put all the words
in the world
in my two hands,
each a microscopic dot
of near invisible,
teeming, heaping,
ricochet intersecting
colliding,
cell splendid splitting
leaping,
until they,
wordlessly forming
a sign inquiring,
in neon flashing:

“What did I demand of them?”

”New combinations,” my reply.

how we
laughed together...
as they procreated
My Happy Request

To sleep, my mind impounded,
My heartbeats, bass, lowly-sounded,
Each beat, a note upon mine ticking meter.

An unfamiliar feminine voice, not hers, poses,
Questioning noises, issued from a blackened figure.

This human-shaped metronome,
A singular inquisitor,
In rhythm, but not in rhyme,
Gravely announces repeatedly,
T'is your time, t'is your time,

Each pronouncement,
Spoken n'spiked distinctly:

"Your prose now ended,
last-gentled sweetly."

Wondering still, is it just sleep or truly death,
This forlorn eve, to go, to meet and greet,
Without having said my finale prayer.

Unprepared, thus with unaccustomed flair,
"Unfair" doth me protest, a newly-minted naysayer,
My book incomplete, black-brother frere!

If death indeed you be, my fellow cloaked-rider,
Then make me a one-last-time composer.

Let me whisper once more inside her,
A last poem of the greatest brevity,
But of the greatest import, laden heavy!

Good bye, my love, goodbye....

This closing writ, my finest ever...

~one more for the r man~

almost Monday
and its weighty five day oppressive lead poisoning on the horizon,
is but a thirsty thirty six minutes away from its fortified Sumter, first shot to be fired at midnight, how we love to mark the commencement of hostilities and killing

but I am already wounded, a casualty of having spent evening with pleading, pleasing timer eating, reading of your work,
r

the sounds of inestimable admiration and infectious jealousy
make this old man eager to discard a lifetimes work and
begin fresh, but only as a copyist of you,
r

I know you’re thinking "what in the hell is he blubbering about?"

so I willingly will my confessional offering in the dark of the
holy bedroom; for you make me eat my words, and
spit them out as wastage, in dumbfounding humility

god you and yours, make me frail and blessed that I stumbled
upon your abbreviations of the human life,
r

shut up and accept my three r’s
reading ‘riting and rising
up to sing hymns of praise
for a man with a historical perspective and
whose few occasionals
are carved in the granite bench
of what makes my life
worthy of load bearing;

more than bearable,
all are soul-enlightened by
baring our humility, our admiration

11:24pm 4/15/18
nyc

By Harlon Rivers; sent to me in a message
3/17/18

A simple man walks a twisted lifeline
a Path Humble, seldom seen or said.
He often hears from river edge,
watching the simple beauty echo
in the harmony of river's song.

And in the green and peacefulness
a rare light enkindleth a pleasant gladness,
A timeworn body needs a place to catch a breath
for a while, for a while...

Where the wisdom of windblown silence beckons
muted whispers without a home …
for to lay down unerasable burdens unshed
for a while , for a while...

Abbreviations of the Life Human

these little stories, bejeweled poeticals, long tall tales,
short-held breaths from the savings account breast,
all slow withdrawing-dawning,
all are but the abbreviations of the life human

my fav of course,
the one, the twenty six
the aleph best bet

<•>

4-16-18 10:47pm
a mondo Monday survivors prayer