How many days left in my body?
How many poems left in my body?
One and the same, one and the sane.
My body is my poems.

You cannot distinguish me
in any other way.

eye-scans, fingerprints, belly buttons,
areolae.

all possess, all differentiate, none suffice,
I say it thrice, still you do not understand,
none not a marker singular,
they are not me,
nor are they you.

so if you read but one of my poems,
my body,
you do not know.

but when I find you perusing, exhuming,
the-ones-that-went-before
then you will, can know as well
as I know myself.

each poem a pore,
each pore a poem.

How many days left in my body?
How many poems left in my body?
one and the same, one and the sane.
my body, my poems.

my body is not episodic.
turn on the tv, no imagination leaps needed,
but each and every contingent on the prior,
each poem a stepping stone to the in side,
insight to the story of the body.

more story than poems,
I began in the beginning,
believe me there are thousands
of writs that lie about, lay about,
that sunshine has n'ere exposed.

but enough survived
enough shared, enough spent,

You have never seen my face,
what matters that,
when you have seen my poems,
my body, more than windows into,
they are the very pores of me.

Jan. 26, 2014

messing with perfection,
you critique yourself,
why do it yet again,
a single choice, *******

yet every time them words,
penetrate, they instigate,
and you want to let~vent,
burst busting out in glory

bible student, we both. so
understand that titled reference
instantly, the secondary hid, secreted
a hurting with hallelujah familiarity

I weep. missing the singer,
his poetry delights, paralyzes with
a *******, indescribable, ecstaticly
indebted to him, his chosen words

he chose, I chose,
this decision to accept,
the need to expiate, explain, to better
understand our whys,
therby grasp our wherefores,
to give ourselves up entire,

thereby making, giving and even
t a k i n g,
the very chore so human to accept,
that surrendering,
f o r g i v i n g, one
accomplishes a chance to uncover the godliness within

that sparks
our frail humanity
to blossom to fruition, that our
fragility is the thinnest tissue of
diamond iron strength
encasing and encoding us unique
but yet united by
a single commonality,
that we are holy,
born to be
to be celebrated
and to share our voices
so differing
in an
unceasing
harmony

11:00 PM July 7th 2011
Outside Delacorte Theater,
Home of Shakespeare in the Park
Central Park, New York
~~
What wretched wags
we have become,
sold rhyme and couplet
into slavery and meter sacrificed,
upon the altar of expediency.

LOL and BRB, the hallmarks
of our
insincerity,
forgetting that civility
is resurrected when
we employ the poetry of speech
in our plain and
simple communiques,
most especially in the simple,
please let beauty hold sway.

Brutalize our tongues,
thus our lives,
compression of our language
into single words that celebrate
the mundane, as fashionable.

yeah, yeah, yeah...

Our speech, its fragrance lost,
sublimates but does not sublime,
one liners demean our humanity,  
grunts of yeah and cool,
are awesome not,
our future hope is in
the details of our expression,
whereby we inject
into our verbal demeanor
a grace that sets human
above the existence animal.

So touch this screen and
let us begin,
to take our measure
by our measure
of the care we demonstrate
when we communicate.

These words have transversed
from weekday to weekday,
soon at morning prayers
to the gods inside of me,
David's hymns and poems
I'll recite,
a slow eloquence will infuse
my hallelujah eyesight.

Plain truths will be spoke,
in rhyme with
diction apace,
transfuse my soul
elevate us
severally and jointly
above the confused noises of
the prison of nondescript lives,
leaving me a believer that
all's well that begins well.

genetic & embedded in both
the left and right brains and
heart muscles, pores and parts
that participate in the body’s
daily ritual colloquium regarding
the necessary amount of magic
needed, upkeep required,
to please the Lord, 
whose designers were
co~missioned,
tasked-to make a self healing
being, with a reasonable shelf
life but with built-in imperfections
and to struggle and to
honor  that idea that we born blind
and our goal is
learning to see,
envision
our better
version

the
correct redirection of
constant course corrections
using the
secret compass chord
playing on the harp of our
heart strings

<•>

903am
1/23/25
on a day of addition and sub traction

dreams in colors that don't exist,
and 'mares re dear sir, deadlines missed,
wrestle~arrest poet,
instant awake
in the wee time,
pouring liquidity,
fluids and words,
puddling, stinking,
coming,
from the
always dangerous,
always interesting temple inner inside,
sanctimonious no more sanctum

this particular sleep,
shortened, irretrievable,
bookmarked "closed,"
chapters,
hours too soon,
this rest business,
arrested
filed in an ugly
grey metal file cabinet,
in an unfinished manila prison
with your other unimportant poems

the dark room universe
populated by
hints, shadows, voices,
waiting, welcoming,
mirrors on the walls
unified in one voice
deep, obtuse,
demanding recognition
"hither hither come"

forced march
to a visitation,
to the the parition,
of your reflection,
clearest ever seen,
in the black pitch,
uncovered by guise, feathers
the clothes of normative pretenses,
the man-made borderlines of
preservation falsehoods

seen your own semblance,
parts rearranged,
uncanny,
the mirrors are screaming:
shameful lovely,
this, our artistry,
your apparition,
now accurate,
reflecting your under-
lying
condition,
at last,
an accurate portrayal,
of your inaccuracies

do you find yourself attractive?
this new balance,
the unregulated pieces
of you
before your dissembling,
discerning,
dissecting eyes?

feeling the valence,
an introduction,
a physical magnetism
any attraction
any resemblance
to the semblance
that writes
this s.o.s.?

answer us thus,
do you up
and like yourself
unvarnished,
grunge, swag,
truth  trammeled,
don't you want to kiss yourself
goodbye,
or better yet,
fare thee hell?

go ahead,
ask yourself now,
that one question
that prevents conception,
from your inception,
what is it that
makes you exceptional?

don't you realize,
everything about you
ends in a question mark?

how dare you write poetry?
you are the false poet,
you live on the division
tween artifice and self-deception,
this, your only precept,
and now that you are
clarified,
answer this,
knowing you know
nothing
but artifice,

**how dare you write poetry?

What’s Your Water

If you talk to Wallace J. Nichols, Ph.D., a marine biologist and the author of Blue Mind, a book about the physical and psychological benefits of water, for long enough,
he’ll eventually ask you,

what’s your water?
And as it turns out, nearly everyone has an answer.

<>

Having lived longer
than I had a right to expect,
through decades of lost years, pain imbued an attitudinal of:
‘I do not ****** care,’

find myself perplexed now by my near
escapes, death misses, graceful landings,
and now,
the fortune tellers ply me with
predictive prescription possibilities
of a good many more!

So I write this missive,
mine own “Guide to the Perplexed.”
for a longest miserable
drove me to deep despair,
and even  the littlest do was a wasn’t undone,
to insure any extension, even hurry up a clusterfk,
and here I am
yet, wander-in-g & wonder-in-g,

Why, what
accidents of fortune reversal,
made my prior life a rehearsal
for a hopeful long end run,
before a Mahomes miracle touchdown

Knowingly
looking for the X Fsctor,
discovered that the solution was

W2
W squared)

where W is a
(Woman,Water) multiplier

Found a woman who
lived by waterways,
upon island bodies and seas of rivers
that led to
this little island that
gave me
the solitude unsolicited
to see inside my
history
leaving me with
no imperative imperial resources to resist,
but to make it
just one day more,
to let the celestial sun
celebrate a new daily saluted calculus,

Of

the sum total of
every grain of water
in this world
evaporated to be rebirthed
in a million raindrops
just like me and
poetry

writ over the spring & summer of 2024

(from "To: Mimi Romanelli"

~indebted to suggestion of
https://hellopoetry.com/MacGM/
for filling me up one of the trillions of missing datapoints
in my slowly diminishing insights & missing knowledges
<>
"I am happy, Dear, to have walked with steady faith on the waters of our uncertainty all the way to that island which is your heart and where pain blossoms. Finally: happy."

from the poem by Rilke
"To: Mimi Romanelli"
see notes

'~~~'
so worthy of my/our attentions,
his reflections on loss, grief and mortality,
for in the natural course of this poet's story,
the interplay of this shopping list of preoccupations,
foremost on this temporal frontal lobe in these waning days
of my perhaps, last summery summary,
that falls upon your eyes with
my guilt that you have clicked upon
this e~pistle, in and un~
tentionally & tensionally
thus demanding & tendering post-haste
my apology

so be advised, be learned, and query why
an essay on ending mortality should be
be finished with a concluding a
"Finally: happy."
by breaching this poet Rilke essay,
one discovers
this poet sees through the storms of his preoccupations,
"the red of his blood,"
because he loves
another human, being,
so many would agree,
yet so few are so certain,
as Rilke,
and yet,

"It is still always that death which continues inside of me, which works in me, which transforms my heart, which deepens the red of my blood, which weighs down the life that had been ours so that it may become a bittersweet drop coursing through my veins and penetrating everything, and which ought to be mine forever.

And while I am completely engulfed in my sadness, I am happy to sense that you exist,
Beautiful. I am happy to have flung myself
without fear into your beauty just as a bird flings itself into space. I am happy, Dear, to have walked with steady faith on the waters of our uncertainty all the way to that island which is your heart and where pain blossoms.
Finally: happy."


<>
Writ the last week of August,
and the first of September
2025

for lovejunkie...amidst this parliament of words,
I am selfish,
but not always blind...

~~~


from our bed, I see witnesses,
a small stand of trees,
no parliament these,
but a scattering of
oak~men and birch~women,
who shade and defend us,
a few good marines on duty,
standing between us and
our beloved but ever
dangerous tempestuous changeling child,
the one we call,
with well-mixed trepidation and affection,
the sea change

this small stand,
throws all caution to the wind,
remnants of a once great army
upon my forested isle,
these proud stragglers,
refuse to desert their
human worshipers and century renters,
giving them aid and comfort,
from the sum of
sun, wind and the
ever encroachment of waves,
who would and
will
own all
eventually

they look out,
this stand of trees,
facing away,
lookouts for us,
watchmen of the day
and still on duty,
even when the day's nethered nemesis
returns

this stand of trees,
they look back as well, upon me,
even as I catalogue them,
distinct even now in the tomb of midnight dark,
facing me simultaneously,
self-appointed witnesses
to a man's thinking
of his:

binding and unbundling,
the tumult of the fusion
of the pros and cons
at the intersection of
love and memories

where ancient needs and memories
clash to rehash past victories and Waterloo,
all the while, the cries of the
perpetuity of future desires,
incessant demanders of
fresh refreshments of love,
shout out
"more, more,"
ever so softly

perhaps this is why they stay...

voyeurs,
to be amused by selfish humans,
denying their very built-in natures,
addicted to the elusiveness of romance,
wearing pretend masques of self-blindness
to the devil-may-care,
unpredictable seasonality of loves
comings and goings

and yet how clear recalled the
unconcealed passion and gleeful gratitude
when we tuck a beloved's locks from
their eyes, to the safety of the
crook of their ears

the stand of trees,
strong tall, plain big,
compare and contrast
to the infinite smallness
of merest seconds
of loving tenderness
etched upon the firmament permanency
of the
mind's eyes

perhaps this is why they stay...

perhaps this is why we cannot renounce
our never wreaking addiction to love
and its cocktail of
torments and fulfillment

trees - perhaps,
they better understand our frailty
than we do,
do trees love humans so much in return
for all this love we give them?

we chop in hurry fury down,
only to repent and replant tenderest of seedlings,
like human love,
we chop in hurry fury down,
only to repent and replant tenderest of seedlings

for are we not all selfish, all blind,
all needy, all defenseless,
all cautiously defensive,
so much
and then again,
not so much
not so blind or selfish,
that we cannot use our word tools
to grant ourselves,
we aching creatures,
grant ourselves
a few small chances,
to pry open both
recollections of our heart's delight
and the seeds
for its
renewal

perhaps we are all witnesses?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"but oh if fate threw caution to the wind
giving this parliament of trees their hearts' delight
how wondrous to these eyes would those boughs be
smashing through that firmament, that light."

"and oh if fate threw caution to the wind
granting this aching creature just one wish,
i'd be content with much less than your kiss...
for i am selfish, but not always blind;"

**from "wish I may wish I might"
by lovejunkie

It’s only a short straight hill
(First Poem.of the Year)

“I'm 69, newly homeless, and can't wait to start the journey of a creative life after being asleep for so long. It's only a short straight hill and I'll be on a path into a new life.”

Jeremiah B Xxxxxx Jr.

<?>

it is
4:11am
on the
first day
of a new
year.

a year
is a unit;
mathematically
measurable,
defined,
calculable,
divisible
by seconds,
minutes,
hours & days,
all artifices,
mutually
acknowledged.

you,
& others,
remind
me too easily,
that the
creative
is the only
path
to endless,
(a unit immeasurable)
reinvigorating
life.

your fragrant
optimium optimism
is stun
gun overpowering,
the ill defined,
but instantly
understood,
immeasurable
distance,
you foresee
to life better is
conquerable!


”only a short straight hill”

imbues me to lift
head, heart, arm
& unloved dried ink pen,
to pen,
to unpack,
to speak,
of all that
needs climbing,
over the
artificial lines
of the first unit
of time:

a new year.

thank you.

Sun Jan 1 2023
NYC

It's Been Awhile

since I wrote a love poem.
after all what needs this world
yet another Declaration of Inter-Dependence?


Lazy afternoon, sun kicked out the overcast drizzle,
that made you decide to cook, my heart sizzle.
You bang honey, BBQ sauce, tomato something or other
into one of your own poems, I am a couch potato observer.

Strumming my thoughts, note plucking,
Looking for two or three chords to
Basis-form a shapely container ship
For sharing what I am feeling.

A Dylan-like tune of my own growling,
begins to format, and next,
(you know what's a coming),
start singing my very own verbal song,
Nat-named this lyrical beat,
A Declaration of Inter-Dependence.

If not for you:

I would weep more.

I would weep less,
(so many tears of joy!).

My carousel, horse back riding days,
would be over, ended.

I would never make a bed unasked
(but it gives you so much pleasure).

I would live on Frosted Flakes
and microwaved hot dogs

I would die w/o ever seeing
someone weep after reading my poetry.

For that alone...

I declare my whole state of being
being dependent on another's existence.

Ok. All done. Sneak-peeking in the oven
To see what my love is poeming for our
dinner.

You may now move about the inter-dependent cabins of our
heart.

prayer of hope, for young and old, who suffer from the slings and arrows sadness and the loss of love; I offer up this prayer of hope and offer you my hand around your shoulders until you no longer require it

more than once,
for lengthy periods,
by events, other people,
my self was eradicated
and limping from day
to night, and J faced
absolutes, choices choking,
alternating alternatives that
offered zero, or even less
than zero, and the inkwell
wasn't refillable, and I could
point to nothing yet encouraging a mystifying purposed existence

then came a woman

who asked nor proffered
conditionals
pre, prior post or otherwise
and
offered up the miraculous
drink, human kindly notice,
snd it
drained the bitters,
began fluid replacement,
and slow resuscitation

and then
poems rebirthed me,*
 liberated the angry sacred
gory sadness words devoid of glory,
with a reworded score, and
the eyes could write without
a patina filter of jaundiced hatred,
and whispered private internally
many times a beloving
hallelujah

and when ever the remembrance of
the near misses are crackly occasionally appearing, the surge dissipates intact quick
into a netherworld for suppressing
and bid "away with you," and a
thin lipped smile part sneer
for having survived
even
prospered when
                    then came a woman

and the self, the my self,
returned
after an absence of destructed
decades...deadening decades

and I smile when
the grandchildren tell me
knock knock jokes
and gently knock me on the head,
to make sure I'm alert,
                    then came woman
who had already~all ready
knocked me on the
heart

If you come to my funeral,
Come by train.
Even if inconvenient.

Take the time
To come slow.

Read my poems,
Read yours,
Mash them up,
So they become better
When joined at the hip.

So be ready,
Be Cub or Girl Scout prepared,
To laugh with crinkly eyes
At private memories,
Recalled stories.

Yes, one can cry and laugh simultaneously,
Perfectly sensible, when on,
Especially when on,
A slow, aglow, train ride,
On the way to a beloved's funeral.

*But this trip don't involve any travels
Its your heart that I am trying to reach
To touch it and fill it with a
Feeling so sweet
Where heartache and pain
Can no longer dwell
So your heart can smile
And only feel well
To find love
For every living thing
And for yourself
And of course for ME

<>>
Jan. 13, 2014
<>

a  flawless poem

if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy spent, easy get

if only, how I wish I
could harvest my best,
with golden cutlery excise
the single flawless poem,
that I know is in my possess

lay down this hand so weary
from cupping tears,
be satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that when my casket lowered,
hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best, easing his rest,
a paper record to join his dust
with ash,
his flawless poem,
at longest last

an instant coffee poem scribbled
on the back of an iPhone, and mailed
to the motley crew hanging in these
environs

my request, your bequest
<>

never had an article of clothes
that required a hem to be tailored,
but you my daredevil darlings,
bring me now
you &  yours,
a hem of thy choicest choosing

that I may taste your dew,
this and thus
enlivened,
I will love you,
far more than forever,
beyond my overwhelming
incarcerated capacity
to absorb,
but to exist and seize
the dew of your souls,
each an adrenaline ephedrine
shot to our mutualized brain
~
our soul’s temporal abode

the meaning plain!

you too
will forever be
within
the unlimited scope of this script
on the universe of the internet,
far longer than any intimate moment
we could share ,

a sensory
beyond the physicall

I beg you
please!

9:19 am
Thurs Sept. 12
two thousand and twenty four

Dedicated entirely to and for Marisa White

So many human cells,
trillions, not billions

staying alive, a constant balance
between losing and making more.
when young and growing,
like you babe,
like you babe,
making many more new,
than we lose.

when we "advance"
to advanced ages,
like me babe,
like me babe,
when old sick,
either body or heart,
starting to die,
losing more than we make.
new cells, no more,
past
tense,
yet, still have colorations of all kinds,
streaming residues inside yet thrive.

the youthful biologist,
you, know all this,
yet still needy seemingly,
for gentlest reminding,
by an inexorably dying man,
prime declining,
so care for these words well,
they won't come again.

for you to imagine a grain
inside you,
so wonderful envisioned,
that the yet uncorrected words
limbo, stasis,
are deleted from the textbooks
as yet unwritten,
on and of you,
writ by you.

I need
but one cell,
of your DNA,
freshly birthed this day,
a canvas of only you,
unsullied by pernicious infected hopelessness,
where, under the microscope electrifying,
I will paint with scalpel and brush,
away the limbo,
injecting the blue dye of
happyness,
to course through your red veins.

how cannot you see,
the potential vastness of the trillions
that awaits, so in need,
needy for coloration by a scientist~poetess,
when a lover good and true appears,
you will birth trillions
new cells in a new body, imagine that,
using only the brightest hues of your untapped potential.

which cell?

so many choices,
so many possibilities,
why that I leave that
up, to you babe,
up up up up up,*
up, to you babe.

Hardly Hidden

for Helen,
the High Definition brunette momma among us

there are tracks in your arm
ready visible
to all those
with a personal microscope
if one
optically
examines the empty spaces
tween your poem-words....

the exterior all smiles,
whooping it up,
children, all smiles,
tumbling, breaking things,
ceilings collapsing, winters arriving,
as is the way of the kids
and nature,
inexorable,
occasionally
breaking you to
smile too

Abut to all this
is the contentiousness,
the aboriginal sense of loss
for what once was,
plain out in
in the secret messages sent
and
you know
you own
my all
unuttered utter devotion

we need no qualification
of what we are

we are friends,
not drinking buddies,
the straight out
semi-secret fans
of each other

thousands of miles apart
of simple purity borne,
you warm me
with endless jokes
and familial tales

and I thank you
for sharing, for trusting,
me with that troubling notion
that I am missing
a sorrowful deepening
that is
after a wellness examination

hardly hidden**

but t'is heard around the world,
gunshot to my heart,
come to me when
ever
is understood that this
paean ~ pain ~ poem
is a simple wayfarer's way
of declaring
forever

I know you are sleeping now,
but when  the fall sun breaks,
here is hoping me that you
break into private tears
in private places
like the ones decorating me,
celebrating
the best of what
humans
can be

~

~ for my knowing friends~





~~~
so simple the notion,
that healing's potent potions
are non-directional portents
coming at you
like a Bob Dylan, Avettt Brothers,
rhythm and rhyme,
tunes injected from the outside knowing,
from the first time
that they were residing inside,
all the time

in, on and under the skin

the conflicted battle rages between the
coursing forces of

I believe

and the low grade infection, incurable return of

faithless disbelief and irreconcilability

a parental entry knowing,
despite different routes of administration,
there is no pharmacology for a limb lost,
any prosthesis healing supplanted
from without,
never achieves
anything approaching next to normal

but from within,
the heart can heal itself,
trying a natural bypass,
doing its imperfect best
to correct the uncorrectable,
resigned to accept the unacceptable

the slight edge felt from
cutting a garden's new growth for replanting
an act of belief in the future,
witnessing a sunset's nightly color sky's return rebirthing,
knowing, admitting to oneself,
that miraculously better than all ever seen prior are

medicines that come from the outside,
and inward bound daily injections,
they are:

"healing, from the inside out...
just as it was meant to be!"

“This Insubstantial Pageant Faded”
(spoke by Prospero, The Tempest, by W. Shakespeare)^

<>
Our words are all actors,

a long run, run its course,
our long playing record,
scratched, love~worn to
worn out extremity, yet
yeoman service did offer,
extreme only in magical
transforming plain sight
into visions, a legacy,
bent gray, tarnished by
weary wearing aging,
their brief sparks now
but reclamation flares of
burst lights of waning days
in short lived tastings of what
was and can be nevermore

everyone’s magic has its preset
timed timing, and with
every day, each a concentric
ring marked and hallowed,
a heartbeat ring narrower
than its predecessor,
a shallower hollow,
a fair represent of both
all that came our way, and that
we resent with no resentment
into a cloud capped atmosphere
for all to ****** from a flailing,
flying breeze, their brief gleam,
multiplying, thus envisaging,
illuminating the manuscript of our
hinted future forward’s next percept


“And like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”^

•••

"on some days, I love you more than others,"
an early morning uh oh
IROLO
(instantly regretted out loud observation),
of the potentially ruinous kind,
spoken with malice towards none,
and obviously,
no forethought,
firmly but modestly muttered
over the modestly rumpled
courtroom battlefield
of sheets, newsprint, mugs
and Bocelli on low

smockingly,
(a slow spreading smile of mock),
she turns her gaze upon
the presumed guilty, querulous,
soon-to-be-ruined ruminator (me),
and asks with
disdainful derisive decisiveness

is your first cuppa too hot darling?
has your uncommon sense of non-sense been burnt?

t'is true I reply,
I feel the burn!

for am I not sworn
to tell the whole heated truth
and nothing but?

my love for you is simply
a mathematical additive,
progression series

every new day I love you
is forever
a mighty mite more
than the prior,
a smudged smidge of a penciled line,
taller than the
higher higher notated
upon ancient yesterday's doorpost

ergo,
ip so factoid,
and therefore,
by definition

on some days I love you more than others
    •••


p.s. never have conversations like this in the presence of within-reach newspapers,
for they be
easy rolled and revised
into fearsome weaponry,
suitably for handy smacking"

June 11, 2011
Updated on Father's Day 2013


Father's Way: Tell me a story, Dad

what power we possess,
when the innocent demand,
at the time of cozy bed and
sandman,
"Tell me a story,"

to gentle the monsters
in the closet of their heads,
grant them a peace naive that's lost after
they learn the words that start with D,
(disappointment, death),
till then,
promises unfettered,
the best yet to come.

the story,
you, grantor,
they, grantees.

scent their dreams,
perfume their dreams,
sprinkle their safety net, blanky, rag doll:
- scent with mom's hairspray and
dad's special smell,
musk, balsam, gasoline and body odor

- scent with cherrywood falsehoods to caress,
till morning's burnished glory ascends,
thru window, tenderize the cheeks of my babes,
prep them for the truths
to be learned that day.

in tones most imploring,
glances fawning,
t'is us, we,
them do deceive,    
for adult arrogance demands
in God we Trust,
that they,
will believe our words,
will indeed,
make them rest
till new day's slow and subtle dawning

t'is the same tomfoolery that leads us
to drink repeatedly
from the trough of
best laid plans and self-deception

you believed your own narrative
would be the one he,
your dad scripted,
while standing day-dreaming,
sweating on subway platform,
admiring beaches and beauties,
from station walls lifted,
waiting for the train
that only eventually comes

that train, that station,
whose smell reminds you
of mom's hairspray and dad's special smell,
(musk, balsam and motor oil, and body odor),
a ******* reminder of dreams yet uncrystallized,
and stories your father told,
unrealized,
tho train has come,
they have not

write me a narrative, Dad,
and please advise
if tinker or tailor will be my trade,
fix my details, dear pater,
par example,
pick my institution of higher learning,
my future alma mater,
on my day of birth,
promise me gentility,
no harm no foul,  and mirth,
all the days of my life.

please advise
if I shall be a
wife abuser, communist, or
a **** vanilla
****** poet/user

word rich and pocket poor,
stealing ideas from everyone,
red blooded or blue~green,
a true believer, a born again,
an agnostic, my own truths,
to disabuse

tell me father,

will I die warmed,
surrounded by generations of my progeny
or in pauper's grave,
a life long ward of
a one true mate,
it,
in loco parentis all of my days,
making me a child, a dependent,
of casa noster paternal state?

Please Pop,
pick wise,
the life and lies,
the faces and disguises,
I will need employ to
achieve success
in the eyes of my reading beholders,
who own the liens on my soul
because of the promises I believed,
when you sang me
glowing lullabies of my future days,
how everyone would
love my stories,
my poems,
someday...

the woman surprises,
bids me an eye~closing adieu
just a tad differently,
as I fall off into easy street,
the "sleep perchance to dream" place

she whispers a parting thought,
a quiet shot cross the brow
marking up my transference,
a hole-punched in my
departure and entrance ticket,
a line crossing, a seed freshly buried,
for my sub-mind to ruminate upon

"I am very fond of you"

puzzling this, for is this
as good as,
the pro forma
"love you"?
a lesser conditional,
a solutional mystery?

a diminution, a new dialect,
a dialectical proposition,
a homework assignment,
needy for exposition, exploration,
what means this phrase,
tween long time lovers?

I have written love poems, t'is true,
but never audacious enough
to market them as
true love poems,
too many, done before, no need,
trite indeedy, what sonnet expertise
had long ago,
youth lost

but here comes a
commentaire, remarque,
answered though unasked,
on the subject of

true fond

there are many you love
just because,
just cause,
just the effect,
of being
blood kith and kin,
or kindnesses memories from long ago,
that cannot be pushed aside,
buried in fogged cemetery dirt forgetfulness

but by now,
know clear,
just where,
I'm going here...

you can be fond of someone,
and bon mot, sweet,
need not love them,
but you, hero,
stand back and
grasp this commotional notion

you can't just love,
cross over the river
from like to can do,
that other thing,
until, unless, you
ease onto the vessel of you
into the deeps of
true fond
and take away with you,
until heart and soul now veneered,
a no rust
coating,
impenetrable

that place, that feel
where and when
the affection is infectious,
the tender is unreasonable,
the cherishing downright excessive,
the savor is a favor to oneself,
the giving instinctual,
the taking victuals
not so tasty or important

where you feel
way past the point of foolishness...
and then and only then,
with this
necessary condition,
take the rudder
be the pilot

do/if you think you can  
goodnight say,
get off/get away
with the perfunctory
eroded by time,
"whatever"

then kid,
you don't ken
true fond,
the  cornerstone, the found base,
the reality of where edges blur,
where what you feel
is like first bite of
tea and morning-warm buttered toast,
making one think
this is the way it
ought to feel...every moment,
salty n' sweet, smiley-face grinning
heat,
true fondness