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Path Humble Apr 2021
”against your will were you created,
against your will were you born,
against your will do you live,
against your will will you die, and
against your will will you stand in judgment before the
King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.”

Rabbi Elazar HaKappar (C.170 - C.200 CE)
(Ha Kappar: the one who made and gave atonement)

<§>

in these, the years of my erosive declination,
when the noble prize, time for introspection,
once was a chore of delaying, now no longer can be off-put,
the certainties of Elazar, offer guidable satisfactions


the nighttime review, resurrecting my life, the gaps,
the untaken actions, those dream-schemes speak loudest,
memories of what should have been, are a litany of what ifs,
prosecutorial accusations of crass wastage


against my will, the charges brought,
against my will, plead guiltily my innocence,
against my will, knowingly, time’s erasure judgment,
secures my fate, all the granular cells causal dissipation


my warped willingness to be a coward,
it was my meditative, to natural be the lesser man,
choosing the safety premise, the road most oft trod,
the addition of my meager totality, willing given


Even if all these land mine/roadblocks
and summary judgements are against my will,
willingly do I confess, in all innocence, my guilt,
“if it be my will”
Path Humble Jul 2020
~for Dante Rocio, who shares visions~

-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 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,
the froming
is always
transfigured,
distorted

June 2014
Path Humble Mar 2018
this title has begrudgingly waited for some loving kindness, fulfillment-needy, since October of Two Thousand and Seventeen

which is not quite as long as the decades I have been waiting to
accumulate the words to provide us both, an inspired solution

my days are numbered
in decades, decals, varying lengths of hair,
belts with notches that ain’t reachable,
suits various, both too big and too small to fit,
the who who used to own them,
begrudgingly, writes this

city born and bred, with the pale skin needed to prove my urbanity, each day came unto me begrudgingly,
even, especially, the good ones

when I was ten and rode my bike from freedom to mystery,
and back again in a city that was ok, if you stayed out of its way
and knew the city’s vocabulary and its erogenous zones

when nothing come easy, when even the easy, when it comes, comes begrudgingly

when you think of love, and the next immediate thought is:
how great the cost - recalling too well,
the pain of childbirth and child rearing
and the staining, paining fluid is in perm-attendence,
that doesn’t ever fully departs and
is not never entirely stain-stick-removable,
and the children come ‘n go according to their schedule,
someone else’s vast eternal plan

life in the same apartment  
where my parents died,
listening to the stories of joined lives,
listen to the sisters telling them
over and over to a stream of visitors
earned from and of a 98 year life,
given up willing but, begrudgingly as well.

the story-telling skill because of them,
my mist-matched parents who did ok
and their very best,
gifted us hyperbole innate genetic
and all of us now registered
tall tale tellers;

some write for a living,
some live to write,
some write to make themselves clearer,
after honestly confronting their subway reflection  

words acquired bot ‘n sold,
they too are stains unerasable,
very always handy,
the one thing we shared, word skill,
was never at loss, words never held a grudge
no matter how long they waited to serve

this fact, begrudgingly confess;
all my-word skill was freely inherited...
and I hope it satisfied the title
and you, those that waited patiently but,
begrudgingly
2/10/18 6:42pm
Path Humble Jun 2014
****, here I am again

suffused by incoming sunlight floods,
blonde tresses decorative,
and a
refrigerator light dim surprising,
******* a future fest,
when in search of ordinary milk and coffee

cherries, grapes, watermelon,
cole slaw, caramelized walnuts,
Spanish Marcona almonds,
chicken defrosting, and wine,
a pink rose,
blushing like me,
at the amplitude of love and blessings
I have uncovered,
and that covers me,
while she sleeps,
I sip first coffee and
her love

and more than suffused,
I am effused,
unable to contain all this,
what I am feeling,
like my water broken,
pouring tears
and I wonder who is

this idiot

that forgets to say
thank you
for what he
has been given,
and who in return
can merely offer up
a pauvre writ,
a love poem,
of salt and sweet
2014
Path Humble Jul 2023
Empyrean Heaven (there is no promised land)



there is no promised land)

the promise is where you stand
at this exact moment, where you
stick the landing every morn best,
best you can, assess the window’s
first delivery of the status of where
you are, whom you are, bent or *****,
empty or full, impoverished or worse,
sated, foolish or brave, (dis) believing
the top of world is planted beneath your
feet; but above, at this the fiery places of

Empyrean Heaven.

Empyrean Heaven, nearest to me, thy there~thee
will find, beyond the heaven of the air and the
heaven of the stars, no land, the incorporeal
existence, carefree, know this you-human,
an unpromised state is the causal residue,
of actions between human to human,
not thy god, irony delicious, earn it
with every thought, instinct, act
deserving of this, this
“unpromised place”


G.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was, declared Saint Basil, a certain condition, older than the birth of the world and proper to the supramundane powers, one beyond time, everlasting, without beginning or end. In it the Creator and Producer of all things perfect the works of His art, a spriritual light befitting the blessedness of those who love the Lord asks of you~human.


———————
Jul 3 7:59am
patty m  

so deep this beautiful confessionary write. Yes, as age gathers its flock to the fold, the black sheep stays a step or two behind. Mulling over a manifold of days, moments hours. The good the bad, the triumphs the failures. The times given in to sin, the cries for forgiveness. Behold the many times he lifted us up and answered our prayers. Faith is healing, and your words humble and sweet, speak volumes.
Path Humble Dec 2019
for she who loved me vainly

vainly
in a way that produced the result she undesired,
my response harsh and swift,
her fan-tasy has no place on serious battlefields

those poem are battlefronts mine,
that are the numbered chapters in
My Revelations

still, she still reads my poetry

think on it, it’s confusing,
my unkind cut that came from deep anger,
it was outed but not for her, because of her
but for me

for to love
permission must be asked and both
given

and the line is wavy but 100% solid.

but reading my poetry, is that a violation as well?

my poems are me inside out.


but if you look in me deepest,
forgiveness is there,
not seeking contact,
but hate
is inconsistent
with walking a
path humble
Path Humble Nov 2014
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.
Path Humble Apr 2018
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...
Path Humble Sep 2017
I believe in myths.

Every naturel blonde was first someone else.  By that I mean, she was known as Norma Jean, maybe Katy, in high school (see reincarnation below).

My teenage glory days, when I was the king of cool,
will revisit when I am 75 years old, the man-in-demand (wink), wearing his lucky wide cord corduroys and letting my man-bun,
all the way down, at the prom in the senior citizen home, getting lucky, say once a month...

God, yup, after all, he/she cometh to me regular-like,
when he needs a poet~father to take his confession,
and pays me most excellently for refusing him forgiveness,
with the most excellent poem suggestions or lesser valuable things.

Love at first sight, of course, happens to me all the time,
twenty, thirty times when I am walking home.  I tell ya, it's exhausting, the stress of living in the big city

Not only will I win the lottery someday,
will take down both,  Powerball and MegaMillions,
in the very same week the odds for which
there ain't enough zeroes in HP's servers. (See God, above).

Reincarnation. One time they Hale(d) and then hanged me (my "namesake") and I said: " I only regret, that I have but one life to lose for my country."  Well, the selfies all show oh-boy-o-boy, was I ever grinning and winking.

Only boys are bullies, girls get off easy, by getting called
just mean.

One day my city's teams will win the World Series, the Stanley Cup, the NBA Finals and the Superbowl all in the same year but only after I die and me, well, only after they will have buried me in Wyoming or France, just for spite, and nobody will hear me screaming.

My children will speak fondly of me even after they find out I died broke, well maybe not fondly, but they will most definitely call out my name, regularly.

After my demise, all the typoes in my poems will magically disappear.

All these good things will come to fruition, because I am a believer, and walked the humble path. The autopsy will also show that my tongue was permanently stuck to my cheek.
Path Humble Jun 2014
Introduction
_____

some words
chase you around
infiltrating and winking,
in emails and poems to
your attention dispatched
undeniably messaging
a wanting to be
realized, completed,
teasingly speaking

you know
a poem newly birthing
in your left brain,
tender pleading,
love me already,
just write me
like you would
make love to a woman!"

messages from others employ
the self-same word r e p e a t e d l y,
you start to get the hint
very very v i g o r o u s l y

the rumbling,
the back-seat tumbling,
you're driving
bipedal composing,
guitar and piano
gas and brake
pedals to the mettle,
and the speed limit
was 15 mph under
where your brain is fermenting

all tuning you up to
meet the guild's
product quality standards,
yet unlike an automobile,
a poem, like a life,
has a unique DNA,
cannot just be
recalled,
for repair
and additional tinkering,
jes' because
once it is out there,
it has been outed

sure enough in my
my "started but ***" file,
a lazy layabout,
overlooked and undercooked,
the poem below,
a dabble and a muddle,
so ignored, so berefted
for so long
it got this
special introduction
by way of an apology....

Incarnate**

She is my poem incarnate
She is the carne of my body
She is the innate of my soul
She is my woman incarnate

she is all I need
in form realized and invisible imagined,
angel and thank god,
devil as well...
For p.c.
Path Humble Jun 2018
left my phone unlocked
on the taxi’s back seat,
won't be the last time

called it a few times
finally, the driver picked up

he had a fare immediately after mine,
and was now headed way downtown,
and would call later
when fate returned him nearer my office

and so it came to pass,
very shortly thereafter,

we met on the street,
he rolled down  the window
and with the greatest smile of pleasure,
as if he had won the lottery
beaming,
handed me my phone

I had two $20's to cover any expense he might have incurred,
neatly folded in my hand  
and offered it right up, right away;
but the driver repeatedly pushed my hand away
as I insisted,
saying:

"No sir, no no, not necessary!

Allah sent me a fare
that took me soon back close to you, so,
  no loss of time did I suffer,
so your offer is kindly unnecessary!"


to which I replied,

"exactly!
Allah sent you to me
so I could reward you!"


and with an equally, beaming smile I continued,

"our ride and meeting today,
together was pre-ordained it was


Inshallah!" ^

something he could not dispute...
or my knowledge thereof and it’s
proper pronouncement,
nor
his amazement,
to disguise!

  we parted ways
   each believing,
   each receiving,
a heavenly check plus,
each, credited with a mitzvah^^
on our
respective trip logs,
our humanly divine balance sheets,
kept by the
single
supreme taxi dispatcher
Arabic for ^"God/Allah willing" or "if God/Allah wills," frequently spoken by a Muslim


^^a meritorious or charitable act in the Jewish tradition

FYI,
NYC taxi cab drivers are suffering economically by the explosion of ride hailing app cars, many unable to pay their bills, earn a living, have committed suicide over the past few months
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sixth-new-york-city-cab-driver-dies-suicide-after-struggling-n883886

true story, poetry is there for the taking
Path Humble Jun 2014
you stand on your own two legs

you stand straight,
begin wherever fate
has you fall in,
but well remember,
wherever the line dance snakes to, 
direction and destination,
you remain you-true,
on your own humble path,
be ever-wary of the snakes
traveling along side you
kindness is never free!

it has to be learned to be earned,
it is not a natural choice but comes
to live in our genes after observing
it beneficial impacts, it munificence,
a two lane highway, divided by a
dotted line,
so that it can go across  fluidly,
a streaming with no unilateral
direction, reversing course as needed

nope, not free, it comes with callused
hands lifting up a fallen one, even better,
taking unasked another’s elbow for safe
guidance, kindness prevents, making its
value greater than pears and rubies, yes,
it is infectious…

because you cannot receive it,
or returned,
until you’ve taught its
beauteous character,
seeing is believing,
tasting is knowing,
it’s shocking power is astounding,
a special
sounding that requires
not words, but words
and actions, a total package,
for it completes
the human far beyond
mere existence…
Oct 2023
Path Humble Aug 2017
Incarnate

She is
She is the carne of my body
She is the innate of my soul
She is my woman incarnate

she is all I need
in form realized and invisible imagined,
angel and thank god,
devil as well...

June 2014
Path Humble Jul 2016
only man de-man-ded

an explanation,

for the natural.

fool hu-man,

man-I-fold the wonders,

the inexplic-able bent to fit

the curved overture of the heart.

my plan for the day,

accept that these two hands

yours, can push an elder's wheelchair

up Third Avenue,

and never understand the how

the saving was mine own ABC's

answering,

the existential why's.


may 8 12:07 am
Path Humble Jun 2014
from the bed shared

I offer ask,
"would you like me to reheat yours?"

and she answers no hesitation

"no sweetheart, I'm good,"

not realizing she just
simple and easy,
through her sweet goodness,
reheated my love
for her
1- 2 - 3
Path Humble Jul 2018
Poems on a Mirror

~for Glenn Currier~

you don’t know me
I don’t know you;
poems on a mirror I ken
truly well

poems on the mirror saved, and then,
comme the seasoning of leave-falling,
poems dropping and drained...the post-it glue loosened by
the daily heat of watery tears,
making a space for
this one, for you...

there are poems and they arrive with fresh arrogance,
each an arrow demanding your all as a target regardless  
of what the shooter really thinks or wants, other than
obedient acknowledgment and their self-loving flattery

but some render where no rendering should be allowed

those are the ones affixed - ones you chose to join the chosen,
slapped onto mirrors - so many that they almost
cover complete your image from presentation

almost only because these poems are yours, you,
they’re the truly accurate reflection even if not your words,
indeed especially because they’re not yours

but they start your day as a poem should
and in doing so,
become you

What a Hall of Fame, to be a poem on Glenn’s Hall of Mirrors

go pick the plums...
“Glenn Currier  to Valerie Burroughs

“So true. So beautifully put. This is one I will add to Poems on my Mirror. Literally. I am going to copy and paste it or just write it on a post-it note and put on my mirror as a reminder of what poetry should be. Thank you.”
Path Humble Jan 2015
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
Path Humble May 2018
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
Path Humble Jul 2023
questioning my core competency
_________


man or woman, an irrelevancy,
we all believe that we possess
certain core competencies that
reflect our managerial skills, the
hows of how we organize and smooth
the daily mishmash of our otherwise
would-be-totally-hellish-lives


minor stuff, that have the risk potency
of the skinny tail of the curve, where the
highly improbable
seems to happen as if regularly scheduled.
let the gas tank go to E, worse, unnoticeably,
but on a small isle, with no AAA, a single gas station,
in howling wind, and summer rain mael-strom,
forced to risk a brief trip over hilly terrain, fearful of
being gas poor on the stuck-side of the road, with
no one to call, no savior to summon, and my sense
of self, now shattered-glass on the side of the road.

did I mention that the night prior when the situation
was yellow lit to get my immediate attention, I had
forgotten my instrumental human connectivity, my
Inshallah cell phone (1), at our dining out restaraunt,
making necessary a seven point four mile R/T detour,
to preserve my integrity, pride, communicability, and
the few(er) left, shards of my lesser antilles’ ego and pride.


turns out that even on E, for long periods, you still
can go some distance for the car designers, all liars,
to nice people like me, leave a gallon reserve undisclosed,
for the vain and statically stupid of which I am a member.
more details of my ineptness, shameful, shall not be herein revealed, but when we meet, gladly be disclosed over alcohol.

but it is now between the hours of nine and ten AM, and despite
imbibing 22.5. ozs. of Jamaican coffee, I return to bed,
having made it to the local station with gnawed knuckles,
and chewed lower lip,
lower the shades, announce to no one in particular, hello,
do not disturb, for-up-all-night-poet-ite, is exhausted the
exhaust of depression, for his core competencies have
been renamed, now and forever, his

gored incompetencies!

p.s. E, having consulted the owner’s manual,
stands for more precisely ,
Empty Headed
Path Humble Sep 2018
“every one shall sit in safety un­der his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”*

Letter from George Washington, 1790, to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island


  <•>

multiple motifs present poesy alternatives,
but one supremes

safety in your own chosen orchard,
supping on clear water, wine and figs
children of trees, nurtured by one’s own hands,
children of your children, running the grove,
shouting out in sweet safety

the wasps happy shameless pollinate,
dreaming of more generations,
ruefully smiling, thinking of
Adam and Eve, who ashamed of
their apple’d sexuality,
hid their nakedness of course beneath
the safety of
fig leaves

you do not pray for safety
you do not ask for anything,
nothing to fear says the father,
for you already live in our own
George’s garden of eden
Path Humble Dec 2017
The Capitol of My Heart


Psalms Chapter 137 תְּהִלִּים

א  עַל נַהֲרוֹת, בָּבֶל--שָׁם יָשַׁבְנוּ, גַּם-בָּכִינוּ:    בְּזָכְרֵנוּ, אֶת-צִיּוֹן. 1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
ב  עַל-עֲרָבִים בְּתוֹכָהּ--    תָּלִינוּ, כִּנֹּרוֹתֵינוּ. 2 Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up our harps.
ג  כִּי שָׁם שְׁאֵלוּנוּ שׁוֹבֵינוּ, דִּבְרֵי-שִׁיר--    וְתוֹלָלֵינוּ שִׂמְחָה:
שִׁירוּ לָנוּ,    מִשִּׁיר צִיּוֹן. 3 For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song, and our tormentors asked of us mirth: {N}
'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'
ד  אֵיךְ--נָשִׁיר אֶת-שִׁיר-יְהוָה:    עַל, אַדְמַת נֵכָר. 4 How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a foreign land?
ה  אִם-אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלִָם--    תִּשְׁכַּח יְמִינִי. 5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
ו  תִּדְבַּק-לְשׁוֹנִי, לְחִכִּי--    אִם-לֹא אֶזְכְּרֵכִי:
אִם-לֹא אַעֲלֶה, אֶת-יְרוּשָׁלִַם--    עַל, רֹאשׁ שִׂמְחָתִי. 6 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; {N}
if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy.
ז  זְכֹר יְהוָה, לִבְנֵי אֱדוֹם--    אֵת, יוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם:
הָאֹמְרִים, עָרוּ עָרוּ--    עַד, הַיְסוֹד בָּהּ. 7 Remember, O LORD, against the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem; {N}
who said: 'Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.'
ח  בַּת-בָּבֶל,    הַשְּׁדוּדָה:
אַשְׁרֵי שֶׁיְשַׁלֶּם-לָךְ--    אֶת-גְּמוּלֵךְ, שֶׁגָּמַלְתְּ לָנוּ. 8 O daughter of Babylon, that art to be destroyed; {N}
happy shall he be, that repayeth thee as thou hast served us.
ט  אַשְׁרֵי, שֶׁיֹּאחֵז וְנִפֵּץ אֶת-עֹלָלַיִךְ--    אֶל-הַסָּלַע. 9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rock. {P}
Path Humble Aug 2018
the count starts now (tired of tired)


I read your outcry at 3:00am
posted on Facebook

you are
tired of tired
sick of sick
the only question, will it ever end...

rise this day,  start another way...

count your blessing
count against all odds
for there are more than merely one

use both hands
both hands chested to feel the heart thrusting,
for living is a wondrous blessing unique
an unbelievable to believe than so many beats,
born and borne,
by you, a strength unequaled,
you a richness possessed

count that one first.
count my hands holding your shoulders.
count that as two, one for me, one for you.

more? more.  

mirror.  find the tiny light in each eye against a yellow backdrop.

add two more. for they are a sparking confidence of confirming.

you felt the heart thrumming
go back, feel the breathing warmth breaching forth.
add another. for now known you can never ever be cold.

wash the face, wash away the caution that sleep leaves,
the coverlet of fear that fears you not to dare,
amazing that tap water plain is sacred when it
miracle breaks you out and anoints thy forehead with pure oil like the kings of yore, be a kingly human being.

go out. do not return
until one act of kind is performed and
count that as a thousand blessed, a sum recurring recounted

walk humble and the path will always appear.
walk contented for you can be both king and servant,
there is no difference - you must be both to be the other
one.

and if you still cannot raise the head,
call me.
that would be a blessing for me
and I will hear your blessings sounds mine merge,
dear friend and no more stranger,
that is the simplest definition of our learning to count to
infinity
4:00am I read your cry on facebook ph pathhumble
Path Humble Jan 2015
feathers or snowflakes
nighttime,
unimportantly,
cannot differentiate
on the 16th floor
balcony
each an individualized n-vite

fall downy into down
of snow blankets of
freezing releasing cold comfort,
ice cream for the body entire

oh yes,
a sad one penned,
the nullity of his
throbbing everything,
sore tempted for quenching
by the soft permanence of white,
most tempting,
soft offering a laundering downy state

they say
see the good stuff

do,
but I*  feel  the bad stuff
with heartbeat regularity,
temple pounding repetitive asking
what's the next best
and other naming questions


the way in is not
way out...
this hole I dug dark,
no hand holds, dank, elongated

this time
happy you,
brevity suits

for the downy fall
fleeting floating abrupt and
suggesting
wonderfully right-sided answers
to questions his names asks

where is the humble path,
where is shelter at long last..
.
Path Humble Aug 2018
~~~
  find loose change, half used tissues,
dry cleaning tags unremoved, oops, too late,
she, after the fact, worn all day on the outside of the blouse,
the holes in the socks now visible, after the shoes removed,
ah, he smiles,
the remains of the day,
the waiting way
meeting markers

some find true love
once or twice,
isn't that nice, most do not,
though they give it their best shot,
too many, never, but not, for want
or effort.
and life is nothing better than
a salty say

can you ice skate on a frozen pond?

because that is what it feels like:
spill, laugh, spill again,
a modest laugh at your clumsy foolishness,
a blasted silent curse
at the hardness and the harshness
of this skating
on thick, hard, slippery unforgiving ice life

once more, for with no luck at all,
primarily, you care - who saw you,
limp from the field, defeated,
for the visible bruises of the
bent head, the phony grin, the shaky aura of
failure stench

ain't nothing compared to
your own revulsion
at your spilling over
at the loose change, half used tissues
that say,
aw are you OK?
Path Humble Nov 2014
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
Bench Yourself

pensive, a quiet time,
yet, burning sensation
in the limbs,
but not in the one
that matters

the eyes function
the fingers flex,
breathing regular,
the words stuck
in an unapproachable place

you bench yourself,
let the backups play,
head in the game,
not today
Path Humble Sep 2023
“where time is the fly and age the fisher of men”

<>

”until I fell forward
into fall where time is
the fly and age the fisher
of men, then when winter
begins all will be forgotten,
where time is the fly and
age the fisher of men”


excerpt from “The Fall” by Rick Richardson

<>

that words from a different ionic state, jump as embodied ions from screen to the throat, evicting a guttural current of exclamation, you believe even with the half-heartedly palpitations from  remainder of my damaged pumping heart, that these words were always intended, just for me…

boy and old man coexist, the pottage of memories stirred,
and the time is fly, and I drown in the miracle of greenest grass of
Yankee Stadium at age eight,
oasis, heaven, a child reborn in a sea of Bronx concrete,
and the swallowing up of my boyhood is forever marked henceforth, the hook has caught me, and I am of the age
once and forever


not a fisherman, but a fisher of men’s souls,
mine own is my best bait,
hooked line and sinker, and
wisdom and words
elude and delude always, 
 like summer is perpetual and aging a construct,
time does not fly, but slowly laps and waves
eroding our myths and ourselves upon a continuum with
no ends

~postscript~

<>
yet I believe,
in miracles of
fish and loaves,
and that our individual continuums
will exist beyond the artifice of constraints
of
mortal time and that poems are
the forever chemicals within
our
bloodstreams,
even when our blood no longer spills


yet I believe!
a tribute to one of the best poets around
Path Humble Jul 2020
“you have taken my voice, no longer can I...”

~ for Rachel of Ireland, who asks and is granted endless words~


oh my lord, oh my lord, oh my lord,
you have taken my voice,
no longer can I thread these words

oh my lord, oh my lord, oh my lord,
you have taken my insight,
no longer can I hear my eyes visions

oh my lord, oh my lord, oh my lord,
you have taken my mobility,
no longer can I shake to music of sky

oh my lord, oh my lord, oh my lord,
you have taken my strength,
no longer can I bend knees in praise

oh my lord, oh my lord, oh my lord,
you have taken my taste,
no longer can I sing a greater part of me

these first words, my sacrifice of morning,
no more to follow, for I am speechless,
the eveningtide will find me bow-broken

you have taken my all that you have given,
tender it well to another, for we are temporary,
your gifts are everlasting, and together, we say

selah, amen.
my first words of this day
Path Humble Aug 2019
your best stuff will never be posted here
<>

goose, you crack me up,
your bests stuffs can never be posted,
the tender stroke away of a child’s tear,
the welcoming of a smile delightfully unexpected,
a first grade art project so successful
it is mounted forever on a
front door Hall of Fame

a good cry all your own,
in private sobbing,
mouth mourning the absence of
a kiss on the back of your neck
shivers with surprising waves of pleasure,
that announces you are more than noticed

if you can post these stuffs,
call me asap,
because that’s the sight
I wanna see & be,
when only the best stuff you got given,
given got,
becomes real



10:03am

4/11/19

— The End —