an old familiar,
an adversary of the first degree,
when we wrestle,
me and this god
disguised as an angel disguised as man,
the door to where we tangle,
clicks shut with a perceptible oval sounding,
a trumpet announcing commencement of the festivities,
that we are
Occupado

no stray observers permitted in,
the room entrances locked,
someone's two hands upon each temple,
(cannot be mine, for)
inside we combat literally,
"mano-a-mano"
hand to hand,
word to word,
gradually, continuously,
up close and personally,
one on
One

over the course of a lifetime,
each battle named,
famously borrowed and thus recorded,
Agincourt, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Leningrad, Ðiên Biên Phú,
for the record keeping purposes of our unforgiving ******-
historian

the rules of engagement somewhat flexible,
biting, choking, eye gouging,
kicking when down, not just legal,
encouraged, no holds barred,
when we wrestle,
the dirtier the
better

take turns declaring a victor,
for that matters little, truly,
just a record keeping notation,
the battle and its aftermath,
the waves of pain inflicted,
the casualty count engorged,
is the greatest glory,
dans une manière de
parler

though sent away the children,
our earthly goods,
designating them purportedly,
non-combatants observers,
yet 'no rules' meant
they could be accidentally drawn in,
non-combatant status does not prevent them
from being freely captured or
killed

the conflict ongoing,
no one ever calls for a truce,
for both unequal adversaries know,
no quarter will ere be given,
and though the tide shifts,
each individual battle produces as always,
a winner and a
loser

noisy affairs,
long after the battle,
the slain yet scream,
perhaps I am confused,
perhaps it is the day's survivors,
announcing that sadly,
they are still
alive

it must be the latter,
for here I am writing and recording,
and though alone,
I hear an ever growing louder,
gouging sine wave scream piercing,
daring my soul to leave my wracked
body
for though mortal wounded,
I am therefore
both dead and alive,
but which more so,
none can surely
say

this conflict remains
unconcluded
the pain in my hip, now
everywhere,
my Jacob, now, Israel,
marker
so visible even if itself,
unseen

3:59am

In Lalitpur, a small city,
a poem in
and of itself,
near to the capital city,
Kathmandu,
in the magic
word-world of
Nepal.

Who in the world is Simrik?

Girl, 15, apologetic,
with the heart of a deer.
who unlike most
kindly requests your criticism.

Ok, here is my criticism.

Your writes are a shotgun blast.
It cannot be that fifteen years
has been granted
a simple eloquence
that writes and feeds
tastes of visions
of a spiced life
far away, but
close by.

winding roads
and the trees,
the train station,
train tracks,
jeeps for taxis.
the market at night.
a few bookstores i wanted
to enter but couldn't/didn't
benches at chowrasta,
aloo chat.
penang momo,
the "aum sweet aum" poster
they had there.
pretty girls in chowrasta.
so well-dressed.

at fifteen I could not
see so well, see so fine.
not I.

i have fallen for boys, and i have fallen for men.
i don't know if it'd still be falling if i only ever
fell for pieces of them. and as for you, you were no
exception. my eyes never knew the ridges on
your body as soft as icing on a cake, or the
veins in your arms and they've only read
your words, your tastes, in pixels, but i
fell anyway, briefly. the heart is a muscle
the size of a fist, an ***** that has nothing to
grow and fit into. you never really know where
exactly in your chest it really is or if it's the right size.
there'll be growing pains in your ventricles and
dislocation to your spine or your stomach to tell you
of that before the cardiologist, and when you find the
cure or place it back to where it was, you'll have
stories written like prescription notes.

One time, when I was fifteen,
(For I have been
fifteen
many times),
I knew that
I didn't know
how to express
the potpourri
of what
was inside
of me,
the desire was
compelling,
the skills lacking,
for I lived in amidst a
family of writers, critics, historians,
and saw the birthmark of my incapabilities
embarrassed rosy red on my face every morning.

my incapabilities.

not Simrik.
oh no.

here's blood clotting where i got bit by a leech at a
monastery, from after the day i told you we needed to drop
to being friends from lovers. deserved it, totally. you had
blisters on your knees, from the day i sent you back.

you said i still had your heart with me.
when i reach the sea in 12 days,
i'll return with the crevices on them
mended with the pieces of
toughest seashells i can find,
wrapped in a sheet of prayer flag
i tore from the monastery,
so that when you place it back
between your ribs,
you'll have prayers
and the sound of the sea
flowing in your veins.

At fifteen, I read Camus
and the sport pages.
At fifteen, I peeked  
at my neighbor's *******
dreamt blonde dreams.
what I knew
was
what I did not know.

so here is my criticism.

you remind me now, this day,
of what
I still do not know
nor can ever hope
to capture as well
as you.

Mark Twain to Helen Keller


“Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that “plagiarism” farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go farther and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances in plagiarism.

For substantially all ideas are second hand, consciously or unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them any where except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.”

Mark Twain

that has taken the mantle,
the muse of inspiration,
for she -
(did you think she was a man-god?)
dyes me oft, colors me, ***** me,
loves me with intensity hot
that near to make my heart stop.

poems I did not know,
knew not their name,
would write,
but moments ago,
now are
chicks in the hatchery hatching,
cupcakes in the oven rising,
spit in the mouth *******
so fast a-coming,
the sustained pleasure
the best drug I have designed.

seconds ago there were none,
a lifetime of moments,
now, multitudinous,
molecules of
oxygenated words
flying past my eyes,
purposed for inhalation
through my skin.

all week I have stretched and pecked,
shreds of lettuce un satisfied,
a title, no poem,
a stanza, no poem,
like I need a woman,
need to write,
like I need loving,
desperate and raging,
need to write.

even my alter ego,
the hidden me,
where I write on the other side
of edgy, indie, across border lines,
in a name you do not know,
nothing.

started poems about
being enlightened,
my eldest sin,
my eldest son,
hitting a kid with a car,
reading writing and 'rithmetic,
inch plants,
****,
about the young poets here,
fast track to nowhere.

but at 2:22 am awoke,
my small engine repaired,
the fingers humming flying across the keyboard
so fast broke the 3:50 minute mile,
dear muse,
I hate you with all my love.

would it be so terrible if you gave me
one complete per day,
is that too much to ask?

now I am choking gasping on
****** adrenalin cup overflowing,
now they come like *******
only a women can have,
so many more than one,
long short fast furious
separate but connected.

you make me woman,
just like you.

one day when get up high where you reside,
gonna start a recall petition, and if that don't work,
a revolution, to kick out  the cruelty y'all dish out,
the tornadoes and typhoons,
return the missing to their parents,
and give inspiration, hope
to every human poet upon this
living planet.

now I comprehend why
Shakespeare's theater was called
The Globe.

I lay with two women.

In an Economy seat,
emblematic nowadays of
the global economy,
"value" disguised as
a shrunken package size,
for which the cost thereof
can hardly be described as
economical.

my extremities are engaged in
extreme sport,
my competition,
my aisle mates,
young ladies both.

In recognition of the
early hour of our departure,
I have been awarded by them,
a singular honor,
a distinguished cross, of sorts,
pinned with a medal,
for gallantry under siege,
the medal is not of
two crisscrossed rifles,
but crisscrossed elbows,
for gallantry
upon the cross
of the middle seat.

Blanketed and hooded,
or should I say "hoodied,"
slumber comes too easily to
my young traveling cellmates,
as does the
flexibility of the body.

They seem to revel in the words,
akimbo and limbo,
upon my adjacent
body parts.

My sides, my shoulders,
my haunches and paunches,
punched, pillowed and pilloried,
summarily donated
(with a consent slip
called an airline ticket),
to scientific research:
"In Furtherance of the Study of
Sleeping on Airplanes."

My lap, however, sacrosanct,
how else could I type,
of heartfelt matters,
read on,
for you have been both
punked and pranked!

My mind freely wanders
while body is
captive and captivated,
(did I mention they were
young and attractive?)
to the manner
in which we
juggle proximity.

My darling:
You lie beside me,
a distance of
but a few inches,
but closer still,
for I am inside you,
I am yours
for your flesh,
I take,
a blood vow,
sealed with divine blessings
of mine own composition.

For the children of my children:
You are crosstown,
but I hardly know ya,
I am of your flesh, your blood,
eternal and immutable,
no poem can be allowed
to reveal what I owe you,
secret debts unpayable
till and after
death us do part.

Proximity in my tears,
proximity in my fears
for all of us,
for thoughts of you,
come regular,
with every breath.

Proximity at the cellular level,
until that day your
words first emerge,
your are of me and my issue,
mine to behold,
mine with which to dream,
mind to mind and mine.

So now there are two,
where speech is not
a viable tool.
Know that when
I no longer compose,
I will still eternal communicate
in ways, beyond belief.

You:
So many we touch, so briefly,
lose and fade from daily sight,
yet, forever, treasured,
measure for measured,
each one of you,
parcel posted upon who I am,
the tick in the tock
of my beating heart's
final prayer,
Grace after the Meal of Life.

At my funeral
please inform the rent-a-rabbi,
that I was this and that,
labels to write on post-its,
to be stuck on my gravestone
that no one will come visit,
but please someone,
tell him to say these words:

Between,
there was no between,
there was
no approximation,
no proximity,
there was no scientific instrument extant,
that could measure
the close love,
the heart and home
in which his faith resided,
for those who touched his life.

•<>•
the addicted pleasure words granted to we privileged few,
like every enslaved soul to the mind, which I am, I am,
evening dreams, midnight thinkings, sunrise seeings,
how can I infect and thus protect the young to the liberty
to love the crafted content of our human essence to better
comprehend that a moment caught on tape of our shared
words is a holiday, a celebration for the ages,
scar of pleasure, a forehead Cain mark, scarlet letter of pride,
for this reliving of our stories retelling is the skipped beat
of our connection not born from practical reason,
but from truths we own equally and though reason says
mine, it is not, it is only to be yours when the sharing
resonates resonates resonates resonates resonates
and every molecule, becomes a human tuning fork
in concert, in pitch identical, in blood tainted with
the simplicity of we are all the same, only words, this will transmit

                                          July 4th, 2017
                                                •<>•

"If you spend enough time reading or writing, you find a voice, but you also find certain tastes. You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers … becomes a source of unbelievable joy. It’s like eating candy for the soul."
And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don’t have that in their lives make it through the day.
David Foster Wallace

The Quantum Poetry Theorem

from a long time ago,
a thousand poems a priori.

Dedicated to you, Albert Einstein and the cast of TBBT, special thanks to the OWS movement.,
But especially to the few, the brave, geeks who write poetry in word and in equations.

Scruffy, yet ennobled,
my own 99% invade and
occupy all my senses,
in my eyesight encamped

sensing opportunity,
the 99 demand
that each shutter eye snap,
all nominal exhalations,
every quantum minutia perception,
be live streamed,
direct tv to you

Everything I witness,
transformed into an
acoustic guitar rocking vision,
a levitation of poetic expression,  
set to a primitive three-chord
rock & roll overture,
and my iPad,
appointed Recording Secretary,
compiles exhalations as ecrivations

a preservation society of the verb,
strings of words emanating non-stop
within my head, from a guitar playing
twenty four seven, ironically,
expressed mathematically

Street strolling,
busy brasserie bar,
a Pinot Noir arrives,
a large pour of
stanzas and a
napkin upon to scribble

mind in ferment but
A Capella smooth cool,
my bossy brain requires
incident reports,
a "write me down, please,"
and

no matter how much I drink,
ain't anti-matter enough to
stop my eyes from seeing
every human interaction
as a poetic, probabilistic,
verbal equation,
quantum expressions of sensory upload

The brain revels and reels from overload,  
no mas, no more,
poetry fatigue incurable,
caplets and ointments,
string theory,
can't cure or explain
the compulsion I feel,
and the 1% of me
protests my
overtaxed mental capacity,
and

hear the, see the, masses,
the shouts, the placards,
outside my home,
shut it down, no one cares,
no one wants your transplanted mechanics
in their eardrums

Huzzah, found in my gut,
a Grand Unifying Theory
to coordinate, gauge  and harmonize
my internal asymmetries,
yes, a coupling factor required,
but still,
one equation that explains everything!

my fatigued, pointy, index finger
refuses to tap any more,
my Theory of Everything,
and my poetry, forgot, overlooked.
in my library buried,
black holed, forever silence-stored

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/759808/nat-lipstadts-mood-swings/


'ᏰέƦẙḽԃṏሁ's the most "unappreciated" poet on this site.
Being "misunderstood" is what gets him into a fight.
Now that I'm retired and free,
He's the new "King" of HP ~
Now I hate that Jew because he's better and right.
All words in quotes are Nat's. His changes his opinion of me every second like the eyes on a Felix the Cat clock.
I love him but I've given up on him.

-------------------
Poor man he believes his own totally manufactured press. Oy!

Why does he obsess over me?
Ask him, not me...

Why does write me in pvt messages to tell me I am "delusional" and he is by page view,  the Emperor(!) of HP and that
"you've become an embittered man and can counted yourself among the cursed.
And if you've chosen not to read this, it's because your blinders are still on.I wish you well as a fellow Jew; as a poet I welcome you're  extinction for your inability to adapt."

Whoa! Is he worse than Ormond, who only wanted to "burn" us together!  Extinction now that is  a code word makes  every Jewish person's hair curly,

The humorous answer would have the
Lew I like laughingly say "***** envy!"

adapt to his standards, of ******* up and publishing outrageously bad poems sux times a day - no babe, those things are not standards


instead he is he is committing a error of sinat chinam, empty hatred...

"Sinat chinam means groundless hatred. (The verb soneh means to hate, as in the command lo tisnah at ahicha blevavecha, do not hate your brother in your heart, Leviticus19:17)

Chinam comes from chen, grace. Sinat chinam is therefore hatred that is gratis. It refers to the internecine strife which is unfortunately too common in Jewish communities, whether between Reform and Orthodox, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, the rabbi and the chazan, the president of the shul and the board.

You could charitably ascribe its existence to the high-stakes decisions that Jewish communities have had to make, or to a persecuted people internalising the hatred directed at them, and then projecting it against other groups of Jews. (emphasis mine).  Either way, there is clearly too much of it about.

The Talmud already knew of the phenomenon and its destructive effect on Jewish life. Yoma 9b records that the First Temple was burned down because of idol worship, ****** immorality and bloodshed. At the time of the Second Temples destruction, the Jews were, on the other hand, pious but the Temple was lost because sinat chinam, groundless hatred, was endemic to Jewish national life."

But since he is self acclaimed Shakespeare expert,
I'm sure  he is familiar with this riposte:

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.

Merchant of Venice

More would be superfluous...sure glad he loves me, imagine if he didn't!

what waste of a good poetry skills... this is getting snoring,
boring... So let's bring some appropriate lyrics with which to conclude:

"You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? don't you?"

Carly Simon - You're So Vain Lyrics

Poetry Round (find your self within)

We sit together in spirit, if not in body,
You join me in the Poet's Nook,
A few frayed and weathered Adirondack chairs
Overlooking the Peconic Bay,
Where inspiration glazes over the water,
And we drown happily in a sea of words,
Commencing:

You say unto me, whitecaps, I reply,

"Solitary swimmers, poets, arms crooked over head, in the sea of us"

I say flooded with gratitude, and Stephanie replies,

"Thou art my carved destiny-and the river that permits my blood to flood...And all this noise shall fall into poetry; Which every day grows statelier and comelier.

You say to us Moonlight, and we laugh, delighted, for she has given us

"This love can be ours,
Under the iridescent moonlight
Embraced within one another,
To live for an eternity,
Languid and soft"

Someone calls out Bala,
And Vicarpio Gale favors us with his words,

"a poetic rain, in small print, fills the white sky page"

And we pray nightly, that come next morn, he will rain upon us once again

We pretend it is night and there are
Stars to Touch,  but this poet of pax corrects us and writes, t'is but,

"late afternoon sun slanting
behold, jaune compassion
alfalfa ocherous leans willowy in wind
distance of silence yearns on
afternoon shadows lie within majestic vales"

Who is it that calls out
Have Mercie  B.e  upon us,
for she reminds us of what we B.e tasked individually,

"Provoking ideas and intoxicating imagery overflow from within and yet somehow you can't see.  There are dreams that run wild inside of this heart and there is no way I'll let them be tamed"

Sunshineflowers every where,
But even more beautiful when she coaxes us to laugh
at ourselves
when writing of true love,

"Why don't i have bananas, said the monkey.
The tiger said, because you are my soulmate"

Did you C Holmes reminding us that

"when you're certain you've
painted the next Van Gogh
with the swirls and gusts
of blues so pure,
any mortal would
stop stare & lose track of time?"

Fyi, Fyi,

"Her callous persecution insinuates,
The elusive flaws of humanity and life,
It implicitly elucidates,
The sombre reality"

About certain Angels  was writ, that both in heaven and on earth, she was garbed, for

"She wore an air of mysticism
Her memory bore prophetic visions
From ancient egyptian
And judaic traditions
She knows every star system
And every night is a mission
Where she wishes and wishes
For help from the legends"

Emily  has met an unwanted friend, familiar to all of us,

"Cemented shoes
And silenced talk
It's even hard to describe
Writer's block"

Sara B.  from B'kara, that's in Malta, gives advice most sensible,

"Times they are a changing
make everybody feel blue
just turn up the music
and forget what you're supposed to do"

Victor  claims not to be a

"poet, a musician even less
but I may be kind of a beggar
when I beg of you
don't forget me
or let your music fade out
of my rainy days"

Dare I disagree? **** right I do!

Little RedWritingHood,  from my city hails, so wise, far beyond her years, reveals that,

"people try to
make me see reason
or their definition of it
but reason is relative
as is too much in this world"

Should I go on? Why not!

Something's are ForeverMarvelous,  like

"Hurt is fading
Fists are pumping
Bass is trembling
Some are hating-
But I keep dancing"

mybarefootdrives  me forward because

"every seed of thought
starts itself out like a whisper.
Until weight behind words
allows them to stand on their own merit"

Maria GH  could be an old friend, who

"draws me near,
it's slender form bleeding into
the background.
Slowly, kindly,
it extends a hand and
I take it
as to forever hold comfort
in mine"

Andy from Mombasa, your poetry

"conspires to purge me of my sense of reasoning
Leaving me bare to suffer the perils of an incongruous world"
And I am a better poet for it...

Brendan'  I've watched your words,

"Crack the veil of tired souls
cloaked in lonely sorrows,
broken by faithless wanderings,
and feel the strings course through your veins"

I am blindsided and Blastsided  when I read

"Onomatopoeia
I love words
for their meanings
their woven tapestries
but also
for their taste"
For I know exactly what you mean

I am exhausted. So many gems to decorate
My body, my soul. I must stop here,
So many of you have reached out, none of you overlooked.

Overwhelmed, let us sit together now
And celebrate the silence that comes after the
Gasp, the sigh, that the words have taken from
Our selves, from within.

Once again, in your debt.

My Night With Paul Simon

On the night train, the red eye plane,
Flying home to NYCeeeeeeeeeeeee,
From the city of Los Angeleeeeeeez

Feeling flush, dropped some cash,
Got me a seat in extra large first class

Seat 2C, plenty of room for my toes,
To wiggle  to dance,
lay down some poetry tracks,
pretending I'm a **** jive,
bad *** from the
make-believe west coast

A short guy, with fedora down low,
An older man,
looking about nine years older
than somebody I might know,
hiding his eyes @ 9pm
neath some excellent Raybans,
slip slides into 2D,
gives me a smile,
And says Hi, I'm Paul

I look once at his face and say,
Listen Rhymin' Simon,
I'd know you any place,
No worries, your secret,
with me is safe,
Cause dudes in row 2,
gottta stick together, be cool,
We're riding first class,
over the land of the free

What ya do for a living he asks,
A little of this and a little of that,
All of which, ain't no **** good at!
So I spend my cold, hard time
laying down cold hard verse,
Can't stop, cause it's my daddy's dying curse

He said that's cool,
I like to do that too.
Guitars on planes
drive passengers insane,
They take up too much
overhead compartment space,
I just scribble me some rhymes and
Let the music come
when I got two feet
on the ground in the city
we both come from.

Paul:  You got any stuff writ
on that yellow sheet,
or just pretty blue lines,
a big pad of nothing?

Dude: Man you may got diamonds
on the soles of your shoes,
But pay me some 'spect,  
you talking to the man who penned
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland
on Hello Poetry, gad ****!

Paul smiled and said
you can call me Al,
And if you feel like blowing some lines together,
We got five hours till we can see
the house that Ruth built.

Dude: Hit me with your best shot,
I'll show you what I got

Paul: And she said honey take me dancing
But they ended up by sleeping
In a doorway
By the bodegas and the lights on
Upper Broadway
Wearing diamonds on the soles of their shoes

Dude: Just cause the union of the  monkeys
in the Bronx Zoo done gone on strike,
Don't mean the lion ain't
still king of the hill
inside this New York city jail

Paul: And the sign said,
"The words of the prophets are written
on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered
in the sounds of silence

Dude: A home-grown poet.
I am, Soul enslaved to words.
The alphabet - My oxygen molecules,
I am both, Addict and dealer
A ****** poet ******

Paul: You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

Dude: Contact with the atmosphere
makes self pity die,
my blue blood turn red,
the TNT tightness in my chest exploded
I got no place  to store these words,
the cops think I'm some kind of Terrorist

On and on thru the night,
Riffing, rapping, rambling, and spitting,
Ditties and darts, couplets and barbs,
Single words and elegies,
Free verse and a lot of fking curse words,
It was a moment, a time
that deserved
to be preserved,
and so this poem got writ

*You may think this story apocryphal
Which is another way of saying untrue,
But I got his boarding pass and it is signed,
To this crazy poetry dude, long may you rasp,
And it is signed by Mr. P. Simon, a big fan,
And it has never since that day,
Left my grasp

Just Like A Woman

You focus on the act,
The ridiculous derring-do,
Laughing at me
Cause I chased away
In my rumpled ******,
The woodpecker that **convulsed
Our house at 5:00 AM,
With a decorative pillow.

Focus on the results, says the
Results-oriented man.

Has Woody ever returned?
No and his fate is still unknown,
He may fly forever neath our trees,
But now he knows to stay away
From me and the risk of my pillowy pillory!

P.S. I may (or may not)
Choose to disclose
That upon my return
The house still shook,
From someone's uproarious, convulsed
Laughing at a city boys country heroics.


10:30am
June29 2013

Pocketbook

Transformational intercepts,
messages to the brain.

Time babe, it's time,
to take a next step.
change the bulb
to a higher power.

100 watts insufficient to light
the forward motion of a
Great Leap Forward,
like in a prior writ, when,
limitation awareness
was a borderline crossed.

Like learning to walk without tottering;
We probably don't know we passed a line,
invisible to ourselves,
but all clear to everybody else,
on that special day, one,
that just came and went:
when you could no longer leave home
without a pocketbook

We were accessorized with body parts
most useful to make our way thru life,
but our exterior-designer
neglected to provide pockets knowing
full well that fashion acessorizing
was more that just a way to carry tools;

Individuation, maturation, needed,
a way to communicate I've arrived

Ain't no child no more,
double negatives
a thing of the past,
cause once you leave the
comfort of the abode with
handbag corpuscles inhaled,
from that day onwards,
you could no longer:

Walk these feminine streets,
leave home,
without a pocketbook,

Judgement day becomes
Every day, nowadays, so,
when from the cave you emerge,
and face the world:

Gonna need what ya gonna need,
to negotiate the way through,
don't matter what's
inside your handbag
or your head,  
if you are eight or
eighty eight,
you know,
you believe, you need
in handbags,
as much as you believe in god

I am incomplete,
my body undressed for all to observe
If I walk down the street
after that day,
that came and went,  
when you could no longer
leave home without a pocketbook

Amusing ditty,
nah that's not my speed,
this is a treatise on
serious matters,
when changes in our lives occur,
when we earn a stripe on our sleeves

Pilgrim progress to
a feeling of vive la difference!
who I am is not who I was,
awoken from a previous dream,  
marks on my body will come,
some wanted,
some unwanted,
some happily dismissed
like the curse of braces

Free at last,
free at last to forget
a painful child's past,
sometime it's losing,
sometimes it's adding on,
but for sure, the day I changed,
was the day,
when you could
no longer leave home
without a pocketbook

Oh boys,
don't think you are excluded
from this rite de passage,
I'm one of you and I know
what we kept secreted
in our over stuffed wallets.

Ain't referring to our student org. card
or the emergency folded twenty
Dad gave you in case,
somehow you got
on the wrong bus and
ended up on the
wrong side of town
where bad things
could be found,
somewhat more easily.

Like the comic book store,
next door to the tattoo parlor,
next to where the
Nice Jewish Boys
where never supposed to go,
and the Stars of David and crosses
were removed discreetly prior to arrival,
like Portnoy foretold in
Technicolor detail.

I know you well recall
that bar mitzvah party, school dance,
When the bottles fell to the floor
unbroken, spinning, pointing to you,
When you realized it was that day,
When you could no longer
leave home without a wallet

Times they don't change
all that much,
and pocketbooks now called
Handbags I am told,
and year old babies play
with iPads like they were
born knowing how!

but I ain't impressed that much,
cause I know that it may  
come sooner as the world changes,
there still,  always be,
a day of  painful,
transformational,
generational passing,
when indelible, invisible
birthmarks somehow
became both visible and erased.

Though they may
come different ways than they use to,
in case new parents need guidance,
**It is still that day when
their little girl,
can no longer leave home
without a pocketbook

Ralph Lauren - Losing My Elastic

Dear Ralph,

A few years ago,
The alone years,
When street strangers I would street stop,
Hoping that ecstasy miracles you-know-what,
I walked endlessly, shopped but never bought,
Selling but never sold,

Standing in line at DD,
Wanting that person in front of me to order
Coffee and a heart, with extra me.

Found myself at 59th and Lex,
Famous department store basement,
Found a room where clothes where kissed away
Prices cheap, styles atrocious,
But I felt home there, understood the milieu.

There is where
You and I met, polo played.

Found a pair of shorts you must have lost,
Cause your name was on them in four places.

Really ugly, army green,
Consigned to be buried,
Or bundled off to Africa.

Assured you didn't want them back,
For five bucks me and you left together
From Emporium Bloomingdales.

We have been together for six years,
Give or take, plenty of giving, some taking,
Sleeping together, you shared some good
Poetry writing and love making.

Ralph! This soft shroud you made, I love it so,
Tumbleweed, tumble dried,
Is now losing its elasticity,
The Band**^^ has recorded its last song.

Taken my beloved to every surgeon,
Doctor, Master Tailor, Plastic Elastic
Specialist on Savile Row and Jermyn Street,
Park Avenue, been up and down,
All say that there is nothing to be done,
Grief counseling maybe,
Causing soon I am going to losing you,
Dead by loss of elasticity.

But here I lie, here I weep,
Thinking of the good years.
Stricken, this will likely be,
The last poem I write inside you,
Our last clinging, cooperative embrace.

Yes, Y'all, I found that special stranger eventually,
On line, not in line,
She liked my profile^ and took me home
For safekeeping.

She don't know about us,
But when she suggests its time for us to
Separate, cause every minute I gotta pull
You back up again and again,
I turn away lest she misunderstand the tears.

Ralph, you let me down,
Why can't you have designed my
Sleeping companion to last as long as
Forever, like in all the love songs?

My darling, soon you will disappear,
To I don't know where,
I'll come home, and tight silences will tell me everything
I don't want to know.

Safe journey my boon, my joy,
Until we meet, cross existences once more,
Gives me comfort some,
Knowing that on journey long to parts unknown,
This token, this little writ will be accompanying you!

Ralph - is there nothing to do?

Silence.

Lest you think this is utter nonsense,
Look closer at your screen, try harder, try again,
Don't you see that single tear in the
Lower corner of my life.

When my body loses its elastic,
Who will,
Will you,
Write me a poem to clutch?
In my casket, scatter the ashes, of my
Loving poetry, I want my life fantastic poetic
Memories next to me, even as we both become dust...


3:47AM
July 2nd, 2013

after five years
when I write her a love poem,
she is always surprised,
her unexpectation
so very pleases me.

after five years
when I write her a love poem,
I am always surprised,
that a new way to say it,
uncovered.

but this I can tell you,
not once
do I ever write
nor will I ever pen
those I love you words.

they are too easy, too cheap,
a dime a dozen,
naked words make me weep,
dress 'em, cloak 'em, try to
Pradip 'em in
mystery, charming humor,
use conjuring spells of
Bala imagery unreal,
Bzynga!

work hard to tell her why,
work hard to guard your originality,
work hard to tell her in ways
that her into me
smiling, crying, punching.

so I write love poems,
every now and then,
special ways recalled,
teasing her about her forgetfulness,
about her teasing me with rhyming
that is less than spectacular,
how my body has
reshaped itself to fit her.

tell her
I love you,
plain,
well that be downright,

pffft.
(an interjection used to express or indicate
a dying or fizzling out)

the key is to tell her
in a fashion original,
personal to us.

that what all these endless
love poems here strive,
but too oft, fail to arrive.
all tricked up, too direct,
passion burnt used up
after but a single read

stroke her cheek
with soft stanzas,
torrential directness,
no subtly,
fizzles.

write for the long haul,
words that five years hence,
words that five hundred years hence,
make her into me
smiling, crying, punching,
like the first time
she read them,
like they did
five years ago.

when does the poem end?


creation is never ending,
the earth is endlessly morphing

but you lean back and say
enough
not because the poem
is finished,
for it is never finished,
because an exhalation feels
satisfying, releasing

but the poem never ends,
nor does the need to

exhale

not with the final .


the next poem is

but a

continuation

of the previous poem;

a continuation

of you~poem,

inhaling

and

exhaling

& morphing.

Sat Jan 7
7:57am

The TSA won't let me fly
It seems when airplane-jailed,
My muse sneaks aboard
Without paying for a seat.

Another airplane poem like 30B,
From a long ago flight,
Found dusty, in the poetry sewing box


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

with every breathe he tithes
a packet of whispered wishes,
a blended osmosis of
past and future scenes,
reviewed, previewed,
moments in time,
actual and dreamed

some received,
airborne plucked,
in his chest stored,
prepared for future
takeoffs and landings,
for ultimate insertion
in both
your recesses
and
your abscesses

some native,
combobulated, containerized
packets of seconds,
of joyous moments,
bytes of historical
hugs n' kisses,
as a child
to a child
from a child

those are vanilla frosted,
residual payments for the
good done and given,  
forwarded with all clear signals,
to his loved ones,
now resent, to you,
fellow travelers and sojourners,
intersectors of our peculiar
coded dots and dashes

thirty five thousand feet high,
composure lost,
he swoons as
Bocelli's voce del silenzio
releases tears so sweet,
which are by nature,
gravitated and transformed
into snowflakes to decorate
the Sierra Nevada's
breasted peaks and valleys,
over which his physical notion
is at rest, yet in motion,
within a Delta flying ship

Yet his fevered chest
beats rough,
for every flight seems
a time warp interlude,
a forced reflecting rhyme,
not of his choosing,
a lawful, thoughtful, imprisonment

having donated to you
his best, the remainders,
the man tallies, recalls:

ancient slights, scaled heights,
requiems for his forefathers
scored by cantorial choirs,
liberation struggle weariness,
offers taken and refused,
aces in the hole that proved
insufficient to save his soul.

goal line stands made,
onslaughts refused,
true lies and false truths,
moist lips and monster tears,
occasional A's and calcu-hell-us,
hand me downs received,
help me ups got n' given,
buildings pricked by airplanes,
death wishes granted
and nothing thereby gained,
children, found and lost,
mine, yours, ours...

The sums, always the sums!

engine noises and pilfered winds
are dulled and semi-silenced,
yet the silvered chamber prison
resonates from end to end
as each ledgered memory,
each packet of the
hidden whispered poems
he does NOT choose to send,
dents the man,
leaving claw marks,
screaming pay attention to me,
as if they were the priorities
of a six year old child,
refusing to be ignored

he does,
attention, he does pay,  
allowing rocking guitar heroes
to overtake weeping violinists,
just as newer transgressions
surfeit even his
most really *****,
ancient sins

No matter how he counts,
unable to master the additions,
no matter how many times
counts are initiated,
taken and retaken,
the tally's net net is
concluded, numbered
"forsaken"

his life's W-2 is black n' blue,
deductions falsely enumerate
and thereby underestimate
dues he has paid summarily,
earnings, distorted,
taxes paid never enough,
to satisfy the justice scales,
so wearily he
cries and enunciates,

The sums, always the sums!

THEN COMES HIS SHOUT OUT,
at his most vulnerable,
when a thin veneer of alumina
separates him,
from a fall inglorious
to an end most gorious,
a rapping beat moderne
insists that he go all out,
disallowing no
airy fairy poetry
to disguise that:

If the integers are false,
the entries of a life lived,
are sucker lies
black eyed flies
toxic shockers
that bust open
stinko lockers
where the B.S.
mocking stories
are kept

don't look close
at his documents
they ain't exactly
heaven sent
and the government men
be back on his track
their aviator shades
protect them from
burning light of the
man's furnace
where he burns their liens,
and the agent's ear pieces
drown out his screams of

The sums, always the sums!

God bless you,
keep and recall those packets of
whispered wishes, good tithes,
that the man bequeaths,
gift baskets of
expresso essentials
with God's love delivered

Tho his words,
amateurish and unvarnished,
silly and pompous,
nonetheless, they are the
return on his investments,
his yearnings for your happiness
are the savings accumulated,
though meager jewels are they,
they are ad valorem,
mixed into his confused murmurings

here then,
are his summings up,
what he wills you,,
the tally finale
the best wisdom is
found on coffee cups
at 2:47am.

Dance
Love
Sing
Live

to which he respectfully amends with a
Write.
(See banner photo)

Going Off To War (a/k/a Washing The Dishes)

When its time to wash the dishes,
I make proper preparations for this serious business,
I strip down to my skivvies (shorts, in a prior generation)
Cause there will plenty blood and gore afore too long
Soap and water flying about, the ceilings and the walls,
Not to mention big, big puddles on the floor.

Multi-colored sponges of sizes varied,
Some Brillo-sided, like extra armor on a tank,
By Dawn's early light, turn the clear water
Into a heaving, breathing soapy concoction.
Woebegone and woe betide, dried and sticky maple syrup,
You are no match for super-strength orange dishwashing solution,
Of the Greeks did praise, a single dollop packs a mighty wallop!

Ain't afraid of any stain, decomposing, half chewed, culinary rejection.
Don't even bother with rubber gloves, cause that's for sissies.
The dirtier the better, cause I love the sounds of
All out war, the rushing water, the futile screams of
Grease departing this world, down the rabbit hole,
My gleaming, victorious sinking of the enemy shipping

You think I am the first to celebrate in verse
This storied fight of right over dirt?

Recall please this famed couplet, for now be known its true inspiration!

"Oh, say can you see by the Dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?"

Though Men Like to Load the Dishwasher (You Didn't Know?)
Is another poem of a similar ilk, when technology is unavailable,
It is fact verifiable and unassailable,
That if you give a man some room and some privacy,
Ignore the shouts and war cries from the kitchen emanating,
Male aggression can best be expiated,
When playing war games in the kitchen, a live action movie,
A video game that never grows tiresome,
And violence is necessary, for the enemy's complete annihilation.

Thank you my dear, no medal need be awarded,
Scored this poem as my just reward.

a fair question, deserving of thought,
goodly soft care and hard consideration,
strangely, instantly and undeniable,
one worldly, word achieves *******

whether first or foremost,
après ma raison d'être,
cannot list, nor rank or certain state,
yet my heart repeats, nation, nation,
my understanding, instant and complete

worthy journey to self-fulfillment,
contentedly unhappy to be permanently,
one poem short on the one continuum,
the-road-trip to salvation,
my end, my finality / our self-acualization

aking pagtatapos, ang aking katotohanan
my einde, my realiteit
fen m 'yo, reyalite mwen
akhir saya, realiti saya
ma fin, ma réalité
M
write of the ifs of a man's life,
and come aboutface to conclusions,
instant and long in the making,
there are willing ears on this globe,
welcoming me open armed, opened lipped,
knowing firstly this open-eyed greeting,
welcome poet, tell us

for we are one nation, everywhere invisible,
indivisible with liberty and justice inherent,
creation our common good, in fact it is our
lifelong wares and goods, letter by letter composing,
we sell for the price of free

This then single common currency,
our ouro, derivation of
languages multi and mellifluous here spoke,
this my/our nation where birthright and
citizenship ego-and-geo boundless,
my loves, continentally arrayed,
to whom I pledge until last breath
utter all, guttural devotion

when one of us creates,
good manifests, I care not
in what tongue,
for our tongues
intertwine and intertaste
this one flavor,
communitas,
meine gemeinschaft, meine gesellschaft
where spoken
goodness all the days of life,
it has goodly gotten me to you...

Two men, one poem.

This day, on this site.
Two men wrote to me.
One called me brother.
The other, an arrogant *****,
Called me little.

One shared his life,
With humility and gratitude,
That I lost it. Wept. Baby like.
Honored me with trust.
Swapped spit stories
That bled into my brain,
And a tattoo appeared on my
Writing arm, one word,
Humility.

One boasted of his beans.
His bean counting reads.
Analyzed his trends,
Predicting by Christmas (!),
He would have this many.

His **** poems he informed,
Would be published.
What need did he have
For punk-u-ation,
His rants, his **** stream of words.
Better than mine,
Just cause his stuff I said,
Not my cup of tea.

What a crazy place this place.
Holy and *******, sided.
Humble humble, always humble.

He invoked, this arrogant one,
God's name.
Not knowing I talk to Him.

So I rang Him up and said,
How did a little peenus-genius
Find his way onto this
Holy Place, HP, of kindness.

He smiled in brevity.
Did I not create both,
Angels and devils?

I love God's brevity.
His commas, his question marks,
His pointed punctuation.

I love that He could create
A man whose sight of
Me, unseen, but found capacity
To love me in ways
Undreamed.

Because I peered in to the man's reveal,
Saw quality, value,
Saw humility.

So of arrogance, I said,
I would write.
But it is of humility
I will sing,
Of loving human kindness extraordinaire.

Of weeping endless.
At the joy afforded me
To read so many lovely poems,
Here.

If my poems never see the
Imprimatur of a publishing house,
It matters not,
For I have seen a human being
Weep real tears reading mine.

I have shed rivers of my own
Upon discovering yours.

Humble, humble.

If it is glory you seek,
You will find it,
All alone. Mastur-bating.

Me, I live here, in the midst of a
Good Company.


Sept. 7th, 2013

Of ***** roasting pans and racks and island fog!

if you love me, then you know poems wright themselves when standing, driving, bus riding, love-making and especially when
doing manly battle, ******* ***** dishwashing midst island fog

a passing remark goes noticed and summoned to a
Friday night feast, roasted fowl, wild rice with golden raisins and mushrooms, English spring peas, was it a Montrachet?

for dessert the washing up is obligation mine, a traditional desertion,
separation of church and state, her cooking a church  in which I worship, she states eloquently:
“Unto Caesaria , Render Her the cleanup”

this is hand to hand combat, no dishwasher mechanical
can scrub like the human hand, and with body english,
water hot, but no gloves employed for this is ***** man’s work,
not for sissies, cleaning roasting pans and roasting racks
that are at least twenty years burnt and crusted with a blackened
finish, residue of other lovers and dinners P.N. (pre-nat)

array three kinds of sponges and some human & metallic *****,
no one asking which came first,
the scrubbing away of life feasting residues,
or the poem writing that comes with pre & postscript sleepiness

when I say the dark stains and the grease buildup are
flavor enhancers, am beknighted with starry stares of
“how stupid do you think I am?” and sadly return to the
Battle of Agincourt, the one the American lost….


but they do source poems that flavor life

2020

A Woman's Reflection on Her Reflection (Valence and Value)

one poem, written by two authors


~~~

Ever the analyst,
A mirror functions as surface to
Parse the fleeting constant
Of youth's beauty.

From genetic gift
Of symmetry and bone,
To technological tampering,
Until the equation is solved,
As experience and character
Models and maps the result.

The answer, a reflection,
Of individual valence and value

(written by S.D., a woman)

~~~

(written by N.L., a man)

unbidden and unannounced, a
"not fully formed poem,
but a simple reflection"
inbound missile arrives inbox,
armed with silent power,
the lethality of the
Holy Unexpected

the man reflects
on her mirror-on-the-wall's
fulsome reply,
parsing the words of a
woman's reflection,
while gazing on her own

every human's momentary glass notation,
but an instance of summation,
a human poem, whose editing,
unceasing

a comma here,
a period inserted,
an eye shadowed, an eyebrow tweezed,
a eye dark circle line added,
to tree-mark time's authorship

all  these
but a person's
excerpted extraction,
notarized,
then auto-erased and revised,
as out of date,  
instantaneously compromised

but,

it is upon  the conceptual,
valence and value,
more that the man reflects perpetual,
less on transitory morphing changes of
exterior mortality

while overlooking her
glassine realization from behind,
he concludes:

every reflection,
no matter how oft the snapshot,
the unfleeting constancy
of the combining of the

princes of principles,
valence and value

that he witnesses,
in the calming pool
of her eyes,
(those borrowed windows into her soul's well,)
so well reflect
her unchanging greater finery,

her character

this reflection,
metamorphosis transformed.
into a planetary permanency poem,
high placed in his the firmament
of their conjoined sky

He taught them well
~for all the teachers here~

He cared enough,
So much so,  
Reasoned with them.
Never diminishing their simplest prose,
Even if it rhymed with rose....

He loved them in his way,
Once his student,
This year, then forever.

Their woes he read,
In every submission,
No threat treated idly,
He knew but one grade,
Caring.

One rule strictly observed,
No touching,
In this sad age, a crime without
Any absolution.

Then came a day.
School arrived, pre-bell by ten minuets,
His customary arrival time.

This day different.

The long corridor to the classroom entree,
Lined like Noah's ark, two by two,
On each side,
His students past and present aligned,
They would not let him pass,
Till he hugged each and everyone.

Thus, they taught him well the meaning of

Just rewards

For they were his,
Yes, they were his,
Not for the taking,
But for the giving.

His subject,
Creative writing,
of course!

I get her, she writes me,
so eloquently,
”the nub of me; gist, manifested poetic”

one of the many poets I have never met,
one of the many poets, by whom,
I have been suchly, justly, richly and correctly
accused

this mesmerizing judgement,
her-over-easy, mini-essay so succinctly
assaying an accidental ability mine

explodes
a happy passageway to my brain,
a new aperture, the neurons firing at will,
the tormented inquisitor’s unasked question,
how did this happen to me?

rocking the Sunday morn cradle’s calm,
ok, ok, write me, write me,
demands my no longer free will,
utilize the free wi-fi of we fidelty

the bay, surgically barely treading water,
its surface of multitude of small waves
but now an entire ****** expression bidding welcome

the breezeways genteel,
smilingly
invites and push us into its
directionless & tideless soothful embrace,
to the shoreline we goeth,
to watch the occasional crossing vessel intruder,
woking the waters gentle

its white path residual wake foam-formed,
then almost instantaneously absorbed, bubbly bursting,
a history of a million moments awakened,
then, instantly returned to restful sleep,
akin to a newborn’s gurgling happy dreaming,
wiped clean away off to
Peter Pan’s it-never-happened-land

this carnival trick sideline of deep tissue knowingness,
sensing the essence of the who and the whom within,
with no data to go on other than their poetic collection,
the hidden meanings of the spaces and places between
the gene sequencing of their wondrous word-fullness
DNA poetic children, freely given,
and well taken
by me

I cannot explain it well enough, but then
a strayer thought breakaway,
a prehensile comprehension insertion
proffers itself as an explanation
intruded,
and here,
extruded

the perfect world exterior before me observable
thrusts itself through picture windows onto my demeanor,
a ****** addiction of mine, my soul enslaved,
cannot bear to be taken away from

this vista,

which begs me,
bring all those you know!
here, to share, this precious precise nook
where eye insightful incisions elicit poems-by-command

but I cannot, bring you here,

so I see~imagine it better through
your eyes, then
your
gist
is in my stubbed pencil nub, it is
your
poem’s destiny manifesting,
penciled through my scruff edged fingertips,
which-when-then transcribed to paper, to history,
‘tis all you
who writes,
not I

for now
you
are the solitary vessel waterborne,
you,
you
are the captain and I

but a
Samson-nite, burdened, baggaged and blinded stowaway,
hopeless, yet still see-worthy,
with your guiding eyes,  
keeping me to keep
your copyright righted,
onto its course true


7-14-19 9:43am
in shelter, on the isle

love between poets: “who will be between the sheets next week
when I’m gone,” she lets sigh-escape,
as she watches the backyard paradise parading landscape
of animals before the bay, perfect day sure to come,
her new pets obeying the early morn sunrising awakening call
to rise, everyone playing~parading, before her royal summons,
no coincidence, finger-of-god, two by two

this while I’m kissing her neck,
my arm around her *******,
and the he-intent on slip sliding down
to the small of her back,
obeying his innate,
worship worshiping and giving up,
all he’s got intense intently contentedly

unfazed, unphased,
non-nonplussed,
he’s been interrogated before,
heart is pure he answers:

next weekend when you are back in situ,
thousands of miles away, airplane housed for hours,
writing poems of love from the lost and found,
recalling this exact moment,
how I worshipped your presence,
and these words:

You will be with me in every breath,
our sheets will radioactively emit
ions and molecules of our scent combined,
and present as present  your perfume can be,
elicited, elixir, you and me combinant

she turns from the bay-view,
the animals who now mutually
worship her adoration,
watching, focused on us as observers,
she lifts me up and smiles,
replying

“oh my lover you’re the cad of cads,
king of the baddest poet-lads,
the gist of what is wrong with the best of men,
her, pressing me hard to her chestnut hair chest,
she, falling down into my eyes

take me back to bed, liar,
let me add to my aroma,
to ensue, to ensure you will miss
the best love
you had partly, insufficiently, and unhinged
completely

I’m your lassie, you my lad,
my king of cads, my lover poet,
thief of my poems and my secret speech spells,
escalating senses of one’s imaginings”

and,
along came the rest
of what was freely given,
for love between poets
man and
a woman,
is a someone, somewhere,
sometime summertime
thing

I will still smell you in my
heart, and send to you ballistic missives,
words to explode your tear ducts
when you rest in sheets that met me,
when you’ll know me by my odors,
cry out loud so that you’ll scare our animals,
no matter how many tides wash away our residue,
you will never unknow and be forever unprepared
for my return,

even though we will be each, a thousand unwritten poems away...

Consanguinity: A Commissioned Poem
(How Well Do
You
Know Me?)


This request, from wolf spirit aka quinfinn, accidentally hit the spot of what was foremost on my mind.

Cosanguinity:  A relationship by descent from a common ancestor; kinship (distinguished from affinity).  A close relationship or connection.

Poetry, mine, yours,
Ours,
Invades my consciousness.

We write poems on the same subject,
Even the same title,
But a few days apart.

Insanity,
Coincidence,
or
Consanguinity?

Perhaps we are reading each other's stuff
Too much.

But that's crazy,
Or
Consanguinity?

Yet,
And yet,
We see the same things
So incredibly different.

That is the answer.
We see the same thing and I am
Struck down.

A billion sights.
A billion words.
Yet, the human computer,
Sorts, collates, and generates
A billion different writes
In a similar spirit,
Employing the same phraseology.

All right.

Alright.

Malaysia.
Minnesota.
East Coast.
West Coast.
Geographical differences.
Time differences.

No difference.
A billion differences.
The stylistic differences enable,
No, correction,
Ennobles us to coexist,
Value each other,
Learn.

Observable differences.
But more interesting,
More pleasurable,
are the incredible, visible, signs of
Consanguinity.
Mere affinity?
Kinship.

A poem?
Nah.
But at 1:11am in my location,
It's what's on my mind.
Now that I know the meaning of
Consanguinity.