for Angelique, who found it (at) last,
and who, loved it best
--------------------------------------------


first, I read,
thus educated,
became addicted to
the musicality of word~notes,
enamored with
the artistry of
singing language,
the power to
lift, imagine,
evoke, touch
your skin,
so far away, yet
mine thru smoke,
scribed, now
mine to stroke.

explore, uncover,
the secret interiors of
what was placed
inside of
each of us,
at inception,
without exception.

the keys,
the word picks to
unlock the freedom
to be fearful,
yet courageous.

we, start, all of us,
at the same
starting line,
we, all feel
we, all believe in
the primacy,
the rightness of
I.

but then, one must
began to
observe others.
crossed over the boundary
of mine own
preemptive prepositions,
superseded the need to be
superman,
saw different truths
in the eyes
of others.

listened to the soul songs
of the R&B; breezes of
scented strange,
coming to open
ears, nostrils,
eager to learn how
wind chimes sound in
Nepal, Berlin and the Florida Keys.

standing up, stopped lying,
both up and down,
committed to be
uncommitted to the unjust
accursed ego,
rejected the sophistry of
solipsism.

then changed directions.

went back inside
to relish the passion of
pleasure of both
affection and hatred,
receptors on wavelengths
that varied, in sine,
in in side in in the
co of mr. me.

that the only way out,
to responsively accept,
that to close
the distances within,
to realize real synapses
of words,
there was only
the pathway of
the existence of
outward bound.

kindness, warmth
and generosity,
or
cruelty, inhumanity,
utmost selfishness.

needed to choose.

made my-choices.

thus provisioned and endowed,
voyaged to a place
where there was
no cover, no excuses,
only mirrors that exposed
what lay neath every artifice
conjured up by man to
mislead, deceive, and obfuscate.

There, this place,
where I was
neither the smartest,
bravest, saddest, or wisest,
I sat down and said,
said out loud
words directed to
give yourself away,
myself and anyone
who cared to listen:

”my tongue and my eyes are
one and the same,
my fingertips and my voice,
interchangeable,
my combination of words,
special even if not original,
they are as original to me
as the first prior writer and
the next,
who will create them
anew one more tme,
after he, like me,
leaned to
write them effortlessly,
and to
give yourself away...”


with out fear,
I selected a single word,
a solitary glance,
saw the poetry of an
open window's enchantment,
a head lifted momentarily
from a pillow,
then struggled mightily,  
wept for days with no
verbiage to effect,
make visions entrancing,
no skills,
butterfly net
to capture
the magic of
your loving
my signs.

disgusted by mine,
mine mediocrity,
with the greatest
of effort,
mine,
yet, yielded no results

except scraps of phrases,
that I retrieved
from crumpled sheets
that decorated the
wasteland of my first efforts.

took those phrases,
ran them over my tongue,
over and over again,
intrigued by
their lily lilt,
their unity,
the sensuous pleasure they gave.

how one word
coupled a tune,
the notes of this
new contiguous,
contagious alphabet
rang truer than most,
and moreover,
led me to another that
somehow phrased forward,
sallied forth in rhyme,
like those wind chimes,
now making perfect sense
with the one that followed,
from varied places
so distanced, but now one,
and a couplet was born.

of what did I write?
of what I knew.

no complexity,
nor trickery employed,

no matter that plain words
are my ordinary tools,
with them I scribed
the small,
the little,
what I saw.

grabbed the middle,
held onto the
gravity of the center.

simplicity my golden rule.
write they say,
about what you know best.

rely on and in the
diurnal motions,
the arc of
daily commotions,
in which
do we not all excel?

this poem flew
off my fingers,
twenty, thirty,
maybe sixty minutes,
in the skies above
these United States
of mine,
on American Airlines.

one of my
chiefest blessings
that luck threw onto
my punched ticket,
being born here.

was it effortless?

If you sat beside me,
what would u have seen?

flying fingers urgent unbidden,
neither struggling nor stopping
for the chimes were mine,
once I heard the first verse.
but first ringing was give
unto me by a reimer,
asking how,
I write so effortlessly?

the question innocuous sorta and
sorta knot,
a challenge to
my poetic essence.

I looked inward,
to look outward,
started where
all poems start,
in the quiet places
where you and
I think and thought.

unsure of the answer,
began to begin,
sing and sin,
my fingers,
simple secretaries,
transcribing lyrics
that those
selfsame wind chimes
tuned me up,
turned me on
simple thoughts,
simpler truths
herein recorded and
sworn before you,
most writ on this day that
the Americas have chosen
to recall another kind of
explorer, Columbus.

explore, explore
and then again
explore s'mores.
no matter if it is
covered ground,
covered it once more,
till you see that land
differently, colored so
no one has ever seen
them quite your way.

be an ocean pacific,
that cannot be pacified.

relish the chance,
relieve yourself
of that urge to burst,
put on paper,
gift to me and to
everyone else,
so someday,
we can say
together,
we saw *together,
through one
single set of eyes
upon a ship of
foolish words,
a real child born
in a mind!

new places re-discovered,
yet now storied stored,
living in our
Siamese chests,
to forever keep.

PostScript:

"With or without you,
I can't live,
And you give yourself away,
And you give yourself away....
Only to be with you,
But I still haven't found
what I'm looking for..."
U2.