~dedicated and gifted to Alyssa Homes Underwood,
in perpetuity~
<>
this one, like so many others, is
for my inestimable~faithful friend
who asks, listens and never sings
out of tune,
always lending me his ears…

<>
the 7:42 am train is pulling in…
the tracks run by the soundless waters,
directly through the spaces
called my mind

<>


sun begging come out & play,
“c’mon baby, you know need warmth,”

(even if mine ain’t the kind that realizes
real dreams, the kind that exhale healing,
but come out anyway, take what you can get,
put off the pains of haunting curses, sins that cannot be erased, random emerging like jacks-in-the-box that were cranked, but just waiting for the right moment to fk you up…try putting them bastids, back in the can with  aplomb & composure but you know it’s way too late..)

Van Morrison serenades
“These are the days
(of the endless summer),”
it is a hymnal
in / of the church of blue sky,
birch  white pews, voices choral…
the caucus of birds who are crazy flitting, cawing, cracking,
making an unholiness mess unsuitable to the moment’s serenity,

the rabbits, seeing if this idiot threw out some
baby carrots (he did), Van singing of love of the one magician, who would turn my blood into wine…

the whistle blows, a one-minute-warning, train
a-leaving,  so is this poem, and the randomness herein is not a poem, but a cry of the mind,
”un cri de l’esprit,”
may it, it may resonant or fall, face~flat to the ground, the sound of the mind,
the train whistle, the symphony of mother morning nature, the quiet lapping waves,
all acknowledge their “failure to soothe,” them, relentless, will return later, on the morrow, same station, them, who
will never concede that they can be beaten,
to superimpose, a mental purity in the recesses
of where the screams crawl out of the mind’s
cemetery, them unmarked graves, of babies that
did not survive to be named, and yes, that’s a
real thing…shhhhhh, them say the triumvirate of the natural forces state with equanimity
”write, let it out, let it go,”
you
hope no one reads this…but it’s far too late
it is
for~formed, created,
on this the seventh day of the week,
when the Maker rested from his
creation~work, and you think maybe a day of rest, not a bad idea, smiling cause, someone is playing Joe Cocker singing,
“Have a Little Faith in Me”
and then,
“(Try) With a Little Help From My Friends”
confirming, in the governing firmament of this world there are no coincidences…*

<>

8:10 by the sky, and
checking out the sky holes and the holy,
seeing the sight lines to souls gone but always,
well remembered…they too shushing me with
loving kindness…and the next stop is
Nazareth

and the great replacement is how I speak with but my

eyes…

and there is a sacrifice of subtlety…and nuance is a sometime thing,
BUT, when I

tilt my head and stilt my neck, and she laughs at my
aggrandizement,

for emphasis,
a periodic two step is most useful when exaggerating…

and the the picture of me grimace grinning, arms akimbo waving,
and the peculiarity of my grunts, well, makes her crackle with laughter,

which is so deep appreciated I further employ my tongue to
make the point  that words are super superfluous and She
reimburses my kissing with a two grasp handed heady head
embrace-taking, which necessitates our eyes in a combine,

and there is no more to say,

for the eyes have it!

All our senses concatenate, building on each other

<>

this interplay is truly interplanetary,
for each of us a unique solar system,
our brains,
intricacy literally personified,
and our five senses, working
in
concatenation
our long range sensors, busy bees compiling inputs
by the nanosecond second, distilling, integrating.
blending and then reconstructing…into a whole!

a gentle breeze ruffles the hair,
the tree swing rises and flows
of its own accord, no passported
passenger required, and a neighbor’s
American Flag, moves majestically &
impressively, whipping, dancing, yes, prancing
to a tune only it can hear,
the syncopated air currents providing
a rhythmic awesome inspiring beat…

and the brain takes this all in, a momentary
second of a vista that is constantly flexing,
yet remains unchanged, a muscular view
of a real world, living but yet immutable,
and I utter thanks to my motor functions,
that bless me with the eyes to perceive,
the nostrils to smell sea salt flavored air,
the hearing ears that the know the imperceptible
orchestrations of silences by their absence
and their intrusion, and I touch my fingertips
to my tongue, wetted, and hyper sensitized
to that gentle breeze that decorates the
landscapes external,

and the combinatory
addition of the all of it, into a single momentary
poem of recall, what I “knew” yesterday, & will
greet again this coming day, as an old unfamiliar
friend, who grasps me entire, and proclaims:
this is living…and the greatest satisfaction that
a speck of mortal can achieve, retain and
through impoverished words…share

4:14am
Mon Jul 22
2 0 2 4

~with thanks to T. Riddle for the inspiring photos~

there are color photos of budding nascent fruits,
an unexpected delivery to the eye’s inbox
exuding new youthfulness in
variegated shades of green
and

solitary ant traveler on a leafy space shuttle,
making its way, crossing galaxies
drinking from eye-drop seas
living off the land
and

life bursting out unreservedly asking for
no favors, nor recompense but to
breath, drink of soil nutrients,
to live to give back more
than it takes
and

to be chosen, plucked, torn from its environs,
to be the fruit of sustenance and a
delivery system to pass on its
****, tasty, enhanced flavors,
its seeded progeny the
chance to same
and

the ant travels on and about fearless,
its mini-size and sure footed body
leaping leaf to leaf to live and
to be fruitful and
multiply
and

multiple multipurposed prayers multiply,
of human origin, as humans blink at the
new-life miracles repetitious, wistfully
wishing every prayer, could be
answered thusly so lusciously
but

this it cannot be always, so we accept
as best we can, small proofs,
of regeneration, life eternal,
wetting browned, dark
soil with blotches of
salty damp-tears
encased within a
moment~eased
hopeful heart

“Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.
Our bodies are our gardens,
to which our wills are gardeners…”

      – Iago, Act 1, Scene 3 in Shakespeare's "Othello”

A commandment to wellness,
spoke aloud, with resolute foursquare,
of which no doubt,
upon whom the responsibility lays,
each of us poets individually

I am not a gardner,
know not the pleasure of rich dark soil
loam, cupped in my hand,
or the stroking of first blooms,
the genteel of  spring,
afternoon delights for the eyes,
but for me, no elemental quivering
no instinct bids me
dig, plant, water and worry…

but my body’s garden another matter
for pillaging insects,
the bollwevil
and other assorted devils
planted internally and infernally
breeding
the ills of human failings,
with tulip yellow couragelessness,
they infiltrate & exploit
the crevices where our fallacies
buried but unearthed

what is this longevity word?

we've live as long as intended,
forces internal,
weathered by outside forces,
gales amazing and pelting storms
within and without
combative

born from earth’s produce,
we tend our own garden unequally,
inconsistently  
though gardens demand, preferring
constantly
li
loving attentions

*but humans are notoriously of poor
attention spans and we tend to tend
in spurs of moments,
some lasting decades

and thus or thus,
a poor epitaph to
our fallow falling fallen
humanity