~ for my friend and fellow poet
Rebecca Askew~

wherever that bench be,

I be

oxygen sweet, sharing mine,
preserving you, a necessary for me

for are you not
my very own Canadian
wild shorebird daughter,
my wailing
wild woman, kicking up dust trails,
driving across wide plains
with no-eye boundaries,
whose prayers and lamentations,
take me into mourning places,
and lift my eyes skyward

what is this,
the third, the fourth,
the nth,
poem you have extracted,
from oil drilled within me,
dug in my inky deeper places,
my tarred but oil rich sands

though our eyes have not yet crossed,
our embrace completely incomplete,
a millennia of words exchanged,
borders crossed oft,
no passport ever shown,
no visa needed,
when this will not sufficient prove,

I do not know

but with calm certitude

Michaelangelo finger extended,

when that last traverse

will be spent, at last at lasted,

the when or the wherever

this will be, a commencement ceremony,

I Know

that my spirit

you so well possess,

will come upon your request

bring your near,

no marble bench memorial markers here,

just life giving

empty Adirondack poet's chairs,

needing jams and jelly filling,

your name dedicated,

inscribed thereon, upon one,

be by my bay,

(forgive but forget cold, unforgiving Lake Michigan,)

by my bay, seagulls wail and squeak

airborne inspirations,

acting soully as watch-birds over poets-in-residence,

where words lap upon the simple shore,

for free-taking, warm lived life contained,

no talk of death, only cheating it...

This I know,

as well as the colors of

my blood, my guts, my words,

yours, the first words my eyes read this day,

this, my last belief, as my heart beats,

come summer,

we will write together side by side,

the windy invisible, indivisible

words composed,

be, that, our true *benchmark,

of lives well lived,

forever preserved,

death defeating,

you,
help me to
see too well,

so laughing shouting,

fine woman-poet,

**I know thyself

the shortest poem
he will, he did,
ever writ:

every breath, every thought,
strained, purified, refined
to reach the goal stated,
A Purebred Heart

writing continuously,
the smile of the tasked
gives rise to endless love
now, de-masked,
all quested for
the encapsulation of
Purebred Heart
to walk with,
cleansed upon this
soiled Earth

on the paper
newly minted,
first time printed

causal pausation
assessment momentation
review, the second inclination,
then scrap-heaped,
in much bad company filed
retained, reserved, preserved,
for another go round,
another someday

you look at your hands,
telling them straight,
not good enough,
is not good enough
anymore

do try, so try,
three lines, four stanzas,
elegies and funerals
don't become you,
go into labor,
write labored
and birth free flowingly
knowing,
that all knowing glowing,
of a poem child,
product of
good enough

a series of random questions
all asking,
some ending in,
a few beginners,
where from...

from where,
do the haters come from?

the pleasure of mass ******,
in what gene,
from what cell, possessed,
that you seek it as a life's rationale,
so easy?


from where,
derived
the notion that you,
politician professional
behind closed doors,
bend over to the private interest
your public pretense,
couched lies,
the idea mocking me,
you know what's better
fraud,

from where,

did this despotic greed arise?

from where,
this endless depression,
a session with no end,
don't recall the beginning,
whence the end,
where the end,
freedom from it,
climb out from Joseph's pit,
the exit come
from?

from where,

does inspiration come from?

from
intimacy with the inanimate,
the population of objects,
coarse, beauteous that provoke,
the museums, the gutter, the worn,
the just unrealized, imagined,
from
learning to speak hearts
to speak the heart language

from
from animated blood, eyes, taste buds,
when you pass thru the molecules of me,
by contact real or imagined,
desperation, satisfaction organic,

from where,
from where do these questions arise,
the answers as well,
they are tangible, yet intangible,
even

from,
a notion indistinct,
an untraceable path,
hidden routers,
deflecting reflecting,
even a current direct,
invisible to the naked

from where?

a fair question,
answers, unreliable,
for in the forming,
froming is always
transfigured,
distorted

so let's agree,
the
mother, mater, matters not,
of from,
unsolvable, soluble,
the origin, source,
the river-head is a wasted search

only the acts of yours,
even/or the poems,
all realized ~
undeniable

from you, your hand

that is the only answer to
a question,

from where,

wherein from
comes both,
the contained,
and the
uncontained.

partly cloudy,
partly sunny,
clearly an indecisively
partly day,
bored, the heavens organized
a garden party, sky above,
eclectic crowd,
minted mixed,
party of partly
clouds, wind, sun rays,
summer showers and somehow,
I got partly invited...

but not partly windy,
no, entirely gusty

a workingman's breeze,
all grown up, full strength
has driven the good folk inside,
tho sailboats are entouraging fully,
just me and them in
Red Sea parting, a full blow,
unmistakably encouraging partying,
while under the influence
of white line snorting poetry

what is this partly poem doing?

receiving or bringing,
like the swirly gusts,
empowered but direction unknown,
I am partly confused,
I am partly clarified

lacking the metaphor skill,
he says to himself,
and to the over-hearers,
part with me not!

for I am partly this and that,
looking for reconciliation
of my accounts in full,
and will rely on your guidance
to seal the beams, patch the cracks,
write the parts of me that
you shall connect and declare
in one voice, unified

Will you?

Then there are these moments

When your constant addition and subtractions,
Not finalized,
But put aside,
For the smallest of tokens become the
Largesse of life.

I am writing a long poem that is yet unfinished,
Of Richard II, Bach, and the death of a king,
King Ego, the battle infernal of vanity, insecurity,
And the constancy, the sense that one is never good enough.

Then sacked, for a loss, behind the goal line,
By the few, the kind, the genteel.

From nowhere, sought not, comes quiet thanks,
Appreciation that makes my angst seem
Petty and childish, smaller than small.

One draws a deep breath,
In no rush to exhale.

Then as luck would have it,
Pachelbel's Canon In D Major arrives,
An uninvited, most lovely, most timely guest,
and I am on the floor

Weeping unashamedly that the kindness of the
Few, the kind, the genteel lift me up and tissue my tears.

Unclear and unknown what I have done to deserve
Such affection, for all I have proffered are a few words,
An insight or two garnered from reading between the lines.

I understand less, emote more, and head spun,
I, poet, defenseless, for I am inadequate to the task.

I feel your hands upon my elbows,
Your arms around my shoulders,
I, am poet risen,
Words not insufficient, for
Words deemed unnecessary.

For I am poet risen,
Up, up, up by the
Uncompromising embrace of the
Few, the kind, the genteel.