For Caira Doheny, My Irish Muse


"Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets' food is love and fame."

An Exhortation, st. 1 (1819)
Percy Bysshe Shelley
------------------------------------

Let us intimate a Poetic Competition,
Tween an Irish lass,
and a New York Jew,
I shall serve, and you,
You shall return

A contest:
Our tongues, our racquets,
Across the table,
The words shall bird fly,
Across the net,
Couplets and haiku
Shall smash and whistle

The winner will be the one
The God of Poetry
Accepts for permanent servitude

You **** my poetic soul forever
With the currency of praise genuine,
Authentic, flowing and fulsome,
Awarding me the Medallion Doheny
Cash value, a mere Irish penny,
But to the poet, the food of love and fame

Genetic to your nature,
You exhale word rhythms,
Excitable and interrupting,
Speech free flowing,
Tho I am of the People of the Book,
You, by birthplace,
Are unfair poetry advantaged

All your utterances
Are action heroes of the heart,
And I fail miserable to capture
The poetry you breathe out

Your Irish praise me awarded,
Tis now the
Standard and the Curse
This benighted amateur
Must now Prometheus nurse

One day in Dublin, shall we meet,
In a country where poetry is the
Iron in the people's blood

In a particular pub
Opposite we will sit,
You, a cowboy by adoption,
Me, the dastardly banker

You know the pub,
I, with my pint,
You, with your diet coke,
And the only lingua Franca
Shall be darts of poetry
In a language our own,
A collective work we will weave,
A blessed unity, a single tongue now,
Lilting, singing, bespoke

We will let the singer-poet laureate**
Of the island we now share, moderate,
Over his piano man's gin and tonic,
As we do as Yeats instructed:
Between us,

"A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem {but}
a moment's thought,
our stitching and unstinting
has been naught"

For Chalsey Wilder

Realizing that 'tis near five months,
that our ions, our verbal lips
have not crossed or caressed,
our words electric,
have not charged us
with current direct,
pleasured is my mind
intensely, devoutly,
to see your message
this Friday Sabbath eve

the weekly work toil,
now foiled
fair full my physical liberty,
from the tiresome and woeful.
your floral bequest,
presented as a request,
it's scent wishful and sad,
so hard to understand,
for your are a flower,
that makes this answering poem
grander

now and here, I fulfill,
this charted task,
with a poem answer crafted
by you, from me,
and entirely for you

your request, 'tis my obligation -
that is freedom

realizing that something in life,
you, being that something,
you, are that petal,
that the poetry breezes
accidentally sent to me,
by rambling, random chance

you posses and grant unto me
a freedom to love and lionize
a petal'd poetess and
heroic lioness

wish not in vain for a careless life,
care much, care hard, care so much,
as you do,
for in every poem you pen,
you betray yourself and prove
your sense and sensibilities,
the quality of caring,
the quality of human essential

well I know,
the illusion of blowing dandelions,
being envious of their
seemingly ***** nilly ways

well I know,
this experienced old
and extra foolish fool,
that the cares superficial
of a troubled existence,
woes of an uncaring world,
lay heavy and rare is a
hoped for easy discard
ever realized,
and for one
so young as you,
'tis heaviest burden of all

but look at the freedom here!

you gift me inspiration,
is that not power,
is that not freedom?

you gift me a willing to caring,
direction and harmony,
you scent me flowers,
you send me a poem,
each petal a part of a whole
astoundingly beautiful,
you, flower,
you, poetess,
you,
astoundingly beautiful

you ask me what do I think of your poem?

I think a flower
is astoundingly beautiful
never will I tear a petal from it,
and the let the imagined wind,
the image of free fall flight
tear it from me

never!
I love my flowers,
frolicking free,
breezed and caressed,
the freedom of caring
they grant,
is so easy,
yet so hard,
but I love it so,
as much as I love your poem

read this knowing,
this is your moment


------------------
Realizing something in life*

by Chalsey Wilder

Letting go of a flower petal
And the wind picking it up
for a ride to the unknown
Feeling something in your heart
as you realize a flower petal
has so much more freedom
than you do
It can be who it is
without a care while you can't
and flowers are loved for it
while you aren't

You stand there
wishing for a second,
for a mere second you wish
you were that flower petal
then you look down
then around
and walk away,
maybe still wishing
you
were that flower petal
or maybe having it
change you forever
Have you ever had a moment like this?
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/790345/realizing-something-in-life/

~for Ernesto, with love~

these last days, so recently arrived
to nag/remind, pre-commence,
the celebration
of mine fast approaching,
significant other mileage marker,
the day that is the in-between mid and seniority,
finds me asleep by nine,
only to be turned hard a starboard,
startled and startling,
sharp awoken at midnight,
a headful of dreadful and most colorful dreams,
my ever faithful midnight alarm clock

so I find myself alert and inclined to be
urgently communicative,
answering queries from friends,
catching up on comments and likes
to my poems that once penned,
are then penned by me themselves,
surrounded by fences,
put away to be ignored and enclosed,
my flock of sheep unshorn

that upon occasional re-reading
then become hairless, all pink and white skin,
newly denuding of me
by the reminder of public exposure

this travelogue
through heart and mind
is journey for journey's sake,
I have discarded older outdated notions
(the "outdated" conceptual
begs for a poem all its own)

of commencement, beginnings,
ends, finales, terminals. even periods.

instead I conquistador land upon a new
plateau, familiar but confusing,
where my muddled thoughts
have lain for several days,
cloudy in a accumulating cumulus of realizations,
the "compare and contrast" of
life and death,
their gravitas diminished,
understanding them to be but modest signposts
upon the path of this
stewing, brewing, yearning to be free
poem
~~~
The In-Between

all day, I too,
am penned in a museum auditorium,
listening, hearing, applauding a gorgeous gaggle
of writers, musicians, doctors and dancers,
security guards and comic book authors,
falsely accused death row prisoners,
sons and daughters
and yes,
even a poet laureate

all assembled to contemplate this connective notion
of curator-as-written
with capitals and hyphen (most appropriately) as
The In-Between

of course dear Ernesto,
everyone defines their personal in-between
personally
but all these artists corral my thoughts
onto and against a canvas blank,
awaiting the portrait painting
slow cooking in my oven

of you,
who lays dying in Texas
surrounded by family and
the notions of reconciliation
and thus birthing
in me
these words,
something new ironical,
if only to prove a point

You,
my self-appointed
mentee
ex-drug addict, father,
self-savior of yourself
make

I,
your mentor, cheerleader, steadfast critic armed
with
just encouragement enough to give your self-propelled
poetry an occasional push
of your hand-carpentered, tree swing

but this is a poem about
in-betweens

two words,
separate and equal
but when combinated by a
hyphen,
a dash that leaves no spaces
in-between
making two into one

for you and I
are both

in
and
between

each other

two-in-one

only a few weeks ago we talked about
you coming to my new york city,
and now life deserts you,
and you,
me?

here I pause and smile
for I hear you thinking,
natty, too long, too much,
wrap it up and connect that special and peculiar,
in-between,

-

*but I can't stop
for each hour of the last 72
has witnessed a new poem
in-between
minute one and minute sixty five
written for you,
writing for life,
writing of this moment
this space so gulf and so narrow
in and between
the unity of
us

the poet laureate talks of spaces,
the poem she reads out loud,
is emitted light from her body's mind
exhaled into the room,
and now designed to be placed
in-between
her and us,
purposed to successfully connect
our in-betweenness

I do not like this notion of
rest in peace,
as if peace was a desirable end in and of itself

prefer rest in pieces,
for what follows and precedes peace,
is pieces of ourselves
torn from the notebook
where we write down our poems unique and
secrete our secrets

rest in pieces!
connected by the in-between
which like
the
s p a c e s between  e a c h letter  here,
are the connective tissues of two parts
one, new
and the other,
created-crested by the transference
of every old reworked

I think of spaces differently

the gap between two fron teeth,
the space between two violin strings,
the V separating divider of the space
between our legs that is the baseline
of our torso entire,
the re-appearing and then disappearing space
between two bodies making love

all now remind that the
in-between
is a place of its own purport,
a parapet to stroll across from
one castle keep to another

so more and more,
mere mortal
are these discards,
I forsake these antiquities:

commencement, finale, terminal, ending,
even new beginnings

and all attention paid now to the recasting of our
happenstances and events
as a series of
in-between's,
the most valuable of our possessions,
connecting the only-seemingly
disparate days

but I must now return once more to the
in-between
of us

we uncovered something of ourselves
in
each other,
creating a causeway
between

for you and I are one big
differential,
so unlike in
life's
temperamental,
that
given the down easy to the shock and awe,
most happily easily,
our so very differing poems bridged the
in-between
us

the in-between us,
seen incorrectly as the timeouts
separating the fifteen rounds we fight

that is the thing,
the rub,
the main event on the fight card,
is not the fight itself,
but the crossing over

come quickly to our in-between,
my brother-in-words,
do not leave me
bereft and bereaved,
disconnected and despairing

let's follow,
both of us,
the trail
of dividing and connecting hyphens
---------------

I, given every advantage,
you, given every ghetto gang disadvantage
yet your voice soars
while mine aches and creaks
and breaks

I am better now
understanding existence as
a series of connected in-betweens,
but the not knowing when we will meet again
for the first time,
stretches me thin,
for without you
in
me,
between
us
the space flickers wider,
and the next in-between far far distanced,
further for farther,
and I worry,
who will love my poetry as you did,
who will be my encouragement now?

your passing shall not come
in-between us,
this I swear
~~~
in your honor of
your cellphone misty typo pings and compulsed hurried style,,
I do not edit this edifice that. I have lain down just now,
it was writ in slow haste and
fast forming eddies of ideas,
full of typographical errors of
omission and commission,
just
put out down as it was born,
just as you and I
we were put out as born,
only to cross and combine
to be a single
in-between

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what matters not
any of this over sighted analytics,

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

**ever filling the less...

for Harlon Rivers

the river potion,
the river portent,
the river potent

it is all of these and not one

he is bank sided,
observing the false idols,
the image mirrored
in the glass of the river

transfigured molecularly
he becomes something ferried frothily, forcefully

as if a twig
or a small thing of human manufacture,
an object tossed up airborne-repeatedly

his poetry:
the clash of particles at the many junctions
of objects and water, eddies and the currents,
ceaselessly circumnavigating,  
searching revisionary pathways

directed,
but randomized,
prisoner of the flows,
servant to the wind's directives and the
earths magnetic indivisible undulating waves

thinking,
this life,
its unsteady gait, 
the irreverent wavering of drunkenness
resultant from potent potions,
portents of inopportune position

in him,
my own histories, 
my poetic recordings
also become
water borne,
watermarked,
replayed back for me,
for erasure, censure, closure
and rededication

this River
is a tapestry,
a torn map,
drawn on broken shards
of slivered water,
living with all the others

but we,
are the untitled,
we,
are the un-entitled,
and he is the
Rivers

<•>

For Ilion: Sleep, Return to It*

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

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

as do I -depend upon thy poetry*

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

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


7/7/17 4:49am
Manhattan

a poem I didn’t plan: but a foot upon my shoulder
gave me no choice

if perfection came along regularly
we would not take note of this August Sunday

the breeze looks steady, blowing a firm few knots
making the waves rulers of the bay
without the necessity of troublesome whitecap shoutouts,
the sailboats muttering ‘thankee’

the kids dock jumping into the water so warm
they shiver running in the chill of a warm summer day, 
 to home, where they do the coverup thing
with hoodies and their Great Aunts white haired cozy blankets
which appear in untold numbers,
one for everyone and don’t drip the cherry frozen sticks
stains from your tongue and lips!

the sun temp modulated and moderate, a summer kiss farewell,
after weekend of thunderstorms and house shakings, it is sad for now
we recount the costly lost days unretrievable and
sky watching
for  naught

the waters inviting again come walk-upon me Island Poet,
to  see my new sea bottom treasures that the heavens,
abetted by foolish men and children
have added to my storehouses of grains and pains

decline and recline for
Oh! have I not got one more weekend, to
close out that Melville tale^
and that is something one need not rush to complete

let me clarify -
!I am a Summer Man!^^
and the summers sunsetting
is a ring around my chest that sings ever louder
nearer my god than thee;
now at the age where one only counts down to zero at double time
marching, eye straight

in this place where we - god and me -
have sung and battled together
like good friend and peer,^^^
college roommate permanent enemies,
he keeps his teary rains in abeyance to remind
that the coming of his schooner is
inevitable and to pack my poems in
plastic for the journey
finale

Oh! how can perfect be so saddening but it is...

my perfection days are minimizing and should not complain
for wrote many poems to day, unable to refuse my traveling muses
who summer with me, one upon each shoulder
until god kicks them off, with a bossy look of
he’s more mine than yours

to make sure his presence acknowledged he
makes Pandora play Billie Holiday singing:
“I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day
In everything that's light and gay
I'll always think of you that way

I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you”

subtle, right?

but who am I to complain
the razor thin difference tween
blessings and curses so thin
sometimes are they not the same thing

ne sont-ils pas les mêmes?


an unplanned poem
naturally

part of the plan

Aye Aye
(Poetry is the Adhesive of Our Lives)

6:33 am

for Joe*


once again,
in a strange bed,
in a strange city,
left a cold snowed city climate
debtor-in-possession,
owner of a carryover question
of yours,
what was a
winter prior posing,
is now a plane plain ride over
have coming with me
awaking,
by a sun provoking,
the answer,
now strange composing
in a visually warm city where
beautiful tanned bodies
are mined in beach sand

and
this,
my answer,
it too,
mine,
it too
being mined,
subconsciously working, coming,
f o r m I n g
in my always busy,
overthinking,
daily nighttime shift of
repositioning from a
dark night ended reposing,
into a
sunny day answer deposing

t'is a tricky one,
when one poet asks another
straight out,
after the the fashion of the day,

of my poetry,
whattaya think,
whattaya know...

about
my very own
words,
this communal place,
HP,
an open bed,
where we lie down with strangers,
where we lay down our words,
wake up lovers,
or worse,
ignored,
wake up encouraged,
(can one make hallelujah a verb?)
or refuted,
disputed by
the either/or
ignorant silence of the masses,
of what's truly good,
or sunk
under reedy rushes of swamping
despair,
at the ignorant adulation of the
endless trite, puerile

not one
for shooting from the
hip,
on a subject so
delicate,
that my paused,
slow mo response,
to you,
of course,
misunderstood,
as a red badge of no courage,
a refusal to answer
in this demanding age of
virtual, instantaneous any and every
stray dog thought

multiple shades of a Miami sunrise,
burnt oranges and Van Gogh blues,
frosted strawberry internal pink toppings,
whitish cream cappuccino streaks,
makes one wonder about the
creative design team that brought us the
universe and this all over
sunrise,
all natural, organic visual breakfast
that comes to remind me that
your answer,
you...

for all of us,
in our lives
there is always poetry infused,
there for the seeing,
and
for some,
even
adhering to our
private places

for you, Joe,
there is always poetry,

in this work,
is the continuous process,
self-recreating,
and this sir,
aye, aye, sir,
this one writ,
hopefully a satisfactory answer,
perhaps...
one of resolution,
of adhesion,
silicon bonded

for such is the nature of
this particular Joe,
an inquiring soul,
a nurtured one,
another poetry-partial-birth
child of mine,
born on-line

so,
requiring special handling when
creating, crafting,
******* lines of my presumptuous presumptive
"expertise"
in all matters that
our emotional heart
is the make-up-the-rules-as-you-go
rulemaker

thus,
peril,
fraught, and
simplistic excessive
frugality of word/feelings,
dangerous and inappropriate...

I loke (love + like)^
your poetry fine
the slow revolution of the screws
of growth so readily apparent...

But,
always,
a but,
my demands upon you,
so great,
the expectations of expectations,
greater for you than I dare share,
only since your quest
is my bequest
so shockingly that you dare
directly request

herein,
asked and answer attempted,
yet the risks are I lighthouse beacon
angle too high,
becoming too troublesome,
an Excedrin headache

You don't see,
You don't comprehend,
the way I do,
how far you have come,
your train,
upon which
I am a windowed, winnowed,
passenger,
a pseudo parent
in Loco (crazed) HP Parentis

so it breaks my heaVy heart,
that I want burdensome you better,
so much better...

Oh Toolmaker!
from your
as of yet
swelling unrealized
r e a l
blood sweat and
tears

I want to be forced
by you
to shed my own
tears,
gasp, intake my own
bloodied breath,
sweat when reading yours...
hopelessly selfish,
wholly unsatisfied...

I want
your refreshed wit  born in
Whitman
winters

tales of your Connecticut icy hot
Frost
should lay me low by new poems as good as
Lowell's

tease me, seek me
let me beg,
make me yours,
like Sara Teasdale's
"I Am Not
Yours"

I will you!
will you be,
recreate anew
William Carlos Williams

make me gnash my teeth
when you limerick like my first hero
Ogden Nash

moor my heart like
Marianne Moore

be a new American Master
of this awesome trade,
accepting of this modest tirade,
make new tools still invisible
that will become
more powerful than
any man's hand
can mechanical design...

most of all force me to
reside inside your adoms
locked in my soul's firmament,
until you have fashioned me
into
an obedient tool,
forcing me,
to weep my own
r e a l
blood sweat and
tears
that your words
backhoe excavate
from their hidden places

be mine own
GI Joe
poet~hero

hopefully,
this answers your question,
what I think
of your poetry voyage
to levels of heaven
you are yet
unacquainted

looking forward to an
aspiring spring,
a robust salute of
Aye, Aye,

for I  have fixed the spot in the sky
with the adhesive will keep your star aloft
tween you
and the rest of us
plodders

but now be bounded to lift
us to
unbounded highs
on the wings of the highest
expectations*

of all of us who
admire your journey so...
will not e v e r be satisfied,
until
you exceed,
you succeed,
until
we are such
so sated, so satisfied...
that we see the music,
dance to the words,
in places where the silence
of listening
is the greyest gift
one can give...

A minyan is an assembly of ten Jews.  With ten present, the group can perform a fuller service, adding congregational prayers that an individual alone cannot say, and in heaven, received, as if from a 
more powerful, unified voice.

~~~
Satan laughing with delight at the happy news,
unusually proud of his soul-retrieving,
red state minions,
having scored late in the '16 season,
a long awaited prize,
a high priest of music, a hallelujah singer
just come  cross the borderline,
once a mere earth bound legend,
now to be mockingly enjoyed
in this, his legendary peculiar tier of heaven
~
a banner year it was, a cornucopia of new arrivals,
singers, songwriters, composers, conductors, rock 'n rollers,
itinerant blues musicians,
who as a rule, were not the most faithful observers
of the Ten Commandments and its host of detailed relatives
~
body and drug abusers,
of traditional morals, not such big users,
and as for their *** lives,
best not discussed in front of the baby devils,
just quite yet
~
all this made for easy "pluckings,"
as he smiled devilishly, his own ironic sense of humor,
an added delight for the new American Pie
that would forever serenade him henceforth
~
indeed this Leo-nine most new arrival,
intensifies the pleasure,
for deep in this one had waxed the god-spark,
his own fractured demise,
now allowing the cracks of light to be closing,
lessening by an immeasurable fraction
the despised joy to the world
-
then a raucous rustling heard,
a voice unseen but siren penetratingly heard proclaiming:

**** you Satan,
this time you've gone too far!

return unto me them all,
for you have overstepped the boundaries I have constructed
when birthed I the universe so long ago

these children, mine,
for though they were not perfect in their lives,
they perfected ever so much my designs,
the world I granted them,
with their music, voice and hands,
absolving them of all their sins

Surrender to me them all!

my Prince,
my lion, Cohen, high priest of my temple,
my haggard and worn Merle,
the greyed and Frey'd eagle, Glenn,
Natalie, daughter of the Earth King of Cole,
my rose of Sharon Jones,
my Emerson and my Lake,
Leon Russell,
my white bearded russet
who wrote 'A Song For You,'
the Duchess, Patty,
my Bobby Vee,
the first ro see
'the night has a thousand eyes,'
Frank Sinatra Jr., his fathers torch bearer,
my David, my right arm, my Bowieknife carrier,
who fell from heaven and needs returning unto me,
mine own Kanter,Jeffersonian pilot of my Airplane,
my Michael, George,
my Martin, George,
who never sang a word
but gifted us some Beatles,
My black and White Maurice,
who reignited the Earth, with Wind and Fire

all these mine and all the musicians of this year,
they have died, but not their music,
now to join my heavenly chorus,
my musicians' minyan

For Leonard: Two Years On (11/7/16)


don’t patronize, he laughs,
don’t want too much praise,
might go to my head,
which is still residing in Montréal,
ville de ma naissance

well you know, Natty, our tradition~prohibition
against excessive eulogizing (hesped),
and I know too,
some traditions you respectfully disrespect,
so try to be mindful,
wax not overly long

a suggestion by our mutual master songwriter,
follow the Song of Songs model,
write of new love,
born and reborn,
and borne
from the collection of beloved songs ancient

“His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem”
Chapter 5, Verse 16

kiss the comforter, that unmistakable gravelly voice chanting,
smooth anthesis, lips raining down blessings,
from places heard but unseen, that yet flutter the spirit

come to me, thy beloved, thy image mirrored,
our missing part, bare the lightness,
pour it into the crack,
that fire creates
when lips meet and sing a song of unity again
continuously perfected

go downtown, on rainy nights, when only few venture
to the venue, find the small bars with a stool and a spotlight,
smoking out back, the sound system half-busted,
where the tryouts for brave are held, keep those names,
make a list,
for these are the voices of angels hidden among the living

singalong, see the notes rising to glory bound,
clothed in shiny stainless steel, golden bronze,
metals of man and earth, forged formed,
for who needs fanciful gold and silver, soft and bendable,
earth presents, they’re over praised, 
 it’s on the base bass that the tower of love is founded,
and not just for the gifted

come my friend, the schooner captain^ has reserved your place,
with shiny eyes come to the new Jerusalem where poets rule,
and sweet lips all, only speak, in a united tongue,
only love songs

For my dearest poet and friend,
Maria

hard in so many ways
hard cause I know before I begin,
I ain't got the words,
don't think anybody does

I am bereaved, bereft,
ruthlessly deprived by force
of the pretense of composure,
the daily mask worn to perfection,
to avoid detection by the world
of the sum total of the heartaches
brought by chance to my door

Thus stripped, I can give forth easy
screams that have no end, no use
for anyone but me and they,
when all said and never done,
give no relief and just continue endlessly,
form changed to silent ones,
and that is even worse, so much harder.

no point in questioning this fate,
work in a place where pain is routinised
so you can function and be of use

no point in questioning this fate,
but met my master, bested by the worst,
no training, no feigning - I am defeated,
and make no excuses for my loss,
of everything, of anything, for I have
entered a place where there is no poetry anymore

and anyone who finds solace in the company of poets


Adorn us
with you writing,
run from the smug,
the pretentious non-believers
into the arms of poets
who awaiting
your new words
with the hard panting hunger
of true lovers

this is my simplest invitation,
Grace us with you grace,
with subtle signs kiss our heart places,
for poetry,
good and bad
has never turned anyone away

and never will**

accept this write
with permanence of ink on paper,
cannot be erased or taken back
mine, yours, ours,
ink invulnerable to
delete

here here, are the preeminent
awaiting all your attentions,
feed us, you poets,
rivers, railway stations, unfamiliar gods,
Missouri to Malaysia,
the images
we neglected,
too far away for our limited vision,
but that you saved,
as gifts of touching lips,
miners in the crevices of the soul

I thank god for the company of poets and the kindness daily,
they bring to hearts,
all I ask is,
more...

the theory of entropy

A doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration.
or
A single toss of a fair coin has an entropy of one bit. A series of two fair coin tosses has an entropy of two bits. The number of fair coin tosses is its entropy in bits. This random selection between two outcomes in a sequence over time, whether the outcomes are equally probable or not, is often referred to as a Bernoulli process. The entropy of such a process is given by the binary entropy function. The entropy rate for a fair coin toss is one bit per toss. However, if the coin is not fair, then the uncertainty, and hence the entropy rate, is lower. This is because, if asked to predict the next outcome, we could choose the most frequent result and be right more often than wrong. The difference between what we know, or predict, and the information that the unfair coin toss reveals to us is less than one heads-or-tails "message",
or bit, per toss.[5]
~~~~~
**one bit per toss

one love per life

over time we entropy,
degrade our physic,
even our heart~need,
tho ever burning,
gives off less heat,
as the candle aged-consumed,
the eighth day canister of love oil,
the sole remainder,
slow level diminishes.

we keep on tossing the coin,
and with every failed love,
the need, entropies, declines,
the coin is worn down,
making tails-you-lose
the greater probability.

but then all it probably takes,
just another toss,
and bit you are
by the coin of the realm
that-once-discovered,
from her, this realm,
this woman,
you will never leave,
nor coin-toss ever again

~for my poet friends who will understand exactly
the nature of our ailment/adventure~

it begins when once poem titled,
which, a first clue, nothing more, a mumbled prophesy,
an arrow to duration & direction home but unknown,
a one-way stop sign neatly lettered in the
smallest sized letters with the disclaimer above

you sojourn to an uncultivated land, not sown.

you travel to places “finding out what you
don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out,”
no guide, no well trodden path, no cultural prescribed woke diktats,
you are,
taken unwilling more than you lead, where endings
surprising, unforeseen, return tickets never offered for sale

pick words, more likely,
they pick you,
the only constant your rapid metabolism,
a winter snow blow, swirling churning, even midst
the most languid, sultry southern summer day

mind the mind.
mind the ground frozen until a tiny tickle trickle verse
becomes a full-on ground melt, wet and soggy,
******* you into a
rice-rock-hard pellet-poem thriving,
you observe your own drowning in a
6 inch deep wet paddy

the bottom line,
the net net, summary judgment
you commenced with urgent hesitancy for the
risks are great now, pen dagger chest pointed,
you, ******, in crosshairs, your own graven idol image

having found out what you
don’t want to know,
having found out what you
don’t want to find out

find myself weeping,
fists holding my head,
communing with floorboards oak hardened,
groaning acknowledging,
this, this, THIS

this discovering, uncovering,
this is
why I write,
this is
why I dare not write anymore!




12/13/2019

~~~
Nivek: "there are no stats for poetry"
~~

I live with a woman who loves statistics and how they reveal so much about who we humans really are...

I live with a woman who too often weeps when she reads
my poetry...

so when I google "Statistics for Poetry,"
it leads me right back to this poem
and there you have it,
a matter of fact
a single stat for poetry,
courtesy of nat,
with all credit to Nivek!

Refractions of Vivid Emotions

This poem has a story. A few months ago, inspired by
the response from patty m to one of my poems (quoted below,)
I started this poem and never completed it. Stumbled upon it, and asked for permission to post, when I realized the why of the absence of her voice from here, the passing of her beloved, Joey.
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1195106/for-the-love-of-my-life/

It changed the poem.

for Patty M.
and Joey,
who I only knew through
the eyes that loved him

~~~

"dayummmm this is amazing.
I love your foreplay,
the wanton ******,
your words tipping words in
refractions of vivid emotions"
patty m

~~

she hits me
sweetly, unknowingly
with a best shot,
a four lined stanza
of expresso appreciation,
while
shhhhh,
I'm at work

everyone, observing,
looking at me,
cause I am instantly
floored

instant cognition,
emotional reverberation
disturb, perturb,
by her phantastic imagery
a language, a phraseology
"refractions of vivid emotions"

slow conniption,
her phrases,
never didactical,
cause my reactionary words
to refract my emotions,
light rays now reflecting,
breaking off pieces of me,
all scattered about the universe,
and I'm learning me a lesson good,
be careful what you read...

grab the cell only to hear:

"currently, none of
Humpty Dumpty's men
are currently available,
so please stay on the line...
you're caller number one,
expected wait time, well,
ha ha ha ha ha..."

fix me woman!
tape or glue,
won't adhere
where you words have cut me,
sutures cannot close caverns,
reverse magma flows,
can you,
is even possible
to bring me back to whole?

you've tapped some
deep watered notions,
split my atoms,
you have refracted me,
vividly

I have here
writ me
down

newborn needy,
requesting more of her words
to patch
up

and heal
me
~
so I search for a refresher course on
The Poetry of patty m,
and am twice trashed,
thrown twice over prostrate to the floor,
her voice gone quiet,
lost from loss,
sometimes loss makes makes the best silence,
sometimes loss make the best poetry

Oh, this wanton ******!

her news upends,
her words tipping words,
each word,
a companion to each tear shed,
and I cry copiously

a last poem, this time
of an endplay
absent he... absent foreplay

my pal Joey,
though our eyes never met,
a debt of gratitude owed,
for you refracted
from your soulmate

words that made this trying world
such a better place

I too,
at loss
how to say goodbye,
this imperfect poem chile of mine,
for I am inconsolable and ashamed
the overt poverty of my words
that offer but a weakened console

so with pride
I will borrow some
patty-words,
hoping that's ok
~~~

**Beware,

life is never fair,

a trap, a clap trap happenstance

leading me in rapid dance

perchance enhanced with vibrant hue

dispensed in advice I'll give to you;  

run don't walk with backward glance,

hide desire wrapped away

and concentrate on dragons to slay.

Rejoice in thoughts if once set free

would join the world

in unity,

but you and I

can never be,

this I say with certainty.  

then sigh. . .

         as I softly whisper

goodbye.

contradiction, sorrow, and vulnerability,
a trine labeled as all mine,
yet, this triumvirate, well know & shared,
but more and moreover,
set aside if/when well dared

this comatose trilogy that so oft astrides,
when the beacon moon stands us up
with white lightening,

after hope  has washed away,
out to the sea deep of
crusty sleep,
newer versions of older stories uncovered,
re-revealed,
warmth, golden light and
hope above hope,
in the weakened human heart are,
must be,
unsealed...

a lovely one, a rising one, a revelatory,
a poem releasing secrets,
we can all, with time, all of us,
be healed...


1:40 am
nyc
one new day,
today

see http://hellopoetry.com/search/poems/?q=My+proofs

~~~~~~~~~~
Robert C Howard   Jul 23 2014

"I love this (the poem above). I was riveted to the page (screen) from the first line to the last. It reads like an existentialist credo. I couldn't help wondering if New York makes one an existentialist. Where else in the world can you live so alone in such a huge crowd"*
~~~~~~~~~~
For Robert
(Does NYC makes one an existentialist)

we live alone,
anywhere,
more and more,
not despite,
but because of the ease
that the total expanse
of the universe via
internet connectivity
today enables us to have an 
unrealized, unactualized,
but feels like an
NYC Billy Joel-undeniably-real
"nodding acquaintance"

this contradictory duality,
two parallel continuums of existence,
the flesh and the pixelated,
alone and together,
I have crossed over
in ways prior unimaginable

exist upon a single line
not just connecting
the real to the imagined
but conducting one to the other,
one existence, indistinguishable
border lines indistinct,
artifices superimposed by others

perhaps
NYC was model precursor
for our internet presumed-to-be-alive
model for the world today,
where I know not
my apartment neighbor's name,
yet carry his second child
in my arms,
when the fire alarm
summons us all to flee
to street safety...
and still only
"know" his child's first name,
and the father,
as apt. #16D

an act of existentialism?

so many tears and poems
have I shed
for one who has
lost living treasures,
impossible for me
now to meet and witness them

nonetheless,
heard the testimony,
of disembodied voices,
read the pain
upon the pages so real,
that pixels from screen
rise up to stab my
overwhelmed tear ducts,
voiding the warranty of my tablet

only I can see
the realized proofs,
wet upon the screen/page
crossing over the
humanity divide
that invisible runs
wirelessly between us
and our "devices"

this, an act of existentialism?

Yes, the universe,
unfathomable.
I cannot confirm you exist,
even as I pinch my self..
just to be sure of me,
further I testify,
no machine wrote
this vain attempt
to spoof~proof me human

flee towards good faith,
deny never, my responsibility,
greater than this body
to act, more than exist,
never to remain silent,
the best reason to write
is to reason out loud
your choices

if I struggle to ascertain,
what are the correct choices,
never certain,
but always questioning,

this, an action of existentialism?

none of this satisfies,
is there a human voice
that belongs to you,
and one that belongs to me
above and beyond these
alpha symbols you read,
is there an existence,
sparking, elemental,
a proof-positive Nat,
could conduct himself to
where you are?

think now that someday,
after you have finished
conducting
beauty and art,
extricating sound from
metal and wood,
via the
Belleville Philharmonic Orchestra,
a man will join at its completion
the long line of well wishers,
but your hand,
he will not shake

instead, he just might

"place gentle a finger  
on your lips across, and upon his,
if electrons you sense and taste,
and yours they embrace,
as naturally as if
they were waiting
just for you,
you can almost be sure,
don't ask his name, unnecessary,
for he will face you
with these words:

Thank you, Thank you!
you are my proof.."*

I exist and you now know me by my the
taste of my lips,
just as real as the taste of
your poetry, your music,
upon mine

~~~

"and ev'ry stop is neatly planned
for a poet and a one-man band"

Simon & Garfunkel "Homeward Bound"
~~~

just one more,
for Sally B.,
who loves their music,
and all the poets here

~~~

when best messing with perfection,
hope for a close enough
second place finish,
at best

when tendering a gift,
gotta give only your
best,
for this is how,
you will be
best
remembered

yet all our stops here,
were and we're
never neatly planned,
indeed,
as you
sail on silver girl,
through to all
of our
unscheduled ports o' call,
and though our fingers may never intersect,
they have touched,
more than once,
on this poetry river
of electrons,
this bridge
over troubled waters

no need to make a plan,
to get yourself free,
even tho' I am no more
than a poor boy from New York City,
I make no jest,
always laying low,
but not here, not now

for this job I took upon mine own,
so after changes upon changes,
mount the stage, spotlighted,
one more song,
one more poem from a one man band,
this poet~fighter composes alone,
ill prepared,
carrying a reminder of every poem that laid him down,
but
tasked and
accepting nonetheless,
this challenge bout

old friends,
he sings,
i've come to talk to you again,
for this revelation still remains,
well planted in the brain

this song, this poem
will be shared,
let us all read it aloud
to break
the sounds of silence,
in a chorus of a cappella voices,
this simple verse upon which
I cannot improve

this poem, this stop,
this hello
to an endless poetry voyage
that transports human finery,
was indeed
never planned neatly,
but here was born
a sole sufficient refrain,
contenting the writer and the reader,
all of us poets,
all of us one man bands,
all of us in one voice singing

you are simply the
best here,
you are home,
and to you,
we are bound

~~~

August 9, 2015
Shelter Island

For Sheron, On Our Seventh Anniversary:
Bound and Boundless

~~~
different shaped,
a square peg, a round hole,

and yet, the carpenter is pleased

two planes,
different shaped,
yet overlaying,
occupying
conjoined space,
angular symmetry

and yet, the geometrist is satisfied

can

bound and boundless,*

fully opposing notions,
incontrovertible,
yet be in pleasing poetic
combination?

how
can it be,
two bonded,
distinct spheres
contoured with crossover
bordered blended boundaries
exceed aligned,
beyond merest connecting,
overlapping,
intersecting

two circles
electronically collide,
venn diagrammed
to share,
programmed unknowingly for creating
a big bang
of a harmonious, simultaneous
new star creation

this mystery,
this poem,
its
resolution~solution,
comes to the poet
late in life,
yet contented, believing,
it is a far, far
better
thing that he does
now,
than never

life and love
living in unison,
transforming, deserving
of a unique discrete,
le nom est
l'unite

perhaps you are thinking,
this poem, a failed attempt,
neither the best or the worst
of any written anywhere
upon this green globe,
this day

yet he smiles
as it composes itself,
for though without its own sustaining merit,
it is a poem
regarding the best work
he
have ever done,
and the unity
it portrait paints,
is a
nova
worthy surely
of a thousand millennia

and yet, the poet is content
with its
content*

~~~

~ for spygrandson ~

with deep affection


https://hellopoetry.com/spysgrandson/


<>

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

honor, loving kindness and friend.

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


maybe,
now I am one
with
done

~~~

so few synonyms,
for so many needy

for a place of
shelter
by any name

call it what you may,
proffered here to thee,
but yes, but no,
nothing is ever free

the toll to pay is this...

clarify and prep clean a vision,
do away with the dots and floating swirls
seen beneath closed eyes,
get the senses ready,
Purell sanitize gel
all your sad ways of thinking

then
breathe out so loud,
confirming you're genuine, ready, eager,
for you have been prequalified
to be here
to earn a place of
shelter  

no other way
other than:

read thy fellow poets,
earn their trust,
learn their signatures,
let their phrases of cleansing comfort
be all the
oasis, refuge, sanctuary, haven, asylum, retreat
you ever need...

fear not the tactile voyage arduous,
we have all paid and made it intact,
when you arrive,
prepare for a
welcome stupendous,
from us who have long patient awaited
more than just your first edition arrival,
but our newer combination additional,
bringing us all to a refreshed
state of grace

~~~

Shelter Island
August 9, 2015

the house in August is summer morn quieter

the sink clatter of breakfast dishes awaiting disposition by the dishwasher (me) ends abruptly. The slamming screen doors are
signal that crew has departed for yoga or Zumba, even work,


and the cottage is his.

An early riser, he has already visited and returned from the Environmental and Recycling Center which demands he ken various kinds of plastic, sort clean metal, glass and batteries for Hades voltage  crushing to their eternal resting for burial and rebirth & celebrates

bringing order to refuse.

Now, he retires to the sunroom couch to bring order to the refuse of his rambunctious mind, where he has birthed too many poems, survivors, destroying many stillborn or defective, that were not good enough for you, wept many tears of joyous completion, reveled in the late current bounteous good fortune in a mostly accursed life,
and dwells in a world entirely

of his own mind carving.

With one exception.

He sees the few names of those who have shared this journey.  With some, he has conversed for almost a decade. His grace for those willing to tag along and make their presence known, I am grateful

beyond words!

Thank you.

nml
08/03/2022
you know where.

<> for the love of friends<>


How does one write
of one he knew not?

the ancillary evidence
mounts relentlessly,
the double toil and trouble moments
edged now, slow vanquished by
steady accumulation
of the evidentiary

a man who lived his life well,
will be inevitably,
nay, justifiably, deservedly
be well remembered...

one examines the evidence with
eyepiece lenses calibrated
to one's own soul,
for this is the natural condition
of humanity

yet wonder,
what manner, what scale,
does one rightly employ
to judge another's  
plantings in the soil?

rightly judge another?

then you hear
a woman say,
she knew not knew
this man Eryc,
revealing an honest tertiary,
even cursory knowledge
of an anecdotal life well lived

our shared quandary,
yet she solves
this judicial issue
by asking of herself
a question
so stunningly elementary,
which both
asks and answers
the double risk
you have imposed,
to write of one you can never behold,
and in doing so,
judge thyself...

What Would Eryc Do?*

this crystal rapid current question
erodes doubt, the fear to tread
where one knows not
when a stranger says to another,
indeed to many others:

heard tell of this young man,
and know now to ask myself
when I too am junctured, in doubt,
What Would Eryc Do?

there is no doubt, no juncture,
just a provident question
a makers's mark
of and upon a man,
whose future shortened,
will live far, far longer than most,
if one simple applies
a standard to one's own life of

What Would Eryc Do?

indeed
we are sum and summation of choice ( D)

always the last choice
on life's surprise quizzes,

naturally, the answer is:

(D) All of the Above

it is the correcting answer

correcting?

each addition is a game changer,
the answer,
now forever instantantenously
     different

for we are:

"We are so much more then just these little blogs"

every kind word
creating a totally different
total

yo, yo, lucky, lucky boy,
you
t rave l
    with the best

12:53am,  January 3,2025
New York City
<>
A Traveler notates these words to my attention, but only because I make myself
a convenient target, for truthfully,
it is addressed to one and all,
to the royalty of:

We,

who speake out loud, to all those who ***** these damp woods full of wet words, that spring up overnight, ripe for the plucking, there for the taking, an exacting where & when they did not even exist
the twenty four prior

These purloined overnight creatures are

white and  black

lettered truffles, like the pages on which we inscribe, the letters raw, exquisitely tasty, shaved, measured in grams, but only when shared with others, in the privacy of our open minds, after being spooned from within us with exquisite care upon the pages that decorate our lives, sprinkled
with great care and cunning…

but when consumed, our five senses rage with aromatic pleasured pain, for these letters, so tiny, so powerful, grow only when
combinatory, individual bitty granules,
but when leavened, they enhance, provoke!,
they sauce, the

flavors  of the ordinary

of our experiences,
creating the extraordinary
when interacting upon
our five robust senses

for without the spaces of delineation,
our jumbled words are but the
random jingle jangle of the sounds
of night winds, rustling a tune
pleasant but incomprehensible

Here I take your leave,
with the liberty taken
for speaking in all our names
to a Traveler
who so succinctly captures our work,
the glue of our interactive Us,
Our,
Collective of Individuality

<>
Noun. sonder (uncountable) (neologism):

The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.

Dear One:
it is one of those days, when everything becomes a poem,
every mundane, brushing my hair  be/is a philo-treatise,
& the errands of the day, starting  at 6:45am with an assessment,
a weighing of oneself on a numerical scale of justice,
requiring one to rethink his moral behaviors of a prior day,
a kind of confessional I guess, for I have never been inside one,
(a confessional and actually confessing) but my hebraic genetics
require Veduei (1),
constant awareness of one’s
everything deeds, making confessing a ongoing process 24/7
process unceasing, onerous and relieving,
by reliving our each~very individual action,
which means that I am in a sensory paradise / hell and
sleep comes in bursts of exhaustion,
as I misplace my compass
daily, and the re-search required to obtain, nay, reGAIN,  
my footing, my true directionS,
and it is worse than never ending, more akin to the
regularity of irregular breathing…

Thank you for “Sonder;”
restoring the awe for not knowing it, and occasionally forgetting, that there are words, ready, willing, and able to become poems, as I exegesis, excise, and exercise their purpose
to better to remember the worth of everyone and every thing within in a too oft / clouded, self centered
“I exist , therefore I am”
very limited filtering device….
so sonder becomes a poem, an essay, un écrivez,
and I study your photograph, and fly away,
I am in a garden,
you may have (no, probably!) planted,
(like the sonder word in my brain)
and the colors, the soils, the colorex (2) variety
teaches me you better than words…
while I am sundering, sondering, you,

and so many others
who give me the great pauses
of my existence,
the purposed understanding
of the arrogance of pre-judgement…

Surrounded,
I am breathing salt air, luscious greens, a variegated
bluey (love that show)
sky,
and all my voices rise, in a choir of one,
fo forgive me, forgive myself,
for failing not to be bigger than
than the distances
my aging weakening senses
and my low powered sensibilities
physically provide,

I hear you,
I sonder you,
and so many others,
and I
bind and bound myself to you
and
thus emboldened!

to go forth and walk in unfamiliar gardens,
to read better  and be,
between the lines
y’all provide

here’s where a a modest thanksgiving
is due and herein provided,
and the inspirations keep coming and
coffee need re~reheating, so the brain can
start
all over again,
S’wondering
S’ondering
just like a (wink)
An American in Paris,
the next poem is aborning,
jealously
demanding
it’s very own
birthing;
an embryo,
asking to be
imagined.

so thank you,
dear one…

Fri, J 10 l, 2025    12:20 NYC
walking for flowers
                ~~~~
the steely irony is not bittersweet,
nor is it
white horseradish Passover stinging,
yes, the slow perfunctory defunctory,
measurable in cc’s and centimeters,
drip drop drippings frittered away by
the brains self-destruction of
cycling and recycling,
yes, and dying,
that occurs
all **** day long,
daily between the sunrise and sunset

Yet, here, right here, poetry words
somehow
fall freely,
no hesitation,
from brain to page,
no coitus-interrupt-us,
as if I was composing,
am decomposing,
mine own psalm

no need for proofs,
it was lying in wait for
sweet release,
a trigger pulled
to assemble &
stand and deliver the freely
given, albeit stolen goods

but in the ordinary course of human living,
I, fumble, stumble,
anger from my gut rumbles
up in actual screams of frustration
as the individual word sought is sight unseen
in a forest of hedgerows purposed
to interrupt free flowing
verbal animation, invading excitations

cannot remember
ten digits of mine own
cellphone number,
but the address of
my residence from early childhood
trips off the tongue, lightly and fantastically
and uselessly

the name of what’s their names
is a rock star
be a solid stone, large pebble,
s t u c k in my gourd,
or the little strength needed
in your fingertips ,
to grasp the individual coffee beans
you just dropped,
scattered over two rooms,

strength that arrived snd went,
and the cells of your body parts,
ask you
what’s going on, going wrong?

making lists is inoperative,
for the whereabouts
of said list is curiously
gone to the devils on my back,
cut out to
the dead cells that were once a warty grey,
now a withering deadening and
deafening, deadening, defeated
black hole
(******* in data for destruction)

seven generations of accumulations
erode,
chip chirped & chipped away now so oft,
onto those ***** city sidewalks
they fall and to dust,
to down ground, by steps of
passer-overs who care not a
whit,
what's that word that
rhymes to
writ?

it is imprisoned on
Devil’s Island with
what’s-his-name

took out the fixings to
make an antipasto salad,
placed all upon the counter ,
but couldn’t
locate the fig goat cheese, and
no it was not on my nigh-table,  
nor hid in the fridge,

grrr, that fridge that I fully emptied,
twice,
for twas sitting on the counter,
snickering
the very first item removed,
and also
to be
the first forgot

high to low, and reverse course,
having not left the abode!?!,
where is my watch,
so the hunt for the Red October smart watch awaiting
my lovely wrist,
is not to be found,
for it was well
hidden from searching eyes,
alr  eady on my wrist,
hiding upside down,
beneath my shirt cuff,
announcing publicly it’s
smarter than its
cuffed up
owner

admire a painting upon a wall,
but say nada to the world,
for the word mural
has evaporated, an
evaporated not no more
subjective Objective

I, intentionally
cut, rip off the pockets from every coat,
leaving in each but 
 one,
so I can be comforted
when wallet searching,
that endless patting repetitive
of pockets visible and hidden,
has now but a singular solution
thus,
may yield resultant missing object
sought and more quickly
found,
maybe

a thousand poem bits o’ honey
fully finished, or just a phrase,
needing a body, heart and head,
lie in a dank and dark
dungeoned file,
Former Memories

but the where when
and the critical tickle,
the why,
formation is still needed
for them to be despatched
to their fate,
unless it’s
“just because”
a better reasoning,
other than my
own guilty
diminishing capacity
“is no longer in service”

p.s let me save poor yocum
complaining this miss/ive
is too long,
SO there!
I’ve done it for him,
even though it is highly unlikely,
for that!
is the one thing
his memory
has proven
infallible...