this is an excerpt from a very long, (shudder) private poem about a dinner party with visiting friends, up from Memphis to celebrate their birthday in NYC.
Unplanned,  I gave them all gifts without hesitation from an unusual collection of mine that they were admiring.  
When questioning my unexpected generosity, by way of explanation, I jokingly said
"there is no room in my casket."

~

sweetly thanked for the unexpected gift,
the poet replies comically,
"there is no more room in his casket",
for even these, small trifles

later in the quietude of
late night contemplation,
comes a greater realization,
the truth was unseen
in his offhanded remark,
now, gives him pause and cause
to capture a greater  revelation

there is insufficient room indeed,
for accompanying the poet on his finale,
an uncharted encore voyage akin to
Tennyson's poem of
the famed voyage of Ulysses -

thoughts yet unthought,
a few thousand poems,
that time forbade completion,
all must yet reside beside and inside his soul,
timed-released escapees
from the real yet artificial limits of
physical deterioration

these,
be his boon companions in arms,
his banded-brothered company,
purposed for inspiration,
his lasting re-actualization

so plentiful, indeed,
there be no room in the casket,
for the merely beloved,
beautiful physical objets d'art,

they  too must give way
to the natural law of
"unto dust returned"
but poetry
*never dies

My favorite poem
is the next one, yet to be,
that I shall write....

Once, I wrote:
a flawless poem
if such there were,
will always be,
the next one^

When asked again,
I still thus answer

For everything I have ever writ,
flawed,
even if the imperfection,
minor,
the clarity, not the pristine perfect
I sought

Digging mining refining...
this process endless,
a life long condition of being
human

It is therefore and ironically godlike,
unchangingly immutable,
this, the divine spark within me,
my nizotz,
unceasingly immutable
in search of the flawless poem,
my favorite-yet-to-be, to be

my favorite poem
is the next one I shall write....
and the one there after,
until the flawless one is either created
or found, bound, full formed

or

until the inkwell empty,
the mind black blot dimmed,
the eyes yellowed-weakened,
the lips, white parched beyond repair,

whichever comes last,
conceding,
the last poem, perforce, must suffice.

Dayenu

Always!*  
fall in love with a poet,
they cannot disguise the truth,
yet, soften it when needed, somehow,
for the only words they possess
are kindness and kindness...

Should you travel with a poet,
new ways of seeing will they introduce,
delighting you, and for ever in you, delight,
for every word that passes thru their lips,
gifts to keep, for the days of when...

There cannot be always good times,
poets know, so they write today,
for when tomorrow's intrusion is
the other end of life's continuum,
their words recalled, restore, revive...

Poets are the predecessors,
your torment, anguish, they have known,
so when they write today, it is
preparation when the future demands,
changes that require tissues, shoulders, arms...

Worry not about their torment,
t'is a seasonal change, comes and goes,
but in the winters of your life,
yours - warm fire, warm poets, summer kind words,
so, always, always,


Always fall in love with a poet...

for Catherine,
who did not request this,
whose soul prospers, more than survives,
but forced me nonetheless,
this poem~quest to address

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
do not come,
turn back now,
disjoin from a
voyager to the harshest disheartening,
to the crux,
where essence oils aflame
burn smoke, stymied from being
expulsed, expelled,
through organs that have
no natural orificial cavities
allowing escape

the hell of poetry

no, paeans,
yes, pain swirls,
Greek laurel wrapped headbands
squeezing temples, give no relief,
confusion sewn together,
a mixology cocktail
of the ends and the means,
of giving up yourself
in, and to,
poetry

no tribute,
but only that which,
we must pay,
and pay on
in the coin of the realm,
which expires valueless
at the end of the day,
so you awake,
broke
in every way possible for a human to be
broke

busted bird, wing broke bent,
judiciously waiting for
a capricious time to heal thyself,
but time never healed anything,
where grievous grief knows no horizon,
from the absence of some sounds, voices,
that can never be heard again

toil (a/k/a light),
trouble (a/k/a diamonds)
double that,
then raise it again to the power
of anvil crushed chest compressions
preventing basic breathing

all this to get to
the crux,
that tormenting, familiar place,
where difficulty lives on a
one way street
with a "dead end" sign at the beginning,
a self-mocking "no outlet" at the end

this crux,
inflection point,
****** peak imploding,
*** of brains boiling over,
more crucible,
where molten metal
reformulates into words

why do you want to go there?

the heat of me cannot be measured by
any mortal thermometer,
the pressure of blood cannot be calculated,
the stained consciousness maculated
by past and future sadness

of death, no fear,
writing poetry from the places
where it's well down drawn.
terrifying,
like waking up

this is where one goes,
when your pick up the gun of pen,
in vainglorious hopes of venting
the bullets of gases that seek
an unplanned escape
from a place you have no business
visiting for business,
certainly not,
pleasure

this is here, this right here,
where existence is identified,
where the sun only burns,
word life selection, a humming curse,
and the voracious need to write
boils in your blood,
chokes the throat
with your own two hands


for their is no perfection in poetry,
there is only a voyage to the crux,
the hell of poetry...
where Faustus and I
rue the day we deemed ourselves
more knowledgable than the gods,
selling our souls
for fleeting, human skills


**why do you want to go there?

"May poetry be our salvation,
liberation and Nirvana"
Bala

so many ifs* in our daily lives

the ifs that pockmark lives individuation,
look-back crossroad regrets, daily harvested,
road poorly chosen, the kiss not taken,
a brother, for a petty sake, forsaken,
a sister, sea-drowned, left undefended,
by foolish parental expectations

many are the global conjunctions,
commencing and ending with an "if only,"
today's state-of-the-world curse,
uttered when reading the front page's
mayhem and senseless,
never-aging, new and old excuses raging

so many palliatives on offer,
what matters yet one more,
none seem able, none proven capable,
of essencing a humanity so simple basic
when the moment at hand needs a
redirection that a loving rhyme can sway

but in my inbox from India
comes a hope, a wish,
that leads a man to dream,
envision societies that could
surround-sound itself with wisps of words,
in the oddest places,
throwing us offsides,
in a make us see ourselves
in better ways

a morning poem before the TV weather,
a verse insert
tween news reports
of who murdered whom this day,
subway poems, a Super Bowl commercial
recitation that makes us lick our lips,
poetic literacy in small things,
a minister or president's speech
a recitation of a nation's verbal wealth,
instead of rejoinders and accusations

ah just a foolish notion at 4:22am,
there is no money in poetry,
thus its possibilities to soften and stem,
cure and elevate
enhance the perchance
of a different way to,
salvation, liberation, and nirvana,
seems so unlikely

but there is that small step
one could take,
leave a poem on the night table,
a first thought, a morn pill of humankind,
be a softener of a day just begun

Our Verse into Psalm

"who massages our words
into a masterpiece,
our verse into psalm..."

sourced from a dialogue one year ago: http://hellopoetry.com/poem/548741/the-contriving-is-all-that-remains/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
humbling words,
just now discovered,
a reflection invitation,
commenced and ended,
an essay of simple facts

two topics theme,
revealing a man's evolution

a confession oft repeated,
he writes too much, (used to)
a readily apparent truth

but when the self-soul-peering
hits bottom,
forced to reflect
back and up, and around,
acknowledging self is a four letter word,
a poking from reviewing
a year ago gone prior scribbled response,
leads to a conclusion
to answer his puzzlement

easy acknowledges
he has prior peaked,
certified and certifiable,
his best words gone by,
bye and bye,
so how now antiquated,
this tiresome task
of endless interior internal examination,
once more
he asks of himself
the Psalmist's question (121:1)

"I lift my eyes up to the mountains:
From whence shall my help come?

from you,
y'all

my poems are now and will be
just stories told,
stories of you

of a lost wedding ring,
of a young woman's striving
to answer her most essential question,
reflections on being four years old,
on Eastern Seaboard geography
Thanksgiving Day air turbulence,
a young woman's sobriety celebrated,
her poetry, richer and health effused,
of lovers who cannot ever be,
of jobs lost and freedom gained,
physical pain that knows only
the optics of poetic relief to salve,
aching and unrequited awed and flawed love
that has no remedy defusing,
older schemers, puppy love rediscoverers,
of special young men
who see by their nature,
far better into
nature's window that answers the human soul,
children foreign born, here & passed,
whom I have never met, but,
who are poems
dearest in my breast,
as if, no,
as they are mine own...

and on and on

could travel and travail,
but the clickety clock says
bread to be earned,
wistfulness hour over,
all that's need is a conclusive,
one octave,
a summarizing single note,
a lady last rinsing of the soul

your stories are my psalms,
your heartache and triumphs
my masterpieces,
thy foibles are my filament,
your stories, my revelations

turned my eyes to the mountains,
seeing only my own mountains,
that engulf and surround,
hearing a single,
simple voice answering,
it is their mountains
that deserve written attention,
and therein and thereby
can you write humbly
and walk upright^

seethe ~ bubble up as a result of being boiled,

<>
sunrise was 714 am in nyc
this perfect fall day,
chilled to perfection,
a white wine of a day,
so imbibe,
only later does it
heat up up and onwards
to the temp where the
walkers/joggers/runner recite
hallelujahs and hosannas while
moving at their own chosen pace,
in a state of warm southern comfort,
never a racing

lest
the poems
now seething, boiling-burning
bubbling up inside
into the atmosphere explode!

all of these
early warming~warning inspirations,
now~expressed,
realized flickers of
original ex-impressions,
cannot be contained in
an open field unsupported,
these
breech babies each,
in a pediatric ICU,
demanding an
instantaneous airy concoction
to Earth’s atmospheric
literary intoxication

they use:
up hard, a dice roll,
who lives
who wilts,
that docs cannot but
obey
the fetus’s insistence,
many instructions,
push pull breathe,
must the. be given forthwith
through to our
servile waiting
uterine fingertips,
for we human are just be
~ings,
nurturers of
verbal artifacts
that never die

in
an~always~at~the~ready,
in service to
the great conceptual,

poetic in/justice

These special summer afternoons
have no time markers,
no human dividers,
no watches watching
or clocks clocking,
just grins and smiles,
divining the divide,
painting lovely
the one canyon
of humanity and nature
attending to each other

These summer afternoons
have no time markers,
but drift perfectly sequentially
from sun to nap to
black striped grilled franks,
and red watermelon,
orange cantaloupe,
cold coronas,
and desserts of
indeterminate beach walks,
and quiet talks

These summer afternoons
are as close
as I remember,
what it was like to
be seven or eight,
years of age,
knowing only
carefree summer months
that were
carelessly treasured,
thinking there is
always another,
looking forward to tomorrow
to do nothing in
exactly, happily,
the same way innocently

I am an adult
and that means,
cares are ever present,
ever fair or fear not,,
they lurk and
attack the goalie,
with noisy or subtle unrelenting attacks

but as I overlook the waters,
scenario soul gentling me
under the cooling coverlet of
the perfect breeze and
what lurks
is the moment
the eyes and heart
are fulfilled,
satisfied by what they see

The bay,
dotted with the boat traffic
not too much,
but just interesting,
a right tiny armada
to entertain,
all of us,
inattentively observing
the submerging
descent of
summer daytime friends,

and I think of you only,
at this perfect second

and I am besotted
with grief
and guilt
why can I not grant you the moment,
that I desperate wish to share

my arm is not, not,
careless slung, but
grasping firm with squeezes tight,
finger under chin chucking,
come friend be with me,
and for just this moment


your anti-toil tool here,
your plight beyond my comprehension,
though I live a life on the unknown edge,
what matters is the relativity of us,
and I relate to your weariness,
I weep with desperate knowledge
transporting you here is still an
impossibility

though my eyes see glory,
though my heart cannot refuse
the scene's peace invading me,
it is not fair, it is not fair
and I want you
to have this more than me
so I can keep it too

until then it is a glaze,
surfacing the coating,
that is me
but substance is untouched
until this guilt morphs into a
shared pleasure

the elbow comes to rest in the soft
skin coverage of my essence

in the dark, it's easy and free to weep
but still never cheap

everyday is still a word, an everyday struggle word,
echoing like a scream in a cavernous void

her elbow comes to be buried in my chest,
preference for an unavailable, sleeping soft cheek,
this elbow sharpened from years of work, worry &
baby carrying

on this day, of pointing,
take-a-hint-to-be-remembering,
the simple honors life bestows
comes like a pointy elbow poke,
across vastness of a bed of whiteout cotton,
freshly filling up
as I am writing,
with thankful years and thankful tears,
already recording newbie memories
freshly forming up

welcome this sharp goodness
all the days
of our lives,
even those everydays
of our lives

nothing greater than being grateful,
and the re-gifting to others
the blessings of plentifull*


5:26am Thanksgiving Day 2016

tease


I love a good tease that
all the possible endings end in
a becoming becoming,
a flashing flash flashing,
pleasing, pleasant, pleasure passing,
a fancy tickled,
an itch scratched, just a crazy little crazed


but to all you
hot married women
who crave my mind

a happy marriage (yours) is a **** rare thing
so no messing about please
but
if I should you in ny sees,
and I get the vision in my scope, the first glimpse,
my open-carry-you-away
big game hunting license is auto-activated

do not hold me responsible for your
wide eyed look

when
I strip you
down to your
poetic essence

when I strip you down to your poetic essence in  

our
single breath

Erase All Brinks

*The title and the realization of this poem, commissioned unknowingly today by Pradip Chattopadhyay.  This poet's banner is empty, no history, no philosophy of life, no self-aggrandizement. He lets his poems do his walking, share-telling of his steep and steppe plains, journeys through the poetic minutiae of the city street, the hallowed hallways of his plain people who speak in meter and rhyme.  Thankfully, he lets us walk in the footsteps of his eyes, letting us sink into the soft sands of his visionary visions.  As I commence this essay, unknowing where it will begin, nor it's inevitable end, I pray I do his commission, and him, the justice and the honor due them.

~~~~~~~~~


Brink: the edge or margin of a steep place or of land bordering water; any extreme edge; verge;a crucial or critical point, especially of a situation or state beyond which success or catastrophe occurs.

~~~~~~~~~


if we would we could,
erase all the brinks,
write but of the simple,
mysteries of men and their marigolds,
speak only of daily treasures so oft,
overlooked and left unpronounceable
as merely common

if but could, would we not
do away, dull the extremes,
unsharpen the gorges and the verges,
no melodrama, but only mellow,
let life be more than lurching from
success into catastrophe,
the difference tween the two,
only a finale tally

boring?
walk the precise precipices of the daily
with eyes open, there be enough small plates
to satisfy the gourmand's need for beauty,
comedy and tragedy, all well supplied

take the cancer-struck, the love-unrequited,
the grandpa's passing, the joyous adoration of new births,
these hillocks, un-green valleys, mountain ranges of life will
n'ere be ended and will beg us, nay, demand of us
write!

in between, and of the days of in-between,
far the greater, more the numerous,
keen and ken, sift the softer edges of diurnal
takes and tales of simpler majesties,
write me in meter
of the meter man
who totals
your usage of the world,
your measured presence here,
in words of watts and volts

speak to me of a hard week's pay,
the working man's lunchbox,
his rules of thumbs for living clean,
wives, who through endless henpecking,
remind husbands that they are beloved,
endlessly,
of sneezes and mustard fields

Let us erase all the brinks,
scribble me words birthed in everyday
inkblots, mine the veins of the wonders of real life,
put aside the cutting of woeful veins that bleed your
demanding need to be paid attention,
to right now

step back from the brinkmanship of the dramatic,
find the sensitivity of the sensible shoes daily worn,
use your talents to celebrate your talents,
there will be plenty days when the tally ends red,
and you will be more skilled, better comprehending
the special needs of those days,
to speak and tell of the uncommon,
if only we practice to
write, speak well of the common

happened upon an extravaganza of spring’s hallmark,
the cherry blossoms outing their munificence of color,
I happened to position myself direct below a tree,
the thicket
of blossoms so, well, thick, that sky was obliterated ‘cept
for pointillistic spots of blue sun, yellow sky that poked
through the
few de minimus interstitial spaces permitted, and was
struck silent, by-for-before shimmering eyes that uttered the
requisite oohs and ahhs,

and

words came to me weeks later,
when the memory, now fully decanted,
reappears
courtesy of a giant tech company’s code tinkering,
merging and splurging the combined images in the
photographic memory
of my devices,
as if to say:
your life is
points of light and color and scent
as you write now
amidst the hubbub of jackhammers, raucous horns a blaring,
the homeless screaming on the street at god,
the fatalistic headlines of hate and
the pallor of a low level haze of perp~gray
between you and your true elfin self,
and you are not surprised,
but sadly, but not entirely,
bemused
that the photo’s true utility was to
remind weeks later
that all that my eyes utter
is not just
woe, double trouble and toil, toil,
but to Hey Jude and George,
step out and see the park on a Sunday
in its entirety and to glory in
your being
by being
a point in that tapestry spectacular
of ingestion, digestion and final comprehension and
a happy
exhalation

Oh Sally,
on the day you "disturb me,"
the messiah will, must have come,
anything else, but a minor inconvenience,
a foolish distraction

Lola! Grandmother!

the things we say with out thinking,
quick retorts that boom an
instantaneous, say hey Willie Mays,
mutual concern cognitive proposition,
and you foresee the child conceived within

"should be a poem in there somewhere"

in the handed pen, drawing heated inspiration,
from the confluent patty platelets of the
shared single river
of heart lungs eyes flowing as one into this
busy subgle poetry pointer finger @ 4:18am

your secret safe well hid within this writ,
you, mother laureate to a thousand at minimum
so many secret lovers and children in your posses,
the eloquence of your kindness world renown
your behind the scenes presence,
I am smiling, stupified, amazed discerning,
and stand awed,
the global Amazon store of only good

so late nite/early morn the clarity rises with sun
so many secrets lay before me in plain sight - prior unrecognized,
what was obvious, delayed, as sometimes I hear,
messiahs are

one more, maybe two, perhaps as many/few as a minyan ten
of grandmother queens raising up the children,
poets all, such as yourself
then, Messiah will be choice-less, compulsed, compelled
to return and bless us all

course, even when that happens
you still won't be disturbing me,
for you will be right-sided beside him

but not to worry for at this continental crossover hour,
most are sleeping, others feeding the babes,
some returning from church or mosque,
no one looking here at ShePo,
a secret of glory disclosed,
revealed,
only you will see,
so as promised Lola,
your key to a certain stairway,
safe tween
just us three

no tears please,
for this but just,
a just confession, an overdue library book,
a poem resting on my night table
awaiting reading, composition, completing,
arrival?
and that's between
just us three

Before the coma of wings and football,
invades my nation's soul.
by the East River will I perambulate
each figure on the walk drawn, that is me,
chatting to the gulls re the river's latest delicacies,
praying the bicyclists, on my body, have mercies,
but I will all the while be silently recording poems,
to tribute the international nation of poets and poetry

~~~

Jan 31, 2014

Victuals Victim


There is a contest this day,
that does not involve my P.S.F.
(Preferred Sport Franchise)

truly, don't give a good ****** who wins,
but that is no excuse to deny me
my victim status,
my Sir Sore Loser demeanor,
so poorly,
in season's long suffering
earned,
so richly,
undeserved.

A triumvirate of
Doctor, G.F. and battery
of medically intrusive tests,
have ruled on the field,
that but once a year,
a conjugal visit permitted,
tween my arteries and chicken wings,
is legally permissive.

there will pigs in blankets
oinking, demanding attention,
sliders and mini right sized,
bite sized potato knishes
(at least in New York City)
cole slaw juices,  
even a
foreign dignitary,
Sayyid Cous-Cous,
all lining up along side
the quarterback  
who will be slinging
'winging' honey and spicy passes
to his favorite receiver,
this couch coach
and today's impartial line judge.

This is my Super Sunday fare,
antithesis of a pre-Day of Atonement fasting meal.
where gluttony
is deemed
less than kosher

If insufficiently highbrow,
for all you poetic aesthetes,
have no fear,
this athlete gastronomic,,
victim of his victuals,
will prepare mentally
to reverse course afterwards,
by hanging out
with King Lear yet once more,
sharing a verbal tasting menu fare,
a recollection of a prior years repast,
this King,
an unrepentant Manchester man-fan,
who knew me too well,
and once condemned me,
after an historic NY Giants Super Bowl celebratory,
sadly,
all too many years ago,
as follows:

"A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats;
a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave;
a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave;
one that wouldst be a bawd,
in way of good service, and art nothing but
the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
and the son and heir of a mongrel *****:
one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining,
if thou deniest
the least syllable of thy addition.”

― William Shakespeare, King Lear

~~~

Feb. 2, 2014

My leash is on,
I am to be walked

ad melius parare hominem,
to better prepare man,
before the coma of wings and a super sized
spectacle
tackles, invades and overtakes,
his nation's soul.


by the East River
will I be perambulated,
following 
each lying-down,
pedestrian drawning of a chalk figure,
directing the course
of a river walk
drawn and quartered
just for me.

chatting to the gulls
re the river's latest delicacies,

comparing my upcoming menu
for overlapping interest,
while praying the bicyclists,
on my body,
have tender mercies.

because I will,
all the walking while
be silently recording poems,

to tribute the international nation
of poets and the
global sport of
poetry,
that knows no leagues,
or geographic
delineations.

~~~

Feb 5, 2014

leftover chicken wings and other love nonsense

the woman disregards
what's best for me,
instead, gives me with the
kindest of disregards,
what's best for me,
for this is the kindness
that hallmark stamps
upon the softened heart,
the long lasting kind
of kind

before your childlike
tap tap attention away-wains,
bring you this,
a treatise,
on leftover chicken wings
and other nonsensical
finger food additions,
purposed
to inspire, to find innovation,
in expressing, reclaiming and newly exclaiming
that miscreant four letter word,
£0V€
that appears in those unsilent majority,
99% of them, other entrants
the Bohème poèmes,
residing in our Mr. Roger's neighborhood

in some poem writ recent,
poet pontificated,
that the most overused words, yes,
those abused three,
(duh, I love you)
degraded by overuse,
lost their poetic juice
thru constant repetition,
almost being nearly boringly indecent,
even when
boldly italicized

the impact upon the reader
lives in the lies in the realm of
"oh yeah, that's nice"

far, far better
to be best in show,
deduce how renewed,
to meaty demonstrate
rather than
insistently remonstrate,
in newer ways,
every day
that grade A choice
sentiment

to say, par example,
that serving day old chicken wings means,
well,
you know what...

Some get tea and oranges,
me, I get cherished
when our repast is
twice recast,
when she feeds me
leftover chicken wings,
both kinds,
spiced and honey
that come all the way
from her heart

so, now do you know why
Silly
has two L's?

Correct.
(answer: lucky in love)

for the luck-river-runs
lie just neath
the silliness currents swirling,
where kissing knuckles unexpectedly,
******* the exhausted,
tucking them in,
going out for emergency ice cream
in the midst of a
polar vortex,
recording the game to wee hour watch later,
so she may hang with the notorious outlaw
"Downtown Abbey Gang,"
watching at the
proper English place and time,
leaving the celebrating of life's  leftovers,
for the morrow sup,
with chicken wings and 0
other things
reheated,
and other heartfelt,
but unhealthy,
warm heartening
food additions

that folks,
is how you write
a poem in deed,
one that will be returned to you
sevenfold
in reads

when you want to explain how,
you can, truly, sigh,
you know,
love another...
employing with decoying,
sinful, leftover chicken  wings
then you too be mastering,
the poetic life
of sonnet and song

~~~

Heaven, Where all Poets Go

dedicated soully to Kripi Mehra
who unknowingly commissioned this piece
with her love and feeling for those who
dare to fare on just words, only to
sally
forth unafraid and unashamed
~~~~~~~

to the conclusion cut,
not knowing how we know what we know,
       knowing that of this cut,
this one,
as real as anything worth writing about,
not knowing how but demonstrating a modicum of erudition

yet,  
clarity this time no stranger,
no remonstrating, endless debating, easy
come, and even easier go,
all poets (and lost-to-early children) go to heaven,
even the bad ones

stop with the teasing give us the reasoning

nah nah nah always in a hurry to get to the
bottom, move on, write yet another,
restless young'uns, girls and fellows,
even you old, small ones, who still can't spell
your own name
or rhyme, those slow mo yokels, national symbols,
the ones that seem never to ever catch their star,
the mothers across all oceans, who need childlike tendering,
Indian girl chiefs, boat captain historians, word magi-bus-riding hallway eavesdroppers, **** British girls, nurses, wonderers and after-life lusters,
burnt baby healers

learn that this self seal-selected profession
is an endless deal, profession rhymes with heaven,
you need to luxuriate in the long journey,
pink patience before you raise you glass

but OK, just this once,
the secret you have may have already read!
pass it along, as it was given to me
by one of us, poet laureate far better than I ever could be

Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
     reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
     reading "Keep Off." ^

that is what poets do daily with each ecrive,
each line of metered musique mystique,
and with stanzas lighter than air,
a piece of you breaks off, floats upward,
and when the day is done,
the struggling striving breaking apart,
be now over,
all poets go to heaven to collect themselves,
their entire pieces of writings, called their collected works,
all the pieces reassembled,
you are at last, at last, at rest, whole, satisfied and undenied,
where poets, brave soldiers of all ages deserve to be,
heaven resting

~~~
Testimony & Majesty: Oh God, Why Do You Inflict Me?
~~~


Morning dawning...

Thickened whitened whipped cumulus
come crossing,
no frenzied froth,
moving slow royal, stately,
as if they are the pride of a
celestial navy,
peaceful ships,
crossing from my portal to your port,
traversing from my shade
of the blues,
over to you, poet,
to your personal  screen-adapted
CinemaScope version sights

This wind buffets,
re-directing my
morning~borning hallelujahs
this wind, nameless,
call it chipper, fulsome and volatile,
a proud pusher selling a waking up
near-chill pill,
to accompany the real+imagined
armada of nature
it, near and nearer
to you,
to the sky we inhabit+share,

its *****, stiffening energy,
makes some
hide inside,

not me,
I'm outed by the
harsh welcome~touch of this
realized reminder -

who is the master,
who is but
an obedient servant,
choicelessly writing his
psalmist morning devotions...

another poem of sky, cloud and wind?

Oh God why do you inflict me?
with this time after time obeisance
when I am
metaphor drained and disabled,
abject of adjectives,
simile frowning upside downing,
have we poets not done our dutiful
illuminating your bountiful works?

yet here I am,
a soul surviving,
incapable of resistance,
your frosted creatures persistent,
wrest my visions into prose,
to add to your overly full Facebook page,
with more fawning praise...

Angered have I, you, for now nowhere,
tropical rain squall tells all,
humans are toys,
born to serve,
silence your complaining~explaining,
and from nowhere with
rapido intensity rising,
down pours drops of scornful
water whippings,
demarcating our
incoming existence inequality...

and yet with your
yang and yang,
a reproach for me,
for as it waterspout pours,
it also pours sunshine,
a mystifying warning
to the put-upon poet,
that in the admixture
of nature and life,
all is conflicted,
all is tremulous beautiful,
and now is the
due time...

due, you,
to complete this treatise as
testimony to majesty...
~~~

~
from the anthology of the unwritten,
from the tombs of the stillborn,
where carcasses of idled titles and orphaned stanzas
do not compete for proof of life,  
and
nameless birth certificates unissued,
yellowing and wasting midst
crumbling aleph bet spawn

here
comes a poem of concession
comes a poem of summation
of a life lived, knotted poorly, not well,
worse cursed as vanilla inadequate

the satisfaction in the writing,
the gleeful breaking of the sac,
the gushing relief giving way to
the childbirth of a new moon-poem,
arrested, wrested

a single plague affliction,
the cancer of weakness,
means Pharaoh wins

the cancer of weakness
no cure, no pharmaceutical poultice,
spreads insidious; one day - pain in the remote,
your big toe, then
next you can only street stagger
begging forgiveness and the kindness of strangers
hoping for the accidental cure of touch,
the miscellany lottery ticket probability of low chance

the visible mark you leave,
a weak indentation upon a pillow,
it is the dented head, cut deep by the shadow,
shake it out and you're a disappeared one,
nothing to show,  
did someone once sleep here?

you were once upon a time
binary
a 1
now a 0 -
flip flop bottom top,
listening to Frank's "That's Life"^

my litany too long;
woeful work this business of flailing,
posting a tired-out self help love poem
ain't no cure for the falling-out-of-love
black and blue, self-inflicted bruising blues,
the wrists ache
the bones don't freak
but squeal, somebody's squeezing me

the alarm clock, a death knell,
everyone saying don't worry  
you got a proven record,
the boss's eyes twinkling
"but what have you done for me lately?"

funny

Death says
Hey, aren't you the boss?
Who shall over rule thy Dominion?
What have thy done to yourself lately?

Answer: never end a poem with a question mark @
3:06am

~

*a secret-possessor, a poetess of riddles,

informs, but my senses don't conform,

claiming that in my possess,

a gift ensconced, a soulfulness harbored,

purportedly outing me as "one gifted soul"

~

this "gift" of cobbled together phrases, on the back of
paper napkins,

words impermanent, undeserving of the firmamen
of cottoned cloth,

they shall not be mourned, when forever lost,

for like my soul, but a fleeting glimpsed visitor,

a 100 year comet, naturally self-destructing,

intended to be witnessed but once in a lifetime

~

wincing at this dear praise, yet it serves me well,

as the sweetest reminder, that we shall all yet meet,

all on that day, all in that place,

from where souls are gifted and returned,

however shopworn

or even disgraced

~

all welcomed upon our inevitable return, no proof of purchase needed,

where, living forever, in such good company is a

certain surety,

knowing this, that we are all certainly possessed with this relief,

easy then, in agreement, every each, born in fluid from the belly of belief,

each of us

"a gifted soul"

A reflection on birthdays, friends departing this world, and surveying ones life
~~~

this one poem is not lurking,(1)
turmoiled bursting,
shaking, quaking,
release aching

write it in droplets,
my chest speak squeaks,
each thought, a stanza,
each moment, a bonanza
of  the doled, muddled mix
of tremblings on this my extravaganza,
renaissance day of birth
upon this earth

sixty five calendars,
this space,
so gulf and so narrow, (2)
for what profit this man
for himself, others?

a Judgement Day of sorts,
where the man~poet is efficiently
prosecutor, defender,
judge and jury,
as is he not,
his one true
peer?

let his biases be betrayed,
his fault lines be paraded,
let his deeds be the unlawful legal coda
by which he is remanded

if found guilty of a ledger imbalanced,
more sins than glory,
only one sentence permitted,
life imprisonment

even the NYC weather
clued in and deity cooperative,
wakes me up to this advisory:

Overcast.
Slight chance of a rain shower.
High near 65F.

High near 65.

what portent this oracle,
a warning guide to this morass
of a contradictory, crevassed man
full of mea culpa poetic messes,
his old is his high...
or are these just winking,
birthday instructions from
an observer on high?

this space of years, this life,
so gulf and so narrow,
engulfed, yet so sparse is his barrow,
his first minutes of the day
a lean inventory taking,
for better or worse
as he overcasts a full review,
plus a bonus (!)
a forward progress prognosis

there is a fresh formed
Cain mileage marker upon his brow,
a check-mark scar,
resultant of his self-checkup
upon the tree rings of his tiring body

weeping only because a mistrial is declared
and no verdict returned
and he rises for coffee,
promising himself someday an honest resolution
before...

these the acts of
sixty five calendars,
of this, his-space,
so gulf and so narrow,
subjected to a now daily interrogatory:

for what profit this man,
his actions, his loved words,
for himself, to others,
to this world?

October 1, 2015
~~~
(1)
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1417203/there-is-a-poem-lurking/
~~~
(2)
but I can't stop
for each hour of the last 72
has witnessed a new poem
in-between
minute one and minute sixty five
written for you,
writing for life,
writing of this moment,
this space so gulf and so narrow
in and between
the unity of
us

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1413760/for-ernesto-l-gonzales-aka-the-dedpoet-the-in-between/
~~~

All our senses concatenate, building on each other

<>

this interplay is truly interplanetary,
for each of us a unique solar system,
our brains,
intricacy literally personified,
and our five senses, working
in
concatenation
our long range sensors, busy bees compiling inputs
by the nanosecond second, distilling, integrating.
blending and then reconstructing…into a whole!

a gentle breeze ruffles the hair,
the tree swing rises and flows
of its own accord, no passported
passenger required, and a neighbor’s
American Flag, moves majestically &
impressively, whipping, dancing, yes, prancing
to a tune only it can hear,
the syncopated air currents providing
a rhythmic awesome inspiring beat…

and the brain takes this all in, a momentary
second of a vista that is constantly flexing,
yet remains unchanged, a muscular view
of a real world, living but yet immutable,
and I utter thanks to my motor functions,
that bless me with the eyes to perceive,
the nostrils to smell sea salt flavored air,
the hearing ears that the know the imperceptible
orchestrations of silences by their absence
and their intrusion, and I touch my fingertips
to my tongue, wetted, and hyper sensitized
to that gentle breeze that decorates the
landscapes external,

and the combinatory
addition of the all of it, into a single momentary
poem of recall, what I “knew” yesterday, & will
greet again this coming day, as an old unfamiliar
friend, who grasps me entire, and proclaims:
this is living…and the greatest satisfaction that
a speck of mortal can achieve, retain and
through impoverished words…share

4:14am
Mon Jul 22
2 0 2 4

Now an annual autumnal literary festival visit
to our island redoubt,
the snow geese come honking down,
in linear formation
warning itinerant human beachcombers
of their arrival on the beach runways
of our sheltered island

This TripTik recommended diversion,
is a pleasure long anticipated by them,
seen as an intellectual rest stop,
with excellent sea snacks cuisined,
flying down the Eastern Seaboard
keeping Interstate 95 on their right,
an avian version of GPS

Our birds,
follow a minor route,
commencing in Nova Scotia,
the farthest north of all the species,
never making it to Mexico,
ending their travelogue in Georgia,
lest their true species be confused
with other kinds of Floridian snowbirds

Sit by my side they do,
one by one in assigned seats,
on the now scrawny grass blanket,
their attention span famously long,
unless a school of striped bass
seen on radar in the vicinity

I, on my Adirondack throne,
a poetry reading to intone,
with more-than-occasional audience input,
considered their right most fair

Critics one and all,
animated animal devotees of the arts,
unafraid to express their thoughts,
oft in unison or in
unharmonious John Cage
cacophonies of disagreement

Sadly, I only speak local seagull,
thus their effusive exege(e)ses and criticisms,
either damming or acclaim, indistinguishable,
their only "tell" is if
they stick around for
just one more...day...

That my poetry they did favor
was a conceit I feigned to believe,
loving their attention even if not deserved,
for in their service, and nature's too,
I am now trained to sit and wait,
a minor stitch in a famous tapestry,
for well I recall Milton's words:

*"God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.
His state is kingly;
thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

Ineffable (More Tornado Prayers and Such)*


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 un-uttered 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.

An ineffable amen

I under stand!
_____

<>

perhaps I do
not fully,
understand,
but nonetheless,

I under stand!

Legs locked,
shoulders set,
eyes ahead straight,  
mouth firmly wavering,
range bound, between
a back n’ forth,
from grimace
to smile resolute,

my support promised,
here beneath,
is where I am,
you, set upon
my frame,
capable~able,
you, for,
to surmount,
overcome,
rise above,
see farther,
vision clearer,
any troubling
fray and say!
I am risen,
with help
of friends,
to place
my reach
never touched,
or exceeded…
until now!

2:34 pm

walking on the beach,
musing, scheming, always,
writing, grabbing words
from sea breezes,
and gusts that
order plain:
now, now,
now!
is the
time,
to share
that load**

May 26 2024

~

walk with me in the
under-grounded passage ways,
the city veins,
that bring the arterial, variegated subway lines
to a consensual transfer adjoining,
permitting the rhythmic, exchanging flow of
***** for cleansed humans

observe the compost of
plasma and a city's red, bloodied cells,
bleached white by the cells called overnight

I travel in these tunnels, north-south, others, east-west,
like most, to and fro, homeward bound,
just another salmon of human capital,
cursed to swim upstream, always

signs adorn, positing hope,
giving out points, helpful directives -
"this way to"

example: this way to the nucleus, haughtily christened
by deaf and dead mortals as the
Grand Central Station

in one such tunnel, cut from the earth with dynamite and blood,
a busily traversed one,
so busy that no one looks but me,
is carved in grey Vermont granite,
high above the
gum and spit stained, concrete sodden, trodden walkway,
by order of some bureaucratic joker
taunting sandblasted "art"
cut into the taxpayer-paid-for-stone,
some of Ovid's long ago words

"dripping water hollows out stone,
but not through force but persistence"

am I the only to ken,,
this is a subtle mocking,
of the rushing, hasty, daily-making-their-way commuters,
whose sentences persist,
but are never commuted, never paroled,
who pass by as if entering under Auschwitz's gates,
where work made no one free

each of us a hypotenuse sliding,
gliding from to hook up from angle to angle,
work to home, home to work,
drip, drip of life to no life,
needy for an overnight charge,
to enable a once more unto the morning breach

for long time  now, my glide path remarkable,
my hypotenuse swinging wildly, ignoring its proposed flight plan,
that presumably shows a proposed radar course of semi-certainty

know it to be a bright screen flashing light
of yellowed missed forecasts,
on a dark green background

my poetic words longtime set aside,
in the lost and unfounded, though they continue to
Ovid drip and drip, agonizingly, persistently
hollowing this man

this ever deepening, eroded void
more keenly felt now by the irritating granulated pecking,
of residual specks of detritus,
minimalist poetic notions, a phrase, a gleaning, a touch,
caught in the grate of my eyes,
yet that make not a whole poem,
or human

but Ovid mocks me true,
my dripping sentence persists,
but, the hollow is not hallowed

my secondhand superficial skin, worn as worn,
a sensual recording of all mine history,
an oral history that speaks from within

can you read my lengthy, literary tears?

a sham, this art,
this tunnel of no ending,
to/from/form of deception,
recording the millions roaring waterfall drops of
drip, drip, dripping, slapping footfalls  

great shovels dug this tunnel, but
the days of our lives erode it ever deeper,
wearing it into a burial ground,
where the ocean of forever,
persists as we pass by
an artisanal lie

~

postscript

*oh Steve, my Steve, guilty do I plead,
too loon, too long this recapture of a walk in a life,
emblematic that it speaks not of solstices,
but of chapters in an unfinished novel,
some finished and some unwritten,
but the ending fully scripted and the plot's author
foolishly thinking the beginning can be
reverse engineered

this poem comes from where the words drip into a soul,
one-by-one, as if to create a single one-a-day one time whole,
a vitamin-poem emerges as a
child born, greeting clean the world,
in black and white word amnesiac fluidity,
measured as one measures a mighty waterfall's flow,
weighty beyond pounds and ounces,,
busting the trusted butchers white scales,
busting into wearied and busting open,
here, ends, worn now, worn by time and time again,,
written on shredded, softened-skin scales

I could not give you less,
I could not give you more...

Net Present Value

NPV can be described as the “difference amount” between the sums of discounted future inflows and outflows. It compares the present value of something today to the present value of that thing in the future, taking into account, "discounting" for inflation and returns into account.

Something now is more valuable than later on, because it can invested to make more.


the value today of your self,
the future discounted for all
you have
yet to learn,
yet to earn,
the mistakes,
the losses,
yet to be incurred.

netting the modest successes
now past, of long ago,
against the sum of
too many failings as
father and son,
poet and man.

time is short now,
nearer to the end than
many streams of new inflows.

the discount rate:
looking in the mirror,
this presence,
this who I am,
the what I be,
adding in, subtracting out,
the inflation of dreams,
+ / -
the deflation of disappointments.

yet, compelled to do,
iterate daily,
the calculation of who,
never-ending,
continuously solving
for my own
net present value.

http://www.mathsisfun.com/money/net-present-value.html