The Whys of My Briefcase

don't know where you keep yours,
mine, immediately resigned,
to my black briefcase

the bills I cannot pay,
the notices that I knew
would unfailingly come some day,
the letters to my children,
signed, sealed but never to be
delivered till much later, maybe,
by someone else's hand

and so,
I carry my briefcase
every day,
an appendage human,
opens only for additions,
never any subtractions,
many reminders included,
for letters previous posted, sent,
and stamped~marked
past, way past, overdue

the authorities demand satisfaction,
at the very least they want my
whereabouts

the doctors asks,
what's wrong,
you never filled that essential
prescription~poem I wrote for you,
that was even writ legible
so you could not deny its
existing urgency

that **** briefcase is so heavy,
tempted to chuck it into the Peconic,
but it was a loving gift from her,
not realizing that I carried no case,
just so burdens invisible
were imagined lighter, or extinct,
but easily ignored

where do you keep yours?

the forget~me~knots that you
don't want but can't crush
legally or courageously

when they open that unhappy pandora,
they will wonder why nothing was e'er said,
but they won't ask twice, but understand,
for who among us
does not have a black briefcase?

Introduction
_____

some words
chase you around
infiltrating and winking,
in emails and poems to
your attention dispatched
undeniably messaging
a wanting to be
realized, completed,
teasingly speaking

you know
a poem newly birthing
in your left brain,
tender pleading,
love me already,
just write me
like you would
make love to a woman!"

messages from others employ
the self-same word r e p e a t e d l y,
you start to get the hint
very very v i g o r o u s l y

the rumbling,
the back-seat tumbling,
you're driving
bipedal composing,
guitar and piano
gas and brake
pedals to the mettle,
and the speed limit
was 15 mph under
where your brain is fermenting

all tuning you up to
meet the guild's
product quality standards,
yet unlike an automobile,
a poem, like a life,
has a unique DNA,
cannot just be
recalled,
for repair
and additional tinkering,
jes' because
once it is out there,
it has been outed

sure enough in my
my "started but ***" file,
a lazy layabout,
overlooked and undercooked,
the poem below,
a dabble and a muddle,
so ignored, so berefted
for so long
it got this
special introduction
by way of an apology....

Incarnate**

She is my poem incarnate
She is the carne of my body
She is the innate of my soul
She is my woman incarnate

she is all I need
in form realized and invisible imagined,
angel and thank god,
devil as well...

for Maria

you want to ask,
knowing in advance,
the answer is a scream
even if it is silent traveling,
on a frequency transversing,
that humans cannot discern

so strange is it,
that the imposition
of the interrogatory
is the almost harder part
of the two dance partners,
question and answer

a simple
"how are you"
is simply inadequate
in every respect,
it is almost,
disrespectful

for there is no how or are
and for sure, there is no
you anymore

how could there be,
when pieces of your flesh
by hot combs inquisitioner pierced,
levying cuts impervious to
medicinal magic

asking
how was your weekend,
beyond absurd,
what matters the day of the week,
when the unrepairable ailment of thy soul
has a permanence that makes
calendars superfluous

but on certain days,
certain worse than others,
because they freshly dress
the still red scars,
fresh bright pained painted with
unrepressable, unsurpassable memory agonistes
of seeds and wine

so you ask dumb,
you ask blind,
waiting for a
shotgun blast reply,
hoping you will be
the forgiving kind,
but prefacing the inanity with
a forgiveness plea confession,
"I don't know how to ask"

and you reply
"there is no correct way,
and
there is no correct answer"

and neither the interrogator
or the interrogee is content,
the Yankee boy and the Southern gal,
unless it is to scream,
till the air in the lungs depleted,
and when replenished,
having screamed to the heart's content,
the heart impaired,
cannot ever be contented

your own insane humanity prompts
to ask again, no matter,
for the only correct thing
is the asking~caring,
even though advance notice
has been given,

**there is no correct answer

Melted Words, Salted to Disappear*

salted to disappear,
not to taste,
aged love poems writ
before my eyes
drip drop from
bed to floor,
lightly screaming
no más no more

there is a raging quietude
in bed, in head,
without you
to write for,
without you,
write no more

for without
my audience
before my Queen,
I am uncommissioned,
dispurposed,
words not just blurred,
perishing,
lightly melting,

the colors of our conversation,
were the stuff of me,
magnetos of pinks
purple hues,
magenta
grooves
from which
spilled, flowed,
torrents des cris du cœur,
not color-blinded, blindsided,
words black on white, even worse
white on black look at this writ miserable and all stand

pronouncing

this is a lost man
who has lost his salt of the earth

Thumb Wars


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_war


with over
one hundred and thirty years
between us,
one would think
we would have
quit this thumb wars
nonsense
a century ago

nope,
not until,
I best her at least once,
without cheating

**** those yoga thumbs,
gotta find me that ashtenga thumb app
*ASAPp