“You are so kind.  
Thank you with all the
resolve
in my heart.”
J.V.

<>

A thank you note,
for a simple shining-of-light,
stuns me into inspiration,
deep chested thrombosis consternations and calculations,
palpitations of the boom-boom variety,
signaling the onset of  intracranial contractions
of a new birth~poem
aborning…

who of us these days,
speaks of the resolve in our hearts?
who of us free confesses deep natured thanks,
it is almost too old fashioned.

it is powerful.
it is a thanks that
powers the wattage sufficiency
to light up a city entire,

and even though inward focused,
it yet is shedding Moses-like
light beams
heavenward,
I wrack my heart to even comprehend,
that simplest of actions reciprocal:

1/Thank You

can it, (it can!)
steel the heart,
give its truthfulness a special
power, and more than resolve,
even solves
our equation solution

so elegantly is the endless searching for the
right way to give thanks, to receive thanks,
it is a mutual gifting, for our mutuality is of
two hearts, echoing the words of
all legislative bodies:

”Be it Resolved”

what is this resolution then?

the consummate of English words
with such a variety of shadings,
requiring a declarative,
not a narrative,
consummation

be it resolved,
that two resolute hearts
shall not depart this Earth
before their arms interlocute an
embrace,

the shadows of their eyes interlock,
casting away
interfering long distances,

a single atmosphere shall
be tasted, inhaled,
by their
combinatory sensories

then and only then:
their resolve tested
and surpassed
will their poem

commencé et terminé,
begun and completed

The Emotion is Carried




<<>>
“*The gender-neutral name Jamadhi comes
from Arabic origins, meaning “beauty.”
When thinking about all the beautiful
things in the world, your little one, with
their kind demeanor and bright smile,
no doubt springs to mind! But a name
simply meaning “beauty” doesn’t only
refer to their appearance. This name
is a reflection of their beautiful little
soul, too, on a journey through this world.
Baby Jamadhi could be a gentle soul
or the fiercest of little childon the playground,
but no matter what, a name meaning
“beauty” will always ring true.”

~~~

dislocation/punk'd


hey baby,
put one forward,
faking baby steps.

life is hard in different ways,
for so many of us, the days say,
each year of us, walks a unique maze,
hands on the wall, unavoidable tripping on
speed bumps that make one crazed
and that you even see

coming

but inevitable is the red,
swelling, bruises, cutting,
the side effects of what gets said,
the falling-downs of words that are

dislocating

things get said, and you get paid
in eerie and weary,
and the loss of balance,
as if you are just the warm water,
water that slips over the side,
not the body inside,
and when you slip up,
that wet, warm beat-up,
That empty feeling of being is

displacing

you know, well advanced,
that parts of you,
moving around inside,
sources of internal dizziness,
the curve ***** thrown in slow mo
that so mesmerize you
into watching but not swinging,
accepting that the arc,
provides burns skinning,
and you go down 'n out

striking

what ya gonna do?

dust off and upstanding accept,
that some pitches are just **** ******* us,
we the swingers, often miss the ball,
wide of the mark,
sometimes we just stand, mouth agape,
watching the ball coming right at us,
even foreseeing the incoming

paining

what hurts,
is not those rosy red ridge reminders,
the after party of being hit,
but that when getting punk'd,
chewed up, spit out,
you get used to it, and to survive,
to keep your wits,
you spend time convincing yourself,
that you don't even care,
but you find your thinking is all about

rhyming

so when poetry get complicated,
ya get back to where ya
once before where,
keeping it simple,
roses red, violets blue,
what ya gonna do,
but your sense of smell
shot to hell,
what the hell,
thinking just another wet plunking
thinking no big dealing
this one mo' punking,
there will be more

but wonder why
you can no longer make your
simple, confused words to be reduced
by right

rhyming

~ for spygrandson ~

with deep affection


https://hellopoetry.com/spysgrandson/


<>

I am en~titled
by him,
commissioned by his exacting wording
of this poem’s titular naming,
all my previous attempts are failures,
over designed, too artistic
for his modest self~reckoning &
bearded demeanor,
they demanded
denial with
request for
simplicity of an unflowery
reckoning,
a clean shave,
so to speak…



a potholder of simple design,
a modest picture self-drawn,
but his stories are
sorties tall,
he draws you in, worthy draftsman sketches
of words, tales short, poems complete,
tales so sweet, of characters uniquely complete,
and you think,
can they not be fictional?

and you know they’re no such thing,
ok, maybe,
some taller and a few perhaps dreamed,
the big characters of those
giants of simple men,
whose deeds were not mythical,
ok, almost mythical…

but truth of the humans of the hammered and nailed tough skin,
who built homesteads in the
plain, in mountains, by rivers that snaked,
unmapped,
except on their hearts and feet

the humans,
that made up
the raw & naked bond holders of
these United States:
bonded by character to the soil and
its curvaceous dancing topography
from
& of the center of our country,
but with eyes keen enough
to stretch from
coast to coast,
to see to shining seas

yes, true,
the grandson be he
to/of an almost mythical man,
and so took thus
his penned name,
the grandfather, a real person
of whom stories are yet told,
for no one can be sure
that & of what deeds
this spy did,
on hostile, unfamiliar,
continents,
but the photographic proofs,
I have seen…

His blood thickened by many infusions,
a cross cultural experiment,
happily not unique,
just **** rare

but enough of this;
read him,
let his
tongue take you to
the unfamiliar,
a literary Ansel Adams,
who never saw the plain(s) men & women,
unworthy of being forgotten but
forever being
celebrated


ask him for a potpourri of his short stories
of war, the bonds that men forge in combat,
tween the dead that still live on and
the living,
who have unreadable dead spots within,
they carry their dying glances,
their dying wishes,
and who are honored by him
in his continuing recollections

with walking stick in hand,
even if going outside
to “just” measure the snowy depths,
he leave markers and trailers,
for us to recall how to weep,
from love and pain,
from following generations of his
beautiful blonde
children who are poster models for
the traditional all american imagery,
but thriving within,
with  his
wanderlust, his mixed fiery visions,
and acting, singing out dramas
befitting their inherited
visions…

<>
here
I cease,
here
I weep,
at the impoverished words
scrivened in haste,
through tears of pleasure
intended to give honor
to this man,
who cedes me the pleasure of his existence,
and enhances my world
when he asks me,
unwittingly commissions!
a poem,
about
the human character,
who see himself unusually!
“as a potholder with a simple design”
and as usual,

I fail miserable…
maybe,
nick the outer edge of a bullseye target,
because the important words that he deserves,
I have not yet mentioned:

honor, loving kindness and friend.

perhaps he is correct,
but doesn’t grasp
that without simple men like him
to hold the *** upright and firm,
we all would be lesser or
even lost.


maybe,
now I am one
with
done

1431
poems in ye old inbox,
genteel knocking,
whispering thru stolid front door
love me a little lot,
little lot, love me?

this is not mere work product,
collegial-laid upon me for gentle shared, for pre-review,
Nottingham Forest arrowed, bow shaped
pithy comments,

these are the holy-of-the-holies
attention-me-crystal-cries,
prayers, wry observations, nature collations,
me and thee adorations, heart rendering
screams of need,
these are the moments in your life
raw-roughened gifted or threaded smooth cursed,
but tendered unto my caring.

(an aside:
perhaps you understand better now
why woman-in-the-moon imagery,
red bowed, grapefruit tasting hearts,
all the lovelies, word shape shifts a/k/a
Imagery
language delights!
but time-using, confusingly confuses,
and has been erased from my own poetry frame)

gnawing doubt me routs,
god gave me humans,
and gave them speech,
to bring me
closer to him
thru them.

somewhere in those 1431 essays of labor,
dashed off, handcrafted, pithy or poor,
just might be the one
justification for my opening my eyes
this poetry someday Sunday sun-day.

put the cofe on
(saving letters, saving time,
deleting unnecessary e's
from my life till when I am dying on
all-on-that desperate
e-n-ee-dy day).

loaded my shotgun heart with
loves and likes,
yellow thunderbolt bullets firing,
and considered yourself
notified
I'm a-coming over,
shoes on the cofe table,
breaking taboo's
gonna read 1431
and when dining done,

gonna pay attention to my muse,
my woman, cause she is the
original e,
that provides the raw materials,
in ye old nat-box,
that lets me love ever one of them,
she is the e
in me

and me will be in you,
starting now.

that the trending tags,
for but a single day,
banished the perennials,
all celebrated the occasion
with a rousing wake and
an indecent burial

out **** spots,
sad, pain, heartbreak and depression,
in the closet, once a year, annual,
as for death,
it's ugly head,
cutoff, spiked and disliked,
in the tower displayed

for twenty four, de minimus,
on a day mutual selected,
we compose only
of the beauty, and the kindness
in each and all of us

is this craft that chose you, not defined by machine millimeters,
precision absolute, curvatures, so eye-pleasing,
they demonstrate no tolerance for tolerance of the
ordinary?

*the skill of words, too, cut so fine,
find the  extraordinary within, refine, refine, refine,
shave away the trite, the reused, discard the instant recognition,
unusable

El reloj es tranquilo, metódico, incluso cuando corre mi mano fuera de control, empujando palabras que se escapan de la ***** de mis cinco dedos de lápiz.

El poema se levanta en el este y se pone en el oeste, los conspiradores están de acuerdo.
La carrera debe seguir este curso.

<•>


The clock is calm, methodical, even as it races my out-of-control hand, pushing words leaking from the lead within my five pencil fingers.

The poem rises in the East and sets in the West, the conspirators agree.  
The race must follow this course.

12:34am

Our Holy Communion of Words

you wrest my words away, with tongue and teeth,
running their sounds out with your soft tonguing,
gentling their enunciated freedom to float airborne,
but not before,
your teeth hone them sharper, wiser, better,
before freeing the letters
for life eternal rebirthing,
swapping, warping words,
into a
a holy communion

then with thy lips closing after them,
wishing them godspeed,
safe travels to yet another’s eye imbibing,
until released once more,
traveling from souls you likely
never to meet, embrace, greet,
but to whom you have formed a
direct intangible tangling,
shared wafered words,
a holy communion*

But

yours,
your words,

gut punch me,
how could you know,
where/\were
you there beside me when in darkened hours
the sun shone brightly, illuminating with bent light
our crevices and our crevasses,
your, words, written,
stun me into crazy, as if
you were within my interior
a cacophony exposed for all to hear,
my grunts & oofs,
visceral, too real, and
my actual tears cascade unfiltered
into the cup of our tangible entangling,
salted & starry*


our holiest communion yet!

~~~~~~~~
Fri Feb 9,
10:00pm~10:30pm

For Steve Yocum
~~~

an old marine called me the other night
a poet from the left coast,
a correspondent and a first responder
to my messy essays

we both, vintners of men,
compared notes on our progeny's
full bodied temperament,
and our own full body's aches and miscreants

bemoaning our losses,
of earnest poets,
of friends, even foes,
and favored football teams,
and ne'er forgetting to tally up
our occasional victories

he authors books,
he authors life,
with grainy portraits,
that try to be peepholes
to clarity

me, a periodic poetist,
more confessional blogger shootist,
than artful-words-to-please dodger,
in a vainglorious futile insanely repeating attempts
to better separate
life's wheat from the chafe of its chaff

perhaps,
we shall someday meet,
a twosome of codgers,
walk the saddened-today, blood-reddened Oregon soil,
armed with each other's comforting wisdom,
tasting grapes,
acknowledging
but for the grace of god,
we go

together, to gather,
each other closer,
walk the vineyards and the cellars
to clarify
the wine from the sediment,
getting uproariously drunk
on friendship

a thousand years ago, wrote a poem called
“why I always carry tissues”  -
a labor of love to
mine own toddlers misadventures,
requiring love covered in tissues so soft,
yet an ironclad coating
of natural substantive parenting
useful for tearing eyes, running noses,
and the cuts of living outdoors joyously

children grow older and oft that means,
they seek not your counsel,
and if offered, politely ignored,
for so it goes tween fathers and sons

then one summer days you receive an
observation, a datapoint that irradiates,
a quiet confirmation that not everything
you’ve said and done has gone astray

a young’un of “almost ten,” informs her father,
around the luncheon table of three generations,
that her foot is hurting; the son, now the father,
diagnosis renders, a blister, which will require
a protective custody that will protect the child’s
feet from the ravages of furious Shell Beach fun,
or the rough of a Manhattan sidewalk

I watch with a joy so quiet and so overwhelming,
as the son-father reaches into a cargo pocket,
producing not one but two bandaids, for life
requires backups for there are other babes about,
who at moments notice, produce scrapes and cuts
of ever greater consequence for each year they age

his wife renders me overjoyed, when she dryly
observe how certain children are lucky that
their father always carries bandaids, a new factoid,
for me, an unknown that glistens like a wet shell

now my eyes tearing, for a message in a bandaid,
or a tissue no matter which, is a certified proof,
somehow a message got through the clutter,
marked “well received,” that loving well requires
an oh so very hard attention to details, and that deep pockets
are repositories of good notions, handed down generations

June 24, 2021

Shell Beach

all prayers are answered,
even if
they appear not to be

all prayers are answered,
even if
the answer is not to our liking

all prayers are answered,
even if,
tho not to our liking,
the answer is correct and
understood
(or not)

all prayers are answered,
even if,
even if our questions rarely get
a satisfactory response

in the answer
should it come,
will nervy never be
a fulfilling completeness,
a real understanding

for all prayers and all questions,
never give the,
cannot give
credibility to the posing,
of
why me?
why them?

which is why we pray,
and why we question
every day for the rest of our lives,
till it is someone else's turn,
to bear the burden of the
both the question
and the answer*

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/729876/timothys-prayer/

Kinda fainted Friday nite,
De doctor, he come, he say,
"Son you done
give us a genuine affright."

De doctor, he come, he say,
"Son, it's the end o' day,
Get your **** in bed straightaway"

"Here's what you be needing:
twelve tablets of hourly salting, no halting
eight hours bed rest, no dreaming,
four gallons o' tap water, drinking,
no stopping,  
"and for god's sakery,
cease and desist from
this writing,
poetry nonsense fakery."

Weakly, I protested,

"My poems are the waste products,
the excretions of salt water tears,
a thousand years in the making,
dreams foretelling and retelling events disturbing.

If not removed, disinterred by their inscribing,
these poisonous emotions,
shall surely cause once more
my fainting and falling demotion."

He frowned, de doctor, he was perturbed,
his medical thinking cap was for sure disturbed!

With sighs that made my heart to be a stirring ,
De doctor, he come, he say,
held forth as following, quiet murmuring:

"Here is my prescription:
if you musting,
but with strict limitations it be enforcing:

No more than four po-ems
De doctor permit to be writ

*per hour."

the elegance of truthful simplicity,
the sweet truths of elegant brevity,
the insides of insight
|||


~
Please Read

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2246391/gratitude/

for it should be the Poem of the Day

My First Anniversary…
(August 3, 2024)

This title, this poem, a wholly unexpected,
never thinking this path,  
this particular tango existential
would/was needed,
to be added to
my dance card

an early exit, a poem unplanned,
second chance was not a poem in my long
list of titles awaiting a turn to be written

a year ago,
they sent me to the surgeon,
who had prepared, with no hesitancy declared,
informed that we needed to start
all over again,
my poor heart
was waxing and waning,
and I was currently stuck on
the dark side of the moon,
with no jitney making stops theron

by the way,
the accumulation of damage had attained
a level where heart was
nearly exhausted,
( I believe he mentioned 98%)
that attention must be made,
how about
tomorrow we asked,
he laughed no can do,
but the day after would be ok,
and was I an earlier riser,
a coveted 600am slot available,
my name could be penciled in…

One tear ago, 
 wheeled me in, cracking jokes,
thinking what’s the big deal,
laughing hardest
was me,
for my motto was always leave them
(oops, poor choice of words) laughing…
fear was not in my lexicon, nor in my heart,
nor was
a ferry cross the
Rubicon

so many changes, so many poems 365 days later,
the life marked by many a Cain scar,
the big one, a pencil thin ****  hesty reminder,
plus assorted scars scattershot all over, where the “borrowed” veins and arteries, like pieces of twine, mighty fine,
(no, I never slashed a wrist, though it looks like it)
moved to different places,
repurposed, for I was now a used car
but with an extended warranty…

do not think on it much, but as markers come and go,
you think:

oh! I’ll never forget this trip, event, celebration,
and a week later your mind has nearly deleted it from the
critical events memory synapses, just another
day in the blah blah blasphemy
of a insignificant man’s unremarkable life…

but when I shower, the scars rise to the surface,
all over my body’s map, they come out shouting,
“look what I did for you,” from places weird,
they tingle, insuring my never ending surprise,
at that Olympic trial,
they raced, earning a piece & place
on my gold, overall medley team medaling,
or meddling
(when I tease them…)

so, let us bring this to a close, one man’s life,
ain’t making much a difference to most everybody else,
but the question that needyfor asking,
have you changed, how have you changed?

Less than you think, still write you poems with head and heart,
with humor and wit, sweet revelations, reverent with feeling, somehow a
bit original, leaving you laughing,
or maybe even better, smiling…

my mistakes all shared, and my burdens, some shared,
some too dark to be ever revealed, and I’m guessing I’m pretty
((much😉))
the same as I was before, older, not much wiser,

but these days, I surprise myself, for I sit outside
overlooking the wide waters surrounding,
embrace the sun at its earliest morn appearance,
love me the whipping snap of the
sound of great continuous wind gusts,
all the while surveying the world,
while winds are flowing all over me
like vibrant caresses, excavating my creases,
the ancient and recent
lineage
upon my face,
and sit in utter peace
thinking about everything,
and never tire,
staying for longer than a man has a right to do nothing
but to
reassess,
evaluate,
judge,
convey…
and
always
refresh
and confront
today’s
tally…

you don't hear from hear from him for
years
turns out he has been living two little blocks away

a strange lawyer calls Sunday morning,
your presence, requested, suggested at the arraignment court,
as soon as possible, to get him
released from overnight lockup on his own recognizance

sure enough, the Judge asks is the father present
and I stand and he sees me and says set him free
into the custody of that old ghost in the last row

a month later
we sit in my car,
at 11:00pm
engine running,
our mobile phones, side by side
charging from the same source,
waiting for his lawyer to call

somewhere in your huge file of poems
entitled but as of yet unwritten is one called,
the words rational and children are rarely used in a single sentence
together

oh yeah, Leonard's  reminder?

some hallelujahs
come cold and broken
~
5/31/17
500am

Below is the first of two poems inspired by this piece of music, this one from a few years ago, in the midst of my divorce. The second, the better of the two,  is:

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/pachelbels-canon/

The music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kllZlF6mB2s&feature;=youtubegdataplayer
~~~~

Bereft of words,
one more time,
concussed by the hammering of
cacophonous silences
disabling my thought processes

In vanity,  
for when denied,
Le Poet-Poseur angrily asks:

Did not Mary  
have her cherries  
by command?^

But when the trees bow to me,
the collective of leaves mockingly
whisper sweet nadas, baby.
each leaf wraps my tongue,
in a sushi compote of sand,  
"hush-a-bye, baby boy poet"

June chilled.
But not chilling

Today, on a  overcast Saturday,
forces have mogged^^ me on,
transmogrified into a
Seventh Day Non-Inventist,
the creativity disrupters

Sadly,
Amazon doesn't sell,
original poems for redistribution

Pilings of papers,
variant demanders re my  
labors past and future,  
**** work-product of
teams of lawyers & harlots

Four years on, demanding now,
300 files subpoenaed,
need I say, they want me to re-tour my life my cuntry,
once more

Dummies!
these esquires ****** for hire,
my greatest invention,
my poetry,
they'll n'ere posses
cause I give it away,
domain denied

In need of a ****** shot,
drink repeatedly from the
Kanon by Pachelbel,
cannons of human-law
surmounted by the one divine

This note,  
the work product of
Pachelbel & Lipstadt,
harmony restoration,
a shared refuge,
a shared refute

Welcome friend to
a place that cannot be
bought, seized, sold

Pleasure thyself with each
note, scale repeated

Though the reign of the heavens  
doth suffer violence, and  
violent men do take it by force,^^^
peace and pardon,
earnest reward of  
poets who lived gently,
giving gentle, freely away

from the beckoning nookery
a firework sign comes,
a warning bow shot
of summer commencing,
the ever present
natural elemental companions
sun, sky, water, earth and wind
in unison,
their voices commanding,
calling out

write!

poet has painted this vista~poem
so so many times,
all is as before,
yet nature's sirening,
   a compulsed fierce fire catcall
poet once more,
endeavor,

write!

poet resists
for all seems a priori,
impossible to change his older visionaries,
defending himself to them

"all is before"
(except for the poet)

the Nookery is
the poet's corner,
self-proclaimed,
in soul warfare taken,
oasis of composition,
truthfully, a
confessional
seclusion salvation place,
within it heard only
the voices of
twinning earth and water,
sun and sky
striking poet's fomenting
heart~throat beating chest

other poets have been invited here,
for their solacing arrival
this poet attends,
perhaps only  together he thinks,
two poets with luck,
in contra-unison can devise
new ways of capture of  the
unceasing harmonies,
unnaturally eternal
ripened to perfection,
a constancy of hope,
in the unchanging, island setting

river and bay breeze,
sun-warmed waters
bring to him once again as in the past,
Shaker Melodies of West Side Stories,
Air adagio's of rock and roll anthems,
Pachelbel's Canon

this, nature's subtle way
of edging him on,
beseeching the poet

sit, rest,
one more time
upon the Adirondack wood worn throne,
pluck poems from us,
about us

write!

the environmentals,
so persistent -
refuseniks of the tyranny
of the past shout

lay us down to sleep
on coverlets of refreshed verse,
ours to keep,
when to the must of the city,
you
must

the poet,
contented
with the written word of
what has long ago
been removed from him,
fears plumbing yet again
the unoriginal error of repetition,
a sin of cardinals and small minds

the unrepentant wind whips
insistent,
seering sun shines
consistent,
water waves lap speak
one continuous shushing sound
persistent,
all together
demanding, non-stopping,
new homages and sacrifice
deny past connectivity

all is not as before
maintaining, complaining
(even the poet)

poet sees
the elements,
sees that all appear similar
in last year's' form,
and the year's before,
lacking the comprehension
of subtle modifications

eyes uncircumcised
see harder, look closer,
perceive
new combinations of
varicose veined blue shadings
in the waterways and the
fresh waving-hello colored whitecaps,
updated saluting salutations
quite like those of
friends past, rewelcoming him,
more real
than the error of self-delusion of
unchained unchanged
all, nothing
is as before

these waters molecules
have never been here before,
newly flowing nouvelles arrivées
from the South Seas and Antartica,
the Yangtze and the Amazon

today's temperate breeze
so adamant,
boasts of having come here first time
from cold Canada,
or balmy Bombay,
melting as immigrants to his sheltered island

all speak now in
new tongues, new accents,
all a collective
here,
come to me,
all the same quest

write!

the sun same,
yet newly born daily
burnished with a forever glory
send fresh light
to the poet's eyes,
each ray politely suggesting,
this summer's novice poet,
pay them
poetic obeisance dues,
and

write!

all is as surface as before,
but all have changed,
new summer, new elements,
decay wiped away,
man~poet must now speak too,
using uncovered new verbal molecules,,
recreating the ineffable solace
of a new summer
brought to him in the guise only of
familiar friends

all of us
have changed,
though seemingly minimally surficially,
Poet,
self-taught,
acknowledges, he too
evolves

it is this tale then,
the poet proffers
as his first serving of
summer-only fruits,
owning up now,
though man and nature
revolve in planetary unison,
all things change,
even the poet,
when in nature's nookery,
his compulsion
is sun blood heated,
and
skin breathes differently
in the nookery,
his natural old time, revival tent

happily now, he weeps
in tenderest of embraces,
when old, familiar
changelings
charge him

write!

Shelter Island
May 2015

for Maria*

if you have lived with me for more than a day,
you know I hero worship each individual word
in my birthed American English language

as is my style, I oft honor it with a poem,
but begin indubitably with a definition

Base
is such a word that deserves a recitation

for complex it is, a multiplicity of uses,
a word of many characters,
a word so unusual,
to the French I defer,
un mot plein de mystère

see its complexity,
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/base

a base is:

your bedrock, your cornerstone,
on firm footing your base must exist
t'is a groundwork word,
a keystone cop,
a root underpinning,
your warp,
your woof

Your children

so when taken,
when the spiritual
is crushingly wrong


sometimes I feel like a motherless child,

tense all wrong,
all wrong perversed,
the words reversed

You understand the nuance of words
so much better, and you
engage it
for now the word, just
enrages

Base


my new base
is
bad, black, evil, foul, immoral, iniquitous,
wrong and cruel

my new base-full state now,
my new base-less state now


this is my base now,
now that my organs,
cut from my body,
cannot be restored

Base is my life

"we were never lonely
and never afraid
when we were together.

I know that the night
is not the same
as the day:
that all things are different,
that the things of the night
cannot be explained in the day,
because they do not then exist,
and the night can be a dreadful time
for lonely people once their
loneliness has started.

But with Catherine there was
almost no difference in the night
except that it was an even better time.

If people bring so much courage
to this world the world has to ****
them to break them, so of course
it kills them. The world breaks every
one and afterward many are
strong at the broken places."

A Farewell to Arms,
Ernest Hemingway

“But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”
Psalms:4-8



Who knows? Who knew?
Marched, dragged, ordered, bottom line, taken,
to the synagogue was I abducted, every Sabbath;
on the Festivals, this Psalm recited, catching the
child’s eye, the words symmetry, the conceptual
contained, struck and stuck, and seven fingered
decades, he stumbles once again upon it, this time
in his file of poems yet unwrit,
aging along with the poet,
for almost the last five years.

the prayer book, black covered, thumbed well worn,
by father-supplied, periodically page number is whispered,
my childlike eyes gravitate to the English translation,
though Hebrew versed too, the English verses whip my attention,
the concept of the Lords invisibility, a super power in my mind,
early taught by storied Abraham’s idol smashing,
and the futility of idolatry,
since invisible God is everywhere

these days of memes and trolls,
idol worshiping grows strong,
the fast thirst to recognize, admire,
yes,
to worship;
plaster, alabaster, clay, marble,
even gold & silver

pay them no mind,
trained early on to covet only
what we cannot see,
sources of the pieces within of the divine surreal
that perfect our flawed shapeliness,
the electric human touch,
the simple kindest gesture,
the tender embrace,
the ineffable softness of child’s cheek
an old man’s childish innocence,
the love of all carved-by-hand woodwork
for beauty only,
the artistry of good, mastery of emotion,
all to perfect your vision to witness
what only the heart can envision

You do not understand the contrast contradictory?

You will.







____

Silvio

Silver and gold
Won't buy back the beat of a heart grown cold
Silvio
I gotta go
Find out something only dead men know

      SILVIO: WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN AND ROBERT HUNTER
                                                        ­                                                                 ­                        <>

Said the shepherd boy
To the mighty king
Do you know what I know?
In you palace wall mighty king
Do you know what I know?
A child, a child
Shivers in the cold
Let us bring him
Silver and gold
Let us bring him
Silver and gold
Let us bring him
Silver and gold
Do you know what I know/
So you see what I see?
Do you hear what I hear?


“**DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?”
LYRICS LEONARD COHEN

Seven New Poems for Seven Days #2: Hover^*

My Children:

Ancestral homes oft possess,
a unique scent, product of an atomizer, a memorizer

Musty time, the odor of
faded and shadow,
hollow, yet hallowed.

Somewhere along the road,
a residence transforms from home to
shrine-storage unit-hospital room-tomb-records depository.

Dust, expired perfumes,
the sweet odor of crumbling, yellowing books, disinfectant,
stale medicine chests, years of furniture polish, sabbath candles.

It is my smell -
the parfumerie of my history, a customized blend,
a commissioned work in 1964, entitled, more accurately, emitted,
"Her-Story."

Photographs, memories, and paper scraps
my very own Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Yet the most potent firing pin for historical retrieval,
the molecules of scent.

Soon all will be dismantled, discarded,
just plain dis'ed.

Confused and disenchanted,
my departure orderly but, in a disordered fashion.
unable to seed one last kiss upon your forehead,
nonetheless, surreptitiously enter your neurons
though my entity, away, across the miles-wide Hudson River.

For three days, I will hover invisible,
implanting myself once more,
slapping your mucous membranes,
transversing this pathway, an additive to your cells, nuclei,
where my markers always reside.

Adding one more ingredient to your inner vision,
strengthening the formless structure, my altered state.
This odor, keep close, fresh, no becoming musty too, my scent,
the last of your senses knowing me, a true keepsake.

Hold me close and hold me fast.
This one last magic spell I cast.
This one last magic smell I set fast.
You cannot hold it, but it will cradle you.
You cannot see or touch it, but when contact comes,
You will see me, hold me, as in the days of your youth,
When you loved me best,
And I, you.

These are the words and the actuality
that in conjunction,
drive mothers of young children
to depression and distraction

Poets to look inwards yet once more,
for sources of olden inspiration,
finding only
been there, done that

Warmongers to chop lick lips
in eager anticipation of
past and future smokey glories,
gun batteries sparking and
other men's children dying

Overcast and cast out is loveliness,
only words of ancient, somber lineage,
populate, pursue and expectorate,
sunny notions and love poetry none,
dried up, to fallen leave piles dispatched

For on this day of rest, the foggy sky
grants no permission slips to draft
smiley faces and upbeat tempos,
comforts foods perhaps, but nary a
comfort word to make us cheery

Enslaved to nature this day too,
my exteriors reflect inward and my
mirror'd observatory of starry images
no longer available on any
of my two thousand TV channels

I have checked each one in a
be-quiet-you're-too-noisy dismay groaning,
as well as my ordinary, toujours,
quiet desperation

The sun tantrum tantalizes for I see
it's bodacious attacks repelled
by cloud banks rich with deposits of gloom

Slip into a mystery, an old novella
of Stephen Kings, an homage to the
drama of the four seasons, but this old friend
is elementary ancient, for its tales
are deep sad, writ upon weary worn pages
and tho apropos, grant no comfort

The sailors all to bed have gone,
plowing pillows instead of waves

The squirrels and other homeowners,
in view of the absence human,
are cheek to chop, jowls acorn full,
doing "Storage Wars" of winter prep,
in HD, in broad daylight arrogance,
mocking the summer man, adding their
sauciness to his moody blues
meal of melancholia

Am I such a creature of nature,
that I am captive no matter
what the sky color be,
is there a moody madness the
psychiatrists have labelled
that best describes a nature slave
most unnaturally?

I repair to the couch and chips,
reruns to pretend distraction and
poetry to record my inaction

The weather lady, a fresh faced blonde,
smiles white and exclaims that
the work week commencing tomorrow
all sunny all unseasonable warm,
and my groans so loud,
I am banished to parts bedroom foreign,
where I am ordered to write
perfunctory odes to gloom,
in silenced doom

for patty m(mombo)
who will be laughing
out loud, spilling her sippin’ coffee~
after she reads this~

woke up o f f c i a l l y “fully rested”
per the devices that monitor the body,
   hoping
that’s all they do, unless they are
writing this?

don’t think but can’t be sure,
cause the poems planted here,
were seedlings elsewhere, and
the Gatherers, my senses, be working
   overtime
as we (me & them) trapse
through life picking up the discards,
of songs. tv pundits, (see title!)
overheard snippets of street
conversations,
your poems & comments,
(as I walk among you)
almost everywhere,
anytime
anyhow,

to add
days to
my life span
because

the poem notions
hit me so fast,
hanging fruitfully
needy
for picking, need
more time to love
them so fulsomely

so maybe one or two
are Rem insertions by
my Apple watch, but
not many cause I write
in a funny style!

my son asked AI to write
poems in the manner of
his dad, and it replied,
“can’t help, his poems are
too weird, not reproduceable,
borderline crazy(!!!!);”

give us someone easier
like Whitman or Plath
or Leonard C., no problem
doing dat”

so this poem was an off chance remak,
heard in passing by my digesting ears,
and like Noah’s Ark,
loaded up with alphabets 2 x 2,
set sail to your receptors to bark at ya
awake baby

with hopes
that you rise and read this,
laugh way
out loud,
and suddenly you tutu,
feeling well-reset, rested and very
a very,
moderate modicum more

appreciated enuf

nml

~it feels good to keep a promise~
~for AV~

<>
my expertise is at the PhD. level
for mine own experiments have
been less than successful by the
feedback periodically provided
O & Co-vertly over forty years

but a poem triggers, go figure!

and making morn coffee,
a task that teaches well,
that doing the prep is essential,
no shortcuts
for which we spend/waste years
looking for, and
realize that’s a hint to settle in
with a hot beverage,
this feels like it’s a longy coming

we know so much,
most i m p o r t a n t l y,
even how little we actually
do comprehend, and that
is importabt beyond belief,
learning to
choose counsel
that should be allowed
to pass under the bridge that filters
the crapshoot crap that pretenses
as smart and sound,
that should be
burnt & buried in an open pit

so what do fathers know?

- that finest firsts are so youthfully
under loved, under appreciated,
misperceived as endless,
the flush the rush the the thrusting
piercing of your composite composure
practiced protective skin,
cherish them firsts cause
they don’t last
because axiomatic that come
lesser, fewer, with every wrinkled day,
and sorry, time doesn’t make you bolder

- luck is a lottery ticket, the odds preposterous against you, but we
buy a ticket weekly because you
thinking this time is your time, sorry,
this lady sleeps around, a lot, a  
borderline *****,
who never asks
honey what’s your nane, because
they are thinking ‘bout the next
customer,you want it? you work for it,
and that never ever ends,
the odds
against ya never improve

- invest in discipline early and big time:
later when it will be desperately needed,
and twice as hard to obtain (can’t be bot,
no matter how much moola
you will
inherit)
and it make it habitual;
and discipline
is the entry card to unlocking the
unknown, the exceptional adventure

- thinking ‘know everything’ is a giant
no-no; this body of knowledge
you think you’ve earned by being
learned, is not as
valuable as one might
think (or feel)

cause knowledge is like a breeze,
on its way to somewhere else,
the cooling skin it leaves in its wake,
cools too quickly
and when you whine
“I know”
think this
”I no NOthing”

- that fathers oft say little, wordily,
so keep an eye out
for a raised eyebrow l,
a crinkling around the eyes,
a wrinkling nose,
they be  clues
meaning
ask me
more, later, when we deux
can pas alone

-peace of mind is
like watching waves
coming in;
ithey are long in the forming
and faster in dissolving,
they arrive piecemeal
but they keep on coming
in different shapes,
from different places,
but they do keep a-coming
and their power,
(erosion)
is the result of thousands individual
moments,
additive,
so you get pieces,
thru the unconscious
habit of accumulation
/\
here I’ll pause
to preach
makes a father thirsty
a fresh cuppa
seems highly desirable

oh yeah,
warmth can be received from blankets,
expensive ski jackets, wooly socks,
but its best when freely created
from within,
worn as you own & owned creation,
a reward for being wide open
ready,willing & able

one more thing:
find the best addiction
that bests you,
that thing will live
within forever,
like
writing poetry?
😉

so what do fathers know?

a lot, too little, never enough,
sometimes too much,
mostly good,
some awful,
just ask
find out
wonder
who will be more surprised
when you
do

For Ilion: Sleep, Return to It*

young man of Manhattan
sleep, return to it,
we must stop meeting on the corner of 125th & Broadway at 3am

young father - thy life thy future thy child -
depend on it

as do I -depend upon thy poetry*

for you are the lion of youth,
I, the graybeard of past paths,
no need of sleep in my dwindling days,
but time bids you welcome,

- thy life thy future thy child -
all ask me, let him come to us
refreshed


7/7/17 4:49am
Manhattan

7:00am
Shelter Island,
Sat Sep10

on the south west edge of the isle,
the slowrise sunrise just behind the trees,
so early day yet, no full frontal of a sun
bathing to wake up woman, babes asleeping, but the
animals know exactly this hours early
perfection.

indeed, the crazy squirrels are random
hither and dithering in spurts of energy,
only stopping to observe a viewing of the humans
nest~resting through the glass doors with their
inquisitive, self-possessed, bedside reckless manner,
perfected.

the suns pealing gleaming gleanings picks
out any shiny reflective surface that enhances
its low-rise greeting, with a chorale of living objects
singing “Hallelujah orb, what’s in store for us today,”
river~bay, wake-less, its becalming, marbling surface, again,
perfected.

me?

I’m mugged by the perfection intersection of
my eyes-scape, first coffee, the holy quietude, only
the regular soft breaths beside, lend a counterpoint
to these thoughts and the litany of chores the iCal happily, annoyingly,  prematurely but with certainty lists, resistance (Walk!)
perfectly ok.

ok not to move an inch, watching this daily movie rerun,
that energizes hope, a contemporary localized contented without the
humdrum of blaring headlines, talking heads, and the
infiltration of the guilty unfulfilled responsibilities demanding a due,
then heavens signal me, Donovan, earbud singing Colors, confirmed
perfectly ok!


“Yellow is the color of my true love's hair
In the mornin', when we rise
In the mornin', when we rise
That's the time, that's the time
I love the best”