Sparkling, Still or Tap?

Water. A profound subject. Of which, we are all expert. Therefore, I permit myself to write upon it. Water. When I offer you Sparkling, Still or Tap, think carefully for the path to happiness is confusing, you can be mislaid, strayed, betrayed if you imbibe the wrong path.

The definition of each is not my responsibility. Like poetry,
drink what you will from each, but drink you must, pas de choix (which is sparkling for no choice).

Getting drunk on the wrong water is very bad. You have washed your system out, after flooding it. Give an engine the incorrect quality of oil, and it will grind itself willing, having been tricked, into emoting itself into gear lock suicide.

Now go back to the first line, and star(t) over, because you are no longer silly but afraid, and that is the proper way to be when first cog-nizant that this is an earnest subject and you are a fool.

So I ask, not again but for the first time,

Sparkling, Still or Tap?
You say. You are. Poor. Tap is the only option.
Save the environment from plastique explosives.
Clear as colorless water (another sujet, for another self important foolishness) you lie.  Is Sparkling and Still not found naturally, while Tap is unnatural-now water transmogrified by rust pipes, fluorescent fluorides, that when drunken, tap you out and for which, You pay heavily when the water bill comes?

What am I?
Your cheek!  
As a ******- passenger-reader-human unsurpassed. So typical.
My credentials?
I am human-reader-passenger-****** so ***** your impudence!

I am still, but underneath,
I am effervesceing, like the band,
whose goth I am too,
but don't be an idiot, for
all we know,
is tapped into us and out of us
from birth ~
until death/


Was there water in your mother 's body when she breast fed you, was there water in your formula? Was it organic (idiot), from a crystal spring from polluted China,
and isn't it tool ate (auto correct for too late) now anyway?

So I rescind the question,
for we are provisioned but poisoned long before we have adult cash or credit card bills to answer properly this waiter's question,

Sparkling, Still or Tap?
(Nonetheless, if you have progressed to this sad conclusion,
as I wait upon you and,)

Your Reply,

Water is the clear space that surrounds the letters and words
We write, thus all words float to the surface on your unique percentage of body of water, that oils the brain.

Ergo, Ip So Facto,
I, the waiter *** writer,
already know.

Now start from the top,
Again, yes,
And answer me,

Sparkling, Still or Tap?

(Ain’t “They” Great!)

Now watching 13 year old grandkid live-on-streaming-Internet,
playing Little League baseball in California, pleasantly surprised,

No, not by the amazing technology, or his super great play,
but the laugh-out-loud accommodation to the “au courant”

Game announcer, a soulless robot machine, stupid-smart, without exception, employs THEY pronoun for all, which after 10 seconds thot,

of serious reflection is a brilliant deflection, a solutionary salutation!
We come to see kids play ball, care not a whiff (double entendre),

re identity politicized insanity, machine makes everyone truly equal,
robbing stupids of a phony, proclamation of self-righteous “individuality”

God Bless No-Brainers!
Ain’t They Great!


~Postcript~

Introducing a newly Recomposed Natty:

still an OWG
(old white guy)
but now a Proudly, a gaily machine-made, in the USA

They.

Semi-
——-

Something new, in our years of partnership,

during

the early morning semi’s, the half awake, yet
mostly asleep, passageway from rest to wake,
as per usual, I am awake before her, to write,
to think, to read, to do my variety of early morn
chores, but today, her semi is populated by a
new concern, an alert, mind programmed, silent,
no chirp, no beep, just human punctual new instinct,

let us
check if my man is alive and breathing, rub his
thankfully copious-headed hair & air supply,
rub-a-dub,
once, repeat twice, thrice, sense his beating brain,
confirming the night passage, always dangerous,
completed safely, for she feels my warmth, hears
my eyes-crinkle smiling, and ascertains, the
continuation of my existence and the statistical
probability, (her occupational hazard and habit)

that when

she crosses fulsome into the living day,
awakensgladly, that her not-too-hot-black
coffee, will be
mister milkman delivered on schedule with
a bedside delivery like clockwork-blonde, with a
half sheet of enwrapping paper towel within some
morning fruit, to  ensure that her coffee will have some company…

while she dances a beloved tango in her semi-,

I am:

in my only~pretending post-tense,
semi complimentary state,
mentally scrambling scribbling half a dozen
eggs of new poem ideas, mad pursuing these
very words, my way of saying good morning girl,
my beating heart muscling me to be sure I-remain,
in the good company of the Oompa-Loompas,
and yours too!

the propulsion of compulsion is indefatigable,
it cannot no more, be ignored, as if it is forming
a holy commandment, number 11, you must
write when so ordered, denial is temporary
i n s a n i t y, and the backlog of nuances be
comes longer and longer by the instant

the provocateurs, them eyes, those eyes,
even the ears and tongue join in to instigate,
the cabal of influencers who peddle no product,
demand no payment but total obeisance and
sometimes low-class instant fufillment, for here
I am in servitude,@ 4:33am, by dawn’s early light
(no **** for real), propelled and compelled by
the creative, the spilling urgency of the need
to expel notions of potions that flit between the

frontal lobe, parietal lobe, cingulate gyrus,
and prefrontal cortex: (I told  you, it’s a cabal!)
all  firing
up neurons like electron spark plugs, and only
I can see the sparks colliding inside as letters,
words, phrases, none lazy, all demand long life,

or the Perpetuity of the Momentary”

it grows lighter by the minute and the sporadic
lights across the bay wink morse code secrets
to the observant, and Noyac’s  tree line has
become a distinguishable and distinctive
land mass to which I crossed last nite via &
upon the South Ferry, when all these conflicting
concepts began a painful birthing delivery,
the coagulation of the flighty, merging and
transforming into my child, in my bed, through
the picture window that has so oft been complicit
in the ganging up on my very, very old and restless
brain

but, uh, this ecrivez, this motion that the momentum
of the momentary desiring & deserving of monuments
to the perpetual
won’t be stilled and hours later, with it’s invisible hands
around my throat, it yanks from within what did not
exist ten minutes prior, but always existed inside me
as a jumbled puzzle, gestating quietly till a swift kick
of birthing pains insufferable accompanied by her
raucous dreams, awoke me from ******* and rhyming
Rem Sleep, to now, this moment, named forever as
4:57am and this noisy newborn, covered in embryonic
fluid (wonderful but disgusting really) is all ready pealing and peeling
off suggestions for brothers and sisters, this arrogance
is untenable, but the babe laughs at me, for it knows that
there are hidden, voluminous files of titles awaiting their
turning time of final conception

no longer nighttime, an early forming day, it too,
covered in its own fluidity, awaits discovery, for
the lights from across the bay have gone to bed,
turned off but the greatest, more powerful
brighter discharges
of the Sun Gods

The Bay’s waters are still, though my woman is not,
muttering, still dreaming out loud, as if she wishes
to foment
turbulence, and desires a boat for safe conveyance
across the dark seas of the night to the searing bright
June summer day that the Greek seers have forecast,
and then that moment, like it’s older sibling, will demand,
it’s very moment of personalized perpetuity, its own
unique naming,
a full recording, a welcoming by the Preservation Band,
amidst the glory of its mother mornings colorings of
palest blues, puffery of cumulus whitiwhispers all tinged
in my favorite, flavored color, creamsicle orange,
and the calming power is self evident for the rustling
back and forth of raucous dreams have ceased, and I too
am no longer possessed by the moment, until soon
when the hands creep slow round my throat by a new
moment, and all is lost, all is gained and a newest poem
is brought from the womb of my ancient past, my currency
of the next minutes and the wealth of words that are
available to us all! demands one of us, perhaps you?
to commit its actualized existence into reality

I bid you a soft adieu, for the chores of existence
those demanding pests of drudged biblical
pestilence
can no longer be kept
waiting

nml
5:21am
Sun Jul 16
2024

writ at you know where…

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.

why and how should you know?

behind beneath in between the teeth

my fingerprint whorls and whirls

under other's names and
my secret identities

a word a phrase a hatchet a blade a
pruning knife,
a confession of confusion,
relieved by my cutting saves.

my stamp secreted my ***** implanted

my style unseen yet bidden,
my name hidden, my children born
but still is my heart,
like the parent that
has given up the child.

but you love my
screamed and un screamed, and my undoing of
the doing you not see me named

nature in paces and means
admit pleasure at my scrivinings
there but for the grace of whom

but to me

for am I but the
editor
o'er my bones that
*nobody knows
nobody sees,
nobody knows,
but me^

you tread,

crunching my invisibility
to smoke and smithereens,
the pimple on the poem
lifeless turned luscious,
yet, gnome gone the next day

No job no dignity no cry.

look again at those words,
please,
with all deliberate speed.

dig.

just a little more, a little deeper.
scrape off the foolish pride topsoil that
looks (are) rich and fertile.

god bless the child who plants themselves
roots in the ugly, hardscrabble earth.
they cannot be uprooted.
never.

you have not ever seen my picture here,
of my face,
only once I showed a single hand,
well worn from
Digging
with only fingernails.

the hands of babies are soft,
easy to kiss, easy to love.

but the hands of responsibility
are usually worn lined scarred sometimes even
nail bitten from
**** digging for dignity.

doing the heavy lifting

picking up my emaciated heart,
letting the rest of my wilting body
tag along qualifies, but is not the
heavy lifting referenced above.

we all have a meeting, the bits and
pieces, the bobs and keepsakes
that constitute my mien, a constitutional
convention of 13 colonies that raucous
write of burdens, of freedoms, with wild
inspirations and cold political calculations

this combining document hoping to topstitch
my reeling mind and deteriorating physic,
to write words of hopeful praise but rising
to a world that is baking in hatred into fabric
and tissue, and that is the heaviest lift of all

Sunday morning, coffe-d, somewhat rested,
a full day planned, and a Mike Message says
it’s me that does the heavy lifting and I know!
he knows! the displaced state of my mind, and
the hardened ache of writing with fresh hope,
when there is so little, that it is lost in the litter
of endlessness of a world gone, not going,
mad~insane and murderers are
illogically celebrated,
and yet here I am punching words on my
AM Morning Punch List of worthy words
available that aid us needy for repair & yet
might move us together to a state of full repair;  
but I am punchy from trying, to find words
themselves that require do not require, a
truth washing,
a new word recleansing
and

    (they put the load right on me),

and naïf-not, see the troubles ahead and get
me more paper to add to the list of lists of
worldly worrisome words that are heavy
lifting of the world as it is but know I weep as
I write this for not in my possess the light airy
words, the wordsmith is crushed neath the weight of

tonnage of human word-lessened-ness

Sunday Morning
Oct 22 2023
9:02am,
writ in a singed single cry

Dear Nat,

When I grow up,
I think that my
Wonder Woman cape,
that flys behind
so gracefully,
as I wrestle villains,
intent upon
World Destruction
will morph into a
***** dish rag
that hangs limply
from my shoulder,
as I tend too,
mountains of
folding and training of
hysterical toddlers
to be stable products
in society

Is what shape,
this cape, marking me
"all-grown-up'?

Signed,
Helen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Wonder Woman,

(Borrowing from and with apologies to
Arthur Herzog Jr. and Billie Holiday...)

This ball you tossed,
Arrived early morn,
Forcing me tocontemplate
the choice between
Shaving, and /or poetically,
dispelling your
Grand Confusion.

Fancy that, as I pondered
How to best express,
The *obvious reply,
the BS&T; sang the answer
Obviatin' the need,
To discuss your heroics,
The care, the feed,
Those you care for,
Attend their needs.


God bless the child
that's got his own,
God bless' the child
who can stand up and say
I've got my own
Ev'ry child's, got to have his own,
His very own.

I could  be more explicit,
That when I was a child,
A red dish cloth was a
Perfectly good ASAP cape,
That defeating bad guys
Hungry work that needed
Ring Dings + milk, to soothe a
Superhero's Superman
And both arrived courtesy of
Wonder Mom.

So rather than ramble,
Let this preamble
suffice:

God bless the child
that's got his own,
Wonder Woman*


N.B.  This message has been approved by the
Justice League of America, Australia Branch.

A trinity of three styles one man no religion one morning over a lifetime

Temporary (we tat too)

Temporary love
has no precision definition
so if I say
love you forever,
as I do,
know know
just know
this particular
phrase
is temporary,
unique and forgivable

as temporary
as our permanent tattoo,
the one embellishing you,  
the one marking me,
the two hearts tat
that means
we are a
tat two

If you begin a poem,
a love, a tat
with temporary,
usually, but not always,
you have already failed

See http://hellopoetry.com/poem/if-you-begin-a-poem-with-i/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Invalidation

my living bones, twisted.
my words, slurred,
disfigured with a panache,
that makes the mirror
turn away, ashamed

invalid. in valid.

I have been invalidated,
I spit at your too late heroics,
unwanted.
I spit at myself,
for missing the moment,
when choice was mine

I would have self-destructed, freely,
reborn in an act of self-validation,
be my own living will,
if only I had not been enslaved to my
*******
Fear

invalidation, the Cain mark of every failed man

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bootyoir

three day weekend has commenced.
it's con-occlusion
now in rapid descent
mini-vacation, ****-sensation.

the only question remaining,
present but debated,
as yet undecided,
whose turn is it
to answer
the doorbell,
when the delivery guy
brings our break~fast

for it is forbidden,
a transgress,
to egress
from the bootyoir,
except for the
call of nature,
and naturally,
I am calling
you,
comeback comeback
hungry time
it's time we
co-authored some
bootyoir poetry

Ah yes,
fresh starts,
like
fresh white sheets meeting
fresh black newspapers,
doomed to the inevitability,
groomed for the probability,
that their intersection
will be
newsprint contamination,
a black and white
condemnation,  

So, a clarification:

this poem,
just like this moment,
a black and white surrogation,
a seventh day progeny
a sabbath moment,
must and will
and by definition,
be explained as an
interlocutory.^

fated to be
jubilee ended,
a pre and post
sabbatical
of but a
minute,
by law and custom,
destined to go up
in a smoking trinity of
white flame,
red wine,
and a cloud of
myrrh and salt incense.  

Sigh with me.

Join in and
inhabit my eyes,
enjoy the unsullied
white blanket
of fresh snow
that humanizes my insights,
and for this moment,
share my peace,
my unedged relief that
the levees have broken
and I am awash in
waves of drifted snowflakes composed
of salt sanctified water

I may be thin and
clarified,                  
but my visions are still
less than limitless,
my sabbath poems
are but
momentary evaporated residuals of melted snowflakes, heretofore, salty tears, that become

rivers
that become
oceans,
upon which no
Poet-Envisionary
can truly walk,
see his tomorrows,
or even,
especially even,
his past days,
with perfect
clarity

"Nothing is so healing as the human touch."


Started:    June 21, 2011
Finished:  August 14, 2011

"Nothing is so healing as the human touch."

Purportedly, the final words of Bobby Fischer, the reclusive, oft bizarre-acting Chess Grandmaster, whose life deserves your examination.  

I wasted decades of my life in a loveless, sexless, miserable marriage. I read his dying words, and the poem~notion was born, but the words had their own timetable and it made me crazy.

All the facts you need to read this old poem are now in your possession.
~-----------------------------------------------~
Mos­­t poems used to just tumble out,
Sudoku words combos,
Gunslinger I was,
poetically licensed to shoot
from the hip (the lip?).

Then you go mute, until that second,
When once again,
Machine gun stanzas fall like
Cheerios
Spilling all over the kitchen floor,
As they always do at Two Am
When quietude is in high season,
And the whole house is sleeping.

Once in awhile,
The title~idea recorded,
But the poem unwrit,
just won't come.
*** but no ******.

The words smack you,
Write me, I deserve it,
A challenged duel glove
Goes kissy kissy on your face,
But the words,
The choice of weapons
Eludes for weeks, months.  

So Bobby,
Your challenge
Long ago accepted,
But my reply imperfect,
Has lain bound and gagged,
A poem-in-progress
Hid in the trunk of my heart,
Unable to escape, even when
Escape attempted, unsuccessful.

From June till August moon,
Your dying words have been
A cancer growing, within,  
Hiding from my bullets
Invented to radiate,
Your final words, explicate,
Explode and expose.

Your life,
An essay on life in solitary,
Anti-social would immodestly describe your life best.

How came you then to exclaim,
Re the glories of human touch?

Ah a dying man's last regret,
A simple cri du couer,
Nothing extraordinaire,
A basic 101 shoulda/woulda
Of "I coulda done it better,"
What's the big deal?

Until this exact second,
Sunday rain jolted body from bed
Do I instant understand my obsession,
The import to me,
The need to capture
The haunt of the healing
Of your dying words.  

Life is small, miniaturized
When numbered in decades -
Five, six, seven,
Maybe,
Eight nine or even ten.  

How came I to pass so many,
Discarded whole decades,
Of the few we garner
Without the sustenance of
Human Touch?

How came I to allow this disaster to pass?

How did I advance to the next grade/decade,
When a failing grade was scarlet tattooed
In ****** scars upon my chest?

Would be easy to dismiss as just another whiney rant
That is no longer relevant to you,
Lies I told myself, no longer resonate, over, now.

Never.  

Everything matters.  

Summation.  Accumulation.

Day Counter Totals  reveal gaps of years
That cannot be refilled so your accounting
Must include a retelling of the
Wasted days and acknowledge with your dying breath,

Nothing is so healing as the human touch.
~~~~~~~
Happy 3rd Birthday poem.

the lovely picture window (always the same, always different)

There are painters who must,
having found the place, must,
repaint it, compelled to repeat it,
each a variant, yet always the same,
always different

I awake to a perspective that is wide,
always differentiated from the prior,
always almost similar, but never with
the same exactitude, differing attitude,
same longitude, identical latitude,
always different

horizon distanced, in all ways a view
encompassing, duality near, far distant,
harmoniously, eyes open, magnetized
to wake before 6am by the suns modesty,
first light, first clarity, a curtain risen, yet,
always different

am I so blessed or thus cursed, for the urge
to disclaim and ode, compose and thus self-
decompose, analyze, reflect, slice apart, needing
the comprehensive understanding this me/place
scripts the raw appreciation, daily differentiated
always the same

this peaceful venue seizures, chest calmly
pounding at the insistence it commands,
the price I must pay for the prize to praise,
to sing, weep, reward restful sleep with lyrics
eked out, pouring, unsustainable yet finished,
always different

a single May Iris, returns, born from a torrential,
thunder, lightning, sky mayhem, rises by a sundial
greets midst a planted clump, upright rises, lavender,
in a majestic solitary, absent but a day prior, yet mine eyes
failed to witness its discernible emerging birthing creation,
always different,
always the same

here, I am Iris too, always the same, a day aged,
but the differences minute but stolid actualized,
this overnight sensation, my body’s restoration,
what I visualize, indivisible, now visible, realized,
miracle of continuity, unchanging chained change,
always different ,
always the same

wonder, am I more blessed, or a s~lightly cursed being,
my breath restored, wet eyes full brimming, changed,
revived but always modified, a newer old man, whose
sum total always a different number, but in sequential,
compelled to confess, no understanding of this miracle,
always the same,
always different,
this daily visionary miracle


6:36 AM
Fri May 24
2024

Silver Beach,
Shelter Island

A Roman Catholic concept rooted in a Jewish tradition where, if you cannot attend Sunday mass, you can go to the Saturday mass, the evening prior...

http://t.answers.com/answers/#!/entry/anticipated-mass-definition-in-the-roman-catholic-church,4ffcc10b­7af68a84dcfcad8b

not a religious man,
another "ain't behaving Jew,"
been long time passing,
since I went to a synagogue
of my own free will

(that,
free will,
a subject,
I won't discuss,
a free will choice,
unlike this poem
which writes itself,
me, just the telephone company
common carrier transmitting)

the holy days and
the holidays
come cycling through,
recycled sung sing tunes from
genes that once trained,
once disturbed and reawakened,
pass it on down
willingly or unwanted,
the calendar and
human marker thereupon,
in your face, undeniable,
you are, or start,
being what
they want you to be

been to midnight mass
on a Christmas past,
with a friend who happened
to be a Jesuit priest,
yeah, I'm an electric eclectic
ecclesiastical poetic natty vibe,
with many a
neutral nomenclature,
happens to live with an atheist,
so, tonight, we watch together
at her suggestion,
Fiddler On The Roof

boy oh boy
there I am,
Tevye the Poet,
writing poems on the roof
up on the wide screen,
talking to god
every where I go,
whatever I am doing,
even cursing the
Cossack ***** of the traffic hell on the
Long Island Expressway,
*******, you see

{but you grow weary
waiting for a writ called
Anticipated Mass,
and not a sermon
of a nonreligious miscreant,
who just happened to be
created, born on
the Jewish Festival of Booths,
in an R.C. hospital
on Fifth Avenue,
right next to his coreligionists edifice,
Mt. Sinai
(go figger, all part of the plan,
says my fellow new yorker, Allah}

if you are busy Sunday,
NFL football perhaps,
or a summer FIFA World Cup match,
Wimbledon working,
while on your deck surfing,
(Go Federer)
or a working stiff,
serving man for tips,
waitressing, taxi driving,
in order
not to starve,
for a living
must be made on
the day of rest,
so you go to
Anticipated Mass,
the eve of the day before
the prom dance

now that is something I like,
a flexibility that
inflexible dictums and regs
don't often offer,
like birth control being ok,
every other day

but anticipating my prayers,
just a bit too
OCD compulsive organized,
no matter
9:00am or midnight,
or even 6:00pm
the night before,
I can't anticipate
when the need to
go verse
with The Lord above,
arises

so I like to inform you,
when anticipating
the wine and the wafer,
the sabbath candle lighting,
the prayer rug time,
don't have to wait,
for a mass, a mullah's call,
or a minyan,
do a Tevye!

speak to him
with this Rx prescription,
"as needed"

let your own mass
be lightened, lighted, leviathaned,
relieved, celebrated,
the freedom from
anticipation and feel free
to listen to what god has to say,
cause he loves those
individual requests,
custom crafted,
even noises simple
grunted with good intent,
for those who posses not
the gift of
god gab

an informal sort,
a busy deity,
who appreciates brevity,
which is why
he gives my
long poems short shrift,
but sometimes attends
to my low whispered
observations for the needy,
for the masses,
whose body,
in his image,
I human share
and so often,
pray for...

The golden girl, is not lost,
The Canadian Plains transversely crossed,
Destination unknown, but her dust trail,
Her goldenrod writings, take my breath away,
Her stories leave me incomplete, inchoate,
For I drink her trust, drink her dust,
Yet thirsty left, pleading, more.

Dog Tired, Bone Tired, Dead Tired.

all in, beat, bored, burned out,
bushed, done in, drained, drooping,
exhausted, ******, fatigued, fed up, flagging,
just about had it, indifferent, knocked out,
out of gas, pooped, punchy,
ready to drop, spent, taxed,
wearied, wearing, wiped out, worn out
plain old zonked.

there are only two words, for which there are no precise, exact, synonyms.  

To mind, they flash instantly,
For they are the constants in the equation of life.

Love

Responsibility

Man, can they make you tired!

But they are constants, so we accept and pray for ourselves
To accept them both with

Equanimity.

5:45am
August 24th 2013

Dear Mr. Harlon Rivers,

When I was young,
I wrote like a young man,
With fervor and righteousness,
But heartfelt was not eloquent,
only self-satisfying.

Now that I am an old, old man,
My mind does the best it can,
Simple lyrics born in the poverty
Of a mind in an angular decline.

But never did I command the
Troops of this language that
You have under your command,
At this, your peaking, your apogee.

Your master key unlocks all
And set our souls soaring,
But yet we cannot reach you,
For you orbit at the point farthest
above our modest reach!

Your Admirer and Devotee,

_______

Please sign your name below if you agree.
You know how.

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

~for Lori Jones McCaffery~

Lori Jones McCaffery commenting on
“a new time (poetry in the time of pandemic)”^
“Tender and brutal at the same time. Like the times.”*

                                                     ­          <>
your observation, a commission, opens an incision,
bleeding out a Noah flood vision:

                                                        ­        <>

when we begin, to compare and contrast the movable tender and the unstoppable brutal, the poetry must rise to equalize the pressure of unbalanced times, the tender, and the brutal in an uneasy peaceful coexistence, at the same time, same place
                                                           ­     
                              
                              
                            
The Brutal                                              The Tender
—————                                             —————
life in the epicenter, the greatest,       in the darkened bedroom,
noisiest city, now landscape               she awakens, her hand quick
painting quiet,                                      comes to rest on my chest,
one lives/writes/eyesights thru       the quality of motion+volume
pink mask + a minimum six              of heartbeats, is it loud enough,
feet of separation,                                steady on, no need to dial 911!
a citified tableau of macro wave       she unaware that I can hear
forces in crashing collision, upon     her loud, tender exhalation
your skin’s cells                                   celebrating surviving day#?

newspaper images of Death’s            many volunteer, food delivery,
ministers applauding the newly        though I am asymptomatic
arrived mobile morgues, for 100        my request tenderly, firmly
died yesterday,                                      denied, for I meet too many
their brutal death rattles                      of the vulnerable criteria,
overwhelmed  the super-surround.   instead, offering food to me,
sound silences of                                   to deliver to me, to deliver me,
brutal emptiness of millions of           tenderly I say, no thanks,
sacrificial                                             ­    my tour of duty, almost done
                              
                                all of us isolate lambs, in day jailed,
                                for we still breathing the maybe tainted,                
                                oxygen molecules of no safe surety      

a consummate perfection,                    the same, taming words I tell  
the holy quietus of                                 my son, young father,
those no longer breathing,                   tender me necessary tasks that
they now rest up above,                        require outside journeys, say I
hid in a white cumulus                         send me into the red hot areas
cloud cover, a noise suppressing         insert me into the front line,
sky coverlet, moving across a               militarized zones, he replies,
bright blue pure background,              ”you’re too old, part and
a train of funeral caissons,                     parcel of the most vulnerable,
brutal noisy hooves clacking             better-write-you tender-poems”

daily, hourly, the statistical alerts,         why so hard, to write tender
brief résumés delivered,                         so easy of the brutal, their
drumbeating, look now!                         curses so readily supplied,
are you up to date?                                  is tenderness short supplied?

catalog the debris, organized with brutal necessary efficacy, quantify, qualify the costs, include even the tender ineffable, countdown and graph the brutal calculus of the curve infection, and you, numbed, past the point of eyes capable of what once was tender droplet tearing

highlight the unknown faraway, the tender hope of a distant apex inflection, while plotting the second derivative, the rate of change of the rate of a brutal yet trending upward *****, the ascending all-inclusive stat, infected, the rate of change of decedents, downed, descending, giving in...gowned in hospital blue, for the funeral pyre

a city of lines, crosswalks, velvet ropes, unused, unemployed, social separators, no one about to need to separate, anymore, only the living and the dead, both staying indoors, so neither in attendance, at the empty funeral services, everybody is on the out list...

the now newly indistinguishable, the irresistible collision of two one-sides polarizing poles of no longer opposites, the tender and the brutal in a single embrace, but no, not kissing, embargoed, as we are stationed from above, far, high up on the watchtower observatory, observing the contrast dye that flies so fast on people denuded grand boulevards, down narrow hospital hallways, body-lined decorated, tales of millions of lives isolatized, and don’t forget the brutalizing discovery of scores of elderly, dying alone, withering in the dark, counted, lumped in to the category of statistically irrelevant, if dead, who cares, matters not now, in the afterworld no one asks how,
                        in a fashion both tenderly and brutal,
                        what was the actual cause?

for my friend, AJB, mother, artist*

why
would anyone believe in invisible...
coordinator of billions of trillions
of interactions daily,
the microscopic
the telescopic

at what level
is there intercession
where is the
intervention,
rhymed reasoning of
impoverishing failing-me inadequate comprehension

so here I am
at 4:00 am
wailing and complaining
not so much at life's happenstance,
not even a foolish why me uttered,
talking to invisibility,
demanding culpability
at the very least
an apology

by that act
admitting the fact
that in conversation with parties
invited and drop-ins welcome,
in the silence sewn
in the residence permanent
of my mind's lobe of disquietude

logic forgone,
I am a believer,
no understanding
nor forgiving
at the illogic
of my tragedy
mine,
not so divine,
wailing and complaining

this my diatribe
knowing your silence
is a listening signature,
my complaining and wailing
my curse my blessing,
my transmitting frequency
of a multivariate equation
demanding a solution

too busy mastering the universe?
your data base
endless and unfathomable
file this under
audios of
YouTubes of
complaining and wailing,
hoping you cleanse yourself
with a good long listen

sweet waters with mint fragrant hints,
memories flood me,
"walking back in time"
he describes it

of my early days of discovery,
this voyage upon the poetry ship,
with me, mere stowaway,
unfit by compare,
sailed to lands unimaginable,
friendships seeded in words,
sprouted like a field of summer sunflowers,
water weeping, for joy so joyous,
the mastery of his words
elevates, levitates,
the ashes of sadness now dispossessed,
floating on the Ganges

the drumming of my dreams,
of treasures of golden words,
in lungs undiscovered, unspoken,
leads me back to you,
Balachandran from Thiruvananthapuram

April 10, 2016

~~~

Jun 1, 2013

Balachandran


How I love to say your name,
Rolling waves over my tongue,
It is must be said out loud
Two or three times to feel its rhythm,
Two or three more just for the
Spiced pleasure it conveys.
Bala chan dran!

My name harsh, Germanic,
Like the Black Forest,
Where my ancestors dwelled,
Until a harsher people drove them away.

Balachandran!

Under the ground beneath the temple
Padmanabha Swamy,
A temple dedicated to
Vishnu,
In the state of
Kerala,
the original spice country.
South Western sea board of India,
where miracles never cease to happen,
A billion dollar treasure discovered.

A treasure of words and sounds,
A language musical, every word a poem
Of incroyable elegance.

I am so glad that you were not born in France.

Perhaps someday I will courage summon,
To spicy lands, explore, and even come to
Thiruvananthapuram.

For now, I must be satisfied with the
Poetical musicale program I attend,
When I say over and over again,
Balachandran from Thiruvananthapuram!
Dedicated to K Balachandran

Relationships are not easy-peasy,,
Some take work, some, self-sacrifice.

Some must overcome defects congenital,
Obstacles so great that the Roman Gods
Are asked to intervene,
Send down those hotties, the fiery Furies,
who punished crimes at the instigation
of the soon to be frozen victims

So to the chase,
let's cut,
My woman's has true blood,
H2O
In solid state.

Her body is icy, permanent frosty,
And requires regular de-icing
Before Take Off.
This condition being true of her
Every part except, her prima facie.

Even the bed complains,
Whining creeks and groans,
Sometimes it even screams,
When she get in sans pajamas.

I,
A bastion of extra human warmth,
As my poems bear witness,
Normal temp is 102,
I am the joy of her life,
For love, I make the
Ultimate sacrifice.

Her feet, medieval torture instruments,
Her bare hands, have
Killed lesser men and folkloric-ly,
Reputedly, she has flash froze and keeps
Some vampires in the basement fridge,
Suitable for reheating in the microwave.

You may think this charming,
This poem, an amuse-bouche,
But it ain't funny when I go to the
Emergency room for first degree burns.

Remember when Ralph's friend
Got his tongue stuck to the metal pole,
In "A Christmas Story"?
That was me, that was her!

But our together,
Approaching near five years,
Is a Survivor.
Two hurricanes, ******* named
Irene and Sandy,
A divorce from a mean spirited wbitch
That took so long
The Matrimonial Lawyers ***-ociation
Had my portrait painted over their fireplace.

Even the icicles otherwise know correctly as
Her Extremities,
Have not come between us

When my lips kiss her neck,
Surgically remove heart with poetic scalpels,
Hold it, fluttering and with both hands, warm.

Her eyes close, and neuronic messages
Commence firing, telegraphed, messengered,
To the far corners of every Purim Persian province,
Let the wicked witch melting begin,
Commence the holiday of
Her Festivities.

If you think any man,
Could perform said feat of endurance,
You better checkout again the name of the
Man who authored this story,
For his name, with special powers, endowed.

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
Ecclesiastes 3:5.

long, long long
have I known
the contradictory meaning thereof,
for I authored it,
time immemorial

till the day came
when understanding parted,
left for another prophet,
another poet,
for this how the world's words go,
round and around

left me
re commencing
re imaging
re imagining,
new era words,
newer versions,
new heards
newer mergings

stones and embraces
ha!

"Two of my favorite things"

no, that's been done...

"Let's go get ****** and..."

nope, that's been done

So,
spark sublime divine
give me a second chance,
compose me a vision
that gathers these
mutual funds of
contrasting similarities
in a bow tied connection
singular, worthy of
song and daily recitation!

her embrace was a stone necklace
around my throat,
sackcloth was my shroud,
to the sea bottom was impaled,
by the stony apparition
of the unrequited embrace


Ugh

My beloved's embrace,
cracked the stones that surround
my uncaring register,
the cold still waters that hid it
now boiling from
her gathering me in

better.

one last try before I repent

embrace the stones
that obstacle the journey,
gather them in, together keep,
for they are the markers,
you have used,
you have been,
you have exhausted,
so long after the body ashed,
these words will trace for
those that follow the path
you marked with
these same stones
you gathered in
olden days of
simple joyous embrace*

this will,
must have to
do,
for the stones of
the angels of sleep have
arrived and undeterred,
upon my chest have,
inscribed and placed,
while bidding me adieu,
tucking me in,
gathering me to my rest,
a closing eyeing embracing,
in drowsy voices half clear:

sleep prophet,
the work done,
the words piled,
the stones now
mark your the
you final resting place
upon them ecrivez,
In The Future,
Keep It Simple Stupid

For Eliot**

a man possessed awakes and blessing pronounces that the world needs another poetry site even though nothing new under the sun nonetheless the secret passion is coded and the white swells grow into a hurricane whitecap crescendo, lighting thunders cymbals and the non believers (how I want to believe!) quietly step forward
from unpronounceable places you never heard of,
no longer cowards, not a one,
invoking a blessing of:

"me too, I am a poet with something to announce new, and I've been sitting patiently in distress, looking for a place to say, see,
I think I can,
I think therefore,
I am,
a named human.
no longer an asterisk."

6/22/17  2:40am nyc

As you may know, I continue to collaborate with other poets here, most frequently with Helen.  Below is a poem of hers that I have edited and reworked, her original notes to me are contained in the notes section below.  So if you like it, tell Helen. If you "choke" on it, tell the editor. That's why they pay us the big bucks! So, send me your scraps yearning to be free...

I am choking
on words.

chest clogged,
throat seized,
as I await to deplane,
when I will perforce,
speak these words,
but for now, held in a
prison garb of my own design.

organs can be donated,
the broken heart,
the shattered liver,
the kidney failing,
eyes for the blind,
lungs for the breathless.

the human psyche
is not replaceable.

I need a mind of titanium,
will gladly settle for either the
Tin-man's heart, or
Cowardly Lion's courage,
both, too much too hope for...

but they are not sold at the airport shops.

perhaps my unseen editor
will accompany me,
hand firmly on my writing elbow,
guiding, refining, selecting
les mot parfait...

How come?
How come everything
inside a body can be replaced
so artfully, artificially
except words inside a broken mind?

I cannot get these words out,
who can transplant a soul?

Who and Where in the World is Shaunna Harper?

A young poetess here at HP, a story teller, herein a Mashup, excerpts from her writings. Do not overlook her...

You hold your breath,
stagnant, absent
in the station,
trains grumbling about leaving
and about waiting,
people passing, chattering
about nothing
they are actually thinking about;
***, cheap wine, finances,
time, romances and of course,
the weather.

You stand on the platform
between two trains,
puffing fumes and
oil from its brains.
In your throat
somewhere
you mime the sounds
of a goodbye speech,
the silent, strained
words false even in
unspoken terms,
the ever-after of remorse,
the frailty of indecision.

I am somewhere either in the woods,
walking in the enormity of your shoes,
or in the water, making feeble shapes,
hoping to find you in the blue.

Not a child, ill with misfortune.
One of a kind, she dances
to her own gypsy tune,
free, enviable, fresh
to ears and eyes, not used,
like you or me,
or abused, immune to lies.

I am heading for a shock.
I am leaving home and arriving
only God knows where,
bags empty, head full,
and the place my roots took hold
is never going to look the same.
The win is not important,
only the playing of the game,
and the rules have been rewritten.
With every step covered,
I am someone else, somewhere else,
and only the disorientation remains.
I cannot make up my mind
from my dreams.

Chasing planes from buses
to cleaner places
better places
leaner places
the brittle, broken
fingernails chewed
to fray the anxiety.

America, I’m on my way.
Bury me in your deserts,
throw me to your cities
let my future do what it will
in its own sweet time.

Give me my fury.
Keep me swinging.

written in her voice...

When did sixteen
lose its sheen,
become so complicated?

when did the monsoon season
of transposition from girl to woman
begin, and when does it end?

when can I make my electrons
do their magic at my bidding,
like making my mum,
see me as I see myself?

don't know the answers,
don't know what made this girl think,
these equations had solutions

and when did sixteen,
become so complicated?

do I ask too much to make this straight,
I am one of just a billion teen girls
            with the same name,
knowing this doesn't help me
solve my mysteries unique, makes it somewhat worse,
how, was being sixteen,
young, but not never old enough
always a balloon misdirection, free floating, so confusing?

when I close my eyes
hear my private poetry ghost
insisting, listening to what I can't confess, even
to my diary, so I tell an
electronic stranger

(which is crazy, dangerous)

leaves me somehow relieved,
it seems impossible but he reads me,
even sees me, in my words
sees, and just, listens with every-word-attention

now he sees me as I want to be seen,
and I wonder, is he for real,
touchable, human skin and bone?

living in my skyscraper city,
I am surrounded,
pegged in a place where
sadly, where there is no dusk,
the lights too bright and 24 on,
and pressures of all kinds..make me
desire simple low lights,
that have quiet country lanes...with clears signs, known destinations

no more life exams please
especially, those that for me, were chose,
please, no goals parentally prescreened,
all, the nice and the mean,
let them meet me with pleasured randomness

so I can decide what seventeen will bring

my poem ghost sees me
far away, in other cities,
where my spirit
may have  lived once before,
in other bodies, other times,
where I heard the walls exclaim,
where once I prayed for sun
instead, brought thunderstorms,
monsoons of a different kind...
even with their knowledge past and forethought,
still I don't understand

when did sixteen,
lose its sheen, rain,
become so complicated?

algebra insufficient,
calculus trajectories,
don't intersect and
the future fortune tellers
seem to have better answers,
ones I like, they,
even tell me questions
didn't know to ask

what am I good at?

when will I be certain of
the difference tween love and  
sixteen emotional contusions that
bruise but don't scar?

when will my body speak,
informing me this trial of
the growing pain is over, done?

all these complications,
none that I chose,
do not patronize,
they are hard,
all I seek is the simplicity,
not the sympathy,
of knowing
when will
come the resolutions?

*when I turn seventeen?

enlighten — verb (used with object)

to give intellectual or spiritual light to;
to instruct; impart knowledge to; Archaic: to shed light upon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
like an overdue library book,
the omission of a
failed commission,
makes me a bad boy.

request submitted.
progress stalled,
dust accumulated.
guilty of failure to perform,
a fineable offense
where I come from.

perhaps it was the word?

Enlightened...

down too many paths possible
this word obvious, but not,
a distortion, to me.
the definition I seek,
is not in dictionary listed!

for I want to enlighten you,
make you lighter, carefree,
But Not Through Spirit or Intellect.

for what spiritual guidance
can I give thee,
that would not burden you,
with collected do's and don'ts.

my intellect impoverished,
reduce to grunts and curses,
my opinions, even if valid,
are simplistic truisms.

nonetheless, I want to enlighten you.

"put the load right on me."

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me."

Give me those-parts of you,
convoluted, twisted, that need bearing,
but cannot be borne any more,
for there comes the line,
where the totals are recorded,
the sums noted,
black or red,
matters not,
disposal ready,
my truck is marked
Heavy Load.

make me fat with seven years of plenty,
plenty worries, plenty troubles,
shed those pounds of weighty words
that gain no recognition,
misheard, misunderstood,
or just ignored,
so I can enlighten you.

what skill you posses,
doing this noble thing?

skill is simple,
merely human,
only the human touch
can enlighten,
take out the trash.

I am your man.
what makes you
heavy hearted,
enlightens me,
and makes you
lighter than air,

thus, miraculously,
we are both enlightened.

send what you need to be rid of,
promise, I will read and keep,
every poem you send.

one asks:

why do I not send my poems anymore,
have I seized up, ceased down, now but an engine rust requiem,
absent the needed viscous, numerous verbal oils running requires,
to commend to thee without hesitant reservation

I lie, and say because,
no one read them

write profusely, blouse tear-wet, hair ungelled, thoughts unglued,
this here secondary, truth birthing reply, outed post a time delay,
revealed, staggering reluctantly, like an akimbo drunk,
who imagines every step his, still straight-lined,
then, in shock, in a confessional, through a divide,
stumbling admits,
no, they are not

my poems can no longer be milkman delivered to your
morning doorstep porch coated in condensation-wet,
thick-heavy, lovely but-out-of-shaped, rotund glass bottles,
for both this charming old practice I remember,
it and my poems, are now time-wronged,
passed over by the courant new notion of a sell-by date,
for who dares to desire to live in the timeless paths
of risky tomorrows?

these times, when life is a continuous elegy,
simplicity is so complex,
when truths are hard to distinguish
harder to believe, why then,
insert any extra hardening, provision extra difficulties,
add poems that strain, needing patience and careful handling

so many people, me compris, pained out,
obsolescent, meteor victims of dinosaur extinctions,
now so common, remarkably recognized and remarked upon,
then quickly gone to a swamp burial ignominy unnoticed

my poems, complex and long, wordy and abstruse,
do fit your avoidance profile, why to make thee weep,
so many demanding your abbreviated attention span,
my intimate uncomfortable intrusions are your lowest priority,
and this, irony, was my masters thesis topic

so I lie

forsooth my poems are secret read by the Marrano thousands,
writ by a me-disguised, they're seeked and sought out
by those who require a personal pinpricking, a violin adagio daily,
tiny little irritant memory provocations and sooth sayings,
deemed inappropriate, for no predeterminant answers asked,
banished from today's new world symphony,
governed by a set of exclusionary convent rules,
that perforce demand a trigger warning:

place no peas neath my mattress, so I may sleep,
without the discomfiture, the unordered risk intensity of
dreaming without any restraint,
composing the future in the moment

11-13-17 1:31am