<>

you pout and defer, dancing backwards,
claiming, blue is now blackened
from underuse, incapable and incapacitating revival

saying  eyes cannot see, distinctly, neither near or far,
the tremble of love, forgot & distantly absent,
but I know, a heart’s sensory muscles never die,
though weaken they might, underused, un-exercised

denying  that inspiration  
no longer resides with in thy sensitivities,
has fled, undercover of smoking forest fires
all the diurnal hazards that invade, occupying

my internal spaces once filled by poems
you conceived, birthed, in a pleasured haze,
came so fast, you bare recall agony accompanied,
but not the ecstasy of the end resultant!

you know it’s you of whom I write, but,

a note not shaming names, but messages
countless private messages have I sent
begging, beseeching, give me your gifts

once more, you owe me not, though I
oft irritate with my deafening pleas,
yet only denials continue, my pleas ding
but dent not, the tired fear of your exposition

so speak to you plain,
feed my soul selfish
like in years gone past,
there are holes in mine

that require your elixir,
creamy softness that moistens
my face with tears of your words
originating, astound, enfold

not later, not soon, not excusals,
write for me NOW, WRITE FOR YOURSELF,
but leave me not forsaken and thirst un-slackened,

Answer! To whom do you owe your poems?

~ For Eliot York~
& Sally and Patty m
who convinced me to post it


The answer my friend is
but one,
just one.

Blessed are those who bless you.
I say it.
20 times a day,
and sometimes 2000


I have lived this life,
afraid to fail,
and in doing so,
in deed, because of it,
failed repeatedly.

yada, yada, yada,
in a gadda
da vida,
baby,
don't you know that I'll always be true.

nine lifetimes
all, longtime gone,
yet, I still talk among you all,
for which the
requiring, surviving,
is
a tiny tablet daily,
of swallowed pride, history and
adult/e/rated luck.

omnipotent natural forces,
pretend to manage human affairs
most unnaturally,
sandy gods of wind and storm
bring dämmerung's
Sturm und Drang.

these forces are the
placers, surveyors, tabulators
and ultimately the
takers
of the divine sparks within us.

yet,
before them,
on bended, torn knees,
I am humbled.

for knowing just
one read
is all it takes,
to be acknowledged and
thus begins a commencement of a life
of indentured servitude
in gratitude
to
le rêve poétique
(the dream poetic)

yet,
I.am read more oft
hundreds of times a day.
~
who could have foresaw,
prophesied this outcome,
a statistical anomaly,
that the taste of me
could be so,
miracle of miracles,
wet warm and well received.

know not this craft,
unaware of its conventions,
meter rhyme and to the
other laws of poetry,
I plead a woeful countenance,
even a willful ignorance.

yet,
here I am bowed
by the weight, of the good graces,
so many have bestowed,
from the four corners
of this Earth
and worlds beyond.

a nubile newcomer,
who long wrote to himself, for himself,
audience of
one + one = two,
the man and
his foolishness in words,
now betraying publicly
what no counselor, doctor judge or lover, lawyer ever knew,
even family.

but who are you?

plainly admit,
do not understand.

ok there is a handful times five,
we are well connected,
a small coterie who
share each others
most private painful secrets,
pari-passu-mutuel,
mots friends of faithfulness,
dare not, deign, diminish them
ever
by calling them followers,
for now they are friends

but who are the rest of you?

step forward,
identify yourself,
that upon thy neck
I may fall,
whispering in your ears,
sweet I.am thanksgiving yam-words

none of us can be a sweet poem pie
unacknowledged,
unstated, unsated, untasted
and forever believe.

it takes lioness courage
to present your naked self,
place thy head in the guillotine,
expecting the silent applause of ignorance,
expect to be ignored,
just another head in the collection basket,
accursing those who curse you with
the now quieted slaughtered lambs,
the scribe's swords of smoke,
plaintive waterwords vaporized,
seeds unplanted,
the bleating sounds silenced.

He crouched, he lay down like a lion
    and like a lioness; who will rouse him up?

I am a poet of the present,
you have brought me out of Egypt.

you have roused
my present days dying,
making my days of dwelling,
in the tent of Jacob,
an encampment of palm groves,
as a present
unto me.

The answer
is indeed just as you expected,
blowing in the wind,
through cedar trees beside the waters,
in the gardens, beside a river...

just one,
how thankful I.am to say,
blessed are those who bless you,
each and every
One.**

<•>
written so long ago the date was erased,
back when the journey of a thousand too long poems,
was just beginning
posted only because
a few of you insisted.
If perchance you think this is some kind of self-glorification,
then you don't get me at all.
<•>

a silent metronome,
we know exactly when,
when sleep pleads us enter,
and when it bids us adieu,
when we growls for sustenance,
or begs for plenty of the mercy
of emptiness to cleanse our void,
when to compose,
when to repose,
when to dispose,
and when tempos dictate
lay down child,
fallow!

but its greater feat,
when sounds the bells of alarm,
when need is greatest,
for arms embraces,
wet lips to refresh,
bodies to synapse,
eyes require delight,
when needs be greatest,
for that very first infant step
to what can only be ever felt,
but is otherwise undefinable,
for another
+to make us complete,
a unity, an,
us+

a birthday poem for S.

perhaps, this is the responsibility, the purposeful gentility,
that poetry engenders, that thwarts the impulse to anger,
guiding away, finding a way, to temper the temper, to out
and joust away our basest, our first, but never our foremost
nor finest, succinct instinct, yet terrible human nonetheless...

perhaps, this is where we hide, neath our carnival masque,
our-would-be better selves, and struggle in this, this intensity intentional,

the season's change is subtly blatant, not obvious 'cept to those
who have a front seat, a well worn Adirondack chair in the nook
where the airy breeze offers fruits of words so easy, pluck words
as easy as breathing, and the slight gradation change, in the light and
temperature, and yet, the suns cares not, for it still warms my body,
though lower and slower, nonetheless, when the heat invades my soul, confirming my, our, existence,

burning off the fog of our contradictory confusions,
and eliciting an unsolicited
"thank you god"
for my, our personal miracle of re~birthing
and better comprehending,
that other
miracle we can embrace
never enough

loving kindness

sun~mon
sep 14~15
twenty twenty five

for Alyssa Underwood
~~~

my poems do not trend, go viral,
Fast and Furious!


yet, they do not die


they lay in plain sight pebbles scattered,
smoothed by time,
upon the surface of the
green earth waiting patient, virtuous,
purposed for itinerants bards
to trip over one
one some someday

somehow they accrete a readership,
slow stepping and steady from,
|the seekers and the stumblers,
the droplet drinkers,
meanderers of the tomes and tombs of prior years,
miners for nuggets in the poem pools that form
beneath the alluvial streaming
of the waterfall crescendo
of words

I like this

when another traveler sends me a like,
a petite amuse-bouche bite of appreciation,
for a long ago, barely recalled, writ,
allowing them to carve their initials upon the
external, visible roots of my tree trunk,
invading me, by darkening a prior tree internal ring,
forcing me to look down,
look back,
take measure of myself,
accepting myself as not wanting,
nor lacking in other's acceptance

these statements are neither  boastful or illusory,
yet still joyous, like caramel pleasures,
slow to chew, fast to the taste,
reminding me of old friendships,
well valued,
though no longer fully employed,
their uncovering is my own refreshed exposure,
their discovery is my own re-discovery,
exposing flaws and fallacies,
even fallow,
mostly shallow facts
about me

all of them,
a sundae of truths and lies, sharing a happy laugh
with and at
me,
when I think to myself,

"crap,, did I write that?"

copyright 2015 by Nat Lipstadt

~ ~ ~
Adieu!
My Crew, My Crew!


this, our first trip,
our longest voyage,
nears completion

eighteenth of May,
a terminal date,
date of destination,
upon it commenced,
upon it,
our commencement

a terminus nearing,
a degree of latitude given,
a degree of longitude observed,
by you
mes méridiens,
witnesses to my zenith,
a degree of gratitude granted
and lovingly recv'd

adieu, adieu!
this sole~full rhyme
beats upon my lips
repeats and repeats,
endlessly looped,
Adieu, my crew!

sailor, voyageur,
scribe and travel guide
for four seasons,
a composition of one long
anno sabbatico,
muy simpatico

in the spring of '13
I sprung up here,
a Mayflower,,
a May flower,
a floral ship,
annual for a single year,
annual for a single circumnavigation

hearing now once again,
refreshing sounds,
hinting noises,
here comes his paul simonizing summery spring again,
rhyming timing reminding dylan style,
it's all over now, my babies blue

t'is season to move forward,
back to old acquaintances renewed,
sand, water and salty sun,
three lifelong friends who,
Auld Lang Syne,
never ever forget me

we get drunk on their eternity,
their celestial beauty,
and they,
upon my tarnished earthly being,
unreservedly and never judgingly,
give inspiration unstintingly,
we share,
never measuring a captain's humanity
by mystical formulae of reads or hearts

for
grains of sand, water wave droplets and sun rays,
all
only know one measure,
immeasurable

respect the
never-ending new combinations
of an old nature,
even the impoverished words he speaks,
words as they exit the
brain's grand birth canal,
whimsically announcing their poetic arrival with a:

"been here, done that,
but happy to do it,
one more time,
just ever so differently"

the only counting
that satisfies them and me,
the clicking sound be,
the sound of a
a pointer-finger tablet-clicking,
heartbeats a metering,
individual letters being stork-delivered,
and

yellow lightening
when it comes,
signifying family completion,
a poem,
a family,
comes
crackling real!

here comes spring again!
happily to shackle me,
shuckling me back to and fro,
to whence I came,
and from
whence I once
and always belonged

memorial weekend,
memorializing me,
orchestrating a prodigal son's
two edged tune,
a contrapuntal contrapposto,
a "fare-thee-well, man"
and a
"hello son, welcome home!"

that empty Adirondack chair,
by my name,
with your names
in tears inscribed upon it,
awaits

the breezes take note,
singing a duopoly:

this ole chair
needs refilling,
Rest & Recreation for your Rhythm & Blues,
your busted body boy
healing with our natural scents,
calming with common sense

with it,
will and refill,
the cracked breaches,
by phonetic letters frenetic,
drinking, then purge-spilling,
a speckled spackling paste of comfort food words
given of and given by,
given back to,
the bay's tide
and beaches
and

you, crew,

let this soul captain briefly lead,
spilling too oft his new seed,
he,
selected but unelected by a
raucous silent voice-vote...
of an unknown,
impressed-into-service crew

some of you
impressed upon
the skin of this captain man's sou!,
a cherishment so complete,
yet has he to fully comprehend,
its miracality,
the golden epaulettes upon his shoulder,
worn ever proudly

the nearest ending,
one of many.
a course of waterfall and rapids survived,
yet invisible shoals fast approaching,
a single bell tolling, warning,
here was, here comes,
yet another,
close calling

sirens shriek
forewarning,
can't abide a moment longer thus,
desperate longing
for a refuge of language loved,
not lost in lands and a sea of
ranted bittersweet journaled cant
and hashtags of sad despair

can't lengthen this sway,
grant a governor's stay,
cannot

heaven schedules our lives,
completed a time out
in a day,
twenty four hours of fabulous, fabled
and of late,
a shopworn, forlorn existence,
three hundred and sixty five times,
circularized on these pages

now
no forevermore, no forestalling,
only the truth,
a grizzled, unprimped,
mirror'd recognition

flutes,
sad low whistle,
trumpets,
wild maimed moan,
violins,
jenny jilted wailing tears, groan,
and harps and guitars,
each pluck single notes plaintive,
long and slow their disappearing reverberation,
but end it must

none can deny or fail to ascertain,
port of our joint destination,
pinpointed on maps as
"the last curtain call,"
just over the nearby horizon line,
demarcating the finality
of the days of glorious,
and the quietude of
a storied ending

my crew, my crew,
forever besided,
forever insided,
bussed, bedded, and bathed,
with me,

wherever I write most,
wherever I write eyes moist,
my crew
of all captains,
whose fealty I adore
and to whom,
my loyalty unquestioned sworn,
upon righteous English oak
an oath unstained,
an American bible, an American chest,
blood sworn here forever to
my
brothers, sisters and children
many who by title me addressed
this man as,
grandfather,
yet friends
from foreign-no-more-lands

this is only a poem,
this is only the best I have

This to me given,
and now to you returned,
encrusted with trust

for
we together,
were
a new combination
all our own

my crew, my crew,
for you:
my seasonal Yule log-life burns
every day,
all years of my life shiny shiny
copper-burnished teapot whistling
you, your names
a tune of the past,
and the yet to come

I care,
burdened more
than than you ere known,
dare I bear
to bare-confess

for and by you was I,
my restlessness lessened
my unrest less,
so comforted by an out-louded,
deep-welcome-throated reception
let it end thus,
no whimpers or cries,
no misunderstanding

in a Wilderness of Words,
sought you out,
your name and lands,
yours, purposely hidden,
disguised and unknown,

while I placed before you,
my name
my birthplace,
the poetry of my truths,
the jagged laughing,
the cryptic crying,
at myself,
foibles, pimples and the
the insights inside,
mine own book of revelations
all clear in the
drippings of my clarifying
cloudy tears

stranger to friends to chance,
all by chance,
sharing nodules, capsules,
even tumors and ill humors

your affection and simple heroism,
left me both gasping,
and leaves me now,
grasping

your hearts sustain
and are sustainable,
in ways the word,
organic,
not even remotely
adequate, sufficient

in ways
that can be secreted here,
in sharing,
private messages,
snippet exchanges,
that are valored above the rubies of
public hearts that
claim attention
but are gold bonded hand cuffs,
nonetheless!

my left, what is left,
to your strong right,
by rings married we are,
you and I,
a secretion on our kissing lips,
a perfumed essence called
No.365
"secrets of us..."

Wit I were a man
who could advance
his essay further,
but this voyage,
closed and done,
but a steamer approaches
where they need a third mate,
no questions asked,
no names exchanged,
no counting the change in his heart and the,
holes in his heart pocket

asking not,
are you friend long term true,
or just a fly by night,
short-winded trend

so onto
ports that are nameless,
needy for discovery,
perhaps,
they will have a fruitfulness
unripened,
awaiting verbal germination
so yet again,
when he wipes away
with back of a hand,
his fresh fears,
moistening those dried,
those crack'd lips

underneath will be yet found
a perhaps,
a
fully formed, yet to be shared,
new poem,
that gives value
standing on its own,
and perhaps, rewarming, reawakening,
his gone cold and pale,
yet quivering moving,
his almost stilled silenced spring,
but not quite,
lips...


--------------------------------

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                            But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

                     Walt Whitman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And the words that are used
For to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they’re spoken
For the chains of the sea
Will have busted in the night
And will be buried at the bottom of the ocean

A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in

Then the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touchin’
And the ship’s wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin’

bob dylan

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

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon
We'll meet (I know we'll meet) beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

No more sailing
So long sailing
Bye, bye sailing...

Jack Lawerence

http://m.wikihow.com/Unhook-a-Bra

Pinch the eyelets but oh so gently,
To properly unhook the device to safely release paradise
From it's containment chamber.
This be one of many secrets to unlocking
The mechanism that holds some of the happy things
The human body artist conceived
To perpetuate the
Species.

According to the internet,
To extract joy to the world correctly,
Depends upon both your station and your
Positioning.

Thus, it helps to have GPS,
Which most men think is that pointy thing
Between their legs,
But is not.

Given the laws of gravity,
And other natural limitations,
Sadly that utensil of little avail
In this surgical operation.

If one desires to release the tension
Between the connectors of the protectors,
Guardians of her heart,
It will be necessary to
Let your fingers do the walking.

So cut and paste the title above,
In your web browser place!
Do your homework or risk feeling
As petite as a schnauzer.

Seems your natural tendency,
Righty or lefty, matters in this endeavor,
Of which I was unawares, oft pressing the incorrect lever.
This, the likely cause of my spectacular
Teenage
Fumblings and failures.

Had I known that fact,
In the days before the Internet,
Surely I would have brought along my
Catchers mitt
To step up my game.

Sage advice the article provides:
Get a bra, and practice, practice, practice!
It gets easier with experience.

But methinks that is a bit of a
Risky adventure,
Lest you be seen boy,
Practicing upon yourself,
Or even a dummy,
Dummy!

So cut and paste the title above
In your web browser,
Do your home work or risk feeling
As petite as a pocket schnauzer.

But the most important tip
This wealthy article of information provides,
The conclusion.

In the hour of your desperate struggle,
Drooping
Ego
And
Crushed
Pride,
Ask for assistance from one more practiced,
Hopefully nearby,
Whose help usually comes with a charming smile
of touching condescension
For your male idiocy and verbal in-articulation.

She, unawares, that you have got her
Positioned precisely where you want!

For when you lift her up,
In a free state, the one Divinity intended,
and in your arms, enfolded and protected,
In one grand poetic gesture,
Sweep her off her feet,
Her surprise will be

..
O

So Touching!

Everyone a Sailor

Sept. 2010

Everyone a sailor,
everyone a waiter,
everyone a planner,
everyone an executive chef,
charting courses for grownuphood,
planning meals, banquets.

foolishness, selecting the ingredients for
an award winning recipe of life ,
marking stars,
sextant in hand,
make meetings,
scheduling a conference call,
practice risk taking,
serving, while multitasking

serendipity is mine to
make and behold

marry this one,
add a little cumin,
travel seven seas and
have seven sons,
the eighth I'll discover and
name it after me,
Son of Mine Own Stolen Days

Lighting or storm,
illness and thunder,
ne'er will be disturbances,
on my voyages

But we forget,
we err,
the danger of being becalmed is the one we ignore,
the slowest leakage,
drowned by seepage,
the small risk that transforms us from
sailors to one who
waits,
alone on a lost isle,
with nothing of substance on which to survive,
we slow starve to death on a
diet of our own
mixed metaphors

There was a time,
when I did not value time,
discarded days like seeds
random scattered in garden,
more curious than hopeful
what might appear, and uncaring if
they were all winded away

Who spent days like cash,
thinking I had plenty and
more to make,
gave away in haste
what had no redeemable value,
thinking time was refuse and waste

Becalmed,
what need for chances,
daily escapades,
gave twenty years of mine
away to the undeserving, punished by God, cancer stricken
*****, who made me so miserable for so long,
in one grand gesture,
signed it away,
and asked the devil
for nothing in return

Did not drink,
Did not take pills,
Did not smoke,
But life disdained,
I try to **** myself
By eating TV dinners
six times daily

Do not laugh,
it nearly worked
and my obit
would have been the lead
side splitting ar-tickle in the
New York Times
Science Section!

But here I am
a survivor,
and I have formed
an association of one;
The Society of Explorers, Planners and Plotters
And Those Who Serve By Waiting

We meet once every day
for the rest of my life,
call the meeting to order,
Consult Robert's Rules,
Quorum of one present?
No new business?
Meeting adjourned!

Meeting Summary:
You may plan with good
intent
You may buy or you may
rent
You may be bereft or
content
You may plan or just
wait
**but if you let a day pass
without recording one
poetical truth
in your own manner,
of your own choosing,
then you have failed
yourself,
do not wait,
set sail!

In My Salad Days



Salad Days

Wikipedia:
Modern use, especially in the United States, refers to a person's heyday when somebody was at the peak of his/her abilities, not necessarily in that person's youth.
                        ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Salad

Hints of tints of golden
pear skins,
combine with
ruby'd cranberries
each a face, the cheeks of alcoholic old men,
each wrinkle,
a life's recording.

All are mates for the
marcona almonds
nestling, playing hide n' go seeking
tween silk sheeted leaves of
butter lettuce.

All dressed to the nines,
underneath a top hatted, cravatted, Fred Astaire
marinade.

Coated, bathed, loved,
protected by a vinegar of balsams,
aged grape must, pressed,
a lovely, desirable color,
a brown and bronzed rust,
pressed, then left,
to easy rest for
oh so many years,
like I do, easy resting,
when  you feed me in
My Salad Days.

The Days

Though it was a life,  decades destructed
Millenniums of de minimus,
Forty plus Seders of exile, of hell,
Marked by promises, whispers, horseradish tears of
Next Year and Jerusalem,
Time steeped in a tradition of patient waiting.

Each year, recorded by a spot of red wine
Purposely Spilled,
By my father on unbleached Passover tablecloth,
To example, to symbolize that
Messiness in life,
Is O.K.

The Salad Days

Salad served with irony generous,
When beard greyed and scraggly,
White speckled, wisps of sea salt,
All my youthful greenery, long wilted.

Yet the words herein writ are my
Afikomen, my just dessert,
My victory song of Hallelujah
Just before we eat, celebrating
My Feast of Ascension, marking a
Delayed Arrival, yet right-on time of
My Salad Days.

It was only when
I was resurrected as two bodies,
A pair of cuffed links coupled,
In My Salad Days,
With the taste of freedom,
A first-born infant survivor,
Was I rebirthed, and to the fore, risen.
When words fell from smiling lips, and
Rain and tears flew upwards, and
Each and every breath was an
Amen.

My Prize for Waiting
~
tucked in all by myself,
resting dark and quiet
in the thin place^
where the distance between
this world and the next,
is no distance at all,
but  a few inches separating,
easily fordable, back and forth-able

my palms, hands down,
come to rest on my *******
and the two thumbs in unison,
begin to sweep the streaming space of their in-between,
conducting a radar sweep-search for the precise point
passageway to poetic mystical places,
hoping to snag any residuals for safekeeping

no hurry to either arrive or depart,
in patient attendance for
rhythms of woven word arrivistes,
coming in no particular order,
asking to be seized, greedy to be
nominated and recognized, immortalized,
as great poetry, prize worthy,
kept for all time inside others poetry chests

but in the thin place,
dream records are not kept,
hazy scraps at best retained,
a recipe for a witnessed totality,
is only a soupy reduction of a
few seconds of hazed video,
that can neither give nor get
no satisfaction

the plastic surgeons attempt to reconstruct
the body of the meal, the real deal,
alas, there are no prizes either
for botched surgeries and pretty but meaningless
poetry scraps

the only evidence of my travels,
a flushing, blushing residual flow,
slow to dissipate, a hangover makers mark
of a sojourn best described as unsatisfying,
my blush, a prize for waiting but failing,
“the most peculiar and most human of all expressions”^^

woe to me when returned in ignominy,
medaled in only base irony,
me and philosopher Pliny,^^^
both dying while recording our own private Vesuvius,
our bodies preserved by voluminous volcanic ash,
but alas, you cannot recite the ash of poetry

so one waits, cut and pasting brown edged
burnt photographs epistles,
that are clinging and clung to the distaff spindle,
insufficient to weave a flax complete

and yet we return perforce twenty four hours from now,
to snag another prized piece of meaningless,
my prize for waiting
in the solitude of the thin place

3:35am Saturday April 6th, 2019

~
last nights scrap

cease your whining,
seize your waiting,
therein is your own paid price
for the prize of inspiration

inspired by Jean Fisher,
a real prize winning poet

and it emits a cry, of sudden surprise,
a howl for the hole in its roundtable tummy,
when it pleads for knowing, for it knows not of
knowledge, why this light comes, who bids it enter,
and why this entity they call mother,
has all the answers required,
and why the father,
moves so
stealthy
to hug
them
both
and
squeeze them together

7:33am
Sat Sep 11
2025

in the babies room,
in the keep

Wrote this eons ago, tonight, once more,
spend some human capital, editing...
Something to think about
as we tuck ourselves in.

the young'uns keep on asking me for tips,
secrets, to this art, magical poetry gig,
as if I had any left unrevealed.  

recalled this old'n,
from a vintage poetry year,
as a suggestion,
a stating-starting place,
for young poets:

do not self-chain,
let the words take you
where
they lead, write them up
for the rhyme is waiting,
in the heart chest deep down,
not on the screen.

I read you Goodnight Moon,
Falling asleep beside you.


<•>

People stop rhyming...

When first you overcome your fears,
And dare to put on paper your tears,
Give it up, set yourself free from the shackles,
Of thinking a rhyme is a necessity for a
Rooting tooting writing of a
**** good poem
or a barrel of
crackles

If you feel lost,
Want to share the cost,
Feel not bossed,
By a newbie's need
to believe that if it rhymes
Everyone will like your poem
Just fine

And if you get past this stage,
And advance to the next page,
Do not think that writing down a sentence of
Your mind's first up, innermost thoughts,
Is something that will make you
Less lost, heralded, worthy of a parade,
And be blessed with an A  
In your Teacher's pet grade book

My heart broke.
I feel bad.
I feel sad
Cause my man/woman left me
And I hope
Someone kicks his or her ***

That Ain't No Poem Neither...

And if you can't help but complain repeatedly
How life ***** and you're feeling blue
extremely indiscreetly,
Don't make me try on your scribblings
intimately indiscriminately,
Read a million, even wrote a few myself

You think you can write?

Then employ a word outside your comfort zone,
Go it alone,
Write just four sentences that will make
The hopeful reader stand up and you,
Twice as much, and shout

Hallelujah *******.

Work. Poetry is work. Hard work.
Don't fret. But, think on it.
Let it come easy, then let it rest,.
Then spend days editing every comma,
And when you love it so much,
You are chest busting bursting,
Why have you not pressed Send already?

Have the sweetest dreams.
In the morning, when you but awake,
A poem will be aborning in thy mind,
And dare I say it, you will find a new freedom
In free verse.
(I know you will slip in a rhyme or two,
I can't help but do it too)

G' nite!

After reading about some tribal warfare in a far away land, I wrote this true story down. Now re-published every year on this day. Seems more appropriate than ever

one July 4th,
many years ago
walking the streets,
of the city of Nice,
situe on the Cote D'azur of France,
on the Mediterranean Sea,
where ships of navies
may safely park their sailors,
sending them ashore for R&R,^
they, leavened to disembark^^

how I came to be there is a
poem for another time

walking the streets,
palm tree resort,
along La Promenade Des Anglais,
coming at me,
Three Sailors,
unmistakably
American

one white,
one black,
one brown from California,
which I believe,
is still part of the USA

how we fell upon each other
in warm embrace,
smiling, bestowing
blessings of grace
not as strangers,
but as fellow signatories
on the Declaration of Independence

brothers,
long lost, reunited,
as if it had been many years,
since we last had our arms entwined,
one family from one far away united place

dialectical differences ignored,
even the wide-eyed 'Bama boy,
totally comprehensible, for on that say,
we spoke a language that
encompassed a single brotherhood,
a common histoire,
all on that
holy day

no tribes in America, no colors,
no religions,
only sisters and brothers-in-arms

I need not choose to believe,
for it is certainty guaranteed,
that should it happen again
twenty years hence,
perhaps with their great grandsons,
my embrace will,
exactly the same be,
for I know it true,
there are
no tribes
in an
American heart

~for Maya, the Persian Canadian farmer in the dell~

your poetic riddling questions without hesitation re
my claim conceptual
refuting with factoids actuarial experiential derived,
that cows need milkshake making daily by sunrise

nonsense
so you wake me up groggy on a Miami Saturday 6:00am
with a reciprocal poetic to a dashed off to contra my
code of conduct poem-mine;
and all that stumbles through my almost reset rested,
main stem cortex is an a ancient hebrew homily:

on Sabbath Saturday, even the cows sleep late

ok;
just tween us rare passes the day that a glancing phrase doesn’t register a stabbing whine “of me, of mine do sing” and your point counterpoint incision demands inspiration instant re-mission

around 10am when the amiable barn aminals sipping cuppa #3,
and the chicken children want a weekend brunch xtra feeding
are done, in the yard, put out to
pack n' peck n’ play

so that’s an intro to this work
that jumps the line of a
hundreds of other’s poems promised and overdue:

insight inside your crafted wake up slam slap was
pretty **** near the makers mark bourbon of this distillers
bourbon barrels bulbous poem’s bibliothèque that
has an  impatient waiting list
of poems waiting anointing

each a personage~poem of that day it was birthed inscribed

this particular one for you,

~
my complexity non-Napoleonic
just humanoid each, here are my leaders from and
into a veining so lovely colored

each poem a waving wheat stalk
before these old tired eyes close to closing hear once more

“of me, of mine do sing”

so I follow all of you by dimming yellow light,
for this is the soil of nutriment rich from where my
words grow taller and the yellow infusion feeds my wheats,
the amber, the red hard and soft, the whites, the durums,
and mon préféré, prairie spring white,
which is my secret nickname for a duality woman,
poet and farmer,
posing riddles
that deserve answers

maybe


—-
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2503650/little-ole-me-a-riddle-of-sorts/

a love poem, of new & old,
why I am the summer-man!^

summer is winding down,
sky’s multi blues freezer safe stored in ziplock see thru bags,
marked and named by hue, the where and the when,
so when the eyes finally fail, when the squinting don’t help,
when the good things those good blues aroused,
poems, lush and morning thanks for being alive come-not-at-all,
quite the opposite, these cold blues
may help, to recall why it was worth breathing

summer is winding down,
so am I, the synchrony no accident, time,
the Pharmacy kitchen calendar
claiming another victim, willing or not,
those cars and the blue eyed models,
are now but blurred wishes and hopes, even these words, spoken,
not finger scribed, for the keyboard a
jumbled jungle of alpha-numerical
of confusion hellish and
my sons don’t come to clean up my pathetic messes, sending
their little children, beloved concubines of my heart

the daytime watcher, spanglish her native lingo,
tho single words she’s pretty good at too, but that don’t help much;
the grands, toddlers to pre-teens, the eldest a womanly eight,
tries but soon frustration bored, slips away quiet like
replacing her with her two year old sister, who knows her alphabet
which ain’t an exactly a help, but her five pencils stored^ nearby,
tagged with her name, awaiting her poems, her one true legacy

try to imagine her as a grandmother, farseeing the day when she
occupied this too too hard to-get-out-of-by-myself “easy” chair,
making rhymes with her next-next generational  descendants,
faint remembering the silliness sorcery that I secreted in her brain;

zingo, bingo, lingo
tango, ginkgo, jingo,
** ** oh no, oh no!

ashes, gray hairy poppy is a silly,
when he is not a grumpy,
old man all fall down!

which she acts out with giggles galore,
adding a teacup embellishment,
a creme fraiche pearly teeth smile topping,
the day watcher agrees, verrry verrry funny,
but time to me *** and take a needed morning *****

no poppy! no poppy! no poppy!
no nap, no ***, no *****!
thinking the call out is for her,
stomping her feet in an alternating rhythm and rhymes

I, happy poppy, ecstatics drooling out,
foreseeing the rhyme is strong in her,
get wheeled away crinkled and crackling,

zingo, bingo, lingo
tango, ginkgo, jingo
** ** oh no, oh no!

ashes gray hairy poppy is a silly,
when he is not a grumpy,
old man all fall down!


a new genre me of gibberish summertime love poems

~commissioned accidentally by a melody,
a passing glance, a purring perchance,
an idle innocent comment,
to be born as the first poem of this day,
@7:00am
Tue Sep 18 2025,
writ in haste, before
departing over many islands to
another place called "home"~

---~<>~---

sometimes,
not so secret,
anon, ^
sometimes,
so much more,
than that but a glancing of favoring,
a handshake secreted, is actually felt,
actually secreted,
and rare though via~able,
it passes through a longing traveled voyage,
over wire, under sea's cabling, through space,
hoisted from & by satellite over continental divides
just a hop, skip and jumpstart
over this tiny planet,
and though, but, an amorphous 👍 thumb,
a colored 💙 or collared,  
or a pointing 🫵
body part
the like,
bears more than just a passing resemblance
to another

f o u r   l e t t er   w o r d

its often lost & found
dear cuz ^^
full of meanings hidden,
or even
anon,
"I'll be there shortly"^
                                                         magic!                                               ­         
                                                       ­                                                           nml

inspired by Ben Noah Suri
<>

come to us in twilight, and just before sunrise,

in the in~between times, when souls exit and enter.

through microscopic cosmic windows, and there

is nothing but you and the full emptiness of earth

and then!

fill our void with words as yet unborn,

and aid all our passages from nether to glory...

for you,

we, await...

for guidance inherited from

all your visions of greater-than-us metamorphosis

<>
upon first awakening and reaffirmation of life,
reading the first poem of the day
6:59am
Sabbath
Sep 13
2025

Airborne Muse #2: Once I wrote: (1)

if it cannot be said
in ten words, it cannot

(but now, older wiser, more intuitive)

I be~leave five is plentiful

and I'm still
                                        working on
                                                              ­                   the three of:

thee and me

&
and one day,
I"ll get to maybe, and
reveal a bare skin
of brotherly love,
and speak of the
trinity of two;
but I'm open to your suggestions,
                                                                ­             re that too:

note tho,
must be superior superlative than:
above beyond
                                              just merely

we two

11/26/24
12:27pm
last updated
7:07am
9/28/25

a gift for Aladdin Aures H
from his 3rd follower...

<>><<>
the inescapable need,
unformed firmament
inquiring; am I capable?

the impulse palpable,
the urge to urgent,
to gorge and disgorge?

instead of morning prayers,
precomposed and ordered,
morning poem plucked from

morning fog, gusted breezes,
early-on, newborn sun rays,
progeny of disheveled skies

words fused, in irregular sizes,
senses censured by drowsy eyes,
but the chest beating arrhythmia

means bursts of free verses
superimposed on reluctant eyelids,
jigsaw puzzlement be re-conformed

and the first poem of the day,
emerges from the intersection
of mind, pale dreams, and the

first is special till the neu morrow,
when fresh bursts explode inward
to windward, and the first is just

yesterday's mesh of hash,
once formidable, now last,
pinned, yellowing, purely a
*descendant of the recent,
but always, ancient past^

3 X 5 index card poems

3 smallish poems in five minutes
~
reheating

honey can I make you something to eat?

no babe, you know I hate to see you cooking, frying
standing over pots and stirring sauces
trying to brush
wisps of bangs from your eyes
  while wearing kitchen mitts

What I would prefer is something leftover,
reheated served with a smiling grin from my ear
to wayover down under there,
next to you

<•>
old words are better than than new ones

hey, hi! how you doing, old friend?

“yo, out of the hospital feeling so much better;
had some kind of ‘itis’ which they cured with an ‘yisis’!”

glad to hear; impressed by all those new big scientific words;
frankly preferred your old ones,  that were rediscovered and
reoriented in new ways in your poems verses;

me?
never better cause to hear from a man
whose optimism has yet to meet a
match
that he can’t best,

heals all our wounds

<|>

if you told me

that I could spend three successive rainy days in almost all silence, perfectly contented by myself,
i’d said you crazy,

isn’t that true babe?

~~
dedicated to Ashleigh Riddle,
who knows that forwards and backwards can both be the right way



<>
Homework assignments, please pass them in!

Mmmm ok who didn't submit?

Stand up please!

Ah Mr. LIPSTADT, I should have known!
No poem?

Oh yes sir, I have a poem, even three!

But the dog et them, so if you want, I'll
Recite them please?

{general laughing and snorting in the classroom}

Oh really, Mr. Lipstadt,
why don't you come up to the front
And share with us but one of,
(big sneer on teach's face)
Your creativity!

Shuffle up to Buffalo, where hysteria breaks out,
For now the world is informed that I am wearing
One black and one brown shoe,
The din is attracting the notice of the class
next door, room 402.

Order! Order! Settle down.

Ok let us hear what you dint write!
(Dint, oh boy)

The Poem (the one the dog et):

A special day this quiet Tuesday,
For when I awoke, looked outside,
I saw what I saw,  quickly realized,
That this was the day to
break the norms.

Why must I wear two shoes of similar hues?
My can't my hair be color enhanced by the pink of you!

You just noticed my shirt and pants are  on backwards?
Perception in the eye of the beholder,
Beholder that be me, because,
Today, behold!
It is break the norms day!

Moon in the sky morning,
It knows the way, its place
When gravity, cycles, temporarily shelved,
On the break the norms day

Kissed my mom before I left for school,
My dad, my brother, my sis, too whoo hoo,
** **, you shoulda seen their faces,
When I sauntered out the door,
Humming, C'mon baby light my fire

The crossing guard gave me my usual,
A whistling hello,
Today, I whistled back,
The whistle of
Hey babe, looking good,
She blushed so hard,
The drivers thot the light was
Stuck on red!

This is how I spent my morn,
On the day of breaking the norms!

But even on break the norm day,
Somethings are constant, forever,
For instance, the path to the
School office, La Principal, unchanging,
Her grimaced visor in place,
Till she closes the door.

Then she says tell me honey child,
One of my unusual ones,
What trespasses have you committed today?

Well, the dog et my poetry,
But knew it well and true,
Offered to recite, not a riot incite,
May I please say one for you?

She said:
I know for a fact that you don't have
A dog, but nonetheless,
Sing to me, child,
Give me words
That justify
Giving most of
My lifetime to
Children.

So I gave her a listening
Of one I writ the week before, called,
"He taught them well."

She wept.
Ok, teary-eyed glistening,
She said, as punishment for class disrupting,
You will be suspended for the rest of the day,
You will have spend the rest of this diurnal,
Sitting next to me, thus,
We will break one more norm, together....

---------------------
For Helen, "I have so many partial poems I'm thinking of just mashing them together and maybe the dog will eat them..."

my Mumbai woman

~~~

to my Indian poets & friends
all be advised,

my piety, my muse,
has decamped me for weeks on end
to your
yon far and fair lands

the red dot beside her
electronic signature
a sign of her absence,
seemingly to have been
magically transferred
to her forehead

so perhaps my love poetry
will become absent, reticent,
quiescent

or perhaps

it will build brighter, effervescing
in my very own Taj Mahal,
an edifice built by great love past
and yet ever still present,
for I testify,
I have many times it,
seen imbued,
lovingly observed
between a certain
men and women here writ large,
who there permanent reside,
and in my heart as well

spend a minute many,
all my fingers and
toes employed
how many, so many,
Indian fellow travelers
on poetry lanes and yellow dust encrusted roads,
in cities unpronounceable
that this illiterate literary fool
has come to know and multi-arm entwine

to you,

I commend and command to you
her safety,
asking immodestly for
an imposition, an interference

pray to the local gods,
your heads of state and highest nature's,
that they be her
beside,
her unobserved
safe-keepers,
as she treks your country's
Northern pastures

let her skin glow from
your brighter rays,
eyes even wider~wiser opened
by the newness of your antiquity,
your glorious,
poetic place
in our world
of words

(and I cannot live
from with-out)

<>
a poem in appreciation to Rossella Di Paolo

<>

I, too:
          - am an embryonic work in progress,
well into my seventh decade, with no ending in sight


                                I too,    
live in the house of poetry, the address likely differs,
but suspect the innards of the houses differs little,
the decor,  quite similar

         - my house shrewdly requests a rethinking,
                                    noting, it lives my artifice,

with in & with out

Then, we are a We:
                                  
          - my cavities house her, She, Poetry is of Ruth (1) born,

          - Poetry, She, reminds me, ”whither thou goest, I will go”


This duality:
          - where the haunting of words providential,
             emanate, both inhabiting & inhibits my breathing
              She, a fearsome creature, a fearful-something,
for it tears me and shreds tears its demands be wrung
from with in to with out

She, Poetry:
          - leaves me gaping, hollow, fills me with
            depressurizing boreholes exposed to the elements  of
            externalities of an admixed atmospheres, that nature demands             be refilled, fresh in, stale out,
for which the artifice trick is knowing which is which

when Poetry’s  birthing:
          - chest pounds, heart-rate beats heavy metal,
            abdomen contracts, there then, no languid in my language,
            no help untangling the alpha-bet jumbling,
            product of the screams of pushing,
squeezing it forth

you’re hoping to quick-catch newly formed combinations,
for if you fail, a poem
noisily crashes to and through the floorboard cracks,
where poetry’s chaotic glinting etes
maliciously glimmer~winks at me
with a sarcastic thank you

“ah, too bad, another creation stillborn,
gone to rest, biting the nether dust,
without hope of resuscitation…”*

just another unfinished work in progress

periodically
a survivor clean caught, transcribed, edited to be finished,
amniotic fluids cleared,
poem resurrected
blessed with eternal life,
readied to be shared and delivered,
affirmed

and you say to no one and to everyone:

this poem will be our poem,
wither it goes, ascending, descending,
all live in the house of poets,
one house,
many apartments,
each poem a god,
and
my God will be our God,
your God, my God,
in the House of Poetry

to more than I can be...

a sad isolated man,
throes of an agonizing,
stretched by her for painful
revengeful gain,
kissed with pointless avarice, divorce.
children deeming
him alienating, his faulty
insensitive sensitivities,
to easy blame

little do they know of the
piercing lowliness, the looniness of
nights he listened to sad-eyed singers,
and his late-of-mid of night scribbled scripts,
where he
off loaded the agonies of a midlife
disaster, not entirely of his-own
sown making,
but still his to bear and bare alone...

some accidents happens for unintentional,
unintended intentional new seasons appear,
stumbled, tumbled, fumbled his way onto
this H~oly P~lace, where someone might listen
to his explanations, expiations, excoriations
of his all too common tragedy, and said:

this broken human, he's got his reasons,
read his overly long treatises, his entreaties,
to those that prowl, rowing, in this corner
of the silence of the internet, where only the
trolls, the cold, the easier to-be-meaner oft thrive,
and found none of that, but an oasis of sheltering,
embracing comforting, those who actually admitted
his writings could be loved, and perhaps the writer
himself, was
deserving
of a second chance, a verbal embrace. a rereading forgiveness,
a pat
on his natback, a sympathetic sensory intaking,
and perhaps-this debt, eternal, that put the
for and the fore in a new baby born, named -
new forever
came into existence
the very same
e
that begins those conjoined words
e~ternally grateful

"and now  I sleep in peace when the day is done"


but the night time
is still the
write time

the child of the child of my woman,
cries in the night,
rooming next door,
down the hall
and
he is
all children that cry in the night,
but he is
more mine
by right of quantity

numerous are the kisses lavished,
this biannual visit upon,
his four year old
oversized head,
(so full of 'bains')
his undersized,
protuberanced belly body,
a combo making him
no longer baby,
nor a grownup,
both states,
he denies accurately,
maturely in a wobbly voice
of utter certainty,
but lacking the adjectives
of what lies between,
he debates his state thoughtfully,
until distracted by other
more pressing matters of state

he is boy, little but vociferous,
quiet, pensive, his head a weapon
of...confusion and certainty that
being four years old,
he must perforce be
permanently
in skeptical awe of the world

this is the best position ever,
he has ascertained,
to filter and behold anything,
whatever newness arrives,
which is constant,
streaming and unending
until new is
fully digested, analyzed, and classified,
as if he were
a zoologist in
a wild and untamed land

only certain of what he knows
with perfect certainty,
he consults with me still,
"you kidding?"

such a sophisticated analytic interrogatory,
wise in the ways of grownups,
who, prone to deceive gleefully
his very
suspecting mind,
so much so,
they must be challenged and
rebuffed all too frequently

he cries in the night,
normal tears of discomfort,
physical or mental,
I cannot tell,
for his father
his parental hearing
more practiced, refined,
has preceded me,
such,
as it should be,
and I am dispatched back
to my 3:00am bed,
left only to ink
contemplative ruminations
on the state and nation
of being four...
and sixty,
and still uncertain, even more
than the little boy
of wizened age of annualized four,
the child of the child of my woman,
on
what is real, what is kidding,
in a quest unending
to better ascertain,
the state of my own being

and the transitory nature of
everything

all of what is thought certain,
falls aside,
under the withering,
unwavering,
critique of
"you kidding?"
and in this we are
more kin
than if our blood was
physically shared

~~~
Disappearing Ink Thoughts:

"Nothing that involves the love of an honorable man"

~~~

One checks in
with the periodicity of
semi-regularity,
a
how ya doing?
sent off by mounted Messenger
to:

good friends,
fellow poets,
former lovers

yes,
it can be
either,
both,
and
even
one and the same...

her reply arrives -

"I am fabulous"

you twinge
with curiosity and whimsical,
mortal fantastical,
creaking regret

for it's from the one
you didn't keep closer
but
so easy was it,
it well might have been a

been

disappearing ink thoughts
start to pen themselves,
on both sides now
of your
two-sided containment chambers
of the heart

does it mean
she's found
another lover?

so you
dancingly
not-so-innocently,
add-on a moonshot probe,
a reply comes...

"nothing
that involves the love of
an honorable man"

are you so obvious,
you groan, forehead smack,
is everything that lies
between your simplistic but
not-so-cunning lines
so easy apparent,
in this game of
liar's poker?

disappearing ink thoughts
start to pen themselves
on both sides now of your
two-sided containment chambers
of the heart

a mixed bag evoking,
a whizzing admixture of
guilty and sad,
fond memories,
sutured together
by alternating slews of
"what ifs" and "what is"

maddening, your mad imbalances

the heart is divided-
left and right

what you have
left
behind,
the seen and the unknown

what you have checked off as
rightly acts of both
rare and well done,
simultaneously

and

you separate the darks
from the lights,
as you subdivide
this conflicted
second-place-derived
"honorable mention,'
the complimentary multiplicity,
of a most pleasant
yet withering assassination,
winning by losing,
by being called

an honorable man

something makes one uncomfortable,
as you write/lay this
epistle *** elegy down
when you are up,
beside your truly
"love the one you're with"

leaving one unsure of where to place
this particular, peculiar,
inscription

are you left or right
sided here?

hard pressed
to uncover honor here,
as shameful, don't-go-there's,
reddens the face
in a darkened
bedroom

but
there is some
softener within
all this disappearing ink

recalling that you knew yourself
well enough,
to give up,
when to walk away
so rightly so,
when you heart knew
what wasn't left,
wasn't just quite
meant
to be
ship-righted

meaning
fair superseeded implanted desire,
and you
left-leaving, left-leaning,
on
the right stuff

here you sign off,
almost forgiving certain sins
so flawed for being so
human,
such as contemplating,
the wonder of wonderment,
the fragility of frailty,
the knowing of never
perfectly knowing



~~~

Dec. 31, 2015
7:59 am
Flight  #1011
Seat 16C
Somewhere over the
human landscape

"Ben-Oni" is a Hebrew term meaning "son (Ben) of sorrow (oni)," and the name of an 1825 manuscript describing a chess opening.

"Whenever I felt in a sorrowful mood and wanted to take refuge from melancholy, I sat over a chessboard, for one or two hours according to circumstances. Thus this book came into being, and its name, Ben-Oni, 'Son of Sadness,' should indicate its origin." - Aaron Reinganum.  

From  the Old Testament,
Genesis 35:18;

“Her dying lips calls
her newborn son Ben-Oni,
the son of my sorrow.
But Jacob, because he would not
renew the sorrowful remembrance of his
mother's death every time
he called his son by name,
changed his name,
and called him Benjamin,
the son of my right hand."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben-Oni, Son of Sorrow

Love,
you can fall in
and out of.

Happy,
comes and goes,
in waves,
cycles of differing amplitudes.

Its schedule of
arrivals and departures,
most erratic.

It is always
a two sided affair,
don't blame this messenger,
it's the way of the world
that it comes,
then it goes

Tho certain sorrows,
special, may
wax and wane,
they, a once, then a forever guest,
a full time resident,
taste, once acquired,
cannot be erased.

Part of your museum's
permanent collection,
an addiction affliction
that can't be undone,
be beat back,
ain't no emotional methadone,
to inhibit its delicious lows

Like a passerby,
a mound of stones espied,^
a grave marker au naturel,
compelled and compulsed,
duty bound to add a stone
to keep the pile intact and sound,
another 'sorrow' poem to add
to the internet's dustbin.

Sorrow,
a rich, old moneyed patron,
with a wealth of ancient lineage
orders and commands
yet another a poem
to celebrate its entrenchment
in our constitution personal

Son of Sorrow,
Son, Sorrow,
two conditions,
one necessary and
one sufficient,
combined,
a logical causality,
or a casus belli.  

If you spoke Hebrew,
understood you would
the quality of the sound of
Oni.

It is a soundless sigh,
a virulent scream, part wail,
part exclamation, part groan,
say it slow - oh nee.

You alone,
a father,
can own,
the sorrow of a son,
who denies you.

It cannot be denied,
expiated, signed away,
a syllable of grief
that says mine, all mine.

Watching the sun push away
the backdrop,
the stage curtain of the randomized
but they a-keep-on-coming,
summer thunderstorms
that have scattered
all living creatures
to the comforts,
the shelter
of loved ones,
but yours, present, or not,
return your message
either marked "well received'
or sadly, postmarked
"addressee unknown, get lost."

Curse me to stop,
and I can't,
already accursed,
add your curse to my collection,
makes no difference to my pile,
of sorrowfully fresh recollections

We slept together,
so many good night moon
stories read,
pillows shared,
side by side,
a stock exchange of
kisses and hugs,
trades that can't be cancelled,
having been entered officially
on the books and records of
our-sorrowful hearts.

Lesser men
cry to themselves,
their loneliness, their tragedy
a soliloquy, revealed in a
one man show,
Off Brodway,
before an audience of none.  

Not me kid, my oni,
is a public theater
of a visible shriek  
in every breathe,
but the Supreme Court
gone and ruled against me,
and now there is no possibility
of injunctive relief.

Will travel to faraway lands,
asking different courts
for a hearing, knowing full well,
that I will be plea-denied,
having no standing,
for here,
there and everywhere
I lack proofs
and my son-accuser
wears masks and presents
no charges,
and even if he did,
I would gladly confess,
if he but presented them
face to face.  

Son of Sorrow,
Son, Sorrow,
two conditions,
one necessary and
one sufficient,
combined,
a logical causality,
or a casus belli.

Come let us exchange
new names, new poems,
for we, though both poets,
do not read each other's
Works.

It is time.