How Much Gets Me On A Bus?  to the City?
          (I live 30 minutes away)

more than this ever will - POETRY
I’ve been writing ‘poems’ ever since I remember
ever since 11 –
reciting these phenomenal words of wisdom
to any and all who would listen
forcing family-members & friends

that’s the thing about poetry,
it makes you feel like it’s important,
makes you think the words you sling together
aren’t really yours
it comes to you, through you, needs to come out of you,
and when its over you’re just as amazed
as they should be.

but they’re not, I mean
they like poetry, admire it,
even enjoy it sometimes,
but they could honestly
give it up in a heartbeat,
live without it.
You know what I mean?

I’m like you
like all the people who come here
I'm part poetry as poetry is me
A Dodge Poetry Attendee many years –
my arm once around Gwendolyn Brooks,
cried in a church with Lucille Clifton
talked Newark to Baraka –
know the honorable Slammer, Patricia Smith!

I’ve sat many years with the Lords of Literature - my professors
who all seemed to know “whose got it”
the intellectuals of American prose who seem to be searching for a rookie,
the next best troubadour college-student that will grace their faculty-doors…

The poetry I read here is incredible
Some of the best stuff on the net,
poignant, painful , honest, raw, sensual, serious – provokingly real

words I read here startle me, stun me at times
so clear in meaning, well-crafted, chosen words
unusually strong

They’re the kind of words the got-it people have,
the poet people (probably all people have)
poetry is just another way of finding an infallible song –

(I still say we should go sing it on the bus!)

Today is Donna’s birthday –

All these many years later
I still remember it –
several times today I thought of her
and gently waved hi

Donna was the name of my first baby,
(short for Donald, my ex)
my girl baby who lived for 4 days
and then changed her mind.

She was a summer baby too.

When I think of both Donnas
I see tiny, Italian angels
petite , pretty little things
with brown golden hair.
I still see the dimples on their faces,
and the bright black light shining in their eyes…

Tonight I hold a candle in their memory
Tonight I drink to the summers of their birth,
Knowing that their lives will always live in me –

Both Donnas,
One, who came to me in childhood.
magically fused by friendship and something more –
and Baby Donna,
whose fragile body held such sweet life

Both Donnas,
who have been with me
through so many changing skies…
inside of me
where their faces are etched in crystal
and their wings
form a door.

Game hour  
chicken breath & big blue’s
beer spotted moon