If you were to script
Your life,
But one time only
Could you now
Tab over
And ...

*  Bullet list
-  Your dawn to dusk
-
-  ...

And when at last
The final Underwood bell dings
Roll the platen wheel up
And with contentment
Proof read the arching sheet
Down to

"- the end -"
        ?

The young contend
With broken hearts.
The old must cope
With rusting parts.

The young feel time
Barely moving.
The old feel time
In bones disapproving.

The young stop
In front of mirrors.
The old move back
To make things clearer.

The young focus
On acquisitions.
The old release
Past ambitions.

The young, if lucky,
Transition elders.
The old will then
Be Elysian selders.


* selder:  From Middle High German, selder 'dweller in a hut or peasant's cottage.

Once you've performed your spousal duties,
and bathed off the stench of him,
and he lay sleeping his swine sleep,
and the night's spirits have spirited him toward morning,
listen for that pebble thrown against your window
'Twill be I, the village swain, 'twill be I!

There are words on the range,
and out to pasture,
in the lowlands,
and on the hilltops.
Ole Buckaroo,
what's a poet to do,
if not to ride out,
lasso, brand, and corral a few.

In the family
there was no name for it,
the sudden outbursts,
the spasmodic tics,
the "jesus chris"
that flew like bank swollows
from his lips.
Between the frequent episodes
my uncle seemed
completely about his wits.
It would take me twenty years
before I could match
a name for it,
"Tourette"

If one could bail
all the love unrequited,
and it were wool
from shorn and shivering sheep,
and you were Ram
with the only blanket :-)

In 1947 I was born on a Thursday;
this year,
my 65 th,
falls on a Tuesday.
A "Fall"
from a 3 foot high bed
at 6:00 a.m. in April
has split my world
into a mirror universe
of can do
and can't yet.

Waisted daze and wasted tights
I have lifted you fair behind,
For you do belong to me,
Tho the cart belongs to someone else.

Why should I keep rubbing you
When I know I've made you blue,
And why should I rekindle flames
when you're to blame
for making me so huge?

Apologies to Freddy Fender

Don't eschew me through the haze
Remember that you called me "Hefty"
I was your one and only,
My fair Dove Bar.

Why should I keep rubbing you
When I know I've made you blue,
And why should I rekindle flames
when you're to blame
for making me so huge?

Apologies to Freddy Fender

One stone,
One placid lake,
One toss,
Ripple, ripple, ripple ...

The improbability of you,
Shooting star,
Birthed in the caldera
Of a winged widget
Ejecting celestial dust,
Now your dance floor
Is the Universe.
And you dance and dance
to the delight of your seasons,
Inspiring your myriad friends.

The till
of majestic mountains
trail to the sea,
as my thoughts of you
break off and tumble
through time
that merges the sacred
and inexorable forces
that will collectivize creation
back to a Time sub zero
Inverse
of unimaginable demensionless pointedness.

set,
non-set,
Containment.

winter loneliness
wise men know
is only right
that gray will stack upon gray,
that brown will fringe brown,
that lust's fire be dormant
is only right
that all things should cycle
that tender green will shoot
from hollow promise,
wise men know
is only right
that hibernia is but a season,
that low light's grip need not hold,
that there is an end
wise men know.
that dogs bark in advance of posted mems
that seed, seeded to glossy paper,
that will be read on china thrones
it is only right
that rows and rows first be planted
in dream gardens upon the vernal gardener's crapper.

from path
to trail
to road
to highway,
the loneliest of all
is the bushwhack.

Hear the hounds
I among them,
hillock,
brook,
hedge.
You've out foxed us,
but I live in hope
to get you yet!

Aspen leaves flutter,
Autumn friendships falter,
All impermanent.

There is
  an interlude
      within silence,

a white on white chimera,

that anoints the thee and thou

in transubstantiation

  that wafers us.

Come closer,
Yes,
    Yes,
You.
I want to see you better,
Focus on you.
Appreciate your mind,
As you appreciate mine
Reading this poem.
Ah a little bit closer.
Thank you.
Is that a wry smile,
Or an inverted frown?

Dear Sorrows,
You are the sculptor of my deepest caverns.
My caves and subterranean passages
were hollowed by the drainage of your tears.
Were it not for you
I would be a solid unyielding block.
Sweet, sweet Sorrows,
through your good offices
I am tuned and resonant.

In the way that sugar
desiccates fresh ginger,
pucker for me dear,
and receive my good knight kiss

========
Footnote:  Try this at home.  Ingredients; a seal-able jar, thin (1/16th") slices of fresh ginger root, white to medium granular sugar.  Place sliced ginger in the jar,  pour sugar to cover ginger by half to full inch.  Seal jar and vigorously shake.  Let stand 48 hours.  Stir liquid and add a very small amount of hot water if liquid is granular.  Use liquid syrup like Vermont maple syrup.  Honest.

Our minds meet on a virtual plain,
while our heads still shoulder
the chores of the coming day.
If wishes would, they'd connect
on a coved beach
where sun, salt and air
would finely filter any care.

I had forgotten
the brilliance
of the country night,
it's firmament crystal bright,
given all those years
blinded by the city lights,
the screen crawling marquees,
the undulating neon,
the flashing photon peep parades,
the incessant gyre of emergency beacons,
the try too hard candle dinners,
better a distant star
that reminds us who we are
than the sun unmoved
in one's back yard.

Another twenty-four hours have passed
which you and I will never reclaim
so much of one's life
is spent oblivious
to the grains
of time
swish
grit
by
g
r
i
t
thru
the hour glass.

without intention water
may propagate life, and wealth,
destruction, and death,
succor a desert civilization,
or ***** out an island nation.
There is no finer sculptor,
change agent, or tormentor.

Would you favor me?
Lounge in the chaise by the window
that tapers light inward,
so when you lie back,
without your clothing,
your face, shoulders, arms, nippled *******, belly, and *****
are bathed in natural and trailing light
defining your exquisite form
while shadowing your manifold into eternal mystery.

serpentine river
guides my eye - snow cap mountains,
blue shawl sky - white clouds.

When the night takes you
into it's dark and mysterious embrace,
and you travel ever downward
through chambers that have never seen
the sun's glowing face,
and faceless archangels carry you
bedeviled place to place,
and you tango, allegretto
with Dante in his chamber space,
and you wake breathless
with an ashen face,
It's my desire to be pillow side
kiss your forehead,
hold you close, reassure you,
that once again you're now safe.

Does love have a purpose?
I can see by the look on your face
that you've never asked yourself this question.
Are we drawn to one another
by benevolence or want?
Is love selfless or self serving?
Are we pawns on a Darwinian game board,
the slaves of genes, or eggs and *****?
And what if you and I knew the answer,
would you still love me, and I you?

So much depends
On the black cat
sleeping on the red sofa
flanked by two white pillows.

Quick note,
* Bang *
Here!
Who, what, where
?
it's going to take a bit of time.
Work on it,
Stay tuned.

"Hail to the jewel of the lotus."
Om mani padme hum
From muck beauty grows,
Om mani padme hum,
Om mani padme hum.

What one believes
seems to roll with chance,
the where
            the when,
                 and to whom
                               one is born,
be it Pago Pago to the South of France,
before the current time (BCT)
                                                            or two thousand years thereafter.
What would Einstein come to know
if born a thousand years ago
in a village of Eskimos
where the highest calling
was laying upon a chilly table
a slice of seal,
                         fillet of fish,
                                                or slab of blubber.

Drop ones's poetic pants,
About one's measured feet

You have become the admonition,
"DON'T THINK OF ELEPHANTS"
and of course I do,
think,
not of pachyderms
but you,
at odd and random times
during the course of a day.
Thoughts that pop in and out of existence
as if they were sourced
from a shared quantum flux
that spiritually bonds us
by means that we will never truly know..

Three obituaries in a week
received from contemporary friends
reporting their parental loss,
all extraordinary lives
compressed within single column widths
and limited
to given story lengths.

Firewood, spark, smoke, flames,
an infinite varied dance
mesmerizing thought.

Blue bottle on sill,
White window frame, six lites,
Doe, faun graze green lawn.

What's a billion years
when you have infinity on your hands,
anything is possible
regardless how remote the chance.
Yes, the monkeys locked in the room with typewriters
will correctly type word for word
the bible, the koran, or even this hen scratch.

white Styrofoam cup
waits for waitress fill up,
out of cigarettes!

We'll meet in Montreal,
As cosmopolitan a city as New York or Paris.
Let's make it the end of May.
Plan on bring your worst behavior,
I'll be bring mine.

Upon reflection,
we are the source of all tears,
as if naked,
alone,
in an infinite sea,
backpedaling,
breast stroking,
with a limitless blue sky
the only encouragement,
to remain afloat.

My fortune
to abide
& be witness
to a dynamic sky
against a ripple of defining mountains.

Should you ever need
a dust jacket blurb
I'll genulexitize, "ise" if you're British,
your opus work
(sans the redundancy).

Oh, Joel,
I see you've gone the way
of HP vanity
with your two score & eight cantos
            pdf-ed
                         and
                                covered
in Escheresque!

============
Wishing you brisk sales and an IRS audit :-)

Were you a foreign land,
and in someways you are,
I would mount my trustiest steed,
cross your channel banks,
Marshall my invading column
Into your fruited plaines.
And there encamped under stars
Our two houses would negotiate
Terms of mutual respect and pleasure.
Upon which we would survey our lands
Entwined in milk and honey,
And give promise of protection and eternal fidelity.

We are all living
with a deadly disease
that will **** each of us.
Some are host to more than one killer,
engaged in a turtle hare coup de grâce race.
For some us the time we have left is too well known,
For most of us the time we have left is left unknown.

When you're shivering
beneath a shawl,
and you're warming your hands
between your thighs,
(sigh)
there's nothing to keep your nose warm
except a proboscis mitten.

Time and terrible violence
scripted these four-thousand foot hills,
Every stone under foot has a fantastic tale to tell
and the deep river gorges,
patiently sculpt, sculpt, sculpt.

If errant words were kites
that could be so easily drawn,
or a passing cloud
where one could wait
the passing shower,
but the danger of errant words is
that once unsheathed
they may cut as if a knife.