oh, these messages, you send,
invitations to a gala, a black tie affair,
but only if willingly pay the exorbitant fare,
your money's no good, you must dare,
find and write the poem hid within

how cold are the carpenter's hands,
the weather, but an added obstacle,
this heat, makes dying different difficult,
the wood bearing cross requires additional nails
and flesh, for the extra load he's bearing,
when it snows blood in Jerusalem

the whole world can transition
when one man dies and another is risen,
where oh where lies then, the juxtaposition?

there is none, for man is man,
his divine spark, embedded,
to his maker's mark, wedded,
neither snow or sun,
can ever, either, extinguish*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
any message you send can and will be turned into a poem

they come too easy, they come too cheap,
each sparkle on my city's sidewalks,
each glistening preserved, retrieved,
lifted to my *****, wallet tucked~away,
treasure for safekeeping, slow pleasured contemplation

could not fail to find them,
for all standout in four dimensionality,
some are long, some are deep, some are wide,
yet all possess speaking souls,
to leave unattended, unheard, an act of criminality

years needed for the making,
moments only for the transcribing,
each a black ruby, or a street sand pearl,
none more valuable than another,
each unique, each precious, differently

some escape, shed their earthbound chains,
float atmospherically for keen eyes to grasp,
need a single finger to twirl, instill within,
they come too easy, come too cheap,
yet each poem written, more costly than the next

Composing Hallelujah

Fractious lines crack,
holiday decorate the spirit inferior,
while each note upon the priest's guitar
penetrates the aspirin roughened interior,
face slaps me, daggers and accuses,
you're not composing hallelujah.

So I mislead, big deal,
composing the anti-hallelujah,
yeah, I was ******* with you,
as you sit across from me electronically
pretending, me to you, you to me.

Lie to each other with smiling faces,
you too have reaped,
been emotionally *****,
by what our minds see and sow,
scowls and howls,
we've both grown our own demons.

My secrets, maybe are all there,
maybe, writ loud and clear,
in the songs I choose to share,
and in the unrevealed ones,
buried alive, held in reserve,
but not, for your average, rainy day,
could be today, you have no say.

Are we not all veterans of a kind,
don't we all have ribbons on our chest,
stripes and stars on our khaki blouse,
a record of our own great campaigns,
including the war to end all wars,
the never ending one,
the one the ******-historians renamed,
"The 24/7 Year Conflagration"?

It used to be just my secret, no more
don't need a cartoonist to tell me that's
the enemy is us, and there are moles, traitors,
hidden deep in our intelligence organization,
planting seeds, urges, pushing to
out the identity of our communist friend,

Depression

I don't mean the ordinary, garden variety,
a mere moody blues recession,
when funk is sourced from gray clouds,
served up proper, cold and wet,
then travels on when sun warmth
clarifies temporarily, the aspirin kicking in.

So I misled,
composing the anti-hallelujah,
yeah, I was ******* with you,
sit across from me and lie to me,
lie to each other with smiling faces
we reap what we own,
scowls and howls.

A chorus of harmonious poseurs
inside your own City Center,
vocalize the lyrics of the anti-hallelujah,
a composition of questions directed at
whomever in tonight's audience deserves it,
asking, nerving, to sing too loud, at decibel speed:

Are these verses, curses
about D,
our mutual acquaintance,
or just research notes for further followup,
part two of a pas de deux, and,
did you go this time, too far,
or still not far enough?

-

higher crimes and misdemeanors,
the accusations are long and detailed
just like the poems I write

the sentencing, sneeringly sententious and luridly sensational,
your vocabulary confiscated
and imposed upon you a concision (ouch)
write only poetic-succinctly

when I cried out from the dock,
“innocent!
the words own me, not I them,”
the words, my jurors, snickered,
the fix was in,
and the sentence of hard labor,
a bad rap time indeterminate,
spent in a cruel and unusual
panopticon,
a punishment to fit the crime


no, won’t tell you what it means,

a private verbalist’s hell

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.

another night’s ocean liner passage, now
sunrise bookmarked, by prayer hailed,
when wet cheeks express emotional
humanity and a tissue better be handy

too many times this is how the day
greets me, and I, it, wetted and vetted
to have made it as far as one more,
having lived you in me, me in you,
an exchange of tonguing word
kisses,
that break me into pieces of
consolations

it’s embarrassing an elder man
weeps for no reason other than
words have swept him overboard,
crazy love this fascinating addiction
to a new morning’s addition  composition
incision on a plain soul indistinguishable
amidst the mist of millions of others
who rise up beside, aside, reside within
and his breached heart, even strangers,
complete the neuronal connection
that demands his years of years upon
awaking to the grinning fawning dawn
mooning him with pure white light that
wrecks him open, rents his disposition,
an inquisition of words intrusively intruding
causing wept tears fully formed energizing
emerging, songs of words that you give
him as a question to be loved, for finding
the answers multiple is a penultimate thrill,
confirming this wetness that he lives to
be loved, give love, and breaks h a p p i l y
into pieces of/if contented peace

and thus summed, the day’s obligations
seem less daunting, and with some
luck and bulk coffee ingestion, there
will be solutions to anything
and then
he types,

and this one,
done!
<>
6:49am
march 2 Sun Day
two zero two 5

Dog Tired, Bone Tired, Dead Tired.

all in, beat, bored, burned out,
bushed, done in, drained, drooping,
exhausted, ******, fatigued, fed up, flagging,
just about had it, indifferent, knocked out,
out of gas, pooped, punchy,
ready to drop, spent, taxed,
wearied, wearing, wiped out, worn out
plain old zonked.

there are only two words, for which there are no precise, exact, synonyms.  

To mind, they flash instantly,
For they are the constants in the equation of life.

Love

Responsibility

Man, can they make you tired!

But they are constants, so we accept and pray for ourselves
To accept them both with

Equanimity.

5:45am
August 24th 2013

Dog Tired, Bone Tired, Dead Tired.

all in, beat, bored, burned out,
bushed, done in, drained, drooping,
exhausted, ******, fatigued, fed up, flagging,
just about had it, indifferent, knocked out,
out of gas, pooped, punchy,
ready to drop, spent, taxed,
wearied, wearing, wiped out, worn out
plain old zonked.

there are only two words, for which there are no precise, exact, synonyms.  

To mind, they flash instantly,
For they are the constants in the equation of life.

Love

Responsibility

Man, can they make you tired!

But they are constants, so we accept and pray for ourselves
To accept them both with

Equanimity.

5:45am
August 24th 2013

woke the woman at 7:00am Sabbath morning to save my life for overnight,  my body had ripped ribbed crack’d apart,
no spider web sized stains but cracks of crater size on both legs heading up northwards, gut and muscle revealing, spreading,
renting apart my chest and head and forecasting that
my twin two’s, eyes ears arms and nostrils,
destined half to the east and half to the west,
leaving the leftovers for the basement temple altar furnace burning
for the divorce division so rapid, death’s relief nearby

begging her to hold me despite my body
unwashed and face three day unshaven,
my body stink-stanking stench decaying,
so parched my chords, my eyes my beseechers,
for a stammering pus yellowed whisper barely could I issue

if she held me tight perhaps
the spreadsheet cataloguing my cracks divisible
would cease expanding, halting my perishment inevitable

summoned surgeons three but were so excited to see my
own red sea splitting and my ultimatum of egyptian drowning fast approaching, spellbound and helpless, all they did
was take cell phone videos to show on the doctor **** channel for $12.99

and she said,

*holding you now too late, the man flesh-eating disease
can be defeated if you know the cause;
all night I hear you pace and tread the boundaries of our
tiny shelter, needing the resting that comes when you note the hour, the sign of writ and done, for all I hear is you
struggle-seeking to release the words disordered,
hurricane hail haunting the caverns of you,
depositories of misrouted, mis-sorted sounds and the thunderous cracking now is their sound of their desperation
at your failure to form them, all they seek is the wholeness of formation and are force fleeing your leaking containership
through the cracks of their desperation

I will pack your body in ice, lay upon it all day, melting the water
into every orifice new and old, hydraulic hydrating then sealing
the apertures and lead you to your own promised land,
to thy Jerusalem capitol, where you may sing new songs,
teaching the Kohanim and the Levites new prayers

promise you the sleep of exhaustion with the sounds of
Canon in D to soothe, and when the night-frights
have passed, will feed you with writing utensils,
to teach that inspiration comes even by daylight, even to you

your best dreams of dying will be your best writing schemes,
when you awake, the sky cracks of inspiration come unfiltered lean,
and for heaven’s sake, for our sake, for your words sake,
then, chest will freely open and fully formed, thy poems will emerge
content and complete

and when you hear them sing:

“And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had”^

you will knowingly, be laughing, unafraid

between poems,
an old curmudgeon,
am me-he,
thorny gray stubbled face
available for
knife sharpening and
tongue lashing

cranky and cantankerous,
bad tempered,
ill mannered, me-he,
until they slip me a
paper aspirin

place before me a clean sheet
Presto Chango,
the ole man displaced,
(the boy who remembers to forget,)
in his heart~place, installed,
though the
briar and the thorn
never from his visage depart,
just briefly, Red Sea parted

kiss me surprised,
stumbling about in the
wee of the rambunctious hours,
stubbing me eyes upon
a poetess, a kindred soul
who claims my pointy moniker that
earned I,
only after years
of indentured servitude,
Briar Thornly,
so unnaturally misnamed,
yet she of but,
few and the tenderest years
rights me up
with young words

her poems sweet treats, sweet eats,
departing me delightfully unfairly from
my grumpy good graces,
look below if you dare risking,
a hazardous glancing upon her works,
if you like to, grrrrr, smile

Déjà vu
Oh to write or not to write.
My mind says I don't have a choice.
Love has made a home in my heart.
I suffer not being able to
open the door to my inspiration.
I toss a paper ball into the trash.
Chapters of my life turn into dust.
I bury those words in my mind.
Words that I used to think
were wrapped up in true meaning.
A break could **** my block but
my pencil spins out of control.
I'll conquer all of those lost attempts.
Piano's and violins phase in and out.
Wheels of creativity turning in caution.
The clock sounds gong,gong,gone.
Inspiration died at the start of a vacation.
On the page there was the suicide of passion.
The ghost of my muse will soon reappear.
My emotions need to break free from
the shelter of my imagination.
I"ll write till the dawn of poetry.^


read her poetry till dawn
or face my thorny faced
muse,
and perhaps now you understand,
at last comprehend,

**a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet as a
thorn

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.

Cusp

Once I wrote these words:

Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.

The cool air rushes in,
Stirring the inside stew of:
Infected grime, shameful desires,
Secrets that should not have been exposed,
The ***** stuff of about your life
that you alone know exists.

Contact with the atmosphere makes
Self-pity dies, blue blood turn red,
The TNT tightness explodes,
Ashamed, you have only one escape hatch.

Now, you are ready to write.
(http://hellopoetry.com/poem/now-you-are-ready-to-write/)

so here I am, hands on my chest,
so unready, incapable of writing,

the battle site changed,
sledding to the top of my head,
moved northwards, mush, mush.

just don't have what's required
to melt that mush open,
just don't have the anymore
to finish this Iditarod race
called my Idiot life.

nobody knows the silences
kept in my treasure box.
nobody knows the nail-beds
slept, bloodied, by this
mthrfking depression,
unexpectedly returned to sender,
unable now,
to write, free and clear.

suffused, this words reappears,
you don't get it, the twilight twinkies
below laughing, twinkling,
middle ******* me,
so not suffused,
nah nah nah nah
you don't got it,
you got nothing.

the words supply, torn and  tired
reappears, now escapee prisoners
before flatlining, crashing
as I am currently 20,000 feet over
somewhere above the Eastern Seaboard;

we may land smooth,
but not in any groove
that fits me anymore.

Here's the sorest, sorriest laugh,
what you are about to read
was eons ago born, and today
birthed.

Happy M.F'ing  Birthday #0
don't even, can't complain fresh,
reusing unused words that never got
devoured, so now, used up too,
like me.

cut by thicket's branches
(that in their defense, maim only to self-protect)
calluses of experience
not enough to survive
what is now needed,
new chapters required.

choruses of repetitive choirs fresh,
inspire but land on surfaces
heart-hardened by fear contagion.

who will know and
who will care and who
will make them all go away,
but me...

so touch my self,  
reminder to self is emailed,
beat the odds so man-many times,
one more time, what's the big deal?

fresh differences,
maybe,

words that are new
not in my vocabulary,
maybe.

Struggle, long lived,
is the status quo,
** **, don't you know,
nobody tole ya?

world's axis is tilted
you can fall off
a familiar horse,
get off course,
so east easy
a gravitational force so subtle,
clueless you're drowning
till the riptide
has liberated your
pockets possessions,
pathetic borrowings
of unoriginal thoughts
you thought you actually owned!
now you realize
new inspirational how to books
keep getting writ,
published for experienced suckers
like you.

so here at the pointed cusp
a crescent shaped tangent,
lines crossed, intersection of a curveball
turning inwards, retracing prior paths,
familiar but tho the forecasts predict
being on the cusp of something,
crystal ball reveals nothing at all.

I fold the little have learned
into a handkerchief
folded three times over,
tied cusp to cusp
with a trefoil knot,
which while
mathematically correct,  
is too easy as my hanky is almost empty
and hobo heart journey scary is thinking
done.

night/night
time/time
night overheats
                         wet awake, damp is the status:
mystery no more, familiarity brings unsurprise,
the machine issues environmental sounds,
cool air, deep cover, setup ~ perfect
wake up soaked/mystified/drizzled unhappy/awake to change/
meaning comes
                         /pieces of randome thoughts/movie trailer bite sized/

these are:
                sweating words/eager for realization/escape needy/impatiented
                by foible human/who needs sleep? is the unasked question...

dress for winter, may I? in May?????/!!!!!     /!\
                              ~change to summery
                                 "ACTIVE WEAR" at-tire<>
                                   skin expose<>  
                                     
  AM I NOT ACTIVE?
                              thus this oddity poem/product of sweat/
                              provides cooling panting/dog?
  am I a dog?
                              that would be nice!
                              sadly or nat~not, a human
                          o         verfilled / o        verflowing
                            tale telling from evrey pore/ Alcatraz                 escape/  recaptured/twisted  
                                                  d a m p
                             became a poem/d a m p is me
                             becoming/ reducing/emitting/inquiring/
                             enquiring/
                             aligned
will this be my last poem?

sweating with/from/AND
all the way over to............................................................Ant­icipation...

I will not fast.
I will not pray,
Alone or in the company of
Fellow poets and sinner-believers,
Like when I was an awed child,
A young father,
Or a middle aged confused one.

My sins, the kind,
Words don't blot up.

When we meet next,
We, across the table,
Assuming You got a set,
A Sense of Justice or,
just Humor,
We will discuss
Comparative literature,
Comparative sinning,
I will let You know
What Your punishment will be,
Caused You have already
Informed me, of mine.

Dear Carlos: Poet & One Man Band,

have heard these words so many times,
always bemused, trace~smile appearing,
but this time, it hit me like a Blue Mountain
extra hot, micro~window-waving cup of java Jamaican,
that is me, this was me, always, even before
I knew how to poem to music that I had always
head-heard, before I understood that these,
my songs were soul~pieces escapees, my…legatees

I leave them them in puzzle form, surely a piece,
or three missing, but no matter, each piece an
individual composition, standing alone, but the
big picture no one will ever see, understand but
that is the poet’s audience, his own one man band,
no bandwagon attached, a solitary figure quiet
contented with his disconnected discontentment,
a lifetime spent in refining, defining…refinishing

2 poem themes crisscrossed cross in my head,
interweaving themselves instead of becoming
two cells, one split apart, I call this process ruefully
reverse me~mitosis, blending that coffee with
a quarter cup of white milky, leaving me a caramel
colored confection, perfect in unity of trinity, that
combined cuppa plus my insides warmed, cozied,
the heat combined with the fire inside to write…one more

on the “two-to-write list,” in the “draft”y attic chamber,
were two titles, twins, now conjoined; the first, an
expose of why I choose to write these poems, and
the other, why I have a life of few friends, the few
chosen ones; the inherent conceptualizations differ but
cross the same forests and deserts, hid in my own Northwest Territory, rugged and inhospitable, where to survive, it required 
accepting lonely solitude, with a ragged welcome, & an honest mirror

an unequivocal, no equivocation permit, that telling yourself grand lies was pointless because you were a criminal on trial, prosecutor, defense lawyer, judge  and jury of your, ha ha, peers all rolled into one, there will never be a higher court wanting to grant an appeal, what is…well, is; a sad bliss but after decades of trial and many errors, wonderful and awful partnerships; it was modestly
perfected, dis-satisfyingly…satisfying

this goes on too long, like an intolerable avoidance of
answering, there, a phony confessional declarative; the whys un~provided, so fall back on that all encompassing
defense of temporary insanity that was locked in those
self-same sealed cells, carriers of my tainted DNA,
looking like bagels~donuts with holes, no, voids,
a central, air pocket of emptiness, with no surface to fill full,
or to adhere to, a drifter, an observer, never, a full participant

these empty holes, were just fried dough, sugar coated,
a fleeting life~lies of no substance, that I’ve spent
a lifetime trying to fill with worth, and I’ve written a few
moments of kindness, unqualified unreserved loving, but
too few to justify my existence to myself! That’s what
happens when you judge yourself, no defense strategy
can succeed, the fight is fixed, but I write on vaingloriously
hoping that there is yet, a flawless poem waiting within,
that a one man band, can both play and enjoy…

fav poets: Whitman, Hafez, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Pradip and so many countless others on this site…

You have my permission
Off to Austria go,
Braid and plait your hair
Alpine style, sing if you must,
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hoo hoo
Even Do Re Mi

But be **** sure
You are back in
The USA, on NBC,
Come the weekend,
Singing the opening song of
Sunday Night Football

Your braids and long dresses,
Leave behind,
Blow out that hair,
Wear the shortest of skirts
That wardrobe will provide,
Cause if truth be told,
No football watcher on the workweek eve
Will sleep well,
no matter the outcome,
Unless your presence is the opening
Finale of the weekend to
Do Re me.

The dichotomy of the psychology
Of love is the thin line between
I am and I can be.

The taking of the status quo,
Lining it up before the firing line,
And asking Prisoner Heart if
Last wishes they posses,
Wishes wasted to confess?

The prisoner says:

I am the standing status quo,
When I should have been the
The questioner, on the firing line,
asking always, firing this bullet,
Quo Vadim?

"Whither goest thou?"


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

An admirer of your indecision,
For it is the mark of
The Questioner...

Let us not keep our secret,
secret any more!

Thousands have read your poem,
from your tributary, they have drunk.

So I am re posting once more
to remind grandmother,
so many
you,
adore.

I will not stop
till ten
thousand new admirers
have you paid homage.
then I will
              post it again.


~~~~~~
Oct 6, 2013
The Banyan Tree (A Tribute to Sally)
I am a man, grandfather to four.
Adherent to the same religion,
Poetry.

Breathing through mine eyes,
Exhaling carbon words,
That with time and pressure become
Poems, verbal musical notes upon life.

Each motion, from tiny to grand,
A capsule of expression,
That if examined under microscope,
Familial DNA, interconnected tissue,
Discovered, tho logic says,  
Time and distance render impossible.

But this is a diamond
This is a writ to be slipped
Upon the finger, the heart, the essence,
Of the only Banyan tree I have hugged.

This poem but a fig,
In the cracks of kindness,
The crevices of caring,
It has slow germinated.

You dear, Sally,
My host,
A building upon I can lean,
When wearied spirits uproot
My surficial composure.

Your seeds carried from east to west,
By a fig wasp, a bird unknown,
An ocean voyager, of indisputable vision, strength.

This seeded messenger, word carrier,
Supplanted in me, and your pupils,
Whose very names breathe poems,
In others too, like me and so many,
Seeds to become new roots, but you,
Our Host official and forever
Planter of trees of loving kindness.

You already know with love and affection,
I call you Grandma Sally,
And when you ask, beseech,
I cannot refuse.

Together we will will banish the sad,
Acknowledge we, that life's ocean,
A mixture of many, even sad, a necessity.

But I promise that will turn it into
Something simple, something good.
For you have asked and I answer you
Right here right now - your wish,
My objective, deep rooted like you,
Like an old banyan tree,
Your roots spread far, spread wide.

So some eve, when to the beach, to the sky
You glance, smile, no matter what, troubles dispersed,
For the reflection of you, seeds, full fledged trees now,
Bending skywards, in search of your rays of expression,
Your maternal wisdom rooted, spread so wide, globally,
All over this Earth, is visible from your
Beloved Philippines.


---------------------------------------
In her own words..

I am a widow,
with five remarkable granddaughters....
all beautiful, intelligent girls.
It is such a waste not to write....
each morning that unfolds is filled
with things to write about....
the people, the birds,
the trees, the wind,
the seas,
everything we set our eyes on,
they are all
poetry in motion.
Life itself is poetry,
I always have pen and paper within reach.
My past experiences are a
never-ending source
of ideas and words for my poems....
I shall write until time permits me,
"til there's breath within me."
-------------------------------------------------
A banyan (also banian) is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte (a plant growing on another plant) when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree (or on structures like buildings and bridges). "Banyan" often refers specifically to the Indian banyan or Ficus benghalensis, the national tree of India,[1] though the term has been generalized to include all figs that share a characteristic life cycle...
Like other fig species (which includes the common edible fig Ficus carica), banyans have unique fruit structures and are dependent on fig wasps for reproduction. The seeds of banyans are dispersed by fruit-eating birds. The seeds germinate and send down roots towards the ground.

The leaves of the banyan tree are large, leathery, glossy green and elliptical in shape. Like most fig-trees, the leaf bud is covered by two large scales. As the leaf develops the scales fall. Young leaves have an attractive reddish tinge.[6]

Older banyan trees are characterized by their aerial prop roots that grow into thick woody trunks which, with age, can become indistinguishable from the main trunk. The original support tree can sometimes die, so that the banyan becomes a "columnar tree" with a hollow central core. Old trees can spread out laterally using these prop roots to cover a wide area.

Dear God, The Boston  Red Sox Win The World Series?

My congratulations to themselves from Bahstom,
I am sure you will wear your crown with classy
NY Yankee Pride and not riot in the streets
As has been known to happen in Beantown.

But I though I would let you know,
Having spoken to god on Yom Kippur,
He confessed it was a typing mistake.
He meant for the Chicago White Sox
To be resurrected and to win,
Not noticing he was auto-incorrected,
Reassuring me that he was
Installing IOS7, so it won't happen again.

Pride goeth before the fall of 2014.

Dear Mr. Harlon Rivers,

When I was young,
I wrote like a young man,
With fervor and righteousness,
But heartfelt was not eloquent,
only self-satisfying.

Now that I am an old, old man,
My mind does the best it can,
Simple lyrics born in the poverty
Of a mind in an angular decline.

But never did I command the
Troops of this language that
You have under your command,
At this, your peaking, your apogee.

Your master key unlocks all
And set our souls soaring,
But yet we cannot reach you,
For you orbit at the point farthest
above our modest reach!

Your Admirer and Devotee,

_______

Please sign your name below if you agree.
You know how.

Dear Pres. Obama,


Need a favor!

My business is falling apart.
Pretty sure, I'm going to get fired.

Can I borrow your
"I blame the Republicans for everything" speech?
Don't worry, I took a poll first.
Your approval ratings won't be hurt, cause they can't go any lower.

Yours truly,
A registered Democrat.

der Spegel: A Commissioned Poem

commissioned by Megan Spegel


Spegel
- a mirror; a smooth reflecting surface
- something flat and smooth, resembling a mirror (e.g. the surface of a lake)
- a (moral) guideline, used for correcting errors, similar to a mirror

Busted.
You.
Busted.
96 poems.
19 years young.
That's about 5 poems per year.
What's gonna happen when you chill,
Turn
A ripe old
Twenty?

Will you grace us with 365 individual
First Thoughts of My Day?

I suppose falling in and out of love weekly,
Steamy teen kisses
Will inebriate you plenty,
Into writing more plenty.

Truth is I am jealous-angry.

My clocks can't fall back
Because I've fallen for you
And the simplicity of your loving
Poetry

In two lines, you get done
What takes me half a dozen
Long winded poems.

I love the brevity pure
Of your youthful loving view.
For when I look on the
mirror of poetry,
I see, not me,
But the rising tide of the younger ones, poets,
Rising up faster,
Surpassing us,
Correcting our errors,
Who say so much with
So few words.


P.S.  **"Good morning dear
I hope the sunrise found you well."

Dig deep poet;
You too reader;

Commandment One:

Both must obsess to possess,
Air the curvature of each line
shape with two hands, creasing and
no ceasing not till the air waves have filled
your flushed face with compressed comprehensions

You weep as you compose!
Good!
The well of tears where hid
the pool of emotions
in cavernous reservoirs
in the center of your
gravity,
needs a daily tapping,
a draining, a purification,
a quenching sweet and
raucous

where you dig, salted water will come

in the soiled, imperial but imperfect body/mind cappuccino,
there are swirls of treasures, sins and histrionics
that need discovery, expiation, expulsion,
when~then, object is surgically removed,
accept surging water will desoil,
and you can revel
in the revelation
of honest effort

Debate Commencement:

reveal, which, what and how
much, how much? how much?
(this reverbs)
what must be shared,
what must be reburied,
what must be refuted,
what must be reconstructed,
refurbished,
and what must be
demolished & deconstructed

ah, but as soul judge,
you hold yourself to a higher standard,
but in all of this but two constraints rule:

the quality of the recalled data,
the quantity of storage space delimitation

do not tease us with rivulets, nor bury
us under thunderous rushes of memories
spilling and cresting with a reek of abandon,
unless, you’re abandoning the memory en tout,
giving us your newly orphaned all innermost,
then, we must accept the product of your labor,
whether it be spoiled fruit or glorious
                            truth

Tuesday Apr 16
8:32AM
(the year of pollard, a/k/a 2024)

DISINHIBITOR” By Ariana Reines






   <>
  

There’s a sadness I’m avoiding

It’s why I live like this

The truth is I know I can’t hide

From it. I know I can’t

But I can hide from you

Or I somehow still think I can

& what that really means is hide it

From you. It’s not that I don’t trust

You. I’m just scared to lose

It. I’m not avoiding

My sadness I’m trying

To protect it. What I lost

I already lost a really

Long time ago. Whatever

I tried to do apart

From what I lost had more

To do with covering it

With probably some kind

Of monument than “moving on”

But I’m the only one who needs

To know that it’s a monument

Or what it’s for. Anthills

Mountains out of molehills.

Growing a roughness into

A jewel: Aphrodite’s secret.

I am ignorant of my people’s

History but I have seen the scrolls

In their crowns and gowns.

The times I won I wasn’t able

To celebrate. So I learned equanimity

But equanimity’s as tricky

As any other state. These may

Not be words of wisdom

But they’ve got no other

Place to live

Ditty This, Little Boy: Venerable Auntie

My Gf's nephew came for a visit,
Teased her that night,
Bowing ceremoniously,
In the Chinese manner,
Addressing her slyly, impishly,
Oh hell, teasingly, as,
Venerable Auntie

She smiled, but said little,
The next night,
When to Argentine Tango dance she must,
In the Chinese manner,
Wore a dress tight fitting,
Her poem, she called it,
With slits up the sides,
To facilitate her swoons and slides,
Leaving the imagination to take care of the rest

As she left, o'er shoulder she called out,
(To me)
Good night little boy,
Don't wait up for my return,
Auntie has gone to play
she won't be back till
Her bad boys have venerated her,
Sufficiently...

6:10 AM
June 11, 2013

a quote of Bernard-Henri Lévy

~~~

the divers’ recovery, diverse,
shipwrecked salvage from different locations,
auctioned to the highest bidder,
tho the excised excerpts are exceptional,
none come to do the bidding,
for the provenance of words
belongs to all, and to none

~~
“so oft we trifle words,
expel them from the country of our body,
without passport and earnestness,
as if they were the cheapest of footnote filler,
day tourists, to be treated as leavings,
refuse for daily discardation,
barely noting their fast comings and faster disappearance,
but leaving not, a mark of distinction”

“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...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”

“murmur me, with soft downy charms,
these words discovered
recoursed and intended well to
pointedly offset and contradict
their very own tumultuous discovery uncovering,
tear tongue me
with calming, lapping word  wages,
hymns harmonious and fine homilies,
a call, a request,
a bequest
to sedate my shrill life

“some cells, microscopic, preserved digitally,
aged to imperfection, thrash my eyes,
making me speak in tongues I do not recognize,
but fluently possess, no wonder there,
the memory place fairly empty,
room aplenty for passerby's and the imagery
                                                         ­­ of the vaguest of dearly departed

skin is not the only mot shed,
                                                sloughing of woeful words”

“speak them slow and distinct,
for they arrive slow to you,
a trickling of refugees for your sheltering,
harbor them as full companions,
protected by natural law,
provision them well,
prepared and ever ready for a quick departure,
moor these words at the embarcadero,
for the next restless leg of endlessness,
which they themselves will inform you
will last longer than eternity,
long after there are no humans to speak them”