~a companion poem to
Marry Me! -(I am-in-love-with-you) (1)~
wherein was writ:

“here I stop
lest I die of  bursting, and yet I weep
for us, for you,
no longer
read my poetry”
<>

another winter’s day cruelty,
for this wretched refuse of a
former man
who
once could,
who even deemed
owner of a loving teeming,
who adored kneeling,
before love’s altar,
sacrificially, heroically

once in possession of
amazing grace, (2)
but now no longer such
in his scriptures
deeded,

for our save-by-day ,
appears, before my eyes,
so informing my love permit
has now time~expired

I once was found,
but not
once more,
but
once again,
refamiliarized with
loss
wretched and wrenched,
so I punch up at the sky,
and the sky,
like you, my love,
doesn’t punch back,
and now we are in
aggrieved agree:

there is no returning
to where
we graced each other,
so one more poem I’ll
prepare
so let it be,
the “we”
will be momentarily -
but not ! ever lastingly

but for a well~timed
very finite infinity
be returned
to coexist
and let
grace be extended
even surreptitiously

for we
to separate,
sub divide our souls,
in a graceful manner:

why this last act,
a hallmark of
what once
stood for
us,
was,
and perhaps then,
you will read:

my only love poetry
once moreover,
with com-passion
and even tiny teeny seconds
of memorized affection,
and that would be an
amazing grace

Thanatosis
(noun)

pretending to be dead

a state that in some respects resembles shock, is characterized by cessation of all voluntary activity and usually by assumption of a posture suggestive of death, and occurs in various insects (as beetles) when disturbed
<>
thus a new word
joins the tongue,
a new bud solely
to express the state of two
when love has died,
and the energizer doesn’t
want to bandage~rip,
make entities separate,
face the uncertainty
of no mercy

so two humans
play dead
but inside
there is a long loud
agonizing screaming
******* your fading courage,
well hid but going to
the land of the unheard,

and the state of
Thanatosis
is the Grecian Isle
where you will be
buried
though
you but
*half~ dead

for the self-contradictions that
split our souls
~|~
the nature of loving
is the internecine battle
that divides self~love and
love~for~another;
which will be greater,
the greatest,
in the heat of the many
moments that occur in
every minute, yet,
magnificent interaction

the mind or heart
tallies the ∑
of the
favored love directive,
and sooner or later
one becomes the league leader

and the heat
resolves as
anger total
or total commitment ~
the quandary no longer,
hopefully you have chosen correctly
and not squandered
what come so infrequent
and have chosen to
be a
thanks
giver

for Richard Shepherd who wrote to tell me
one of my babies, (1) made him:
“Oh my, speechless”

my stated aim, my purposed gain,
is to write of only love poetry,
oh too human am I, going astray
the most human contributory trick,
is when “she,” temptation,
oft cajoles,
“this way please” and I easygoing
and submit obligingly

your words spontaneous, mark &
make me, likewise spit out gratitude
of words simple, informing you that
you are too, too kind, then pause reflective
does such a thing even exist?

bemusedly, smiling silent at my silliness,
as I debate~contemplate, the potent notion if kindness can ever be measured as in excess, by what  measuring cup system could we
contrive to ascertain if there be lines drawn,
for the most best of human attributes?

it is Monday Morning and such silly peculiarities have no busily business populating my gray matter, but compulsory
demands state forthright you cannot retreat
from this windrowed wonderland hedgerow,
for when seeing these deep waters,
can easy sink a poet
for a funking, dunking, nay, a drowning!

but I am only dancing around the edges
of a fire upon the beach, and gingerly admit
that there is no limitation to this conceptual,
can we be too human, could one ever not say

your loving, your essences~senses fragrant,
are airborne and therefore unlimited,
beneath this shared sky~sphere.
yet never my intent
to rob a human of
the power of speech

but this statement of de~unlimited awe
too much,
and therefore my understanding deepens,
when and what a heart feels
is without definition,
without lineage,
every time reborn,
and my loving of your kind words,
overflowing will be my
principled purpose
this day

that every person whose path
intersects mine,
shall be greeted with
the tools in my possession,
which thanks to you,
are identified as an undefined
unlimited
too, too much
kindness
and my one job is to
be a proof
of this
raison d'être
for all ofour
existences

this hen issue
now resolved,
be a lovely
au naturel love poem
and obedient
to my
only truest mission

“But nobody really cares about how a poem  has done! The only thing worth talking about is
what is the next poem”

<>
how brief are these pleasures
that are oft tendered to our senses,
sunrise, sunset, eclipses
all ****** too quick,

yes,
a slow read, a leisurely walk amid
the bombast of colors falling extraordinaire
even the denuded trees
are blinked away too easy,
even though they longer linger,
our body clocks knowingly admits
that even the still of snow covered lands
or the blanketing grating grays
of a Midwest Great Lakes winter sky
goes on and on
too **** long,
they too to can be, are,
imagined away without too much difficulty

so too,
the next poem*
can be hounding incessantly, crying out for
your undivided-under-god,
for attention to be paid
and paid again

but more likely
be a desert away of unwatered vast eternal spaces, and inspiration is only a mirage
that searingly teasing you for relief
from can’t get go satisfaction
for that next poem
is perpetually around the
next corner,
moving faster than your heart’s beating,
the words that need believing,
need bleeding for
they come at great cost,
never simple, never flawless,
just raw unpolished
that is always the

next poem

For Mariya

a poet who apologizes
that she ent be able to
to keep up with my new poems, for she is transiting to the front of the Ukraine – Russia
War,
“I have a new poem sent to me every day only for my eyes, and I send a new poem every day only for his eyes, it a special pact that they just for us alone, and I love that. What a sad end though, maybe someone new will come who read you poem-a-day love?”
Mariya

<>
Patience is a golden key that, over time, opens every single door...
and for this alone,
we live for ourselves eternally,
awaiting our
daily dose
of almost yet,
an unshared single breath,
that enlivens us for twenty four more,
till that day, that, time,
when the poems are whispered
in each others ears, and exchanged
in a breathed breath via kisses that are
incapable of being wasted or
impossible to record,
and yet!
a singular breath
each an addition
to our owned private
library-
that will last the exact length of our two
lifetimes combined…
~*~
o.l.p.
~~
weep not for me,
my poetry is indeed diurnally
drunk,
by anyone and all who love
the notion
that it is
the potions of our words
that are the essential essences,
the very elixir
that creates & sustains
the ephemeral ether
we need to exist,
that we loosely label
love!

when you love,
you’re a country,
pierced by daily border
exchanged crossings,
to your closest neighbor
and though,
one rerun~returns home by night,
to your prior defining borderlines,

somehow
the externals of the container has
had its internality's modified

for the lines that prior defined
have altered
by passing the
point of prior,
now by thousands of
tiny holes breaching the
thickened protective lining,
by love punches ‘n kisses of
pinprick punctures
the resistance,
pulverized
<>
you are changed,
new language combos spoken,
embrace another with a
bilingual tonguing,
a real treat
to entreat each other and
that hyphen,
that little tiny
linear
~
punctuation mark is
reflecting your creativity of a
Singular Duality

it is mark that
speaks to a new
U~no individuality,
blended and connected

somehow a duo of
someone’s pulverized lines
forms a single stronger
chord

first a puncture
then a patching
finally
an adhesion pleasuring
and a new working word:

composite

the opposite
of
opposite

this accidental status, we are all very busy
to be on the lookout for, the odds are not
terrible compared to the lottery, a modest
1 in 300 million, but it’s an easy buy and bust, just a two dollar bill, two lousy singles,
for a legal purchased fantasy that’s
cheaper than a cup of coffee

but finding love is miserable murderous
murmuring mess, can be very expensive, and
exhausting too, physically and mentally,you’re swimming in shallow waters tween razor rocky coral, begging for a slice of your double sized portion of anguish

And yet,
can’t be that hard,
it is a mega billion busyness,
with no cure or satisfactory vaccine,
and the randomness can drive you
mad, make panting to-pack it in,
until your spidey sensnses tingling,
a ketchup and bitter herbs mixture,
and you’re sweating, and it’s 100% anticipation of the well known (!)
unknown risks, this easy
walkway~path in the woods,
leads you on, with marvelous views,
even babbling brooks, till you find
you’ve climbed halfway way up a mountain and to make it to the top,
it’s a rocky boulder strewn,
ankle and heart twisting road that
takes you to the grandest place and plan

oh but, boy,
where the view of the worldscape is only
fantastico, but the only way back down involves throwing yourself into a
quarry pit, full of dangerous chemicals,
that burn scars into your inside parts, invisible wounds so untreatedbly unspeakably bad and incurable
again and again,

and you say stupid things like
I can’t help myself,
what’s a matter daddy,
just want some sugar in my bowl,
and when your neck gets broke,
and it’ll take incredible processing
to just get you to walk again,
and yet
the single
odiferous scent, that amuse bouche on
your lips, and you’ll do it all again for
once monte carlo throw of the dice,
because the odds ain’t that bad,
everbody lives somebody
and given the billions of opportunities walking in just this planet,
even one in a million sounds
pretty good,
even,


very…fair

promised you a new love poem
every day till forever arrives,
for it will until then to
exhaust the crazy no limit ways to communicate
how my love for you consumes my
fragility, uncovering my core of strength,
that is never exposed, but for/to you,

but for/to you

my unidimensional surface
unpierced,
no one sees what you x-ray,
and I fess willingly, with ease of mind,
that my secrets are safe stored best within
the borderless country where our ven
diagrams of souls
intersect with iron & steel & titanium
ribboned lines of inviolate invisible
pure white

here I stop
lest I die of  bursting,
and yet I weep
for us,

for
you,

no longer
read my poetry

went to the doc for
my birthday suit check up,
usual barrage of tests,
withdrew 8 vials of blood red, and
pronounced me to be
officially
in his win column,
all good ‘cept for my

general deterioration
that is an unscheduled, indeterminate
process of time's steady determination,
for which there are tests
but no cure,
so he says,
don’t bother

after the routine is completed,
he asks with a twinkle,
for he knows this man
too X two
well,
“son, what really ails ya?”

Doc -
“don’t know whatI I am made for”

have not tasted the
excitations
of
falling in love in so long,
I’m purposeless

it’s the falling
that is
the inttiation intricate
that makes my
HR skyrocket to
130, even 150,
where the stress
is an exertion that
benefits and strengthens
heart muscles?

at a higher level
of stress
for intense but brief,
a necessity for long term
heart health

the diagnosis was simplified,
dear boy
( he is younger than me)
you have
ED

nope doc not the issue in hand,
he smiled at my savvy,

it is of
emotional disability
that I speak of

your life devoted
to loving the loving process,

This is your red engine
that can and could,
and would still,
but at your stature and age,
it is not as easy as
back in the day
when you smiled at the pretty girls,
and they un hesitatingly,
smiled back,
and you were on the road to
the inflation of infatuation,
highs and lows of an
incumbent incurable
you~humanist,
a valuation expert
of the human connection

there isn’t a cure
but to try
and fail fairly
repeatedly,

never give in,
never give up,

for the paths to
where you seek,
everywhere,
and I await happily
you next report
why you
stand before me,
with heart palpitations
for the very best
of reasons,
for my human friend,

**that is what you are made for!”

the raw confusion of the nucleotide fusion,
the great concoction of recombinant DNA,
when we cross over our own boundaries
and subsume, integrate, reformulate our
very selves, with inhalation complete of
another human being; the danger’s inherent,
absorbing a foreign body totally is the creation of a new being entire, vulnerable
despite the new totality of the resources of
two hearts acquired for mergence

and the rush of two different bloodstreams
now circulating, stronger by far, and equally
vulnerable to diseases never prior considered,
these tissues patches, interwoven skins, two
fabrics, silk and wool, a smooth itchy, that
makes us stronger with yet unknowns of weaknesses, and then we encounter what
cannot easily be digested, comprehended,
for even new cells split apart, and the terrible
terror of dividing division that is the side effect of integration, new subdivisions never
ever forever foreseen cause volcanic tremors
and trusting your other half is awful,
until the fear subsides

this is the why
I write of
only love poetry,
the study of this process
so poorly and powerfully
misunderstood
is the atom bomb
of the human psyche

in rivers dark we travel,
oars with cotton muffled,
for there are dangers on each bank,
and in the waters beneath
the salt and the fresh
excitingly & violently blending,
different weights
somethings fall to the bottom,
others rise to the top

and when the process is nearly resolved
(for never ending,
by default defined,
for end is a conflict
constant
interrupted by truces fraught,
fragrant and vulnerable)

this then
is living,
this physic of the
bio-il-logic process
called love,
and the endlessness
that it requires

the inconstancy
of the
constancy
of the
deepening well,
and the
redemption of
redefinition
of what is
well

<>

2:10pm
nyc
10/21/24

(the drug cos. have invented this,
tablet, capsule, even injectable;
but the pharma cabal says
no to all,
who know & ask for a public release)
|~|
For

A Kiss That Lasts All Week
it will cure most illnesses,
and what’s the point in that?

you will just have to learn it
with practice, practice & tactics
no need to hurry, play with
the concept, roll it over the tongue,
ready for overseas deployment
said tongue,
the tongue now
the advance force

close your eyes
focus on the overwhelming
(says the now all powerful Wizard of Lips)
those underestimated sensors of the lips,
too oft disdained
in a overhurrief hurricane rush
to the
“big n’ better “ orifices,
and the slow luxury
of the tingly
uttering of

WOW~

shooting through you to the parts of you
suddenly rewoked
& now revoked
from the
quietude of functional boredom

and think
but do not speak
***, ***, o m g,
this is
the fountain of youth,
the revitalized
cellular generation,
the speeding up of the
flow of blood
to places long forgot,
allowing the heart to pump
its gifts to the deadened spots,
reawakening the invisible
soul
that we all have in common

so:

get to “work”

earbuds buzz,
indic of incoming friendly fire,
another love song,
hardly differing,
what’s the big deal?
uh oh, oh no,
only transformered into an ****** boy soon
to be out loud squealing

for that’s not the way a poet’s brain operates,
a surgical insertion of a poetic inquiry brings a repetitive inquisition's painful honesty
and a new commitment commission now inescapably upfront~facing

even for the
low priestly devotee of
only
love
poetry!

Has anyone ever said to you
I want to hold you forever?
Have you ever told anyone
I want to hold you forever?

oh my god!

the brain is racked, a fav torture of the self-
inquisitors, more awful than version physical,
my balance disturbed, my soul perturbed,
which the greater, my enabled loss or
my failure?

for a detailed search of history personnelle
(of course! it is a feminine noun)
registers no results, given or received,
the hurt of the how, can it be, OLP never
uttered this most greatest
declaration of love?

and then/there, by the River East, a most public place, old man is seen uncontrollably
weeping, a non-gendered English verb,
reported the New York Post
tabloid newspaper

small thanks, photo had my back bent,
my face remained hidden, but revealed agony
of the twisted prostrate figure leaning over
the railing as he rails like an exile
or a hostage

and there’s no answer forthcoming, no coverup, just an existential howling in
recognition that the opportunity has likely
disappeared, and the sky answers not
when begged


why me, why me, for the silence
is answer enough, never was I willing to
raise the gate protective, high enough to
stand before another, unclothed and
impurities revealed

surrender myself to accept or
give out or give in to
that most
wonderful risk

and the weeping
doesn’t cease,
it is doesn’t soothe
or ease,
for the division’s remainder
remains less than a
whole integer

how can I call myself,
only a love poet?

and I answer
my self
with a teary silence
of an unanswered
curse

these are the scientific observerations I’ve
witnessed, recorded, tallied and allowed
to impact my judgement

compiled upon my diurnal voyages in the sea of humanity across the cityscape of my birthplace

this not a disclaimer, for I neither disclaim
or claim anyone, as my own, more a clearing
of the chest, that also clarifies the senses, to better observe, interpret and weigh subject to
human biases and frailties, which makes for
better poetry
<>
A women. a mother, beside her a daughter,
of the horribilis annos age of early teenhood,
her face  a dull rose~pink, obvious tear streaked, but what strutk me odd, the mother
sits at a 90 degree angle, face turned down and away

and I suppress my urge to comfort the youth,
that things will by law custom history and
natural law of the philosophers, perforce
she~teen will survive, even prosper, as I speculate what ailment specific has caused them to sit on this bench, by my river shared, and find no comforting by its majesty, it’s current sweeps away the debris of worried fears, returns wisdom perspective,  and all this will pass by my inpressed guarantee upon the air we both share full of
promise

but i am puzzy by the mother, who drapes
not her arm around, nor speaks as if she knows that volumes, pyramids of words have a pointed top, past which they can go no
further

sympathetic for I have comforted many,
and well cognize the tipping point when
the intersection of frustration, exhaustion,
and love succumb to the knowing point,
that only antibiotic soul salve is time,
and the silences of caring even when
unspoken

but I walk past, for in new york city there are
big boundaries one rarely crosses until and
unless invited


as I travel my well worn path on a sunny chilly October day, when one is capable of
delulding oneself that summer gods and
light
and warmth yet exists,

see many; the handsome and the overwhelmed, who move in vacuum tubes
of isolation, observing the First Rule:

Make No Eye Contact!

a safety device to preserve you in a protective bubble of safety from the uncontrollable,
the risks of possibility, for failure has so
many imagined risks, and it is so much easier to imagine the worst, rather than finding tokens of the best humanity can offer

I know this rule well, for my experimentation
includes my walking with an always smiling
face, that ranges from whimsical to fantastical,
but for the little children who give me an unutterable joy, as they explore the world
with no hesitation and are yet unaware of the First Rule, not due to arrive to another decade

once in awhile other observers, see this well,
handsome,well maned, old man with the
fixed smile from the tiniest corner of the nearest eye, and cannot help, but instinctively
return this breach of the lonely peace the
river ample provides

and you tally this reactionary outcome and
well versed in statistical theorem, can safely
report that the frequency of said occurrences
is .01%, with a degree of confidence after numerous walks, that 99% this the best this occurrence that can be obtained

and you ask if this is a poem?

as you ask so often, when I lead
you down this gated garden path of my
envisioning walks, where I pluck  poems,
good footed or bad, from the steady
breeze that whisks away my tears,
from whatever source they be triggered
sorried dad, or glad, joy or the Oy! of pain,

and apologize to old codgers with too much time on their minds, about its failure to be be brief, but grief is never short or  sweet,
and when I'm on my knees still trying
to understand the ticking mechanism
of the human heart, there just never
seems to be enough letters in the alephbet
to say all that needs saying…
after I-deliver a real cup of
strong, no milk to the barely
roused woman, will dandy don
safari hat, binoculars, freshly scrubbed face, attach that grin to my outerwear, go forth and catch one or two stripers, perhaps a catfish, or
a porgy, a smile and even a poem too…


oh,
and yes,
this too, an only love poem
for us all

she stood by me even when
most of my disasters
were of mine own creative actions,
but in the crises that always
unexpectedly
rose up dramatically
when driving off road,
where there were
no guardrail guarantees

so when the doc says
“sir, needed surgery right away,”
She unashamedly inquires
“ok, what about tomorrow”
making us all chuckle,
and doc a smile/responder,
“how about 6:00am the day after?”
and you accept (me observing)
with
a stern smile of pretending concession

so when recovery consists of
three ++ walks a day through
the corridors of the Unit
which morphed from an endless huge
to a
small prison courtyard,
where in a day everyone,
patients doctors and
rotating shifts of nurses
are greeted by me,
idiot extrovert,
with an intitial
giant hello and a wink,
which after first three
“shuffles around the block”
has become a
saluting exultation,
a look of surprise
with a
“You Again!”

that gets the inevitable
twinkle from everyone

somehow
this greeting came home with us
and thereafter when,
she stirred awake
to see me shuffling in with
coffee and a quarter cup
of crunchy Kashi & banana
(a/k/a nana & banana)
and a too loud
“You Again!”
which infallible makes
an AM grumpy disappear
and
soon becomes
a time honored
ritual

now that I’ve honored the oath
which was promised jokingly
by me to She,
that I be the last to depart,
cause doing it twice,
was an unbearable job,
and long enough gone
and I am back in my
own private recovery
honeyed (yellow) painted room,
The Enpty Pillow
with imaginary smiley face,
hears a mourning yellowing phrase,

and when the grandchildren
make
their obligatory dragged along
monthly visitation they be greeted
by old friends
a firm hug and an
emboldened
“You Again”
and their smile says
“you’re embarrassing us”
+++ childlike acceptance

and the rivulets ridiculousness

that accompany this scripting,
+ any accidental overhearing,
or get even getting a read,

is fresh brought out of
tears storage
and each teary one with
a Hey!
meant to be cheeryr
greet & repeat

😉us again!😉

~for Maya~

(8/12/24)
never put off the important stuff
till tomorrow, defined as 202five,
first tend to the existential jive,
after all there are harvests
that need bringing in,
bills that need to be paid,
or yet to arrive,
and them older ones, children demanding
an installment to keep them happy’n
currently hip

the weather vane ventures an opinion,
another option, hard to discern, for the
vane spins wildly as almost undecided
as a teenager dreaming ‘bout which girl
to prom-vite, or a seven year old confronting
30 plus favors in the tuck shop before picking
the craziest, the most colorful,
& worst tasting,
then dropping cone et al, on dad’s ****** brand,
new sneakers

putting off poetry till the next year’s almanac
agrees a day off you need,
to seed,
to cede
for yourself, a practical decision
that any farmer could at arrive,
tho probably better things need doing,
****, even sleeping as there is never
enuf  seconds even for that, cause something
always needs fixing,
and

I ain’t even mentioned the vagaries of the
full time occupancy of worrying bout
the witches in charge of discharging
crazy unpredictable Canadian weather

but there is something that needs tending,
use those soil stained fingernails to unburden
the weights that don’t go away, just because
the body too tired to talk to the soul, cheat
sleep, scribble down that single verse that
the chest can’t get rid off, that rhyme in
your puzzled mind, as to what comes next,
and then the rest will follow; which
one you ask, me smiling, the one that
already burnt a hole in your breast,
complaining bout their orphaned status,
and looking to be one of the kids who get
luckily adopted

but what do I know, probably all wrong, me
with no plan on how to survive beyond T+1,
the way markets taught ya how to think
about additive time, a day at a time,
but still find a poem for you
squeezing itself in between his very different
list of worries that never quit, making those
hailstones falling in his can’t-sleep-either brain,
rising with the Eastern sun to pen
crazy poems about humans he’ll likely never
meet…

postscript
————-
his favored Persian poet penned, (1)

“We are often in battle,
So often defending every side of the fort,
It may seem, all alone.

Sit down my dear,
Ttake a few breaths,
Think about a loyal friend,
Where is *your music,
Your pet, a brush?
…
Now pick up your life again,
Let whatever is out there
Come charging in

Laugh and spit into the air,
There could be holy fallout.* (1)

“it’s the time of the season
When love runs high
In this time, give it to me easy
And let me try with pleasured hands”

Time of the Season,
Song by Zombies
1 9 6 8
<~>
was 18 years young,
when first heard these words,
now in my-eighth decade,
times is both
plentiful
and yet delimited by the onsetting sunset finale,
but
and so are the
accumulated  dictionary of word’s available,
that I command,
legions, armies, corps,
all to command,
to properly say…
yes,
it is the
Time of Season

come to the. lean sheer clean paper single sheaf,
with no agenda,
perhaps to just amend an overdue,
thank you

these pleasure hands
have always been
greedy,
for the sensuality
that stroking fingers command,
the contextual sensuality
is far greater than you ordinarily
stop to think about…

but I remember
every face, every cheek,
that I have stroked,
think upon it!

the soft curvature of the skin’s mellifluous
shapely contouring to you
your pointer
finger,
thinking simple
nothing finer,
more pleasurable,
totally expressing
the emotive bonds
two human can share

mother trains her. children
with a deeper understanding
how love is simple,
enduring and stronger than
any time’s decay could contemplate
despoiling

and to those women I have
adored,
whose thieving stole my precious loving,
I
thank you,
for your taking was a giving to me,
making a whole person
understand than to be whole
was to be parted,
for two are the greatest
one,
an equation that proofs
our experience
that though solitude
inspires
our greatest creativity


is is only because my eyes are
infused with and for
love
aspired and  gained…

these hands,
more powerful than any other *****,
the eyes may have its
but will never touch
your child, your women,
your sense that giving up
yourself,
is an enehacemnt
of all you are,
a single finger
surveying the face of a beloved
is an electric shock
that soothes and satisfies
simultaneously,
unique…


keep those pleasured hands,
fully employed,
bring pleasure to the world,
so that others will understand
it is now or never,
a line drawn upon
a beloved
is
poem only you,
can write

75°F & Alive & Minding the Perfection

morning mindfulness,
surrounded by perfect,
once again, may it be
forever this-a-way

I have no idea what
I’ve done to be so
blessed; and I repay
with gratitude in this
psalm hymnal, poor
though it may be,
it is genuine, poured
from within the open
confines of all I have
learned, earned, & burned;

75°F & Alive  & Minding the Perfection,
the color contrast is  an overwhelming,
an all encompassed scheme
makes neighbors,
even,
total strangers greet each
other like beloved brothers & sisters,
this heaven is infecting,
an infectious breeze of the
stillness of early morn
born and carried in our cell’s walls,
strong are the nuclei, and this
memory, this poem devotion,
this ttributary of words
flows with slowed ease,
and the
troubles are banished to the
back of the pack,
tho the line be long,
the golden oldies music
banishes them to a temporary oblivion
and within a totality of solitude alone,  
momentarily,
my heart,
fulsome,
yes trite but true, is crazy
overflowing,
I’m in danger of loving everyone,
for to not,
would be
criminal
if it were even a
possibility

if i could snap my genie fingers,
beware, I’d summon y’all,
a global contraction perfect,
to convent/sit beside me, your presence
welcomed with a hot beverage,
a cooling drink, for every one
always get what they w a n t

*and
yea, yeah, yeah
this is a forever & always,
only  a
love poem…

”You going away with no word of farewell
Will there be not a trace left behind
Well, I could've loved you better, didn't mean to be unkind
You know that was the last thing on my mind*”
Tom Paxton
<>

the lyrics get caught in my throat,
of Tom’s guilty confessional,
so instead of voice emitted,
the letters and words
fall to the ground en-
capsulated in tears
multicolored,
the salt & &pepper
coloration of sad regret
for the multifold &
man-I-fold
mistakes
recalled in black & white graydations
of reflections of loves lost that yet haunt
and now honored, at last, 
 with their very own
words of
farewell

“Not yet,” I whisper to the heavens. “I love it here.” — Clare Cory

<>

when desperate thoughts come seeking me
in the dark dear moments of near insanity,
when the hounding is bounding and baying,
nipping at my heels but aiming for my throat,
and the litany of next time, we’ll meet again,
is a whispery threating thread in my head that no scrubbing,
can unravel, erase, debase, or erase that awful distaste of
my embittered saliva, and a peace of mind finale
comes with a disgustingly disguising crook finger,
offering a taste of relief,
I will remember this story and  clap my hands
and reach for the quill,
put down the temptation of the knife
and let it pour on to the paper
thus,
expiating and excavating and expectorating
sugary salty bile of
mine own self~hate
by whispering the magic of
Not Yet,  Not Yet.*”

love~worn to the extremity (get a dog)**


rare condition but not so rare,
that a first year intern might guess
the prognosis from visible symptoms,
the alternating listless groans, contextual
unexplained weeping, no singlized source
of pain but short hard stabbings in odd,
multiplex moving theaters of the brain ‘n body

slow onset, then signs manifest in increasing
rapidity, till your buddies attempt to drown
your context in a local pub, but to no avail,
just a guttural persistent wailing failing
where they beside themselves, send you home,
you’re tossed on your bed, to search for no rest,
for this malignancy is cured by lingering time,
and even then, it is a never fully excised tumor,
shedding bad humors, cells to witness to exist,
decades, a precursor to a life long disease, composing
just
one more bad
lost love poem, a
disease cancerous
in its aspect, look for the paling, waning now near
permanent discoloration around the eyes, and surely
you will have ease instantaneously recognizing me

get a dog they said,
so I did, so now, two sad eyed
lowland lady mates, two basset hounds walking each
other on silent daily trip with no destination until
one of them commences the serenade of howling


olp

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
****

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

light

<>

~yes, for you~

you never knew that you have burdened me,
informing an old fool that,
you meditating in the morning, after waking up
to a poem in your inbox from a person you’ve
never met, but whom you thank with a kindness
that wets my face, trembling with thankful shivering
from the places
left in me that
crave giving thanks

one day I will come unannounced with tapes
of a hundred romcom movies that have caused
my heart to erupt and always will, for thank god
my old curmudgeon heart is still weak enough
to cry in private
at old movies in
a youthful man~boy way,
now grizzled gray
that yet needs
nay, requires, reminders
that giving thanks
is a variant of giving
love in its very
own way

a craving that satisfies
in its own way
that giving is
gifting love
to yourself
as well

writing love poetry in/on time of hatred

<~>

not for the absence of love, for there is sufficient out and about,
in the eyes of children who cannot hide their glee at your surprises,
tousled morning hair patted down almost into not-a-horror-show,
a shapely body in a black one piece suit, that speaks of hints and
mischievous frolic, a summer night~right of taking, reciprocation,
god’s coffee delivered bedside every morn, with kisses of tenderness

but

these are the days when hatred speaks loudest,
volume of volumes,
and the hypocrisy runs blood red in the streets and we we wonder
has the world learned nothing from the horrific history of the prior
century, the absence of easy solutions for those who reject in the
provident supply of the low humane treatment of a world where the
word
society
is a mirthless grimacing joke

maybe that’s why I I turn on the love songs and music, a soupçon
of cherishing, a wail for its absence and loss,
the thrill unique it provided,
and may yet again, and to just remember, remember, remember!

why we obsess about crazy love in the artistry of our lives

so, I will force myself…to write of tenderness, let sneaky,
much needed,
sentimental in…

oops, looks like I already did…

caught her cleaning the fingerprints off of the mirrored door,
using the ever handy bathrobe sleeve,
fabric of a thousand utilities, this one too,
me wonder, whose prints? mine, kids, hers,
could they not have remained as a history,
highway road marker, “On this site here…”

more fingers, skin-oiled, will return, the chain
unbroken, for mirrors collect memories, faces seen,
matched to prints of hands that traversed this doorway,
on the way to where, it don’t matter, signs of humans
that come and gone…erasure troubles me…not
because cleanliness is next to godliness, cause
god is mighty messy and a few prints ain’t gonna
make a big difference…but

she espies me lazy observing, annoyed, she chastises,
her reproving noises fail to include a thank you for
prints mine, most fresh, carried two mugs of coffee minutes earlier,

part of my daily chore, and a morning
I love you, an essay that is perfect in its abbreviation,
like a short poem sweet, so I hid my head neath the coverlet,
lest she see, me & a well hid grinning smile
sipping coffee even more
contentedly

poetry and love is and always found in the oddest places….

The Smell of Honey,  Coffee and Apples and Messes of Words, but
No Love Poetry

<^>

my poetry suffers from a literately literacy,
the adjectivally of imagery wears away with
time and age eroding the imagination, when one’s
days are numbered, being serious is an natural
unpleasant hazardous haze, never in doubt

The morning meal of cooked oatmeal, steel cut,
laced with wildflower honey, slices of honey crisp
apples and Hawaiian coffee brewed,  
singes the
Tropical Storm Ophelia thrumming humidity
that overhangs the ugly grays of NYC sky-paths,

one tickles me awake with contradictory impulses:
sweet and sour,
a robust stimulative, competing with the smothering of
grayling clouded weather weariness of
48 hours of rainy continuity,
a spirit suffocate

you see!

give you myself, my environment, in précis,
unimaginative exactly as it occurs to me, sensually, yes,
but cannot shake my disappointment that no,
can’t combine visionary notions that spin your swivel
chair around, powered by your exclamations of
ooh, ahh, and little stabs of weeee punctuating
our shared atmosphere
and bring forth
only love poetry

but no mas,
the love poetry doesn’t comes to the fore,
the forehead stuffed with words best listed as
basic, observable, factual,
Miley Cyrus, accuses me of being jaded,
but not with accuracy, more straight jacketed,
way past that half-way point of no return,
turning back is not a listed menu option

love poetry
demands, requires and requests
envisioning, precursor to dreaming,
but I am choking on matters-of-fact,
questions of survivability,
that do not
shed love poetry words,
I
love exclaiming
to any and all within hailing distance,
my loving firmament, but the damp atmosphere
swallows my hopes and sounds, even though
still can smell the lingering nearness odor of honey and apple,
yet, other hints of memory beg to differ,
and I sadly and easy confess,
this is not a lovely poem…
- * -

“Words are beautiful, but emotion is divine” (patty m)

~these are the divine words of a beautiful soul, patty m~


this Missouri grandmother writes and I am willfully, duty-bound,
to comply for she commissions a poem with every insightful pithy and
ever one of her dear hugs, of which these is no limit and each one a treasure of a gratitude that flows contra-directionally, surpassing given-grace and lawful gravity, for all of her words flow simultaneously north and south, heavenwards, and earth planted, east / west, magnetic poles attracting divinity wherever it can be found
and all I can do is proffer

just one more only love poem, which is the blessing and the curse the lord blessed me with, love is  beautiful and it is divinely originated in each of our humble hearts, plucked from trees and fed to us wherever fruit of the fields grows, shaped like sweet and **** berries…not all that is divine, of necessity to be beautiful, words, them too, a mixed blessing, vulnerable and subject by the abuse of human weakness and fragility…but this much I assure myself with confidence,
and you too,
her words, well,

limitless, her every poem is hand woven, unhid, in the fooling
plain earthenware that the potter’s wheel created,
all gifts to each of us;

But my fragility mandates I speak slow and hesitantly of things beautiful that contain the white glow sparkler light of divinity, for I have attracted and deserved many failures, far greater than the rarer success, so my knowledge yet oft suspect, is mostly merely well imagined but know this:
her skill,
her expertise
her intimate comprehension
within the beautiful and divine expressions of her kind appreciation she deigns to share…words like a mighty, beautiful like a powerful Missouri river, driven by all specie of love…but none more powerful, more divine than that of a loving womanly grandmother

this, yes, only a love poem to be sure,
for the beautiful,
The Divine Miss (Patty) M.

(be-tween and be-twixt)

———-


the most precious but precarious item
in our possess, value far above rubies,
this love overflows, but it drowns me
from within, for it has no home for
pleasured sharing and goes wasted, excreted
in tears and exhalations without destination

condition incurable, and the doctor advises,
projects, a life span rangebound from
be-tween
and
be-twixt,
imperative that this love be
disbursed, pressure relieved,
fluid and gases shared,
send it forth,  
Doc behests,
nay,
begs,
you’re a decent human,
tell your tales,
follow your motto,
write those love poems,
always leave them laughing,
and give them love in smiles
all-the-whiles
bringing joyous relief to your clogged arteries,
all this the bare minimum,
for you must moreover grasp and clasp
your body to another, for this
the best transfer transfusion
of all your needed love needs

go be needed, be great, be lessened,
be all three
and never walk alone,
with just hope in your heart,
for the heart, automatically refills,
and this the best, medical opinion…
for all those with too many love poems
requiring expulsion and extrusion