http://l.em.dowjones.com/rts/go2.aspx?h=969682&tp=i-1NHD-J0-Gxj-11tt6O-1p-16HvOp-1c-5XGo-11tf9T-l8fLN8RgcQ-1EmUT­C

A new virtual walk lets you enjoy the quiet beauty of a poet’s paradise: the Hawaiian garden of over 400 types of palms that Pulitzer Prize winner W.S. Merwin created over the span of 40 years

bad day omens come in threes (and a P.S.):

1. bad day omens come in threes,
a Trinity Church with a graveyard
included and attached, (1);
when your breakfast
navel orange targets,
aims & squirts on
its namesake orifice,,
a prescient hint for
a freshly cleaned
white T-shirt day,
first bite of the date

2. a trinity requires three,
the day is young,
so when sun up shines,
surely a positivity, nah, no!
just to make a point,
immediate comes out a
glazed donut
coating haze
that says impolitely,
no sir, “nun-uh”

3. go to the kitchen
for fresh coffee,
hearing a car
pulling out,
finding note,
on coffeepot-propped,
neatly folded,
To: Only Love Poetry

”Cannot do this anymore,
don’t forget to turn the
coffee machine off”

P.S.
Can’t afford another costly mistake.  Pre-treat that orange spot.
It was good for awhile, till it wasn’t, but our spots, just won’t 
come out, no matter how many times we tried, stained permanent. Sorry.


onlylovepoetry

one word. one thing
shows up on my face.

everybody knows it is a
keepsake:
keep away from me today,
for fks sake!

certain peculiarmornings
wake with a cross on forehead.

days when you certain,
everything worth saying
has been written, sung,
not a **** thing left to
contribute, except whining.

no way to purge, the compulsion
welling up, coursing down.
this overwhelms, my outlet store,
permanent closed, sign says
don’t ya know it’s a recession.

a one man recession.
no government intervention
gonna come my way.

the notion that I’ll never just
once more, feel the thrill of a
first love, a new born progeny,
woman, baby, poem, no diff,
wrecks me badly, worried sun consults
my animal friends, what’s to be done?

knowing the answer to my curse is,
not one wiling to courage to curettage
the lining of my decrepitude,
the end then, of no more next time.

though there is a first here. ever.
first time, every stanza writ,
closed off, finally ended, with a flourish,
a puncture of a period.

~~~~~~~~

postscript:


the closing scheduled for now,
have to change the name, says York,
it’s the common law, I’m legal bound,
gonna sign the documents as
no more love poetry.

919am Wed Jul 22 2020

this word love,
heavy with import, alternatively,
falsely called out too breezily,
diminished by over-usage,
till you admit it doesn’t fit
like your formerly fav pair of jeans

stretched, too many stains,
cut for a different body,
a different soul,
a different existence,
a former you

so when the mind and mouth
glimpse a synchronized synapse,
and just ‘bout ready to let the “L”
bomb slip past the guardians of
your own galaxy, you nick time,
modify it to a moderate, but yet
fulfill your need with a differentiated
four letters.

(“Cariño para ti.”)
“Care for you.”

awhile, a time ago, wrote:

“the oven's writing warmth,
still faint discernible,
giving off the aroma of heated ink,
upon a skin-smooth page..”

                         <>

my words returned by the commentator-in-chief:

“Tells me why the best part of my
time with her was spent in the kitchen.”^

lay fallow my emotive, a response due catalogued
but unfulfilled till today, oh hell it is a moody way,
partly cloudy day, raining in between sunny  brief teasing episodic.

perfect.

for the mixed mood, a melancholia of innocence with a dash of a salty, self-reflective hazing, choosing careful words when I write without clear direction, you want to rush outside, get set up, and then surrender-retreat inside to the comfort zone, the hearty, all-involving,  kitchen where the ink is always kept on warm on the glass topped oven, and the dripping-coffee-machine never shuts down, at-the-ready stale crackers in the cupboard, and all these writing utensils at the two-handy, when she comes in, and with a quick surveying, kicks me out, to make us accoladed good food, with these words:

“my darling only love poetry man, render unto me, this captaincy,
my fiefdom now, and herein are kept my ingredients and tools, whe my words are secreted.”  You mistake the warmth here as a necessary condition for thy composition, but not so, the warmth required travels in the hearth of the body, get thee to the nook, to the sunroom, or our bed where I catch you prepositioning conjunctions to join weeping verbs, adjective so riotous their beauteous is stolen by God i’m the fall, thoughts worthy of becoming verses and stanzas, the exclaim the wonders of thy perspective, thy goodly nature, thy odor of freshly stirred vocabulary, an alluring stew in a new ***, surrender this cooking place to me in order that you might chef a new creation, half mine, half yours, all ours.”

she tips the pool boy!

who arranges the deck chairs, opening the blue umbrellas,
and the kitchen dishwasher, who arranges them Ach so!
for the fussy, **** German-born dishwasher,
the man-who-takes-refuse-to-the-town-dump,
the bed maker, fluffer upper of pillows when up-awakened,
the driver who always has car tissues, and a disposal system,
the exterminator-in-residence, for the necessary cohabitating pests,
the guy who buys the groceries so she may live to see her grandchildren,
but that guy,
who writes her only love poetry,

he just gets the finger,
yes, all ten, a 2X five bonus,
and their associated tips,
whenever
he,
presses SEND,
a new poem,
just for her,
created.

she calls it an even bargain, what she don’t know, I’d do it all for free,
for just a single eyelash winking.

on account of you:

she says: do you know you often smile when, day dream dozing?

me says: on account of you

she says: c’mon sweet talking man, ain’t gonna fall for that hooey!

me says: hooey, phooey, on account of you

she says: nah, you writing poetry, no fooling me no more!

me says: on account of you

she says: I bet you got one of your girl friends singing to you, through
those wireless earbuds, doncha? who is it this time? a Sara or Joni?

me says: on account of you.

she says: you think big shot, you can multitask b.s. me? doing three things
at the same time!

me says: on account of you

she says: on account of you, I’m seriously ******, you don’t tell me anymore
sweet lies and alibis, probably writing an ode to one of your poetry gf babes!

me says: on account of you, can’t count no more, how many love poems in my lifetime written, and this one too, going out to you, charged to my tab, you babe,
are my account, my accountant, my accounting....

put down the pen,

gown thyself in coats
of many riotous colors,
banish ‘never’ and ‘hope’
from thy lexicon, and
begin with a smile
always a smile as you
walk the streets as if to say
open open says me,
open sesame and let the
good works begin,
for having found your
captain of the muses,
your Calliope,
your rosebud,
lucky you!
you will need not write

another word

dear god, you humble me into quietude

she says it’s sunny and 75
nearing 3’o’clock, cooling,
let’s go for our usual constitutional,
for a lovely afternoon walk to Shell Beach

can’t can’t can’t walking now in
a bottomless pit, every handhold,
poems, newly commissioned, newborn,
broken off the wall, revealing a gleaming,
light of iron pyrite, really good fool’s gold,
cause only fools write good poetry, or even try

but tonight I’m gonna feed you bucatini bolognese
babe, you gotta walk, make some room for all the words
that will come tumbling free falling while I’m sleeping next,
you’re up prowling looking for rhymes, lines, unheard of before,
you’ll need energy to bite, write, and make loving poetry and then,
then, sleep late, my laddie-baddie, new ones on my nightstand,
for my perusal, my usual unusual man who gifts me them to
in quantities of ‘more galore,’ that I accept, adore...adore

so afterwards, I must say my morning prayer, as an atheist forgiven,
the one I commissioned, and you composed, for me:

Dear God: you humble me into quietude, with gratitude...

this lyric licks your face,
leaving you-salty-caramel
smiling, while listening to Janis, singing
”(You Don’t know What It Is Like) to Love Somebody”

no babe,
nothing lasts,
not you, not love,
not me,
no matter how hard you
rhyme, theorize,
forget and memorize,
life’s only constant is
constantly refreshing all,
endlessly remembering
and forgetting how to
hold on to a heart, to love...

sometime a breeze, usually a hurricane,
comes along, prying your hands
off what you got, or,
prying your eyes away
onto something new, cause
that’s just the way it is
with human foolishness,
you gotta
“to walk, talk,
rhyme and theorize,
forget and memorize,
always refreshing,
knowing that
nothing lasts”


until it maybe does...









———————————————————————————————

“To walk, talk, rhyme and theorize, to forget and memorize, always refreshing, knowing nothing lasts, except things that last forever, last never, poems and decisions needing completion, choices, reordering songs loved best, replete all sorrowed pains, uplifting prayers, hallelujah hymns, last rites....”^



—————————————————————-

that fog horn blows,
worries my mind, lord knows, we don’t need,
more obstacles in this tired world, so the horn
trying, to be blowing fog away, without success

the sound’s remainder air-lingers like foam bubbles
ridden down to coffee cup bottom, resisting, protesting,
refusing to expire, useless/nonetheless, says no dying

sole boat outlined, bout mile out, must be anchored, it’s
unmoved by fog danger or noise, fishing is my informed
best guess, but fish ain’t stoopid, swimming another way

the fog horn wakes the woman who looks askance
cause there is neither coffee or a newly christened
poem upon her nightstand, an explanation is sought

“stand by me,” I sing, “be unafraid my darling, stand now,
stand by me,” poet said “been guarding our bed, this long
foggy night, agin interlopers, bad dreams and sea troubles”

shied ‘em away, knowing that when a man loves a woman,
she can lean on him, cause he’s load bearing, her safety is
always first, poem second, coffee coming, with sun rising

she bemused, funny you’re, kooky like the poems you’ve up-
written all night, up all life long, all stored up in my nightstand,
you’re sweet, like  Tennessee whiskey, ignore my scowling my own
poet-mr. coffeeman-sea guardian, you’re alright with me

despair ****** up all air, its currency is TV gold,
spent on rerunning human misdeeds, hate unmasked,
past infection point, reason is virally infected, what goes unspoken,
is we eat our young, they burn us on crucifixes, sins we committed
or not, we, living in the golden age of rage, no good reason crowned

basest instincts of intolerance is illness of all human supremacy,
it’s cheap and easy to hate, and its even cheapest to hate the
haters back, so the circle unending, wish I could sound less stupid
when my heart keeps ringing, can’t we all get along? Please. Idiot.

naive! guilty. toleration of nothing will suffocate all voices,
what good is this poetry gig, if we can’t drive out all hate,
no salvation, no hope, buried my writing utensils, cause
nobody’s listening ‘cept to the sound of their own righteousness

no need for only love poetry, when hating somebody is just (ha!)
so pleasurable, let’s hate everyone, for no good reason...

<>


a lump in my bed
————————

sheet covered, toe to head, alive or ?
call it lumpen woman, though shapely,
the thick coverlet says yay, let’s suppress!
what lies sheet-deep, let everyone wanna guess?

two arms snakily shoot/emerge, straight out,
from besides ears, to aerate treasured tresses,
blonde mane, lioness locks, somehow sun colored, of the
rest, a-guessing kept, I man of reason, am’nt a speculator

reasoning that when the world was 1st created,
there was a holy hole in my side, missing a ribbing,
leaving me needy for a plugging, a poultice covering,
a bandage stitched, so my breathing unimpaired

thus this how and why the lumpen woman is come
into bed and body, to patch and complete, warm and
stoke me, wake up us to freshly chilled spring atmospheres,
and other supposed reasons to compose only love poetry

Fri May 22
early morn bedecked bed
isle of sheltering

bathtub overflowing, the kitchen sink a-running,
water water everywhere, everybody, getting a wordy
Saturday po-em, ahem, so only, lonely, love poetry,
high pitches, whimpering, like a three year old chillun,
why not me babe? why not me babe?

words uttered somewhere, everywhere, hourly,
maybe even screamed, sung, shouted outed,
with total justification, incredulous incomprehension,
my ticket unpunched, this fate, an indeterminate sentence,
if only I had a penny for every utterance, be a multi-billionaire
and still dissatisfied

the isolation au courant makes it a thousand times worse,
sometimes, I hold my own hand, remembering what is touch,
just not to forget, like a lazy eye, a missing limb needy for
scratching, a sensating, sustaining pleasure that sorely
disappoints, for the brilliance of it, is in its eclectic electric,
and a solitary spark fizzles, swallowed up, into disappointing reveries

my eyes wet themselves when I see letters airbone, floating, reforming,
why not me babe?
if mine eyes cannot catch another’s, no across-the-room thermometer saturating stare of farenheightened heat, what good this vision?
left with a single despicable desperate cri du to my conurbation,
why not me babe?

my banana bread aroma flies out the open window to meet
and be greeted across the street, with applause and affection,
but our nostrils cannot taste, our lips forbidden, in this hell,
why not me babe?

the quietude so great, I hear the rhythmic breathing of one who
could be my chosen, my one and only, my love poem, exhaling too,
why not me babe?

but the see-through curtain prohibits strangers exchanging ****** fluids, glances of possibility, and enraged, unengaged, smash all my mirrors, cause they don’t answer my question,
why not me babe?
it’s a reverberated echoing, a slap across my face, married to my cryout, a singular sensation of exasperated silence

pick up my brass decorative magnifying glass, with twisted ivory handle, examine my hands, my lips, my nose, my credit scores, my personal spaces, my declining weight and bank balance, each excuse, belief,
the white spots decorating my sticking out tongue, thinking there’s another sense I’m forgetting, but all I recall is,
why not me babe? why not me babe?

and that is why only love poetry did not get a love poem today...

<>

“where all my journeys end”
————————————


§§§

she gets
breakfasts in bed,
an all-pandemic menu benefit

I smile,
as I carry delicately
her coffee, berries, & bagel,
a happy house divided,
stroked even sided
1/2 French pear confiture
1/2 NYC  whipped cream cheese

I smile,
as I am now an imagined,
a heroic carry-out guy,
an ear budded delivery man,
whose ears are filled to the brim
with words of an old love song,
“where all my journeys end”^

this poem is hers,
an ending for her
bed breakfasting,
and a commencing,
for her living well

an ending for her bed breakfasting,
and a commencing, for her living well,
a place where,
all my journeys end.

§§§§§

May 8
twenty twenty




^Traci Chapman

“May 15, he [the Governor] announced Monday...that the  lifting of stay at home restrictions will take place in regions which were not badly hit by the new coronavirus, mainly in upstate New York.

The restrictions will not be lifted in New York City.”

<|>

no sight in end,
no vibration of the tine of routine,
soundless, as in endless.

we unmark the calendar,
May 15 requalifed,
just another day, as in,
the search for Clorox wipes and Purell sanitizer,
will continue unceasingly

as in endless, as in
no sound no sight no vibrancy,
plenty wailing silence

we redefine social distancing.

measured not in feet,
but in months,
March, April, May

that have somehow disappeared
from our calendars
permanently.

everything in life is tech-ordered,
in this age of mega-multitasking,
the brain poorly functions, so in its defense,
the brain leans on learned reflexive behaviors

she, on the couch, cashmere blanket covered,
the Tv platform reconstituted as a drone,
a politician in front of a camera pontificating,
while she scans the Ipad, and both me and god,
don’t know what more she might need (to buy)

so when I stroke her legs, to give
added heat to her fiber-edged warming,
I do it more than once to test my theoretical,
she responds repeatical, unhesitatingly “hello my love”

after the fourth or sixth testing,
she looks up, ears perking, sensing,
knowing, something is afoot (a-legged?)
quizingly asking, “ok, what’s up?”

I smile, and explain most rationally,
that in furtherance of my current poem,
now underway, I was testing my leitmotif,
that even love benefits from proper training
<>
no, I will not show her this poem,
lest she show me in return,  
her new self-improvement,
her recently-learned-at-home,
mindful, meditative training in
kickboxing skills.

Evening Song
Willa Cather - 1873-1947



Dear love,                                              
what thing of all the things that be 
Is ever worth one thought from you or me, 
             Save only Love, 
             Save only Love?
The days so short, the nights so quick to flee, 
The world so wide, so deep and dark the sea, 
              So dark the sea; 
So far the suns and every listless star, 
Beyond their light—Ah! dear, who knows how far, 
             Who knows how far? 
One thing of all dim things I know is true, 
The heart within me knows, and tells it you, 
             And tells it you. 
So blind is life, so long at last is sleep, 
And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep, 
             And none but Love, 
             And none but Love.


______


Evening Song Twice
O.L.P. 1950-


Dear love,
your soft sleeping+breathing sounds require
Recitation of this, an Evening Song, singular thoughts,
           Save for only your love,
           Save for only your love,
Days are short, long nights grant permission,
Days are short, long nights grant commission,
            So dark are the seas of interruption,
The voids, the emptying spaces of inhibition,
Dim my eye lights, you, envisioned, me, tremulous and weak,
             Who knows when I shall see you again so clearly?
Of all things past, so well remembered burnishing caresses,
My heart within speaks, once more into the clouded atmosphere,
             Even as you sleep, my love, yet full on complete,
Tho my senses impaired, my thoughts thru your sleep, I’ll penetrate,
And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep, 
              And none but Love, 
              And none but Love.

this silence of love is flawless
no interfering words necessary deemed,
sound without sound, no entry crack visible,
a great plain, a continental ocean, no horizon given,
this then the perfect diamond of humankind,
the glance cross a room, the grazing ******* upon a cheek,
the succinct serenity of perfect, this I grant you

An Optimist’s Guide to Falling in Love With a Woman


have a very minor fender ******, you’ll never get a persons digits any easier, consider it a bonus first date, a stress test interview, when humans on their worst/best behavior, their true nature revealed and tough exteriors melt when gallantly take full responsibility, details to be discussed over dinner

risks: she’ll  will never ever let you drive her, even after, no...never ever after, the issue is closed, ‘twas your fault and is non-discussable

critique her order standing behind her at McDonald’s. blowback assured! charm resistance and openness will be tested, but you claim pure concern for her well being, even after offering to pay  a dollar for every calorie ingested if she only switches to a plant-based burger

risks: hamburger grease soul staining, no love stain stick remover handy and everybody knows mixed marriages really never work tween bronco busting cowgirls and city tree huggers

you take a spill, nose in the phone crossing street, she lifts you up with wonder woman strength and gentility, you sputter with half-feigned indignation for you’ve embarrassedly first sight-fallen in love, all your words and everything else is failing and flailing as she tends to the cut, drives you to her office where she stitches you up, while cracking jokes that are truly funny

risks: she is a Dallas Cowboy fan, or worse, someone else got there first, and you need life long therapy

she’s in seat 10C, Miami to NYC, pretending very poorly to not be reading this very story-poem you’re creating, but doing so VERY poorly because she is editing, making suggestions, punching you in the arm excitedly, asking if you want to share a cab home, for she reveals that she too, secretly dips the quill in ink and needs an expert opinion, yours for sure since you’re SO good looking too!

risks: the weather diverts the plane to Baltimore where you live together happily after-ever, cause you’re both tired of life in cities with 3-13 perennial losing NFL teams and it is exquisitely equidistant from your annoying relatives
and ex’s




Baltimore Washington International Airport
4:29 pm Dec. 2nd

“My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw”


Love’s Labor Lost Act V: Scene. Shakespeare
(Hosannah: an exclamation of joy, adoration )

<>

you force-return me to this excerpted, exceptional phrase,
recovered from a prior dialaogos tween myself & the Lord above,^
an original gift from Him to William, and now you, to us, together

though these conversations, soft but hard unyieldingly,
with each verse a play in the J'accuse game,
games theory states, we are not evenly matched,
the outcome noisy, but generally predictable

the cracked light made famous by a departed muse,
who robbed proudly from *****, passing it on to
a millennium of generations, we honor this transference, by

letting us exclaim: Hosannah!

this silence of love is flawless
no interfering words necessary deemed,
sound without sound, no entry crack visible,
a great plain, a continental ocean, no horizon given,
this then the perfect diamond of humankind,
the glance cross a room, the grazing ******* upon a cheek,
the succinct serenity of perfect, this I grant you




<>


2019

a love letter in the sand


she implores me at my weakest,
early morn, when sleep and sorrow
yet linger on my eyelids and dreamt stories
still have not been replaced by the careworn,
life’s erasures that ***** sparks of creativity

write me a love letter, a forever composition,
resistant to aging, time and weathering, a poetics
stamped with a maker’s mark, a signet, a hallmark
to our love that will be read unceasingly, a party to eternal
preserve our sharing, under glass, in paint, in this ink,
in this atmosphere

deny not my request, for it is holy tinged, reddish singed,
the best of us to become immortalized,
for all other lovers to follow, in garden planted,
a peony’s blooming upon request, whenever needed,  
be ready seeded, to salve and save, to be given and gotten,
in a single act jointed

no matter if our names brown edge to faded,
our love revived when it is voiced, witnessed, taken,
our love refreshed upon renewal by others eyes, lips, sensations,
make it an oath, a promising, combining our combination,
bless it for everyone, to be a blessing, a dressing of loving

poet rose from prone, our templar bed, bathed his face,
bid his woman, follow, her bidding to be won, for this now
is the moment precise that such a need be immediacy met,
a task such, cannot be denied, temporized, delayed by delicacy,
a challenge so eloquently stated, must be instantly sated

to the sandy beach I took her, for she would be the first witness
to her creation, her inspirational must become perpetual,
with forefinger in the sand drew the words she had chosen,
for in every respect, he gave grandeur, preservation worthy, now encapsulated as “I will be yours forevermore”

“how can this be eternal, in minutes, the tides arrival,
it’s erasure a certainty” she laments...

not true, I soothed, the tide will take each grain of our anthem,
with our bodies ash, to every seventh corner, where lovers gather,
to be rewritten, melded together, soft spoken unison,
spreading our tale, forevermore...

it will take 100 years for a single grain to cross the ocean,
and then, when all are as one, as we begun, this day,
our love letter in the sand perpetual

the cherry blossom accord/equation

”perfumers use aromachemicals to recreate a cherry blossom accord...(an accord is a scent made up of individual aromachemicals, that when combined, create a harmonious blend where none of the individual ingredients are able to be detected on their own).”

the odor of our lustful eyes,

the sweat, a unique commingling,
a sheen of salted oils body bathing,

crushed green petals of peaches,
crumbled together with the softy fuzz shavings,
the sediment of aromatic fruit juices drippings

our blending bottled in our brains,
none other would recognize but we,
to too two smell each other through and over
floors, concourses, cities, disparate distances

our ingredients secreted (secret),
our flavors cell secreted (secreting)
the world’s silly tittering aroma inserted,
our sparking fingertips touching
add a bush burning burnt odiferous

we seat across from each other in an airport
plastic restaraunt and everyone asks out loudly,
what is that smell, feed me that, taste me that,
as we are irradiating the atmosphere,
as we renegotiate our cherry blossom accord,
fresh signatures, updated, harmony of harmonies, notarized

she smiles, I joke, winking,
we must continue
to meet like this,
the fireworks of we,
of us,
to-gather to-gether,
a getting of giving,
she answers:

take me home and
bathe me in love,
give our bodies shelter
from the world outside,
beside a new spice
have I uncovered,
this will require some
discussion+exploration,
the quantity to be added,
the when, and the how!

what is this new ingredient?
asking puzzled and aroused,
she laughs
(a spice already included),
why it’s called
only love poetry






8/23/19 4:55pm

all I've ever learned from love

is

in the trying is the finding out
of the
all about,
losing battles to find yourself,
a war-won victor and a long term loser,
making the process new, expensive
the event expertise training
acquired to shoot your foot straight,
laugh about it when you do it again
and again

for the relearning is the crown jew-el,
that jesters rob from their kingly masters,
pride in love is the fall season preceding
Canadian winters, always thinking
you know better, be better at keeping warm,
this time which is the next time

you cannot learn from love,
cause it’s twice, two times,
never the same,
past lessons ain’t no prologue,
the body is maybe in the wafers,
sometimes vanilla,
sometimes chocolate

and the epilogue is
100% of the
poem~songs that I love writing
and hate remembering

she wanted my soul


so I cut off a finger,
noting that this little pinky offering,
came from the same hand,
who, who went to the market
to buy her a love poem
all her own, because,
it was from the self same hand
that wrote:

who, can cut a soul into pieces,
no one!
so one will still ask you,
who!
who will love you
in whole poems,
that are both past and future tensed
composite composted,
from words overly overused,
but still foolishly feeling brand new
when referencing *you,
so you can believe with new fool-thinking,
this is your sole composition

she wanted my heart,
applauded her determination,
gave her one eye to see me instead better,
so the visions she essays,  to write,
like when I sit down to write
of women I’ve loved but!

they do not come from my heart pieces,
but from inside insight from of parts
that are blind to everything
but *raucous untamable invisible desire

she asked me for all the world’s wisdom,
while standing on one legging,
I simply said, here I am,
telling you I’ll love you the way you requested,
if only to be loved in return

so with one eye and one leg,
you will observe, two is not more
than the sum of the parts of one love,
as I count to ten on my nine fingers
fingers that wrote of love not enough,
no matter how many he gave up

she wanted my brainiac left hemisphere,
said, sure,
the left side of me is where the baby poems
are created, and then angel-released when ready,
when needed, now that I
see you’re needy for pieces,
but still mistaken that pieces can be reconstructed into
a whole with spit and spirit
and an overarching imagination -
no!

the whole comes from only a holy place extracted
from the hole-in-one that is my entirety

give me then your utter essence,
the place of you
I, only I know exists, must exist,
but cannot touch to see
where you keep it hidden
from all the women who love you,
better than you even love yourself

if you want that, then collect it,
for it exists and lives on
in every woman that asked for nothing,
but was rewarded with more
than a thousand poems,
stored in stars, for her,
to be creamed and cleansed,
when she plucked them
from the night in the galaxy where exist
love poems, only
to she-one shone-shine

head to toe kissing


I   the mundane

moonlight madnesses, a possessive noun,
commissions gravitational pulls that disobey and obey
laws of interstellar loving. The antique modalities once and forever, forever laying still, stilled in places of antiquities and historical need, are thundershower and hail rudely reawakened, the undertow of
pull and push, the yanking hands  of need for others, for others,
it’s the explosive-knowledge, the opening of the old kitbag of perpetual principles, that crazy head to toe kissing is no less necessary, more so, than the computation of the total breaths mundane, unnoticed even now as I write of them, that we will count from that very first, in deed, they are one and the same, like the same
kisses given from head to toe

II   the profane

at the first, the body insists, I am but a long haul trailer, no taxi me,
cargo and passengers, are my quatrain accompaniments,
traveling companions boon, my own toons, too soon disembarked,
songs of parents and lovers, children and others, your visage passed
without your permission, but with your happy encouragement,
to generations that will see things that futurists dare not
even mention, but the profane urge to warn them all, kisses from head to toe, elevates, and overcomes...so when most of my names dusted with forgetfulness, lost in the waves, my scorching soft lips will be recalled just as an airy flight of light brushing upon a newborn’s eyelids just at the moment of birth.  A rustling more felt than heard, the ****** and bruised carrying body will sensate and instantly forget, but nonetheless transmit genetically, that the profane of birth and life renewing can be only washed away, when past and future, recalled and recreated, kisses from head to toes, dripping with softening saltwater tears, a chemical organic reagent of creation,
inside the histories of head to toe kissing

III  the insane

so when, somewhere, some place, a man’s body prepares  
tous ses adieux, his memory foolishly sane and strong,
his wasted paper bag container ship, rust bucketed,
crinkled and wrinkled, skin folding in on itself, hanging to bones
by stretched sinews and tendons that no longer tend to business,
loosened and gangly, they hang on barely to the bare nakedness of
evolutionary processes, mostly not, offset, by the tenderizing effects of kisses, from invisible attendees,  unconscious they,
willingly and unwillingly, offering farewells in actuality...
head to toes, noses to belly buttons, tatted, tattered, and still tasted by dying cells.  It’s insane to think it’s even possible  one retains each and all, but he does, those few given, those few  millions he gave away for cheap belly laughs and poems, decade upon decade accumulated are the totality of him, all of them free and sealed in kisses from head to toes

upping the umami, the fifth taste

“Umami is the last-to-be discovered fifth basic taste, along with sweet, sour, bitter, and salty, and triggers a distinct class of taste receptors on the tongue. ... The most notorious (and often unjustifiably maligned) source of umami is monosodium glutamate (MSG), the sodium salt of a naturally-occurring amino acid.”

a chicken soup recipe^ says it’s time,
time to up the umami,
me-the-no-cook is sidelined and intrigued,
then taken to another place

sweet, sour, bitter and salty
are the tastes of you life,
but it’s time to up the game
release the amino acids of my fingers
into her body, the tasting menu scrapped,
go direct to the boardwalk hotel,
railroad her unto my jail,
teach and share the notorious
fifth perception of loves taste,
the elixir of our combinatory sensationalism






————-

The Best Chicken Soup with Rice, Carrots, and Kale
Saveur
Tomato paste and fish sauce add depth and umami to our best-ever chicken-and-rice soup studded with sweet carrots and silky kale.

my pointer finger
caresses her knuckles,
intervening between her fingers,
soft shell teasing,
sliding off her manicured fingernails,
in order that I return here
to lay down copious notes

I re-land inside the palm of her hand,
warm, a Caribbean beach smooth breezy sensation,
she wraps up my instrument of exploration
with a four finger grip, a signal fire
to escape, travel north up her arm
to the pause point of her bare shoulders,
where her body finally speaks,

why oh why, stop here,
skip, skip to my lou, lips,
my *******, jealous,
the ******* no less, now restless,
the rest of me requires
two hands, if, you can,
still caress with the best,
while typing with the pointy tip of your nose?

stoking and stroking

very, very often, but not every day,
she wakes me with a tonguing
on my clean shaven heart,
I ask not why, lest it break the over ten year,
she be magic spelling, a hexagonal licking put on me

after
ten  years she gets cat curiosity bitten,
   asks me if I want to know the wherefore,
      pretend not to hear, re-awarded with an elbow
        between the ribs five and six, grunting me a ‘sure’
          (that’s a surly unsurely, no - not really)

“you don’t take care anymore enough of the body I embrace,
so I am my own your health plan, licking your chest cavern,
one of a defensive medley of many medical techniques,
stroking the heartstrings vibrato, stoking the hearth fire,
purely selfish you see, all I ask is you purr as you do,
lay still, accept my pill of vitae min no-calorie surgery,
for ten more years, let your heart be stirred,
keep the bad stuff excised, and let the desire of returning fire
of your taste buds, be forever for me...”

don’t kiss and tell,

meaning
do kiss, go crazy, let passion rule, give in, take out,
meaning

kiss but don’t tell

yet,
the real telling is in the kissing
where your heart gives way,
avalanches into frenzied chain of signal fires,
smoked, clouded eyes, with only one exception made;

the shining, sheer veil see-through when
the other is on the room and the  green spring coverlet felled,
all to see the glow, see all the the blush,
the pretense, aversion skins natural makeup, a liberty beacon

laughing, how it cannot be hid for what’s inside
climbs so fast, blushes blue blood redder, the inside reaction reagent,
the weakening composure, the intense beating from heart to head,
the joyous tearing, the silent swearing, the stupid grinning,
the step skipping, the happy dance springing  spontaneous,
no control, might as well just let it go biology in chemistry class

all these tells that you have kissed beyond reason,
these hidden kisses might as well be on
billboards on the highway into town,
a P.A. announcement in high school,
a hearty button attached to your backpack,
the incessant text checking, all dogs nighttime barking all day

go ahead kiss and tell
go ahead tell and kiss harder,
in the kisses, a million tellings
every body part red swelling,
the tearing of every body part,
concentric circles extended from a pebbled heart

~

first I smell myself.

the deep bass tonality of my musk,
hot, creamy, sweetness unique, of coffee and creamy,
my owned sweat oiled secretions massaged into her skin
emplaced by vigorous parts rubbing and tongue caressing,
under the fading shadows of my glancing, desirous admirings


then I smell herself.

sinking sunset glimpses of last nights parfume parfait,
scattered in random strategic locations architecturally planned,
some flavors come over me like modest waves,
others spelunking found in crevices, cracks and caves,
where humans tread in guileless search of guiltless pleasure

then I smell our sharings.

lemon and thyme, paprika, sea salt and pepper,
a basted rub laid upon animal skin consuming, and consumed,
the vinaigrette balsamic and California yellow raisins, pine nuts,
decorating leaves of red soil spinach and spicy arugula,
word salads, so miraculously ingenious, you swear off eating flesh

then I smell our combinations.

the air conditioned atmosphere that blends us properly chilled,
the olive oils pressed from two colored differing skins,
the mortal and pestle finely grinding our own fresh crumbled dirt,
appearing in places where dirt is wet panko crumbs encrusting us,
our combined liquidity, shaken and stirred, drying in martini tandem

it is 8:17am and this recipe of reciprocity,
at its most pungent peaking,
for soon raining waterfalls of potable city water
and the sophistry of French soap,
the pseudoscience of modern chemical shampoo,
together erasing, scrubbing away this poems aromatherapy tapestry,
your perplexed complexing nostrils will mock you once more,
for ever disbelieving, thinking you could no longer write of
only love poetry that crested high above the trite


Friday, March 29 2019

the wisdom of your eyesight

begins with you legs that turn the body’s odyssey
away, sort of, in the general right direction

but thou stiff neck person, yet still turns away
from what the eyesight will see when the eye shadows lift

thine eyes cast down still seek escape, with last minute haste,
but my pointer finger rests easygoing beneath thy chin

where the finger meets, lifts, thy softened chin tissue,
to look directly at your proffered savior, an electric election circuitry

this head-on-collision of two pair, beat by a full house,
when the combined wisdom of caring lifts two up,
ah, the best writ we ever scripted,
the best hand we ever played

if your eyes should cloud,
upon reading this,
this is too, a kind of wisdom,
wisdomkind


for S.B.

~for Wendy ~

with my almost two years old poetry advisor,
who loves her Sunday rituals, an extra sabbath,
of waffles and Shrek, kid’s gym and artistic endeavors,
cozying up with Nana and siblings in a big old bed,
snacking and chewing on the good silk sheets

as always, she and and I go off to have an intellectual conversation,
letting the older ones to do kid stuff, while we converse and debate
topics of nature vs. nurture, the weather vs. climate change,
and the future of everything, unbeknownst to everyone else

which is greater, love or honor, she inquires,
sensing my thoughts are preoccupied with matters of honor...
as she strokes my itchy, scratchy day old face,
insuring her having my full attention, while
taking advantage of my loving weakness

grandpa:
honor over everything my opening gambit,
while she coyly harrumphs in response,
one can love without reason for such are
our natural souls programmed,
but honor needs concentration and contemplation,
and if done right,
then love will surely follow!

She-Woman:
ah ha! once again you sidle up to nurture,
cause love is too inexplicable,
old man, old man, did I not love you before
any season of reason crossed my brow,
and my vocabulary consisted of just
more, no, toy and hungry

what did I know of Aristotle, logic, codes of conduct,
the definition of honor yet abstract,
while love is nature’s illogical construct,
coming first without restrictions,
while honor is malleable and
property of the eye of the beholder

grandpa:
wise beyond your tears, you are, and unquestionably correct,
but while coming first, love cannot last,
until cover-coated with honor,
for honor gives us the because, and locks down the why,
honor gives the insight, the rationale, the rules of how to say
yes and no, when love is tendered and an R.S.V.P. is requested

She-Woman:
absent experience, for now will concede,
but be warned this is not over,
fo you have not brought me a definition of what truly honor be

grandpa:
honor is the housing of love, and though you granted me your favor,
comes the day that you will demand proofs that
what was unearthed & unearned
is now earned, a course in credit, a baccalaureate in life’s lanes,
when to heed them, when to crossover, when to say I do, I do,
no to someone else alone, and yes to your honorable self

She-Woman:
adult double speak, I suspect, and you will rue the day
when forced to concede, with a wrenched
‘child, I do not know,’
meanwhile change my diaper
after I karate chop your knee

Grandpa:
yes child, but know,  two of your requests/notifications are
honorable acts and/know real love can be ONLY be exchanged
tween honorable humans