I had tailored denial for my heart
and for each new sun, that fabric became home.
I had lost taste of the lips of love

Until...

I started dreaming again...
...it feels as though she'd never left
Igniting obscure euphoria bereft of my heart

And...

I'm trying to convince myself...
that it's just another night when she ruses
me with pills of nostalgia.

Pulling strings that remind my body of the excitement when our skins knead.

Teaching my heart, again, how to skip a beat.

I'm trying to convince myself that it's just another night...
...but she is now an anchor in my dreams,
dragging me to what it felt like
to be in love.

I wonder who is watching us
and where
and with what eyes

shimmering like an oasis
in the desert of the sky

whispering into the darkness
a strange symphony of light

trembling with sound and fury
in the silence of the night

I recall the days
in the Mediterranean Sea
Of the oceans
I was the queen

My body was draped
in golden silk
I discovered the land
of honey and milk

Like a painting
decorated with jewels
I laid on the balcony
gazing into the blue

I floated away
on angel’s wings
Those were the days
when I was free

If you
Ever get
Space to smile
Smile like a child

No ego
Just soul

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualities are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good silence,
and nothing too much.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

<>

A late-in-life walker, the words above resonate in my mind,
with a check, check, check, check and a voluble ding, reading

and nothing too much”

many a poem mine labored, birthed arrhythmically walking,
eyes see verses, verses fill the mouth, mind desperate as
the feet unceasingly trod round new corners, new visions,
Emerson’s words remind my well worn weary path daily renewed, a vocabulary child re-newborn, and how to keep all this forever,
until tomorrow, and nothing is everything all too much carried over

and nothing too much”

speaks to an openness in every orifice, be prepared scout-boy,
to adapt to nothing too much as hours earlier now recalled are ancient history, mind staggers at the minuscule differences tween yesterday and this exact moment in this exact place that has been reimagined, deserving of recording, notating, and my desperation struggle to
semi-successfully delineate, report, on all these
mini-magnificent miracles countenanced, overwhelms…

the brain furnaces/furnishes a thousand thoughts, a million worries,
slew of infinity-sized emotions like love of children, so it’s confusing to window-peeking  strangers watching for the walking man with tears pockmarking his cheeks, unaware that his each stride is a story, a unique grace forward and too, backwards, history mine, reviewed, graded, and the comfortable shoes, the old sagging clothes well worn and beloved, fit like gloves, whispering in the good silence,
a lamb sacrifice to the

good silence,
“human, your foibles and deeds, admixture of
blood inherited, a morality crafted by ancestors,
so the next step is
alway$

and nothing too much”* and everything…

Sat Dec10 2023
Shell Beach, Central Park, in my mind, and nothing is perfect

these are not my words
these are not my ways

these are not my hands
this is not my face

so ashamed to be
hiding from myself

do not look at me
I am someone else

Something’s changed.


6:00 AM Sun August 16 2022

The temperature today will baby step
up the kitchen ladder, careful, senior slow,
to hover at a pleasant 79 Fahrenheit.

But, I am unfooled.

‘tis the birthing of the
changeling of mid-Augustus,
June’s initiating summer solstice,
an intimate longing now a long
gone forgotten memory, now a
calendar X a valedictorian graduate.

But of late, the sun has lately been
heisted by late afternoon by a batter
thick grayish cloud cover, right here,
hovering upon this godly place on earth.

there is a underlying fragrance, familiar,
an unmistakable chilling odor of cool fall.

an urgency emerges, hurry up you,
pluck the blueberries, harvest the peaches,
because trace hints of crispin fall apples,
falling browning foliage, curling leaves,
pumpkin flavorings and yellow gourds
is unjustly barely there, a definitely discernible.  

Back-to-school ads replace banners proclaiming
bargain prices for summer necessities, vin rosé.

Even the squirrels are enjoying a Sunday rest,
after mornin’ worship, no feverish acorn collection,
a subtle hint, winter supplying must be nearly done.

dare not superstitious say out loud, the **** geese,
have made themselves scarce going on two weeks,
having learned a trick or two from the Ukrainians,
I chuckle to think that we may have regained territory.

But, I am unfooled.

Morning boats of all ilk and demeanor ply-plow the
bay waters, but all seem less hurried, savoring the pretense
of forever long summer days, beyond-belief sunsets, soft white
ice of creamy calming waters, no impasto^ seas wintry rough.

Return-to-bed, coffee mugged, I await the Dumps early call,
the sorting done, metal, plastic,compostable, so easy to bring
order to our daily detritus, thinking if only one could sort the seasons then I would be a forever summer man, here,
on this godly place.

But, I am unfooled.

7:06 AM Tue Aug 16 2020
Shelter Island, N.Y.

————————
^Impasto is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provides texture; the paint appears to be coming out of the canvas.