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"

there will be a night
when you don't hear from me;
bide your time
rereading my poems.

There will be a time
when we are warmed
by a banked fire,
when sitting close
is the passion of the hour,
when silence said
is our lover's sonnet,
in bed, holding each
nothing more is wanted.

In a clearing,
amongst the scran 'n frame
of winter's naked trees
that bow this way 'n that
to the capricious wind,
sits the screen house
all closed in with its seasonal wrap,
plastic sheeting translucent like an iced lake,
but vertical and wavy
when the breeze blows through here,
but inside the sun gathers
to collect itself in its own pleasure
and asks the question,
"Why is it so cold out there?"

===
* My best friend from Maine emailed me
a photo of his screen house in winter that
he built on his fifty acre property with a view
of the coast 8 miles away.

The sea moved closer
      today
by way of moister air,
          the clouds too
                      were waves
                      of ocean
             with crests of gleam and gloom
generating an undertow
       of spring hopes
and wails for winter's doom.

I took you to the high country,
laid you out like a tapestry of air,
the mist, the whiff
of your
             pine-
                      y
                        hair,
        the chatter
                 of your brooks,
                                      your falls,
                                                   your gorge,
                                                          ­    the sheer madness of our strange affair!

The simple pleasure of purchasing shoes
that fit like a crown made for your toes,
reminds me of the Philippine First Lady,
Emelda Marcos and her closet of clogs
Some folks are unhappy with their cornucopia filled
and other are content if they get one gild.

You're afternoon, my love,
and I'm forenoon,
and the twix between
burrs our saddle.

Eros, on your high steed,
we beseech your Olympian authority
to make mutual our latitudes
so next when the clock strikes twelve
our eyes, yours and mine, my love
shall meet within that same hour,
and there we'll dine upon the other.

The ultimate hoover,
a black hole,
(blkhole),
the event horizon,
the equator
of all things possible
delineating
an infinity of nought.

Standing in this drawing room,
eighteen foot ceilings,
Battery Street windows look out on Fort Sumter
still protecting Charleston's slave trade bay.
No rockect's red glare tonight,
but a musum cocktail party,
awed by the riches that slave trading
  did generate,
though the word "slave"
never came up.

My lips, your hair,
sweet nothings aired.
My hand in yours,
affirmly held.
Who would break this lovely spell?

this must be madness,
taking a breath mint
before text-ing this msg.

This perfect day
was made imperfect,
in a single lonely way,
that you were not here
to share it.

This spin 'n gyre
has mixed us,
your words and mine,
my morning thoughts of you
and your night thoughts of me.
This poetry centrifuge thing
must surely stop,
or the two of us
will be forever dizzy.

Your Siren's line,
"Bring your lips to mine,"
is clear and Clarion
above the tempest sea,
thou danger is both rope and knife
that has me lashed 'n free.

You are my harem's thought Siren.
The eunuchs have cleared all the others from the palace'
I've instructed them to draw you a warm scented bath
and light ninety nine candles to aureate your lovely skin.
Upon the hour I will join you and light the remaining one.

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.

thus far
i'm an energy star poet,
as green as green can be,
where nary a word of mine
has befelled a single tree.

Thy lovely carapace,
though untouched by me,
fills my scriptorium
with  passion tales imagined,
and many yet to tell.

Time and distance has conspired
to make our love brave concertina wire,
while this may be an over statement of our case,
nonetheless, you and I have the wounds to prove it.

I went to the bridge
before turning in
and found you not there
tipping  a lovely
night
into
lonely
but
it's
too
soon
for
despair.

T'is the season,
pigeons fare on handouts,
the homeless sell papers
that no one reads,
Mexicans wage a drug war
around about Juarez,
the Chinese run their factories
on foreign waste,
North Korean bunglers
roar 'n reign,
while South Koreans fawn and feign,
the Russians fine tune
their vanishing democracy,
Europe is all a plunder,
Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain,
Bailed out ***** bankers
bailing bundles of bullock,
they securities and sell,
Retirement fund managers can't buy enough.
The US is on overdrive,
hot color alerts,
underwear bombers everywhere lurk,
every life is precious
when it serves our needs,
at the airports,
*** tourists smile with glee,
looking forward to having their packages ******,
Oh, to be a Belizian, or maybe Swiss,
and be able to say "cheese" to all of this.

A nameless helmsman
Whose fallible hands
Duty calls to act god like
Guiding a ship of life
Off the coast of Newfoundland
Through a night of blue white ice halls,
Until their combined Neptune fate
Entombs nearly all
To an eternal Atlantic floor
Of dark and frigid sea.

The carpenters want a raise
just to ***** the roof beams,
for whom do they toll
if not for their grapes of wrath,
for me it's mutiny on the bounty,
I'll see them all forty leagues under the sea,
oh, the good earth, the rising sun,
it's a leather stocking tale, Natty Bumppo,
It's a wonder Alice, a pure wonder!
Give me deliverance,
from the common crowd that implores me to
go tell it on the mountain,
with the weather up there,
i'd be gone with the wind
as sure i'm a hand full of dust.
a bride's maidenhead revisited,
no, native sun, never let me go,
for i am the power and the glory
of the ragtime rabbit run.

to take nothing
to add nothing
to reflect all
to retire "to"

Too much love to give
But few takers?

Visit an animal shelter.
You and your new roomy
Will be glad you did!

To be naked in Eden,
you and I both kneeling before that one apple
with all the creatures of the wild our witness,
I would call upon god for reason
that it is but natural law and right
to devour that which separate the two of us.

To be nothing
is to define everything;
there is no music
without pause,
no form, no shape
without margin.

I dedicate this poem to you :

Today I saw a bead of birds strung close,
each to each and two by two,
along a power line
that connected me to you.

to disembody,
to be
of purer stuff,
without the
"st-ah"
and without the
"uff",
that would be,
for
      now,
              enough.

Tomorrow,
like an earnest lobsterman,
I'll head out,
regardless of foul or fair seas,
to hoist my first ***
expecting to find a word from you.

To sleep
or not to sleep,
that is the quandary.
A wink or two stolen
is sweetest when
one's blander isn't swollen.

To speak all these languages:
Assamese, Bengali, Bodo,
Chhattisgarhi, Dogri , Garo -

Oh, to be able to tongue, "Love"
in Gajarati, Hini, Kannada, Kashmiri,
Khasi,  Kokborok, Konkani -

Or lip, "Desire" in
Maithili,  Malayalam,  Manipuri,  Marathi,  Mizo,  Nepali -

Or whisper, "Good night, Dear"
in Oriya, Punjabi,  Sanskrit,
Santali,  Sindhi, Telugu, Tamil, or Urdu.

You,
with your pyrite tooth
and zirconia lobes,
those decades of *******
native vitality
for made in asia
Trinketronics!

The trouble with older women
At least once in their past
they've fallen for men
hook, line 'n stinker.

Present circumstances require
that I secure a new venue
so I've been trying on real estate
in the way women once
tried on clothes in Filene's basement.
'If I alter this and take in that...hmm?'
"What do you think,
this place make me look too fat?"

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!

I was never certain
as a do-it-yourself kid
that two juice cans
connected taut by string
worked as a hello machine.
I wish you were here, my dear,
so I could test it once again.

under the table,
a half continent away;
how do you do it,
your foot
in my lap!?   ;-))

Mass, weight, inertial potential
universally networking
all
into Indra's
bejeweled net.

Delete

Delete

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

Delete

Am I the guy you want to hang love on, Darlin'
Am I the guy you want for your last name?

Am I the belt loops for you, Darlin'
Am I the boots you'll be shinning?

Am I the rut you want your wheels in, Darlin'
Am I the Harley you want to be riding?

Am I the guy you want to hang your love on, Darlin'
Am I the guy you want for your last name?

Am I the mountain you want climbing,
Am I the trail you want to be hiking

Am I the guy you want to hang love on, Darlin'
Am I the guy you want for your last name?

Am I the belt loops for you, Darlin'
Am I the buckle you'll be shinning?

Am I the boots you'll be pull'in
Am I the song you'll be sing'in

Am I the guy you want to hang love on, Darlin'
Am I the guy you will take your name?

I know that I'm the guy that needs your love'in
Will you take my name?
Darlin', will you take my name?

====
* I ain't no song writer, so have at it.  
Don't be bashful, you got any advice
on improving this ballad plez post,
including take that dang ditty out and bury the **** thang.

updated prayer wheel
recursively twitters
Om mani padme hum.

Upon all things holy,
you are my altar,
before thee I bend.

upon review,
my day
was cross hatched
with many thoughts of you
that rendered
meaningful form and light
on an otherwise
unremarkable scroll of canvas.

Were I a lapidopderist,
and you, my study,
landed in my hand,
and I to your silken hem,
you holding my upturned head,
were I to ask,
"What secret pleasure can I now bestow.",
What would thou whisper then?