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

This day will start out mostly sunny with temperatures near the high 70s. Then expect a chance of showers and thunderstorms late at night, with temps dropping to the high 60s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until June 20 (Juneteenth)

by
God.

(who is relieved that we humans will celebrate and honor Juneteenth,  by not having to rise early to move our cars to the other side of the street to enable the horde of street cleaners and free men and women to sleep late too in honor of the emancipation of enslaved people in the US.

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

(Dedicated to Stephen E Yocum)*



You who have spent time on this planet,
That you can count your annual growth rings,
By just employing a combination of
Fingers, toes, eyes and nose,
Stop and think, after reading on.

Forty years on, what are the words, the titles,
The honorifics that you would like to see
Next to your name?

There is a yeoman Yocum in our midst,
Who has collected a few adjectives,
The sum total if additive,
Is a resume most complete,
One you should envy!

Able Friend,
Lover of Dogs and Humans,
Gentleman Farmer, Decent Photographer,
Spinner of tall tales, woven for his
Grandchildren.

A writer, a poet,
He says "a would be,"
I say, one who attempts,
Puts his name on writs public,
Is no would-be!

Who here would dare disagree?

More than all this, unlike so many,
Grateful for everyday of life,
Even those ****** full of strife,
And who served, a grunt,
One of the proud, the few.

I salute, you, and call out,
Attention Poets, Marine On Deck!

But no stuffed shirt ,
A man of soil and earth,
Who can laugh at himself, and write,

"My driving experience feel greater,
Would be to speed down the road,
Behind the wheel of my little Red Racer,
Completely **** naked,
And of course,
Feel the wind in my hair."

It is easy to be some things.
It is hard to be many things,
But it is the hardest, and the best,
When you look back,
And laugh out loud, admit,
The funniest thing you know,
The one that keeps you sane,
The one-thing, hardest, and the best,
Is to laugh at yourself.

So stand attention,
Go to the mirror,
Tho you might not like what you see,
If you focus, and really look tight, squint,
Do not be surprised,
If, in a few minutes,
You burst out laughing,
Especially if you do it in your
Birthday suit!

Maintain this perspective,
Forward and retroactive,
And then perhaps,
You will be able to write
These words...like he did!

Where upon, sheer elated emotions,
Of this my journey of self discovery,
Began to sink in and I started to cry.

There are times is one's life,
when lessons are taught,
When almost no words
need to be spoken.

And the best teacher's are
our own Brain and Heart,
Comprehending, embracing
Life's many shared Lessons.*

Marine Slocum, Stand at Attention!
There are Poets saluting you.

How To Dress For My Funeral



black or white, hot n'pink,
lavender always a fav,
at a fun funeral rave,
lacy or plain, your choice,
tho clean would be nice,
won't matter to me very much,
the color of your underwear.
but do not fail to recall, the dead,
their vision keen, can see all!

funeral gravity rules to be strictly observed,
snickering and giggling to commence in the
back row, when holy pomposity gets uttered,
let it wend its way forward from the aft,
until y'all better be
laughing your ***** off

anyone who chooses to speak,
must commence with words,
"Did ya hear the one about"
or be haunted by my spectral shadow
tickling both feet at midnight, or,
worse yet, reciting this awful poem
in their head, like Henry the Eighth,
I am, I am

perhaps a hora dance might be nice,
a mamba line, butts,  holy rolling n'shaking,
past rows of rock n' rolling tombstones, guitar-playing
some Metallica,
while the rabbi intones somberly,
Let's get this party started, gad ******!

if my untimely hour should arrive in July,
I humbly request that flip flops be the ped-modality,
if January should be my season
of absence treasoned, use some reason,
please stay home, and let the paid professionals
suffer in fine phony, professional, seasonal frigidity

at the post partum party, should that occur,
I humbly repast request, barbecue be the cuisine,
in the hopes you all recall to place
a generous helping, repeat, generous helping,
inside my sauce- proof pine wood casket,
with extra napkins for the long trip ahead

now these are all post hypnotic, post breathing,
helpful suggestions, not requirements,
but honor or disparage, cry or vent,
curse or bless my perma-absence,
don't matter to me, as long as somebody
reads this manifesto at the festivities, first and last.

written in midtown Manhattan while waiting for a bus, last year, and dedicated to anyone who has been cold latest lately.*

sustained winds
magic-make
20 degrees
feel like zero,
waiting for the M57 bus
that cannot
iceman cometh
soon enough.

bus shelter soldier
marching to and fro,
a guardsman on duty,
passing the he-waiting time
by dream reviving
last night's pastime,
secret activity,

like coffee cup
comet tail sips,
re-image, re engage,
re-heat just enough,
to temper and mind deceive.

recall dreams of painting,
the frame,
already hung,
the naked white wall,
blank canvas,
dreams are time to experiment.

what I paint, however,
extends beyond the frame,
the mind visions,
landslide down,
secreted colors,
images, born and lifted,
upward bound,
street steam rising,
from wall to sky,
letters float.

tho scarfed and gloved,
my painted words,
crisp and crackle,
boundary break,
extend beyond the frame.
wind-chill
tactile exterior defeated,
the burn
of mind creativity
succeeds.

Jan 24th 2013
2:42 AM

The Muted Commoner

You don't see them,
......Just past them......

Speak but unheard,
perforce, thus, muted,
against their will

blogs bread unread uneaten,
poem orphans better than us,
vine ripened unto death

Truly dare you say I/you the better?

Shamed heat, you spit,
outed, no penance offered,
non granted,
the forgivers are muted too

so this be your charge,
so this be your salvation:

free the mutes from the trance -
exhume, exhort find them
in the back pages, then
acknowledge  that we are all
Muted Commoners.

find the poem unread,
revive it with a read, a heart,
and then you can speak your
Peace.

The bedrock underlying much of Manhattan is a mica schist known as Manhattan schist.  Schist is foliated or layered in appearance. Quartz sparkles, micas, and amphiboles are primary minerals in schist. A melted rock, just like the city resting above, it too, a famous melting *** of humanity.

This one poem too, composed from pieces of other poems,
folded in layers of many others that melted together,
in harmonious discordancy

<~>

this glorious grime,
this delicious dirt,
stuff of my blood,
genes of my children's children inheritance,
of thee I sing,
in thee I revel,
of thee, I am composed

the city I love,
where I was born,
schooled and fooled in,
by many a woman

the city where I named
and raised my children

will probably die in
this city, and when
I am long forgot,
my name never uttered,
    who, will think of me?
Perhaps,
whenever someone says,
"he was such a rascal"

these tales I took,
some or all,
from beneath my skin,
where city streets grit,
was injected beneath my skin
and came with the title,
City Boy

so today, on a reborn street,
near tall towers no more,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn,  
but nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the typical NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
unsilently weeping, thinking that:

We lose or throw away so much we should have kept,
We keep so much we should have thrown away

street prowler, heart growler,
Art Deco lampposts,
the mountain range of east seventy second street,
begs the bagger's question,
each post
begging each other,
"from whence will come my inspiration?"

licked the stubbled sidewalks,
fell down into their living caverned cracks,
light needed, needy softly heated,
orange and green pizza neon signs,
saying here,
if you see upon what be,
these are your city's homeland colors of veracity

perhaps
NYC was model precursor
for our internet presumed-to-be-alive-but-who-can-say-for-sure
model for the world today,
where I know not my apartment's neighbors name,
yet carry his second child
in my arms,
when the fire alarm
summons us all to flee
to street safety...
and still only
"know" his child's first name,
and his father,
as Apt. #16D

all this exponential signage
of this NYC boy grousing,
are his defrocked muses him annoying,
with a serenading blizzard
of one trick pony repetitions,
their coronets trumpeting his unmasking,
*making this essay, his revelations,
a product of their harmonious discordancy

Sixty Eight years of age
and he texts her puppy love
msgs six time a day,
in between phone calls.

long ago lovers,
high school, I think,
Facebook stumbled upon,
and the inky surprise,
that they have relearned to be,
a new shade of
a true blue tint of
the word,
devoted.

mushy is the heart that goes
soft to hard to soft,
soft by innocence, then
Pharaoh hardened by life, then,
softened by reflection,
mushyed by wisdom,
that came costly.

when relearning
the side effects of
discovering the words
that were left unsaid,
or even better,

spoke this time with
better understanding,
greater appreciation.

Now so better
After Aging Aching
in an oak cask
of finally, filly fully
fermented love.

I don't need inspiration
to clap for you,
but your confidence un-betrayed,
name omitted,
as one grandfather tips his hat to another,
all he can smiling say,

*******,
romantic rediscovery at 68,
I suspect is even better than the
first fumbled go around.

I wish for you
beautiful memories
in the coming year
and the poem-sight
to record them forever,
living moments internal,
transformed to eternal...

may the vapors
of this winter's breaths,
living, love and loss,
rise up, as smoke
to be returned
unto you,
inscribed within the

spring rains warmth,
summer's stunning,
breathtaking sunsets,
autumnal leave drops
anointing your humanity,
and yet,
one more time,
next December,
in a tear-shaped snowflake,

that upon your tongue will fall, and,
the taste thereof,
giving you pause,
to acknowledge
this singular sentiment:

the year is crowned,
let next  year's
joyful imaginings
exceed, add,
to the equity
of our lives.


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

Check your courage, your humanity, your common decency, your *****, in the cloakroom of pathetic

2. Spend not a nanosecond thinking about how it would feel if it were done to you, reminding yourself how sad, justified, and relieved you feel

3. Debate tween text and email, choose text cause it is shorter, less time consuming, and packs more punch

4. Be proud of your courageous forthrightness in dealing with human problems so directly

5. Immediately (or prior) text all your friends what you have done

6. Make plans for a party so you can begin trolling the field.  Of course not! (invite the ex, that would be cruel)

7. Proceed to smear your ex in person, in secret, to justify how good and kind and used you are and were.  Laser focus on new target person who really turns you on

8. Show around all the ex's break up poems for laughs.

9.  Shampoo and rinse your soul with lye, and repeat, 2 - 3 times a week. If you notice any self improvement, call your doctor immediately!

You Are Appropriately Named
    (But did your parents ***** you?)*

parental fortune tellers we be,
when in  the task of
appellation speculation
(a/k/a name that baby!)
we engage

we tongue taste old vintages,
and some new varietals,
look to the ancient biblical, Greek Gods,
a naming to affix and let it be
the reddest of good luck omens.

baby's future unforeseen and yet,
foretold, perhaps molded?

do we have any clue
of what we do
when, our children, we name?

Foolishly, we plot, we plan,
minor items, woman or man,
we leave in God's hand,
all the rest, content to accept
product of our cooking ***,
recipe of genetic seasoning,

but

when we christen them,
when we nominally oil
and anoint tiny foreheads,
we are choosing for them
whether they will be
annointers or annointed,
Samuels or Davids,
prophet or king

O irony!
'tis no *child's game,
or wordplay fun,
nor a zero sum decision elected,
is it construct, or destruct
the nominal we have selected?

the Oscar envelope is
star-delivered, and unsealed,
futures altered,
determined, revealed,
and for these tiny ones,
there is no appeal!

Think on it.

Endlessly debated, or not,
sources from a list infinite,
grandparent, novel, imagination,
origin indeterminate,
no matter,
we make them sweet or salt,
nuanced, threaded, gruff, plain,
confirmed, or perhaps condemned

do you honestly think there is
no alteration in their fate,
their course not rejiggered
when upon a suspicious world
we emanate them as
Ian or Nate,
Adolf or Shylock,
Jason or Jakob,
argonaut or patriarch,
Scarlet or Abigail:

we have chosen the
color of their visage,
color coded the A
of their alphabet unique,
the one they will speak
a hundred years on

the world's greatest rivers,
are mere droplets at inception,
a trickle upon Mt. Marcy,
becomes my beloved Hudson magnificent

explorers, through peril,
search jungles, risk all,
to find the "source,"
they comprehend,
it does too matter!

so too with human "conception,"
it's all, in the name,
genes be ****** and
habitat may alter animals in
a science laboratory a tad,
tho your heart you will consult,
best hire an ad agency,
for you have, a brand, created!

therein is the rub,
debate no more
tween nurture or nature,
what you nominate, rules,
for better or worse
for shock or awe,
for them, and alas,
for you

This then is the parental sin most original:

you need to believe in
open architecture,
but the first will be last
your selection is a
a table set,
upon which,
you will "re-past,"
many meals in your future
equal parts of joy and regret,
Parents, there is no substitution,
you, the menu have, selected and set





-

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.

The Process

There is the notion, the urging.
The first spilling, the self-congratulatory
Commencement ceremony for
The process.

Then there is the first short-pause,
a quick-freeze hibernation. Then,
The bubbling,
The querying, the special fear,
What have I started?
Where is it taking me,
Am I properly undressed for doing
T  he process?

A new vocabulary,
an arm extended, but distended,
Words are all angled puzzled,
Capable of unity, but first,
Unshaped but swollen,
By the process.

Hatching, head-aching,
words arrive rushed, but disordered,
Confused by the process.

{The exception has it own character.

One kingly, run-on sentence birthed,
After silent labor, a full poem, fully dilated,
A shocking head of hair, full developed,
So fast does "it" fall onto the paper
The obstetrician arrives too late
To process.}

The exception, exceptional.

The normal, normative.

Twenty four hours of labor,
False starts, much screaming,
Painful joys, hardly seamless,
This process.

Distractions the enemy,
Compulsion the master,
As you choreograph the work,
In loving servitude to
The process.

You the doctor, insert probes,
Looking for the tumors, the out of ordinary,
For normal flesh is not of interest as part of
The process.

Finally, you do exhale,
With unique the pleasure, of the longest sweetest
Female ******.
The breathing less labored,
Tho whole, sensing a diminish-meant to convey
That completion is the end of part of you,
The near-end of the continuum, lessened but continuing
The process.

The Show


I awake circa two AM to observe an Earth under siege.
Fearsome blasts of lighting lightening unceasing,
illuminate a sky that is divided into two; a grey white
boundary-less blob of cloud, bolt pricked in a steady
but random pattern for at the least the hour since I was
awakened and a blackened horizon lining defining the land of men.

I debate my choice of word; at some point I slip from the bed to
relieve myself for such is the age of burden I currently occupy;
but my fingers disobey wanting to write relive myself,
to assure myself, that I am, will be, a surviving witness to an awesome and terrifying spectacle, noting the appropriate dueling nature of “awesomeness” for it brings a joyous awe and a paralyzing fear with equal measure, but without any trace of forcible distributive equity.

The lightening is fulsome; sometimes well hid above in a
single whiteness that is the very definition of singularity,
without cue, but within, Z shape bolts of comic book proportionality.

Here’s the rub! All this demonstration is done in a complete,
comforter (!) of silence. The house periodically rumbles its
machinery, whether in fear, or because it must mechanically
do so in the same manner we breathe, or simply to alert me
that I frail human, am at the mercy of the skymaster above,
and the manmade array of pipes, compressors, big apparatuses pinstalled in the earth below to serve until they don’t, and then
we must service them.

The silence is amazing for it is total and domineering and absent thunder. The Show occurs in the largest venue available, the Bay,
but the well behaved audience makes no sound, not a whit,
no coughing, sneezing puncturing or punctuating (reader’s choice) the eerie quiet of a speechless world that cannot speak, as if its larynx was removed, but it’s eye were restored to the age of 20/20.

Well over an hour, closer to two, the demonstration is concluded
and we return to the supine, neutrally, even emotionless, for the gamut and gauntlet we have survived dry and in safety has
concluded and the thick picture window did its job admirably.

Wait Now, a pockmark of bursts in the absence of all light, the now blackness has replaced everything, except for a momentary pinprick of of cloud framed orange hue, a shell exploding far across the bay.

S. sleeps relatively unperturbed, until she does not; for a long minute she rattles the ship, kicking tantrum violently both legs, until the covers are disarrayed, only to fall back into a deep blue colored stage of sleep, and pulling the covers onto the custom fitted aperture neath the chin.

This secondary, receding lightening demonstration that has been taking place; as if a heavenly Lincoln~Stephens oratorical battle occurs over the nearby Atlantic of  nonstop proportion, leaving my my mind to dwell on this topic:

Resolved: This man, that pens this missive about sky missiles is a good writer, or even reasonably ok.

I am representing both sides (duh). and skip to the judges decision without further ado, for brevity is a skill I am profoundly lacking and appreciate, and the eloquence of the debaters is acutely not bad, as prideful acumen is the standard.

Sorry. Split decision, 3 -2, he is merely an ok writer.

Now past 4 AM, glance outside but once more, and there a slow slewing of dawn light emerging like springtime buds, the trees on the lawn are faintly distinguishable, outlined against a normalized, post-storm night sky full of debris EXCEPT in the not-faraway-enough-distance, a few straggler lighting bolts are yet appearing to remind me the night is indeed always awesome and full of terror, just like a good poem.

4:22 AM Jul 5 2023

New Moon Melange

(for Harlan Rivers originally,
and now for Aparna,
who reminded me
how I used to write
in the golden era of
seven years of plenty, so long, so ago...)

                         <>

The softest cotton,
Wears ever softer with every use.

Contemplative introspection,

Like digging a castle & moat in the sandy beach,
You dread and joy, the knowing,
Incoming tide will arrive destructive inevitable,
Yet fill the moat, protect the kingdom,
Till is undone and returned to the blocks of minuscule,
Grains of sand.

Answers found, maybe lost, once more,
Necessitating questioning, non-stop processing,
And a rebuilding tomorrow... Pas de choix

But softer each time, easier with practice.

Even if convoluted, it is still a revolution.
Like twelve new moons, recycled.
(occasionally a lucky thirteenth appears)

Some of us are special chosen,
To essay, to assay, the condition human,
With a rock axe, tiny slivers chipped off,
And yet new moon stones uncovered,
needy of Cataloging,
introspection,

You can change the day,
The month,
The moon twelve, thirteen times,
Hell, You can change your **** hat,
But don't fool nobody,

You are one of the special,
You job to paint the verbal paintings,
And to ascertain the meaning interior.

For in doing so, you do all of us service.
For your eyes see it ever so differently,
For you, task, paint and reveal each
New Moon’s Melange,
your unchosen gift.
to you

you will not like what
you will soon imbibe...

long has a single moot court team
infernal internal debated,
the if's and of's, among itself:

"To Read, Or Not To Read?"

in solitary confinement,
place one's self,
undisturbed but for stale bread,
but unpolluted water

letting only visions sprung internal
guide thy words and world,
from tongue to paper,
creating as pure as one can,
unperturbed by the
rocket's glare of another's poetry

risking all but certain knowing,
it is my fawlty fault alone,
no compare, all laid bare,
no infection of inflection,
no reflection of yours,
in mine mirrored image

my issued seed, entire genetic,
it's only inked environment what is
pre-seeded by blood and *****,
my eyes filter all sight by this light,
this lonely light alone

for the moment, when,
I bend my head to thy stream
to partake when inspiry is parched,
the knowledge that what you
write and wrought,
so much better
than my small portions,
I am condemned in perpetuity
not to the agony mot of defeat,
for I could not
cease to write,
any more than I could
cease to breathe,
or despair of all hope
for messianic better days

but, if to be burdened
by the too real title of
second best,
then my poems,
all sadness to be.

this I cannot have,
so let my pieces,
mediocre or even trash,
live peacefully unencumbered
by the site lines of the living
and the dead

thy finery exceeds my plain grasp,
when I read yours,
my self-pity self-suffocates,
and I ask,
nay, I beg of myself:

let my voice be still
but not stilled,
let my thoughts be boundless,
but not in thine clasped,
let my heart speak my truth,
even unto admitting my yellow courage,
let it not be disparaged by,
for my rank of commonality,
it's low caste author's curse

"for who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time"

I have read the best

once, I wrote
to laugh,
reminded and reminding,
they too feared,
the compare to those who
wrote before their own hour

now I know better,
my only solution,
let my additive, be uncomplicated
my images, uncompromised,
by that, my eyes have n'ere seen,
in languages unspoken, but yet believed,
that were given birth only
for a poet's needs

you may dispense
with my droppings,
as you please, but when
I read you and yours,
I am,
so dangerously pleasured,
my creativity,
my one true god and deity,
oft no longer speaks to me,
it's silence a death sentence
that no court, not in any land,
on earth or unheaven,
may e'er grant clemency,
that of course,
unkindest cut of all

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry"

"The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of"

You see, already cursed and contaminated,
All my sins italicized, except for my original one,
The imposition of mine own hand,
To dare to write and dream in line and meter, verse

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


*To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep—
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia. Nymph, in all thy Orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

you give me waaay too much credit;
u are investment; a great poet,
needing tending and nurture,
watering and encouragement;
since god could not be everywhere,
he made sure many poets exist
to tend
to their fellow's seeds
~~
the problem with seeds
they don't come with a guarantee
from the manufacturee,
or a note from home
for the teacher,
that makes ''my dog et it''
slightly more believable,
each a new babe seedy needy,
crying in the mid of night,
for water and loving attention
as it teethes roots in the soil,
and
the discourteously majority
fail to appear even if you read them
good night moon, nightly

you must plant ten,
hoping one child,
will sprite sprout
and even then,
survive the outrageous misfortunes of  natures
bumps and beaks of the day and night
that lurk about in a
disarmingly charmingly
destructive way

did i say ten?  
idiot.
plant a hundred
just to obtain one germination.

I think the seed guys have
conned us pretty good
the odds
truly ****
as you, the champion children
like to say nowadays,
and **** they are,
too right

sun I cannot control:
water and soil, I can,
for if n'ere to rain,
your seeds will be
well fed,
well read,
and the water,
my eyes will supply
naturally

a sensory perception,
an intended message,
which the eyes of my inbox
check-mark as opened, read and
very well received

sometimes we say things
we didn't mean to say,
but 99% of the time,
we meant it, even if
it just happened to be
something we were wearing,
something tight, short and flirty,
we put on in a hurry,
without thinking

2:19am

for M*

never been good at it,
picking jobs, careers, wives,
was not one to
outline the steps,
to goals I could not
speak or define

so I bumped this way and that,
knocked down, dusted off, and
meandering, restarted and may,
unexpectedly,
have to do it
once again

once grooved,
let myself be fooled
by myself,
the best ole fooler I trusted,
that my track,
breeze to the back
was bumble free, straight,
planed and planned
and though accidentally,
what the heck

of course it never is...

you could write it all down,
the before, the softer,
the after, the harsher,
and the middle muddle
of visions hazy,
when you are too lazy
to engage

and to those of you
who see it clear,
on yellow pads and blue lines,
write down step one and two,
god bless you

Know though

there is no such thing
as free and easy
from the curves
that come up fast,
so fast that they
strangle you
near to death
or even past it

you can't imagine it,
I know, you can't,
and those who can,
likely no longer need to imagine it

but when you dare do,
clench eyes and make that ugliest rare bird
come to front and foremost
come to mind, you make it
fly to disappear,
to rarefied air,
where it,
you beg stay

and you do some good,
stupidly think you've collected
celestial brownie points that will
preserve and protect,
but in a flash bang
they have expired
just before the when you
needed them most

so go about your business,
but make no mistake,
others are going about it too,
their surprises the kind that
long term planners call disruptive

sure be sensible,
have a nest egg, a will,
good neighbors if you can,
top off the liquids
that life requires to
make the machinery run silent

work hard, pay attention
to the subtle changes
in your environment,
even hurricanes have a season,
and may you have a
go-bag in a closet,
gas in the tank,
for those days that are the
inevitable
works-in-process

but the only long term plan
that will you true require,
the one thing that will
save your neck,
chance you a chance
to defeat the unforeseen,
is not of paper, steel,
or money green,
it is character

I won't define it. You know it,
You make and or destroy it.

every day set some aside,
climb into night bed,
and recall the empathy
granted and given,
and from that,
build your own storage unit
for it won't be a mere rainy day,
but hail and volcano that will
leave you questioning existence

justify why you daily breathe,
and then exhale,
and say,
I go on
for I am of worth

this is long term planning,
survivor's insurance

This the only way to survive,
the days of reckoning
that you cannot reckon,
the days of wreck and tumult

but if you possess
character,
you will go on

ok, ok
what is character?
why it is that exact moment
when overwhelmed by the tumult,
you acknowledge that nonetheless,
you have the what and the wherewithal
to make it better
for someone else.