to the edge and back (inverted diversion)
——————————————————-

your life may throw you curves,
mine, straight edge blades,
lines galore, like sidewalk cracks,
jumping from safe to safe place

but always teetering tottering on
edges, like verses in the next poem,
trying to make it just to the next line
without falling in cracks, China bound

you can follow my lead, don’t though,
if I could, would willingly plunge, deeply,
for there is no safety in safe spaces, only
in the holy dark, cracks is the true safety

you seek, where poems roll on a highway
like Reno tumbleweed, humble before snow
capped mountains, these are the contrasts
where you birth procreations, poems yours

and mine die in childbirth,
returned to sender,
returned for retuning,
despair not, they’re coming
back to this world

guises in a different colored skin,
a different alphabet, script,
the meaning yet unchained and
unchanged, despite the

inverted
diversion

it’s a daiquiri colored morn, countlessly
as I, gazing never tiring, of a vista I’ve seen,
awoken to, endlessly changing, voyagers of
birds and boats, the redecorating minimalists,
moving pieces on a latticed shadow lawn

the Sun eastern, asking the trees to turn and bow,
hence the shadows their branches cast are a waffling,
hopscotch pattern irregular, so jumping from/to
yellow-green sunspots, the children are delighted by a
new game, moving to and from and between an ever
changing crazy chessboard of light-patches unsquared

described, written of, yet here I am, once again, a servant
despairing, looking for new combinations of superlatives,
though I never spoke before of it as a vista,
until today, wondering why, perhaps because
it’s here, one lives, one doesn’t conceive of  being
part and parcel of a vista, humans, just visitors,
pawn observers, gallery visitors, art appreciators,
transient hobos after forty years, truthfully claiming
that they’re merely still, passing thru, passing by

9:40 am, respectable hour to meander over
to the throne room, the four Adirondacks, them,
the year round poetry nook authorities, are equal
sunned, shaded, simultaneous, stately shadowing,
observing, advertising as perfect for composing,
willing to make verbal suggestions, rhyming notions,
especially when the poem pays proper obeisance

and so it does, and so it is, as you can clearly read


9:53am Sunday Jun 14
Year of the Pandemic

many women do yoga.
many men do ***.

women prefer,
ah, never mind,
you know how that ends!

No?

If we draw a
Venn diagram,
one circle, yoga,
the other, ***,

in the middle,  
overlapping sector,
is the
Venn Zen Intersextion

A Wouldn’t Object Limerick

for a few reasons to objectify,
peddle her a pedestal to request
a little eyeliner, some mascara,
actual clothes of non-athletic wear lineage,
cease and desist with daily loon of lulu-ness;
dare not suggest some lipstick or heaven forbid,
a piece of jewelry sparkle, lest I be trussed
and tested, returned to the closet to join
my fella sweatpants of graying demeanor,
of colorless pallor
and
smelly familiarity

six trees gathered, a single stand,
looking for a gathering, standing of four more,
a prayer circle to make, branch to branch
holding onto each other, to have their bark better
heard, the question on the table, today’s agenda:

why must trees die?

overheard their human querying same, the proud trees
too, puzzled, sending their inquiry to the heavens that
feed them never failing, water to quench a rooted deep
thirst, their role, job description well understood, purposed
to shade the world, give off fruit, so tasked, so asked:

why must trees die?

Caught the busy Lord unawares, dealing with seasonal pandemics,
endemic hatred from the frailings of  human weakness, who honor
pretense by their mouth moving, but don’t believe their enunciation,
oh! tiresome battlefront, millions of casualties inflicted on each other,
Lord could not countenance another self-interested questioning of his earthly architecture

why must trees die?

on a beautiful paradisal day, cumulus whites decorating a blue coloratura that never be quite replicated, quieting, five-sense waters at ease, minimal moving, lunching noon hour,the birds, insects, rabbits all retired to cooling reservoirs, munch, gnaw, pollinate, yet the trees misjudge the sun dial iris quietude in the manger, the grove, as the Lord’s good graceful forgiving demeanor, therefore shocking, disbelieving the unforgiving ruthlessness of a deity of love, so the

cracking of a single bolt of punishing, purposed lighting, that knocked all the trees down, single blow, roots embruing, ember glowed, a “sounding” the world hears unoften, unremitting, not understanding its other-worldliness, so rare appearing when an actualized answer is returned, declarative, tangible, glorious words:

because I am who I am, The Eternal, alone, who keeps the imperfect balance of all my creations, without oversight, asking only from them
acceptance of things beyond earthly comprehension...

Shakespeare’s Dog


in the theater tonight, the notion of a poem-potion
courtesy of Shakespeare's dog came unbidden

So when home arrived, was unsurprised that this
very peculiar pug was farting before my own front door.

get lost, I announced got what I need from your boss,
but before I could kick him across the floor,
the pug spake thusly:

this dog knows the boot too well,
it is parcel of this dog's life of no quality,
but if you give me shelter tonite, I will provide,
share some of Speare's un-Published Works
and you can claim it as your own!


kicked that dog across the room,
(having pity earlier I let him in and enter)
told Jim, (that’s what I called him)
he can stay the night, or long as the sun rises up
and goes down unbidden, but, if I ever
caught him plagiarizing, selling sonnets on the side,
I would report him to the ASPCA and the Poet’s Union.

The American Society for the Poets of Conscience Alive -
might have his low hanging ***** cut off in retribution.

he laughed out loud, rhyming funny, pontificating:

well mate,
thanks for the soliloquy,
me ***** long time gone,
but what I know and what I’ve seen
if tale-told you, and you were to listen,
you would keep me around as fodder
for your artistic soul.

in return chappie,
you need only provide me a rug, a fire,
A/C for the languid summer eves,
fodder for me body, and your boots,
far removed from my hindquarters.

We spoke much thereafter,
turns out he served his poet-masters
in many ways, more than a mere footstool.

his snoring keeps me awake some twenty years later.
his love for country music makes me put him on nice days,
outdoors, his headphones securely strapped round his double chins.

ugh that pug. became my best becoming love, old friend,
one of us will pass someday and an elegy composition,
the other devotee will furnish sadness utterly becoming.

so if a farting pug before your door you’ve  found,
take him in, give him water, an amply supply please
of Carrie, Trisha and Chaplin-Carpenter for his immortal soul,
but beware, he might try to sell you
some of my words, as your own.