Fri Feb 10
8:12 AM


“As artists, we are exposed to a heavy level of scrutiny, mostly from ourselves,” adds Villarini-Velez. “At times we might be insecure when a choreographer asks us to do something that takes us away from our usual, classical vocabulary. I felt like some of my peers who aren’t exposed to this movement would feel insecure at times, but nonetheless, rise up to the challenge of exploring new levels of artistry. It’s easy to rely on our usual bag of tricks, but I enjoy the risks of detaching from what looks good and moving in a way that feels good. It’s our responsibility to rise to these challenges and expand our artistic horizons.”(1)

<>

guilty. as charged.
so, incorporating new words,
differing styles.
do what does not come naturally.

“detach from what looks good,
moving in a way that feels good”

make radicalization your ethos
make new-for-you your eponym.
give your name to what you create,
a mere signature insufficient, it is not part of the work!

taste the wet words upon tongue and lips,
let the saliva linkage be to the following morseling phrase,
the mouth sac moist be where verbal embryos are birthed.

hear them spoke in your voice, but,
silently, in your mind, and yet, speak-say them inside
with the shocking thunderous force of a newborn’s first cry.

and when you read them assembled,
weep with pleasure, relieved, this, your child,
looks exactly like no one, with but trace elemental traits of you.

but it is all yours, sinew and cell, fiber and skin,
drawn unformed, ejected from the intramural hollows of the body,
then and only then, mark them at last as truly

*mine..

Dearest Patty m.,

we admire, admit to raw nailed jealousy
when we read the works superior
with the greatest worn scruffy complementary compliment
a poet
can give to
another scribe

How I wish I had written that,
those very words!

confessing before the world
with our own humility
at the daily dawning of
realization that
morning brings freshness and
insights needy for release and
aborning and the trace of humiliation
that we’ve all  ready
been breached bested
by others,
once again…

BUT
we do not bow!
no courtly arm sweeping,
back bent, at best
a nod of a head
then

privately
we gasp, rent our clothes,
throw the body flat to the floor,

observing seven days of mourning
reserved
for when we morning moan,
daylight groan and loan out our
croissant moon mooing cries to
bemused muses
in the clouds supervising,
as tears of, an admixture of,
an elixir of joy, compassion
and thus refreshed by someone’s
new infant’d christening
we *****. we resurrect, gamble,
throwing ourselves complete like dice,
in to a roll of
stunned stupor of high inspiration
and then make out best work
ever yet

but never do we bow, scrape,
bend the knee, maybe the head,
we mourn our lesser failings
and smile as we flash words
from our eyes,
stored in our mindsets,
our, my best, will
always be yielded up
next
——
addendum
———
seven years ago
in a separate guise,
he ssid it differently
maybe better?
:<•>

epilogue

read my face
incapable of,
deprivation
but how now silent
bow my head to Will
for teaching the way of words
traced upon
a fool or a king's tongue,
two too human,
so that poet may ken
his senses keener,
all for the better,
for the betterment of all

one more for Pradip...
"Poems...are never short or long, they're only more. Thanks Nat for ever filling the less."



firing up the poem kiln,
this intriguing provocation
insistent of deserved consideration,
after all,
it is thy stories that these days inspire,
my own stories are relentless
grey, old, cold, and to my eyes,
coded repetitious...

neither a chaster or a chastiser,
(You could look it up!)
confessing readily to sinning against humanity
by ecrivezing poems of length considerable,
the Mexicano from Indiano
releases a shotgun blast
to all those whose attention spans last,
to ten words or a single stanza...no more...

but this not the matter of import,
no, no, it is the
more and the less
that makes poetry the best,
no matter the length or the heft...

in each of us
there is a more and a less,
in cycles individual that are not bound to
tides, weather, or any effect natural,
but product of our own amber waves
of chemical imbalances and mental auras...

all my days have I rode waves of
well hid hills of mania *** depression,
contented moments surrounded and cosseted
by wails of worry, sorrel colored sorrows,
making the scientists amazed at the correlation
of the macro and the mini,
the precision of my indecision...

in sixty seconds, in sixty days, in sixty years,
have I battered and battled the disequilibrium
of more and less,
disallowing a pilloried intervention,
will likely do so until
that day when my pen
has bled its last...

this theme haunts,
for but a day ago,
a bus poem was blurted out,
that concluded thusly:

to survive,
to justify,
to mediate
between these un-counterbalanced weights,
I write poetry

here I am stunned that Pradip
with but a handful of seeds,
exactly isolates the genetic implanted notion
that I struggle to define,
knowing only that my poetry fills my less,
when the all the rest is just
another fine mess

we fill the less with our wit,
we top off our souls with writs,
we are more for having scribed,
one read or ten thousand,
it mater matters knot!

look upon the pages endlessly bearing
the ephemeral heavy-handed weight full of well crafted words,
the good, the plenty,
the sad, the sorry,
the trite and cranky,
those misted musty,
the light and the careful,
the bad and merely awful,
even the drip of torrential love stories gone dry

what matters not
any of this over sighted analytics,

each and all and everyone
a success,
for each poem makes someone's less lessened,
and someone's more, more,
and by this

**ever filling the less...

Let us assume,
that in this life
we obtain about
ten thousand different words,
employable and reusable

the exact number matters not

this accumulated list is your
Outer Structure

the how and the why we write,
the compulsion and the illusion
is DNA at the cellular level modified
by every second of our lives,
every word tabulated and stored

this is not an essay,
this is a poem

This is a 2:42 in the mid of night poem

when the the basics rule,
when the questions get asked,
and the answers (for me)
either
don't come or are
not oft to your liking,
but good for you,
good for us,
that the asking of the questions
is our poetry

so let us confess,
so let us address,
the primary screen,
the essential filter
the place where all poems begin
is the me

most of me is given,
but you add words,
you pick and choose the vocabulary,
that refines your me

sometimes your me excels,
you use your me words
so so well,
but sometimes not

this structure
is where we all begin
but should not ded end

move beyond,
translate your me
into us
find the way to comprehend
that you must pass over the line
of me and
excel anew

write a near and new me,
take your own vocabulary,
your own DNA a given
super duper impose your word~life structure
on me in ways that
gasp me into a new seeing

give me your genes, your word cells,
teeming with new connections,

then happily
will I take  
your poems,

delete the Y,

make it
our poems,
add it to my cellular vocabulary,
by doing so,
establish a physical genetic connection

truly then our ink is our blood,
and we are poet brothers and poet sisters,
cousins of the words

your command is not my wish, Ilion

”give us your entrails of the hidden innocent truths of oft too quiet souls, a soul bearing the realities of who mankind is at its root”   Ilion Gray

it slaps me as a usual unusual,
an unexpected realization thanks to your in-sight,
that all our wordplay is just gardening for life’s lost collections;
out of order, badly memorized memory markers;

one must snout-root around in the backyard for the
entrails and the bones of generations of pets that are
hollowed out hallows,
kept in a sanctified corner crypt rarely visited

a lost treasure of honorable burials with pomp and circumstance,
many Star War figures play-interred by a boy who’s now a grownup, with two children but doesn’t come to visit cause he has man-size responsibilities and his California backyard is so very far
from the ‘park’ of his youth

strange that we hide the innocent truths
that are neither shameless and seamless,
but yet, nonetheless
warrant safekeeping in nearby dirt treasury chests,
lest,  just in case, to see the future,
we need retrieve
brilliant bright flashbacks kept below deck,
just nearby, just in case,
the ball bearings of the soul requiring viscous lubricating

souls grow quieter with age, even as the
grunting of bent-over digging up what is down down,
grows daily more noisy,
as deeper depths require the work of
pluming  and plumbing,
as time adds inches of soil, just as a tree adds an annual ring

you smile outwardly at what you inwardly auto-wince,
as you think twice about
what truths you may uncover, for better or for worse,
too many,
best left soiled encumbered,
for great is the risk of soiling oneself
when uncovering the
recovery of the best buried

but what was your wish dear Ilion,
transmigrates, and is now a command center  of
self awareness, realities, are scars,
some worn proudly and others with unbearable shame,
uncomfortably uncovered in roots of nightmares
watering in the
subterranean subconscious

the dreams we do not wish for,
come and command nonetheless from the way way back of the
chambers of the backyard brain, a reminder that
quiet souls should avoid the trails possibly leading to
grand entrances of entrails,
sadly admitting full well,
one cannot hide from risible, mocking, loathsome,
guilty truths to the surface rising

when I give you of myself,
exposing old roots hastens their endings,
exposed, they cannot be replanted,
not in earth, not in concrete, not in brain cells,
is that old friend,
what you truly wish?

(Return to Shelter Island)^^

~

"And even silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love"^

   ~

the winter's quietude
slowly dissipates,
like a miser's reluctantanc to-part-even-with
unwanted, yet saved up tears,
now finally shed, 
tears easy ease on down to please,
morphing into spring rain  
creating a horn of plenty of
les amuse-bouches,
summer tastes,
hints of mint,
all to commence, orchestrate,
miniature, slews of budding teases
of what may yet come

t'is only summer peekings coming to refresh,
memorized friends, recalling a former full bosomed lover's
abundant bounty,
untying the quiescent, frozen tongue,
relieving it of its stale,
suffocating, whited, slushed crust,
issued a full pardon and
twenty bucks pocket money and
freedom
to see the
new full born poems,
without the interference
of grey baited, metallic bars,
poems, floating by, on summer breezes,
air borne for lovers

the same water vista,
under grayscale sky and
winter cloud cover,
is uncrackable and the
Hollow King of Words,
silently languishes, jailed alone,
wretched and deposed,
a wrecked winter's tale told,
an empty throne forlorn

no-way-out aperture extant,
no keyhole found to unlock,
all the songs
that to no avail,
the ineffectual poets impatiently
have prayed,
beseeching an unresponsive sky to rain forth
uniforms of pastel blues and whites

only summer sun-rays
seasonly ready now, fully ripened,
rays notably higher angled,
that can ***** and crack open
the skull and bones,
rejoice the soul's soil,
filling eyes with leafy canopy of green down,
while reheating the heart's chambers,
un-encoding the precise temperature formulae,
for the degree exacting,
where the words-wanting-for-extracting,
release and rouse themselves from a
deeper dreamless hibernating,
and even a last remaining,
napping, spring drowsiness

awaken to a symphony spoken
pitch perfect,
a woven rainbow color palate ensemble,
all full throated blooming

before and by my water view,
an old empty Adirondack throne has grown
one more winter-withered and wise and weary,
aging well,
if aging a well be,
and yet visibly poorly,
unable to speak,
bereft these so many months
of its human companion's conjoint, howling voice

chair asks him now plaintive,
not
where I've been,
knowing that any answer
immaterial

nor
does it inquire,
have I come to stay,
knowing any human answer
is always at best
an uncertain truth

only this it seeks ascertaining,
desiring a newly needed-seeded knowing

do I return
carrying with me,
a summer's secret love?

strong enough to make our single tongue
break the wet dog woeful silences,
to sing the praise of
those refreshed elements now blossoming surrounding,
that all come to enhance,
the secret purpose of the human

do I carry the tune
that will unlock,
at long last,
the somber silence,
that no winter's gale roar or
noisy, erratic spring chirping ,
however loud,
yet leaves nature, alone, clouded,
incapable of solving
the riddle of human nature,
that bring summers birthing to fruition

do I in my possess,
own the love,
that's strong enough to end
the silenced weeping
of the other season's mourning abscesses,
the absence of summer?

they say it is but the mechanical turning of
the hardware store's calendar, kitchen-walled hung,
that marks the man's semi-automatic returning,
yet the paper's crossed out, numerical dates,
cannot foretell,
if the necessary passion,
the requisite human love,
the provident kindling of summer's furnace
whose heat,
can provide life's
reasonings,
will arrive on timely so that

even silence will now have found the tongue
to haunt me all the summer long;
the riddle nature could not prove,
was nothing else, but secret love

~for Victoria~

this by rights
an easy poem to inscribe

nonetheless the rhythm escapes me,
though the wordy contra-shades of
render and tender,
some incontrovertible, all well understood,
their complexity loved and
jointed-in-a-soul,
betrothing and forevermore
rendering, separating

two subtle words that shape
e v e r y t h i n g
about the this poet, 
tender boy rendered man,
by many lifetimes that fit into no
storage shed(ing)

yet this new effort requires
effort,
the verbs ripped wrenched,
the nouns hide underneath profound,
notions needed for a potent potion release;

none, ****,
do not come easy
so put aside for the
spilling
moment
though the urgency of the
needling
in-chest,
thumping,
begging
for release furiously,
fulfilling
the poets
doublin purpose:

created to create seeds

only this
a simplistic surrenders
from self, to self
emergent

tender me
the teary essence soup of human weakness
from which
to render
strength  

from that brew,
give me beauty,
the keen and the ken
the crook and the hook

to desire the next days creation
render, tender me unto,
its new chance for
beauty


6/2/18 11:30am
down by the riverside Peconic

moiety: a half, an indefinite portion, part, or share.*






          writer                                   ­  reader

             can't have one without the other

normally don't fool around with linear spacing,
there but for the grace of god the words come a tumbling
so fast I plant them down in rows as is customary

but when it comes to that moiety times two blues,
when you've been up all night laying down tracks
and nobody has read you latest histrionics,
you wondering what for do I gig this gig,
fingers asking what's the point of ink staining
heart bugging you, never satisfied, even alone,
needs somebody to know, a status update,
a poem unread is a sin my maybe friends,
so if you should you trip over a stumble ***'s poem,
good or bad matters not, when you read, you complete,
so dying on the vine, untouched, incomplete,
be the first to have moiety times two with it,
the first read is the like the first kiss,
a certification of what is called
po-moeity carnal knowledge

a half, an indefinite portion, a part,
when shared, whereon it be writ-read,
your place on heaven and earth insured,
when you seal someone's else's deal,
I'll know and I'll be putting that checkmark
in my assignment book, and if you should go so far
to press the little red heart, my finger I'll crook,
and install you as co author of the words
a po with no mo
            is half a dream half remembered

tired of singing the moiety times two blues song,
*** going, go forth and like it,
the Frenchies they got style,
when reading a po-mo they like,
they call you up on the phone and ask,
voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?
which is French for moiety times two blues no more

it occurs to me
as for a Saturday sunrise,
I'm awaiting,
witness testifying
to the
glory of the glorious,
which color-selected sky today is
pale young girl
wallpaper pink aglow dominatrixed


it occurs to me
there are probably
Thousands
of us
composing, lyric evolving,
at this exact
same minute
all over the world

see visionary behind the eyelids
scenarios, YouTube videos,
all my own, of

words tumbling,
letters individual
joining up, forming,
breaking bad,
reforming,
until and unto
combinations satisfactory

falling
from the sky
fresh direct into our heads,
the random draw
of what we will
"create"

regifted from the universe

this was my daily selection, bread,
that I did not choose, but make believe,
I did

our only choice,
none

here I am again smiley face,
as it occurs to me,*
grinning silly
thinking
I can improve
on sunrises and
poems that arrived
fully formed...

~~~~

I am seventeen already.

With a chameleon where my
heart should be, curled up,
safe and sound as I look for
something to punctuate
the expansion of my universe
of a being with. My mother,
she taps at windows in the
dark between my temples
and God says 'let there be
light', only to prove and
disprove, prove and
disprove, prove and
disprove his/her
existence over and
over again. And I,
mindful, soulless,
wait on the comfort
of volcanoes to be seen,
to be heard, to be felt."

*Simrik

A HUGE discovery (on an overheated wet snow stinky stuffy bus


no one

not the grannies, the discolored, the over bundled,
or even the seven and eight year old noisy brats,
(towing blonde nineteen year old au-pairs from Sweden)

doesn’t have their face planted on a screen

most messaging
when the light shines in and the illustration is illuminated
through the stink of overheated humans on a bus-poet

i can tell everything about you from the way
you tap on the screen

you nice you mean
you possess a southern drawl, a handwriting less ‘n a scrawl,
you are a passionate lover slow and languid,
you’re a bath splasher, a snowball thrower,
believer anything wet, well, should be a shared liquid

your think all lives matter especially mine

who plods thru life slow and safe one key tap at time,
making love in the same way and never in the afternoon

whose mother loved them swell well and made them
crazy people who smile at everyone
sharing their terra chips, body parts and
sweet spicy spit
with loving tenderness

the ones who write beneath colored decorated fingernails
so careful not carefree using the finger pads to message and
never break a nail or own a heart making a mess worthy of
cleaning up with a repairman

who lies ‘n cheats on their taxes and their lovers with
reckless impunity because you are so important
then what the heck you doing on this bus with us plebeians?

and the one next to me generationally born to use two thumbs,
but pauses to reflect on the way humans speak to one another before desensitizing blurting any old thing

And the one to whom I show this poem and insists I miss my stop so she can text me her digits and kiss that thumb
a year  later in front of a smoke perfumed fire and she whispers
smarty pants, mr smoke scribe,
who writes only love poetry
watch, what does the smoke say?

but it says nothing that cannot be best expressed by
letting my thumbs do all the talking by tapping
all over her body

aimless ruminations
(this is who I am, this is how I write)

<>

" I couldn't work or get ready for a piece of work
from a city base, from city life.
I need deep, deep quiet and a landscape too
that I can be absorbed into.
So much of the work is in the process of
aimless rumination
in which things may or may not take seed."

Daniel Day--Lewis

<>

just past six pm,
early but late, on a finely finished Friday,
long after-the-noon-hour,
the sun, presentable, clothed, well established,
high enough majesty in the hued blue sky

(all the orange pinks of  sunsetting soon to come but as of yet,
still guests of prior poems)

all around surround, the essential quiet,
essence of demure, parfumerie of the bath oil of
wind and wine, woman, a pacific stillness,
a soft sloping declension into the purity of just breathing

(well graced to prepare us for a slow descent into the soft richness
of a black ermine fur, a royal, star-studded night sky robe,
come to envelope, lit by jeweled sparklers of white dippers flickering)

but not yet...

O Magnum Mysterium!^
O Great Mystery!

a matin motet for a choral of four voices,
served up as an afternoon gift to us,
a present from the 16th century,
a tonal harmony of sweet majesty,
fills the sunroom atmosphere end of day musicale,
where we sip a Provence Rosé drink the music,
thoughtfully munch upon its pianist-accompanist,
slightly salted roasted cashews

punctuating the natural silence,
small bites of crackling noises,
planting the seeds of the nut tree in our bodies,
and licking the dead sea salt crumble, that moistens lips for licking-living

these then are the flavors of the moment,
quiet simple poignant pink and tawny tan of
clearly colored perfection

of earthly and earthy life tastes,
warmed salty sweet, from which all drawn to drink,
a celebration of the coordination of the sun outside,
the sun inside us,
sustaining, melding a harmony of soaring quietude

<>

ashamed, to have this spoil,
for just us two,
wondering why I,
why am I, compelled once more
to write of this Eden,
that so late in life I've come to cherish
as a rejuvenation, even satisfyingly sufficient
as just a bridging continuance between the speed bumps of...

of this time and place, I write once more,
surely not to flaunt, surely not to arouse,
somehow to share and tame
our crusted residues from a work week's enslavement,
end the drip of marking minutes, until to here, return,
where there are only tributes,
and no tribulations

but with you here, as well

how many times can
one mediocre poet write
of the same scenery,
the precise light, the my-oh-my-sky,
and not think, wish repeatedly,
as I do,
how I wish you were here,
all our dear ones,
to share the sharing

come sit beside us,
let I,
your faithful Sancho Panza,
pour your wine, remove thy scuffed shoes,
pull open the curtains, gift you the certains
of the great goodness of this garden,
give guidance to the yellow orb on how
to best warm the tarnished, slow eroding, river plain of
undernourished souls

let me bring you the readied ink utensil,
place in thine hand, the thin sliver of tree,
feed you, feel you feeling the felling blush of the grape skin,
all warm softened and proper chilled,
for receiving the new born fruits of inscribing

let all enfold, as we sit beside you,
watch with unconstrained delight,
as you too,
understand the addictive compulsion of this moment,
of this place and time that demands,
requires of you,  
not to justify existence, nay,
but to be absorbed,
but be come part and parcel, a resource,
grace this place and time by your hand,
elevate our existence

& write write write...

<>

always here, upon all this,
in this more or less, precise time and place,
doth nature beg me ruminate

permit eyes to inhale absolute aimlessly,
taste the floral glories, kiss the Roses of Sharon come to lavender bloom,
think deeply about nothing, and for anything present,
be concucopia bounty-full forever grateful

coming now to this our ending,
moved along by the gentling means of holy water sanctified tides,
the slow march of the sky's mentoring friends,
my aim, my ruminations, pointedly aimless,
my hands flowing, my eyes, purposedly never keener,
culminating in this so faintly heard,
nocturne of the absolutes of perfect...


<>

gifted to all my friends here,
poets who have happily transgressed into
kind caring friends

and also,
one gone missing,
Harlon,
who was, by his skill at praising this Earth's excellence,
was appointed by Nature as its very own poet laureate

7/29/16   6:06pm
Shelter Island

Foolscap
now I understand better,
the ironic humor of naming
the plain white paper before me,
where the construction commences,
the scratched surfaces, entrance ways into
the best I can hope to offer and having yet to write

                          foolscap

laugh out loud,
move over great ones,
this fool had tipped his cap,
betrayed his intention and attention,
he has a kitbag of raggedy jumbled words
as yet unassembled, and had all life to snap them
colored Lego pieces of his own design together in a way
that takes the un from unremarkable and so let this newbie

commencement be a beginning,
not an ending célèbre but a transition to
translating the heart and head and a storied vision
retained therein, treasure chested into an assemblage
pleasing to those who peek over the foolscap's shoulder

the snow has dappled doused my lower legs,
wet, does not creation commence in the wetness,
even slush that is the residue of the brilliance of snow
as a concept, even the slush, disdained and discarded,
***** grayed, from it will come my firsts, my births,
my ***** grayed, my beloved unbeloved,
sculpture of words that resound
across the better days to yet,
yet yet yet yet - a hundred
Yeats yets, sweet vets,
all I need is the first
word, so chosen,
so apropos,
foolscap


Foolscap - a type of inexpensive writing paper
Dedicated to those measured few here who have nurtured me with gentle pushes and sweet perfumed praise to push myself harder yet, push harder than I ever dared.
You know who you are.
Pray I please you.

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/596769/poet-in-trouble/

my winter beach,
is no beach at all,
but a man-tended lawn,
mostly always, a man-made
miracle green,
except when snow smothered

it sites sheltered tween
two Manhattan Isle streets,
the surrounding roofs, the balconies,
watchtowers overlooking
are its guardians


this, a private refuge,
more akin to
London's garden squares

indeed,
it hides invisible from the public's probing glares,
for it is high-wall guarded,
very few ken its existence

at the far north end are
two red benches,
the simplest kind that adorn most parks,
comfortable for an hour of two,
before the body's slowing heart demands
movement now!

it is my
imagined winter beach,
guarded by pine branches and white birch trees
plus the tumultuous sounds of
silent evergreen plantings
and subdued city cacophony

I pluck from this atmosphere
only city poems,
more hustle and bustle scripts,
than the calming summer surf writs,
that are peculiar to
sandy beach breezes

the city winter beach season
too short,
just like its true
summery country companion

soon the latecomers of
lingering warmth and the high coloration of fall
will given in to the
irrefutable and chilling demands of an
insistent I-have-arrived
winter

its super-cooled demands will banish me inward
seeking new poem information
from beaches envisioned from within ,
for now is
|all-absent
the outside inspiration

but not just yet...

October leaches into Thanksgiving,
colder and more forlorn with each ticking day,
falling leaf

for now tho,
rise early to catch the
straggler sun's still-heated rising currents
from the nearby
East River

scribble and peck,
breathing a different season's flavor
and inspirations,
more crisp,
more reddish and deeper hued
than a summer's pale blushed vin rosé,
and fall's yellows, au contraire,
brilliantly softer
than the harsh beach's yellowing sun glare

scribble and peck
drawing new drafts from the serious drafts surrounding,
these, no gentle breezes pretenders,
these, chilled winds of substance,
demand greater and different tastebuds,
cold concentration

from the red benches of my pseudo-summer beach,
my words,
surrounded by cool,
burst forth like the wintry season's breath of
exhalations,
smoking but not summarized as hot,
and far faster to cool,
quicker  to hide,
than the slow, spectacular setting allowance of a
genuine summer sunset

my scribbles and pecking performance
in and of the fall season,
smoke, but do not sizzle,
short blasts from an always,
under dressed
summer man,
foolishly attempting to transform
a green lawn with a dreams re-visualized,
calling it what he wants,
beach

the poet,
felled by the now permanent chill's vital signs,
burns smokey slowly
like fallen leaves piled and burning,
wondering out loud

have the seasonal signals
changed his long term trend,
truly modified the poet's moody perspective,
or this but a transversal changeling,
can he still believe
his summer
will yet return
one more time?

a quote from Samuel Johnson, or Dr. Johnson, the storied eighteenth-century poet and essayist who once said:

“The sole aim of writing is to enable readers a little better to enjoy life, or a little better to endure it.”

<>
our “sole aim,”

Oh what burden the doctor places on our shoveling pens,
to be earthmovers
that dig trenches, uproot earth,
that lies and hides our faces, entombing our hearts,
eliciting and erupting emotions that cannot be contained,  
nor controlled,
indeed, deserving of replanting in
our shared selves, transplanted into a communal flowerpot
of our multi bursting colored commonality

lift my composing tools,
peer into
winter blue skies guarding the towers of
Manhattan isle, longing for guidance.
lusting for specificity of direction,
how,
how, to easy our burdens
with carefully selected and
careless wonderful words,
words that deal out caring uncarefully,
with a graceful recklessness of abandon
that open thy tears,
lift up the edges of your lips,
so that my duality is your duality,
the burden shared.
the burden eased…

to cry and laugh simultaneous,
lift and lighten,
a momentary distraction,
a cut flower in our vase,
that lasts but brief,
yet with each gaze repeated and
repeatedly,
well stains us with
eyes uplifting

taking in early October
Vitamin D naturally,^
another too-oft-writ pretense that
Queen Summer yet smiles upon this
erstwhile, part-time,
nerve bundled human...

though facts contradict,
in summer uniform
he still emerges to bay and chair,
his confessional, his holy temple,
his Houdini escape chamber,
though the temperature
will not top 60 Farenheit

duplicitous as long as I can,
in this simple and so many other
lifetime items far-less-than-trivial,
incapable of obeying my brain's map
orders to cease and desist,
(or dress appropriately at least,)
to see the entirety of oneself
in the broadest of spectrum,
all colors unvarnished, fulsome,
truths rawer than any fictional 3D horror film...

what you do not know,
what you shall now know,
is Samuel Barber's Adagio For Strings
plays once more,
this time the strings
pleadingly command that now,
this time I write
unobfuscated and obtrusive...

(Ah,
those thrusting O words,
so employable, making a face shape surprised
into a rounded, somewhat circuitous
O)

decline to describe the decline,
the angle, the steepness
to-be-determined,
not to be denied for the extremities advise
the battle internal has commenced,
and without a band of brothers,
a solitary, wandering, knight-poet errant,
in search of a battle not,
for the embattlements within are
under attack...

yes errant,
off course,
of course,
the errant bay breeze
speaks to me one more time,
chiding the me-child like a goodly parent,
firm but gentle, modulating tween
just cold enough to make me shiver,
but enough not,
no, to drive me inside...

not knowing, that my inside nature
presently rebellious, all manner of riotous
transmissions beseeching pain medication

foolishness all this temporizing diversionary tactics,
the commencement is the commencement,
the beginning signal fires an ending,
a landing on runways unknown,

fear is not present,
how could it be,
I was warned once and then repeatedly,
so the brain begins yet another remapping,
contours of misshapen sensory inputs
distorted and then the  breeze
over my shoulders reads these words, and
disappears to comfort me by
unopposing the sun vitals,
letting them enter unimpeded...

so
smile creases appear
across poet's tempest face,
for though his hands
splayed and warped,
the trigger fingers stuck
and cannot pull,
the nubs obey the eyes
and solace him,
for as he promised himself,
to himself,
those poetic nerves
will write on
long after all the physical ones,
with errant breezes,
and summer peace,
gone, gone, gone...



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
^*(Oh! how that word personal,
Naturally, naturally
doth haunt me,
for mine own nature be the
leader of mine enemies allied)

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

this trip
homeward bound,
riding the Q (subway) train
from the messy grime of a
never fully repossessed
cesspool misnamed as
Times Square,

to our apartment
near but yet far,
a poem short & sweet was
born complete, on an 8 minute
fast track victory lap to periodic
successful urban planning,

that even and
even though
with and/of
which
no speedy highly
disrespectful witch
on a broomstick,
nor a midnight traffickless
auto trip,
could ever hope
to compete
<>
roses red, violets blue,
all the passengers, revelry tired,
both becostumed & be plained,
Hallowed eve festivities
again, lesser than expected,
life be, eager awaited
legal moment of crazy-
-inness-inward-permissed,
never quiet or as good
as hoped,

we tired riders
all look worn from the
aggregated
infidelities of a
a hoped-for
missing-out happier life

nearing midnight,
the new immigrants,
in subway platform
patrolling,
offer us candy for sale,
their toddler children,
beside them
at this midnight hour,
to drive home
the desperate willingness to

survive in a city oft hostile

no longer eager to be
beacon beckoning
to the world, we rethink
to our minded selves,
our Statue of Liberty
engraved invite:

"Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door”
<>
we exit the underground rout(e)
and the walk from subway to front door
is another 8 minute travelogue segment,
we cover the quarter mile on foot,
covering a skimp of distance that
our urban transport  
of many mileage covered
in the same units of minutes
in flyer miles

<>
late at night,
we walk fast, with eyes wide,
our lives to hide,
from the risks of the
unpredictable
when the street parade
of stragglers
gives not the comfort of a
rowdy crowdy,
and the existence of crime
is not
entirely fabricated

<Did>
I offer short and sweet,

Oh well I only misled,
the trip 16 minutes
and the poem
in my head,
complete emerged
with minutiae attending
et. al.,
in far far less mini~minutes,
for it was
a product of
silent back labor,
from first staggering
screaming pain
to
successful unexpected birth
that can take maybe
minutes five,
to mentally survive
plus,
physically complete the birth,
introduce this poem to life.
when the photos of my mined mind
make images from negatives
into words,:

collect, sort and report the
output picturesque
now in colors black & white,
of a trip from a Broadway theater
through to a high rise building
astride the river
which gives me
a theoretical cleaner space to breathe
<>
rather than short and sweet?
I really reseed,
redeed it as/is:
not too long and a tad
bittersweet

a night in the life of
the mixture of successes and
failures of our troubled world
in
living technicolor,
a few seconds of film
of which one could fairly,
and in fairness
bless/write/curse/
each sight
twice,
uttering:

”mine eyes have seen the glories,
as all come to look for America”

nearly



"with close kinship, interest, or connection; intimately"


~~~

it's n-early for natty,
dressed for gym penance in his
dress blue
sweats

but instead of working out,

he's working out
a gymnastic, mental, laboring problem,
that the muse mistress musters him out
to out,
and to attend to
the birthing of t-his
composition

a re-erupting volcano that
has gone and got him good,
now he's a man intimately
possessed,
with completing, recording,
an unabbreviated log of
oh so long ago's,
a list of the
oh so many

nearly

line items in his
life's lineage

nearly

went a whole life lessened by being
love less,
which always calculates as
a life lived
forever insufficient

nearly

was intimate
only
with tears self-shed,
on a single pillowcase in
a double bed,
that was unfulfilled,
no intersecting
humanity

nearly

permanentized
kinship
as a
dictionary definition official
for a
sunken vessel,
a drowning one man scull,
racing toward a finish line
that had no visible
finish

nearly

lost both sons, lost years, lost friends
lazy living in the slow, low heat
of a burning hell
of zero connections,
thinking the proper cost/benefit solution
was always,
never to be
greater than,
always
less than one

nearly

packed it in,
while overlooking a temptress river,
calling me out swiftly from the
slow lane of loneliness,
offering a

nearly

certain final outlet sale,
a mark-down event,
for clearing the heavy, overladen shelf
of over-weighty
al-one-ness,
a sale of singular single
cell marks upon human flesh

nearly

died a miserable man,
and still may,
from who knows what
pestilence consumption

but

never

from never knowing,
for the lacking of,
the unadulterated love
of a good woman*

and that is
more than,
greater than,
>
all the unknowable
nearlys

and more
than any other
nearly,*
life may yet
deny me,
or
curse me by


~~~
6:45am
Jan. 18, 2016
NYC

(for the love of Yocum...who may shoot me yet, someday...)



most like 'em
simple, short,
bite size sweets,
easy to please,
a mouthful of amusement,
even if taxing,
tax me only briefly

a small remarque,
a tiny tingling digestif,
easily consumable,
easily forgot,
a couple of lines,
one ooh, one aah,
minimum is the maximum

never been that way,
**** hard to write
what ya ain't,
so keep on scribbling
a pack of stray dog thoughts,
long, loud, and sometimes
subtly & dangerously straightforward
~~~~~~~

(feel free to stop here)

~~~~~~~~

easy are the chocolates of
loves disputations
pained morsels of remorse,
lovely to be found,
even lovelier when  lost

cream fillings of twinges of regrets,
violence wrecks the heart,
what might have been, or once was,
subjects that guarantee the
affection of the great unaffected

writ my fair share,
stage three, t'is methinks,
of the ten step process
getting more n' more
writing-addicted,

don't begrudge
the overly simplistic,
still I am, hard aside,
rough adjudging,
tiresome trite are the
dust mites of poetry

as for my own mixture of
mostly mutt and purebred
stray dog thoughts,
ones that chase
solitary strangers down
late night streets,
see you hiding from the lamplight
in the in-between shadows,
when we tender invites to
all loonies & loneliest,
join up!
with this ragtag pack of
estranged poetry dogs

maybe they don't tickle your fancy,
our words, abstruse and direct,
dictionary lookup dignified,
observations of a man
looking outward,
after looking caustically inward,
every thirty seconds

the tint of his glass enclosure,
modulating the tenor and timbre,
of his singing voice,
the changing light complecting
his visage, his visions,
his hell-howling versions of
packets of stray dog thoughts


the individual words,
constituent members of
roaming, stray dog thoughts,
sometime silent,
usually growling,
once in awhile,
roughhouse barking

but what I got is
what I get,
what I give,
scraps to eat,
raps of notional emotional
stray dog thoughts

so if ya hear those footfalls,
words that just can't be refused,
run for places where the crazies
can't get in, the packets locked out,
unlessing you wanting
to howl along side,
an appreciative audience
who can't get enough of,
consuming whole candy boxes,
in one sitting of
words that keep coming,
I will howl mine
own stray dog thoughts**

you can always shoot that **** howling dog

~Introduction~

I written here of late, under many guises and persona in order to let my work find its own unsolicited audience.
 This however, I must post as myself, for it is for my crew and longtime friends here.  
Even more so, I  must dedicate it to our Sally, who would not accept my repeated, intentionally, muddied "well" as an answer acceptable to any of her questions,  Thus, she inspired, and matriarched this prayer poem into existence.  As for the execution, the executioner takes me alone, as it should be, well and proper

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well

wonderful multipurposed word
accumulates nuances like eyelashes,
dropping daily, but all there come the new dew's diurnal arrival

ask yourself
what rises,
what wells up
comes first foremost fired up,
when, parsed, passu from you lips
this faceted word wonderful nugget,
called, know to you as

....Well....

but before I bring you on
this compassed pointed
journey to dig deep a well mutual,
compulsed to present the ending,
of this voyage,
something never rightly done
but something
that charms, delights me insanely
and so,
that with a little mark,
not even a full fledged letter,
joins us too, well and proper,
my fellow poets,
I give you,
I leave you,
I join you
as
we'll
together:

thoroughly, soundly, carefully
so much more than mere sufficiently,
better than plain good and satisfactory,
yet, not well enough for the task in my hands solely
mark this word duly, fittingly

for in possession of intimate knowledge
of you and yours, and you, of mine,
so well we know, well we write
this new poem,
a cooperative dig,
trust and friendship lie in the near surface water table,
beneath our picnic blanket where verses are fed
grape and cherries, lip to lip,
enhancing each other's wellness on a summer Sun~day

momentarily, I am of less-than-well health or peaceable mind,
but that impropriety,
shelved for now, a lesser matter,
for I must behave like one of Bo's sheep,
good little boy, all my taled words well behaved,
for in the good company of my fellow crew and mates,
all that is shared here and now,
must be pleasing and good, even as
my welling tears are daring to be
clouded joyous side effects interrupting
our prosed companionship!

by the bay,
by the quiet crescendo of gentling waves,
I write, here where I write so well, so freely,
in my chair by the dock that awaits your first flesh coming,
this bay wide, deep, but no so wide that I cannot see the
old, prosperous, whale-oil receiving harbors on the other side

this bay to the Atlantic is borne,
so worry not, water for all aplenty,
and the words that float on top,
yours, if not more than mine,
awaiting your fetching, taking,
for have I not have more than my share drunk?

on the beach,
amuse bouche made,
bored, dug and gored in white sand,
littered with well-worn pebbles,
many little hidey holes,
within each,
a new poem captained and captioned,
a treasure hunt,
well beyond their prior good well hunting

but to a tour de force we enterprise,
fetch a shovel, *****,
and many little red, and yellow pails,
to the garden, to the park, to the strip of weeds
tween the concreted pebbled sidewalks, and dig

dig well and industriously, a few inches, a few feet,
for I am bringing all that fulsome bay water to you
magically from underneath,
only need to hear you scratching above,
to know thy location,
and inceptioning your well, with crystal fluid plenished,
thus, you need not wait to join me till you
reality can

this well,
is as an addition,
a well sensed joining,
our beings improved by us intercoursing,
for as well as could be
is a
could not be better than
from
water shared and poems
sourced and spilled thereof,
noel hymns born
fresh well water amniotic fluid

Lord!

listen well,
I command thee,
(for you and I, are well intimated)
I commend this motley collection of
wordsmiths to thy care, find them well
keep them that way

in every possible way,  
insure their inspiration wells to never be dry,
their modest frames well cared for,
leave them lives of good nature,
free of rancor

if shelter needed,
my ship's wells safe, secured, and many,
give them to me for care and repair

if they satisfactory, express,
leave them
well enough alone

These words have gushed,
torents poured from places deep and rarely seen,
so my prayer is not an everyday wishful thinking thing,
heed it well,
for I cannot be
everywhere simultaneous yet

encounter me now,
prima facie, finger to finger pointing,
know the ink in the well my pen drinks,
miraculously never ends
and so many things I need,
have promised,
poems that, well,
I write to you as needed,
with caution discarded,
demanding this exceedingly
and you cannot well refuse

We'll,

my mates and me
by the  bay
write together,
that
I eager await well,
that newly hallelujah day

~~~~~~

The sun~poem also rises every evening…

A.P.U (as per usual):
this testimony~phrase tilts me sideways,
to relieve the condition, needy to be righted
one must expel the belly kicking seedling,
looking to be outed as a full fledged tree,
a poem planted, a gatherer of insects,
giving shade, perhaps shedding fruit

the sun bids adieu, self~same~centrifuge
of our solar system, is indeed alway rising
somewhere, though the light of our naked
eyes weak, incapable of trajectory bending,
to follow its course’s curvature, nonetheless,
we know it but struggle to believe just as we
struggle to complete, compare, and compose

replanted words in your heart, words that trigger,
are the notions inherent, of a center, rarely eclipsed,
that never ceases to offer up nouveau hope in each
of the days, a placenta to fret you blood and oxygen,
once purposed, discarded into darkness,
b u t
the words rise again, offering what you seek,
diurnally, need, to find within them, for my child,
is now
our child…

"two birthday presents are better than one"
sayings of the wise men

"and what an honor it is, and how could we be anything greater
(than all too human)?" 
 R.A.
~

for Rebecca, a birthday gift

~
a message of notification,
comes early one evening, an agent provocateur,
a paparazzi peeping tom,
a cat burglar presuming the poet-receiver nat is
a rat-man out and about, galavanting around town,
dancing perhaps, seeing a Pinter play, a movie,
a lecture on string theory, an underground railroad rock concert,
reading a book of priestly poetry, or himself,
lost in a mesmerizing revery of poetic composition

her question, a statement of fact, a reflection,
one or all, all for one, this pronunciation,
a witness deposition re the human condition

the man is knocked askew in about
an instantly,
sitting before the voluptuous fireplace's crackling complications,
fire sensing the multiples of implications,
contemplating the failing honor of human limitations,
sensing the uniqueness of our successes,
a claiming race prize
for all of we humans
in her words

now how great is this knowledge that we,
all to human,
all too human,
need let this then be the first
thought/ message/ notification -
meditation of our every day

that we honor ourselves first,
our upstart blessing,
in order to honor our world
and its bedazzling human creativity


~
We find our poems in many different ways.  Of late,
I keep finding inspiration from the messages that many of you send to me, re the poems I choose to publish here. So I repeat my disclaimer, "any message you send can and will be used as a poem."