~~~


every word I write is a tribute


now listen here,
let's clarify the inescapable,
what this tribute thing means,
cause what I'm doing here,
ain't exactly clear

everything we write,
is only a watery-encapsulated
reflection of our lives,
which of necessity,
will always be messy

what the heck does
this guy mean.
when enlisting
this shady word,
tribute?

at 3:10 in the AM,
tribute is dressed in its
more defy-nition sinister,
a bad news speaking cultural minister,
who never fails us
by reminding,
tribute originated
as the nasty kind:

"any exacted or enforced payment or contribution"

every **** word
that I've written
is a **** tribute,
an exacted, enforced, wrung from,
payment
of a pound of flesh,
Shylock's variety pack kind

I'm not bitter,
a touch angry, perhaps,
even brave, ok, unafraid,
to admit, overall,
got it pretty ok

but that I still struggle
to get that satisfaction,
in everything minute and daily,
the tiny and the tremendous,
the cost production load only goes
unicycle upward sloping,
this crisis crazy we call being
alive,
and to you,
who keys and ken
my meaning well

herein is my good kind side
my paying
tribute
to you, your courage,
even me, periodically,
for awakening and walking
into the unknown outside,
and giving it up
in our travelogue of
shared poetry

5:48am
Jan. 21, 2016
NYC (aboard the stationary bike,
paying tribute for forty years of sinning)