Through the withered branches
where the verdant leaves once grew,
I stared up at the old oak tree
against a sky of blue.

The branches stretched to heaven
as a supplicant might do.
It seemed to pray, as if to say,
"My time at last is through."

I wondered at the gnarly trunk
and limbs of twisted wood
And for a moment thought of life
and almost understood.

Life and death go hand in hand.  
Our time is our's to spend.
But like the tree against the gale,
‘tis better if we bend.

I'll pay it forward when I can.  
Thy brothers' keeper be.
I'll keep the roots well watered
and learn the lessons of the tree.

It shares the world with nestlings
and it's acorns oft abound,
To feed the hungry denizens
that glean them from the ground.

It's leaves give shade to those below.  
It's branches form a gym.
Children climb to see the world
and love this gift to them.

And as I watched, the farmer
came and laid the old husk low.
Firewood now, would be it's fate
and make the chimney glow.

Ashes unto ashes and to dust
we must return.
All of life in cycle goes
and from this I hope to learn:

This gift of life to all below,
all creatures great and small,
Is just a stop upon the trip
we travel, one and all.

so many people on
the city streets
on a fine spring Saturday

how can I,
her *** grab,
in a gesture of
genuine admiration,
for its balletic pas de deux
a perfect gyration elation
within a tight jeans artistic
framing

with all these impolite people occupying our space
in the Q train subway station


on the isle of Manhattan

man (?)
the tomatoes?  

patty m.,
a grievous error thy commissioned

tomatoes are the quintessential feminine fruit
red juicy, round, curvy, sweet
with a flavor at once the same,
yet never again always different, diffident,
asized, and blonde or red, never contrived

without it,
would pizza be pizza?
without it,
would **** ***** love,
be merely a good salad

or a poem

ever be the same?

“me love tomatoes”
cookie monster

Parkland: Oh My divine, We Wrestle Over What is Yours



and what is mine

it took days for the after- shock and awe to arrive;

the bizarre tempo reversal, myself, out of order,
is my shame, after the mind’s pretense ennui of “yet another,”
had to slow seep away beneath the
firewall cutting off the pain of my the true self
and the I, of ordinary

how else, to keep the madness away?
it’s disguised in a well tended secured lockbox
chamber labeled, I, all about me,
deep hid in the rear, not too near the true self,
must keep the unseeing functioning, functioning

but bus-ted poet is triggered and the weep welling
in the eyes commencing that makes writing on a cell
on a moving vehicle an annoying frosting
on what is an inconsolable hell

everyone stares unawares that the shock,
is without awe, and the only awe is in awful awful awful awful

we sit at the Friday eve sabbath table to begin our negotiation;
but there is no negotiating though the excuses and the divine’s stumbling, flailing failings are pre-prepared,
we know this battle too well and the outcome as well,
it is mine true self’s to win, have me not
words and stanzas and music suffice
to convict the lord of the hosts, adonai

take all your seventy names in vain to crush the vanity of
omnipotence for your godliness degrades and your instant access to where the good in me resides is cutoff;
under My Contacts
you have been

blocked

we shall meet as always on the Day of Atonement
but this year no repentance to be granted, the pardons shared
with my kind only, none left for the lonely gone-gods,
no longer seek yours for me, there are 17 extra to be given out*

the left foot and the falsehoods join in the denunciation,
though some suggest reprieve and only reproach
for isn’t atonement possible for even gods?  No. not,
for a god who got human kindness installed in all his devices
but then never opened the app

my name was
onlylovepoetry;
but for now, till the culling of the agonies is done,
till the hollows are refilled and the curses fully final expended,
till the sudden eye tearing ceases to render me torn, messed,
you may call me nothing but this:

onlyreproachpoetry

should you come calling
there will be no beseeching,
just the stoic bearing witness of my silence,
my finger-pointing judgement,
and my angels presence

“May the angel Michael be at my right,
and the angel Gabriel be at my left;
and in front of me the angel Uriel,
and behind me the angel Raphael...”
and above me seventeen new protectors
whose names my true self will now memorize,

for now they are mine

~<•>~

2/16/18 4:34pm  ~ 2/17/18  3:34am