Fifteen years going on sixteen,
well recall many pinprick
moments of our combinatory
existentialism

But an early moment reappeared,
in a period of contemplation as I
this morn, wove my way thru Manhattan
city streets, during my diurnal walk of
composition, a tradition Walt Whitman
passed on to me, in Leaves of Grass, so
over my Manhattan journey~obstacle course,
now a three times weekly endeavor, of
a two and one quarter miles duration,
this came unto me

Very early on, in our ro~dance
we attended some cocktail/
business function, properly attired,
a first for us, and thus a tad exciting,
and in the elevation machine at the
Waldorf Astoria Tower sky bounding,
she stun gunned me with the simplest
of positories…

How shall you introduce me?.

this nimble tounge, so rarely at a loss,
gave an intuitive and simple answer:
You are my girl friend, no pretense,
I proffered and she thoughtfully
replied,

While an absolute truth,
perhaps since I am a Nana,
over twice,
and you, a Grandfather
over thrice,
perhaps something less
juvenile is in order?

Mmm, perhaps you are right, then
let me suggest boldly to name you
as my lover, none other and let
their mouths fall agape so full
of their crackered
canapés?

She paused a moment on our ascent,
replying,

Undoubtedly true and such
a good lover are you, but the touch of ******
in many an impoverished mind, gives it a
tangy hint of the unseemly tho, b u t
if that’s your preference, lover will it be,
but perhaps wordsmith, you keep on trying?

Ah I knew a rejection letter when I got one,
so cruising higher, proffered a ‘my best friend?’
but her glance clearly indicated that suggestion,
wholly unworthy of my skilled verbosity and
more appropriate to a dodgy dog, if such I did
possess

The elevators of NYC, are sure and swift in
elevating its population, and a growling
desperado emotive was taking me hostage,
I had what is now a “3S look,” an abbreviation
for when I wear my Simply Stupefied Smile

Perhaps I may suggest that should the need
arise for you to introduce me in a phrase accurate
and simple, that might suffice?

Smilingly weakly, I, poet, awaited what surely
was to be an obvious solution to my wordy
and worldly failure,

Please introduce me as
Your Biggest Fan
and I shall, dear one,
if asked,
will offer you up as my
Only Love Poet

And to this day, when introduction~making,
I feel the sweet smile of an invisible and
silent kick in my humbled and egotistical
****

“This Insubstantial Pageant Faded”
(spoke by Prospero, The Tempest, by W. Shakespeare)^

<>
Our words are all actors,

a long run, run its course,
our long playing record,
scratched, love~worn to
worn out extremity, yet
yeoman service did offer,
extreme only in magical
transforming plain sight
into visions, a legacy,
bent gray, tarnished by
weary wearing aging,
their brief sparks now
but reclamation flares of
burst lights of waning days
in short lived tastings of what
was and can be nevermore

everyone’s magic has its preset
timed timing, and with
every day, each a concentric
ring marked and hallowed,
a heartbeat ring narrower
than its predecessor,
a shallower hollow,
a fair represent of both
all that came our way, and that
we resent with no resentment
into a cloud capped atmosphere
for all to ****** from a flailing,
flying breeze, their brief gleam,
multiplying, thus envisaging,
illuminating the manuscript of our
hinted future forward’s next percept


“And like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”^

“We read to know we’re not alone.”
C.S. Lewis says, as a character in the film Shadowland

~~~

my lovers mumble when they leer and clear the
assorted sordid, livres with dust jackets, spines,
and notable ideas, POV’s that dare to offend; me
thinking seeing they’re uneasily resting uneasy, for
there appears to be some scales, mountains that need
mounting before they can successful scale my
heights, a big BE WARY atmospheric global warning
signs prior to enter my magic kingdom,
quizzes  they are unassuaged they will pass
with  any color schema,
let alone flying ones…

that amuses me, ah well, a sign of my changes, when
those  days when a merely handsome man turned this
now skeptical-woman agog, and flushes of heat made
a breast beat,  a flesh and blood chin, ***, eyes, rock me
like a movie poster definition of movie poster handsome

they are smarter and when they cautiously inquire re my
diversity, a broadening array of fiction, philosophical disput-
ations, that lay and lie with me, they, and I bare skinned,
open to the ah ha! of titillating notions of human endeavor,
or British ****** mysteries, and lots and lots of history…

this commends and cerifies
my screening choices for,
when alone, I read
to know I am are not alone,
for my thoughts need hot
company, and my caress
of divers words diverges,
in so many directions, I need
assurance, insurance that the
men who wish to bed me are
capable of making love to my
mind, where stimulus and that
they can feed me endlessly a
variety of bouchées amusantes,
that wet my appetite for their
entirety

should they fail,
to for want of trying,
I comfort them obliquely,
informing them that
*”We need to read to know we are not alone!”

All,, everything stretches, even paradise, love affairs,
the poetic intervals lengthen-but but not the interstices,
they do not require filling but the occasional hug, hair~
tousling, the unexpected hand holding to refresh the bonds
that sag with ages, worn to forlorn, by so much to remember…

I promise myself to keep this short, for the spaces themselves,
sag longer, wider, and need not words overbearing, but the
occasional tightening of the screws of connection, the markers
of a precise precious pulling that gravity may wear but never
ever break…

olp