
but nearer to the closing

…

the period of our lives, here,
at the end of this poem

and with every day,
every word, every look,

i·so·la·tion
is now redefined as:

des·o·la·tion

(a state of complete emptiness or destruction barrenness bleakness starkness misery melancholy gloom bareness dismalness grimness aridity sterility wildness anguished misery loneliness despondency despair distress)

now, it too is redefined as:

we can no longer look at our children faces...