wrestlemania

traveled cross country,
wrestling with extended
celebration and an
unexpected death;
the body maladjusts,
only to be disrupted
when time zones reset,
hard a-heels upon return,
packing up again for a
sacred pilgrimage
to a summer place
of sheltering, where poems
grow and dangle like participles
from local fruit farms, one
need only pluck and taste,
attach your moniker
and then feed them to the
joggers & walkers running past

send them all on their voyages,
hopefully protected from
travel disorientation and the
cycle of rebirth

with luck, bits and pieces of me
will accompany said word whispers,
them shreds and shards
requiring healing,
or just pruning,  
exiting old words,
fresh fruit berries,
roadside acquisitions  to b
carry me stained & strained
& happy new travels o‘er
this fruited plain

a genuine photograph taken by a relation,
of Wonder Woman commandeering a
Manhattan avenue by aft. daylight,
leading children of the neighborhood and
their guardian angels, the NYPD, in a
rousing calisthenics warmup routine,
for it’s the day of witches, goblins, masquerading,
and pre-internet, nice, sweet trolls no older
than six years of age, Wonder Woman too, the rigors of an
evening of search and recovery, collecting the
well gotten treasure *****, found by early dusk’s
s l o w l y disappearing light, amidst stunned,
aimless wandering adults
and miscellaneous grownups,
All
wonting & wondering:

*is innocence still a thing?

Some -
thus not all. Not even the majority of all but the minority.
Not counting schools, where one has to,
and the poets themselves,
there might be two people per thousand.

Like -
but one also likes chicken soup with noodles,
one likes compliments and the color blue,
one likes an old scarf,
one likes having the upper hand,
one likes stroking a dog.

Poetry -
but what is poetry.
Many shaky answers
have been given to this question.
But I don't know and don't know and hold on to it
like to a sustaining railing.

Wislawa Szymborska

Translated by Regina Grol

presumably presumptive
as you got zero clue  of
what stuff God made me,
where I lay me down in
the cool of moonbeam light,
unsure if another sunrise
will heat my body to awakening,
surrendered to the unknowing
knowingly, for I am so sure of
so little, that I query with every
torrential rain, why did I deserve
this un-expectorated baptism for
which and why, what I got, no clue

piety poet of the way spends his every
waking glance thinking stinking, why?
All the angels look away, forbidden
to barest hint minimalist to protect
and provide this rank random single specimen specific of living kind, his
purpose for which creation came his way?
so I’ll save you instead and the trouble of thinking for the correct answer to the question posed,
hell sure, you my confidante of this
confidence man,
a lousy truth teller,
and an even worse liar

write, God?

They write of rivers and streams

with effortless precision, crystalline clarity,
of hauntings by white frothy flows, and men
who plow and glide upon them, earning
their sustenance and sometimes their death,
verifying their lives with castings that sink
below them, proofs of their peril.

some months of the year, I too live by a bay,
on a isle surrounded by a long river that dissects a
larger long island, from end to end, that empties
into the Atlantic.

this bay, it is the first and last vision imprinted
when I bed, when I rise, picture windowed with
shades that are never lowered, for what would
be the existential purpose of living here, if you didn’t
check the water’s mood first and last, even before
looking skyward to complete an understanding
of the status of nature’s intentions toward you.

These other poets write better than I, artistically,
effortlessly, and one flows with ease within their
word-pictures, flowing upon their rivers, like a
twig carried out to sea, an unticketed passenger
stealing a ride who pays for the journey with life.

to read of their comprehension of water flowing,
is to read of how men breathe, how they wrangle
and wrestle with forces that diminish the human
scale to 5/8” model size, and no glue to keep them
upright.

I ask forgiveness from my bay, for my ineloquence,
my belabored scratchings, to do it justice, show
its honor and grandeur, but it doesn’t acknowledge
my words, for I am skill-lacking, verbiage-challenged,
and inadequate. This why I read the work of others,
poets who walk on, and within, their rivered boundaries
and who speak with skin and pore knowledge their waters.

July 4th 5:33 AM

A Bountiful Sky for Foolish Old Men

early up, haunted-stoked~woked by a multilingual sky,
an impish childish creation of an immature god,
inconsistently incapable, of making up his moody mind,
whiny then smiley, cloudless besotted, morphed
into crystalline blue of a well behaved in Sunday best,
warming the souls of the begotten and the misbegotten,
the hardened and the poetic souls, tho he laughs at
himself, for he too is both, curmudgeon and a mr. softee,
whiny child in rapid aging body, wearing of discovery
of new places for to ache, pains that don’t fit med scales
of 1~10, unless it is the Richter Earthquake formulation.

despite all, his eyeballs seethe, immaculate degeneration still
allows the seeing of broad brush paint strokes of the team of
angelic artistes that do the detailing of the palette above,
how!
they, love their big bold brushes that sky swipe atmospheric
residue into 31 Baskin Robbins flavors, with swirls of caramel
chocolate butterscotch that make the man’s complaints whisked
into who-cares-a-**** anyway ice creamery reverie and all
that other stuff disbarred from the aborning morning clarity of
“good morning ole man, where’s my coffee” diurnal tuning that
the women hums, reminding those in the earshot crowd of one,
that s’mores and chores, tasks and at lasts, dogs need walking, gardens watering, cushions  plumping, evening dishes moving from dishwasher onto wallpaper-covered shelves, geese-away-chasing, and loving poetry
by a poetoftheway scribbling…




8:01 AM Frieday, Jun 30

Writing Lessons for a Better Life
Nov 29, 2016 by Morgan Housel
Writing is one of those things you’ll need to be decent at no matter what business you’re in. It’s also one of the hardest things to get decent at, since it’s 90% art, 10% illogical grammar rules. Novelist William Maughan said there are three rules to good writing. “Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”

But here are a few I’ve found helpful.

1. Make your point and get out of people’s way

Readers have no tolerance for rambling. Lose their attention for two seconds and they’re gone, clicked away to another page.

The best writers tend to use the fewest words possible. That doesn’t mean their writing is short, but every sentence is critical, every word necessary. Elmore Leonard, the novelist, summed this up when he advised writers to “leave out the parts readers tend to skip.”

It took me a while to realize that a reader who doesn’t finish what you wrote isn’t disrespecting your work. It’s a sign that you, the author, disrespected their time. When writing, I like to think of a reader over my shoulder constantly saying:

What’s your point?

Just tell me that point.

Then leave me alone.

Part of the reason this is hard is due to how writing is taught in school. Most writing assignments, from elementary to grad school, come with a minimum length requirement. Write about your summer vacation in at least 10 pages. This is done to maintain a minimum level of effort, but it has a bad side effect: It teaches people to fill the page with fluff. We are masters of run-on sentences and unnecessary details because we’ve relied on them since second grade to meet our length quotas.

We’d all be better writers if the standards flipped, and teachers demanded length maximums. Write about all the major Civil War battles in no more than two pages. That’ll force you to make your point and get out of people’s way.

2. Connect one field to others

The key to persuasion is teaching people something new through the lens of something they already understand. This is critical in writing. Readers want to learn something new, and they learn best when they can relate a new subject to something they’re familiar with.

Finance is boring to most, but it’s a close cousin of psychology, sociology, history, and organizational behavior, which many people enjoy. Write about investing in a way that is indistinguishable from a finance textbook and you will capture few people’s attention. Write about it through the lens of a psychology case study or historical narrative, and you’ll broaden your reach. “Pop-psychology” and “pop-history” are derogatory terms. But most “pop” topics are actually just academic topics penned by better writers. Michael Lewis has sold more finance books than George Soros for a reason.

This goes beyond explaining things in ways people enjoy and understand. Connecting lessons from one field to another is also one of the best forms of thinking, because the real world isn’t segregated by academic departments. Most fields share at least some lessons and laws between them. Adaptation is as real in economics as it is biology. Room for error is as important in investing as it is engineering. Explaining one topic through the lens of another not only makes it easier for readers to grasp; it’s a helpful way of understanding things in general.

3. Sleep on everything before hitting the send button

I’m a fan of reading more books and fewer articles.

The reason books can be more insightful than articles isn’t because they’re longer. It’s because they took the author more time to think something through.

An article that takes you a few hours to think of, research, write and publish is subject to whatever mood you’re in during those few hours. Maybe it’s cynical, or pessimistic. Or analytical, or fatalistic. Whatever it is, it might not reflect the calmer, thought-out view of something that took you days, weeks, or months to think about.

I’m shocked at how much I want to change an article after I’ve slept on it for a night, and still want to change it days after it’s published. It makes me realize that if I stewed on the topic for a little longer I’d start thinking about it in different ways. I’d remember better examples, or a better way to phrase a sentence. I’d realize the original argument I made was flawed. Since one sharp example or clever phrase can transform a piece of writing, something you spend twice as long on might not be twice as good as before. It could be ten times better, or more. “The first draft of anything is ****,” said Ernest Hemingway.

A lot of what we write isn’t time-sensitive. You could sleep on it for a day or two or more. And most of the time, you’ll be glad you did.

Also, don’t read the comment section*.

This is something
Worth remembering.
A place that had only beginnings
And no endings.

This is a place
Where we once saved face.
A place where memories
Were captured and saved for eternities.

This is something
Worth remembering.
A place that had only beginnings
And no endings.

In this area,
We once played like children.
Our happiness
Had no barrier.

This is something
Worth remembering.
A place that had only beginnings
And no endings.

I look at the landscape
I knew so well for many years
As an escape.
As I am about to embark on a new journey,
I hope I will come to it again,
And it will mean the same to me.

This is something
Worth remembering.
A place that had only beginnings
And no endings.

brown skin farmer girl (this changeling poem)

~

we are I’ve decided

alike and unlike.

I know, an epiphany.

we are both brown skinned,

the sun has wrested my skin

buried it in dark loamy,

soiled brown side by side,

now alike.


your hair is long(er)

now, mine too.

a cascading mountain ranging,

edging south from your Columbia,

to my  Columbia

over my ears, down my neck,

which like yours, dreams knightly

of being loved by endless kisses,

a prince(ss) charmant

~

we could not be

more different,

than how god us designed.

but here’s the rub,

people change,

they dream of becoming,

reinventing the original design,

and this explains

not the why, but the how,

how this poet came to write

this changeling poem.

~

and you think we could not be more different and
more alike, and you would be rightly correct.

someday it will be willed (have I told you lately that I love you?)

that the poetry ceases,
no more birthdays notated
calendar closed, the ***’s axed,
kitchen junk drawer, a consignment store,
no longer needed, the futility of saving
knickknacks, maximized, the no lasting
value proposition, realized, eulogized.

pictures of beautiful automobiles,
decorated with beautiful women,
will forever be last year’s models,
one calendar too far, not long enough

no more of

have I told you lately that I love you?

wrote you plenty love poems so, hereafter,
you won’t be bereft, left farklempt,
arranged one-a-day, on a timed delay,
so many more that will appear in your
inbox until you too, no longer choose open it.

no more “sirprising” I love you statements,
taped to the milk carton, it was so willed,
the daily counting, record keeping, who first,
how many, secretly added to a grocery list,
in stuff that was so beloved, exasperating,
making you just right amount of crazy, smiling....
someday it will be willed, so,


here’s the first of many more....

even temporarily, this day, your emeralding grass handkerchief,
equates our dispositions, so differently identical,
your name, our initials, in opposing corners, embroidered,
your grass tapestry upon this troubled earth, a scented, joint, poetic
remembrance, that though it’s but words that bind us, we! we know!
the songs we sing of ourselves, we sing in synchrony harmony.

reasons not to read my poetry:
1. it does not use cutesy rhymes
2. it usually has more than four lines
3. doesn’t employ emojis, whistles, chimes
4. non-words in poetry, a serious punishable crime
5. ok ok ok!  cause you insist, occasionally sometimes
6. it trying hard not to be depressed, (bad ok, not sad!!)
7. usually not trite, though ‘fess, it is a never ending fight
8. oh dear, daisies so simple, mine, complicated, ‘jes a tad
9. requires periodic use of a dictionary, for words of 8 letters +++
10. adjectives usually sensible, opposed to “croissant clouds”
11. free men write free verse, no need, don’t use f*k, sht
12. a poems shape is circumstantial, not circumferential
13. it’s a lot of work to get it shape shifted kerectly
14. go new, go bold, use heart + **** together
15. never recip nice comments, never fail
16. to send **** to ******* arrocan’ts
17. this is getting boring, nap time near
18. yada yada, you finish this!

Sent for our amusement, pleasuring admiration,
our funny bones, and galore (glory)  of creation,
Texas squirrels are nuts, like crazy,chasing each other ,
up trees, across the wide expanse of the backyard,
where’s the Davy Crockett sharpshooters when
you really need them? (1)

now that baby rabbit, fearless or stupid, insists on
running on our deck, looking for applause for his skinny
legs hopping neath the chaise lounges, at any ole time,
guess this ain’t the love poem you were expecting,
then again you’d be wrong again and agin, but the
grandkids going, going, gone and applause muted

anyway, one of these days gonna stop and chat with
these two species, what they’re thinking about, the
human menagerie,  its depleted numbers, wherefore
and why, did the reduction of the human stockyard,
emboldened them to occupy territory they’d otherwise
shy away, hear what they say, gonna make a good poem

p.s. the avians yap and caw 24 hrs a day, presumptuous beasties noisy
__________________­_

(1) “In fact there wouldn't be a Texas if it weren't for squirrel stew. Don't condemn the idea of stewing your squirrel problems away. That's right! Davy Crockett and his Tennessee sharpshooters wouldn't have reached puberty if it were not for squirrel stew. Besides, what do you think they ate on the long trip from Tennessee to the Alamo? Enchiladas? Nope! You guessed it--squirrel stew.”

https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/recipes/squirrel.html

it’s a daiquiri colored morn, countlessly
as I, gazing never tiring, of a vista I’ve seen,
awoken to, endlessly changing, voyagers of
birds and boats, the redecorating minimalists,
moving pieces on a latticed shadow lawn

the Sun eastern, asking the trees to turn and bow,
hence the shadows their branches cast are a waffling,
hopscotch pattern irregular, so jumping from/to
yellow-green sunspots, the children are delighted by a
new game, moving to and from and between an ever
changing crazy chessboard of light-patches unsquared

described, written of, yet here I am, once again, a servant
despairing, looking for new combinations of superlatives,
though I never spoke before of it as a vista,
until today, wondering why, perhaps because
it’s here, one lives, one doesn’t conceive of  being
part and parcel of a vista, humans, just visitors,
pawn observers, gallery visitors, art appreciators,
transient hobos after forty years, truthfully claiming
that they’re merely still, passing thru, passing by

9:40 am, respectable hour to meander over
to the throne room, the four Adirondacks, them,
the year round poetry nook authorities, are equal
sunned, shaded, simultaneous, stately shadowing,
observing, advertising as perfect for composing,
willing to make verbal suggestions, rhyming notions,
especially when the poem pays proper obeisance

and so it does, and so it is, as you can clearly read


9:53am Sunday Jun 14
Year of the Pandemic

Clueless, Restless, but then the Moon Speaks!


can you see clouds at night, askes the moon,
my train, my assemblage of word worshippers,
who ask me by the thousand for clearer answers,
“one if by day, two if by night” is my evere’d reply,
bereft of confidences, steps unsteadied, full of distemper,
shaky uncertain, so answer all, once more, but only with
difficulty am I understood, for the simplicity so so great!

the moon comes to you nightly, never! never are you ignored,
your lost alone words always well heard, we are two together,
we are all two, if by night, my lune bright, ours, your answer!

Together Nightly, Are We Not Poets of the Way?

~for VB~

<>

“A child said What is the grass?
fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?
I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition,
out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners,
that we may see and remark,
and say Whose?”

Song of Myself (1892 version) BY WALT WHITMAN

                                                §§§

­there is special delight for the city dweller,
when the first clean flushing of brightest spring green
disrupts the unending graying city ribs of worn concrete,
the alternating lifelessness of blasé brick, pretending
off-beige, ***** pale blue, a sooty furnace red,
well done,  a good pretense that they are, of color.

I am among thousands whose as a child my breath
gave way, taken by gasp, when first made
entrance to the green diamond sparkle oasis of
Yankee Stadium, hid by the urban dreariness of The Bronx,
near sixty years vision sustained with perfect clarity on
retina-implanted, a shock, an earthly con-trast.

today, an old-timer, a first timer, I’m gifted Whitman’s Song of Myself,
from a friend and poet, who lives hardy by a Port,
another islander like myself, surrounded by wet roads and
pathways to the Northern Pacific, amongst timberlands of
forested and natured grass, a differing kind of stadium,
both of us silently saying, thanks Lord, for lending us yours.

even temporarily, this day, your emeralding grass handkerchief,
equates our dispositions, so differently identical,
your name, our initials, in opposing corners, embroidered,
your grass tapestry upon this troubled earth, a scented, joint, poetic
remembrance, that though it’s but words that bind us, we! we know!
the songs we sing of ourselves, we sing in synchrony harmony.

                                                   §§§§§


Wed. May 13, 2020
Manhattan Island,
by the East River

The Cost

“5 minutes to write, 5 minutes to edit and 10 more to cease weeping,”
when the inquiry arrives, how long/where from it comes,
gave this answer

more or less the response accurate
more or less the weeping really never ceases

I will return to it again, **** poem
random when, unreasoned why, wherefore
a stumble, a message, months from now, tomorrow,
even decades and I’ll remember the precise circumstances

for each poem has a Cost, that excises a piece of you, a new cut,
freshly salted, an antibiotic of loving may remove the
redness, but not the white line, so what you call a scar, I,
I call it an etched memory preserved

the sum of all These Costs, all these memories,
cumulative, additive, addictive - someone says:

stop being so sensitive, leave the telling to others,
or keep them in plastic bags, dated, retrievable,
in case an antiretroviral antidote is ever needed,
a fresh injection when you think you could even
cease to care

The Cost is always capitalized, for the Cost is called human capital,
the invisible financing that permits our existence till all spent,
when we’ve run out of drawer space, zipper bags,
breaths to be taken away and glass jars to store them,
if the mind says no more! then it will be ok,
for you are all spent

The Cost so great! this a double entendre,
for they are the stuff of me, whatever greatnesses
I ever possessed within them kept and believed,
happily paid for past and present, for the future,
will happily pay for it right now, again and again,
for the Costs are who I am, till, such time that
Costless arrives, eyes closed, nothing left to post,
to recall, no coin to give, my purposed all paid,

as if all paid could ever cause my weeping to cease


Mon May 4
10:48 am

them old songs

each vialed, labeled, racked,
date ordered, mood markered,
a playlist sortable by gradated
feelings, dated by color vividness,
associated memories of happy vs. lost,
hellish costs, my accumulated gained earnings
well spent, all gone them seeking many happy returns

the assorted “I love you’s” ranked by
intensity and sane, reversed by pain,
records flip sided with memories,
tunes remastered, past remembrances
only fade, time can’t be denied,
at least them old songs
help some but help

not me

Love Letters to & between Men

are composition easy, the components, blunt edged,
declarations of affection, without affectation

verses but not stanzas, are all that required,
homer direct, no fanciful piping, no trimming needed

your strength, character, manly wistfulness,
gives me leave to grasp your shoulders all about

no feverish whispers, no cloaked hush, delicately interfering,
only an “I love you man,” a simple declarative compositional

firmly pronounced, eye to eye, hand to shoulder embraces,
acknowledged with crinkly eyed smile, met with a summarizing

“me too.”



2/12/2020
2:25am

“give me your linguistic promiscuity”^ Cyrano to Roxane

trifle me not with sugar and spice,
give me salt, and everything not nice,
Campari, with a spritz of lime bitters, doubling,
the bitter sexiness of your taste buds
on the private parts of mine mind

the body’s parts held a conference,
who is the most important of us all,
all spoke, touting their unique servicing functionality,
at last, lastly, the tongue spoke

“none so powerful as this itty bitty muscle-me,
for with a chosen-few, well claimed, words whispered,
can put all of us in a prison cell to rot collectively,
utilizing my linguistic promiscuity, enticements seductive

so beware the disastrous dissatisfied tongue,
needy for 24/7 accoladed attention,
fail to worship can result in bee stinging poetry,
and jealousy

my love is bitter, my taste buds glory in this wondrous horror”

except for my Roxane


<>

don’t tell me “I love you” ~by Roxanne, for Cyrano~

<>

that’s a verse I’ve heard many too times before,
that’s a curse of low majesty, a quatrain too plain,
if that’s your best sally, retreat, say no more,
too simp verses, or ungolden silences, agents of dissatisfying pain

I need the best of your taste
the finest visions that you eyelids occlude,
make haste for my mouth grows exceedingly
impatient for the other senses to do their tandem wooing

slap only my face with the creature comforts others savor,
words of diamonds and pink pearls mined from your breast,
the bejeweled words that will decorate my evergreen,
that never dies, lest, unless and until,
you want my mortal affection suppressed

give me your linguistic promiscuity, wake me from the stupor
of ordinary, arouse me with thy tongue coiling, a bee sting delivery,
a wet poem that makes all my orifices!|offices weep, your mouth,
my souls recouper,
your wizardry bewitching,
answer my inquiry with unbounded festivity

then and after all, the plain simplicity of an “I love you,”
will be edged with sublimity, my mercies, your mercies
our jointed, sharp pointy, introverting, interlocking,
our futures becoming
our pasts

11:07am
19-9-30

<>

https://thenewgroup.org/production/cyrano/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwz8bsBRC6ARIsAEyNnvoENpdnWyqeUEwq0avNStgWCf4CocB1i2­39c2mHdNSFF8gOlWZtfjsaAls4EALw_wcB

<>for Sally<>

the heavens that guard your garden voyages,
the moonlight that illuminates the foliage,
your global family, and your recipes, are all in on it

rotating guardianship of souls that need overseeing,
for we don’t need, we desire,
that the world be fulsome

your
presence
is
our present
to ourselves,
fulsome and rich,
making our gardens more verdant

then again,
perhaps you are correct,
we do not need all our eyes upon you
but selfishness sometimes, is a fine thing...

Perchance it loves me too?


<>
Vicki and patty m.
<>

no one loves the same,
the moon, or me,
or you two too,
exactly exact,
or, especially
each other

every stream of light refracts differentiation,
rays scattered and triggering you-know-what

it is never by
perchance,
always by
first glance

rays that are moon ordained,
plotting paths on the river and bay
that check my souls consternation
asking me nightly,
come walk on water,
come to visit me,
when I am a verdant blue

once upon a time,
the moon would come to me
by early afternoon, so had a
doubleheader of celestial admirable

moon,
for its plotting morning carryovers
going all the way occasionally
to afternoon sunlight,
as if it is like love
that passes
through a checkpoint,
saying, see!
a safe transition
to the east/west passageway
of your humanity heavenly inclusive

I’ve loved creatures,
human and even better than them,
feminine and masculine,
never made any difference,
for it was never a competition

my whole soul went wet,
Olson,
from then till now,
when the love word escaped
my lips, troublemakers, happily,
the misery it provided was ecstasy,
made the poem solutions even better

but by now, august August,
woe within me, strong the sadness,
the end of summer chilling forces,
makes sure the dividing line
is redrawn and love and moonlight,
once inseparable,
are again fully distinct and

perchance,
come September
hopefully I’l forget and I won’t remember
all the rest,
just the best of the best of
you two poets scheming,
how to enlighten the world
with blue moon words




2:16pm,Sunday August 25
2019

the instant, the instance, is that your body?

the clear cleansing storefront windows
ask for clarification.

is that your body, presently?
is that your body presentably?

just in that secular instant, again, over,
the body’s inquisition clarifies, asking,
requesting in a babel of foreign languages,

repeat after me!

each window pane that follows repeats the query,
the themes in each, tiny variations,
the variables of rhythm, timbre, harmony,
engine timing minute minutiae alterations,
in that passing milli-instant,
each a separate instance for each separate pane.

in every instance.   in every language.

the accusations tonality oscillates in wavelength pitch.
quest nonetheless similar,
     is that your body?

all the replies are mirrored reciprocal.
that was my past.
this my present.
the next, a future vision.

the here, the now, all of it, each a flashcard.

the insistence!

when your body falls finally upon
the sidewalks concrete filthy city Persian tapestry,
the shameful answer tastes always the same.

always the same.

she smells (nameless and shameless)


a concoction of mixed aromas,
a once in a lifetime scent,
impossible to bottle,
impossible to name,
nameless and shameless

morning coffee, last nights vin rosé,
a come-a-little-closer-tasting for the summer solstice,
the stale of the evening meals of grains and kale,
the sour remains of bedroom sweat,
the displeasing scented sight of
sweat soiled clothes carelessly discarded

the first of the season red spot-stained white peonies
fail to mask the bodies aromatic musks,
which are mostly gender identifiable

my sneakers hail mary, her stockings odorize the atmosphere
most unusually, nylon and lycra are strangely familiar,
prior memorized perhaps, from deep within, a ****** hallelujah,
deep amidst where, the ***** linens are shelved and binned,
before they journey to the Egypt Nile of the basement waters

the burnt crumbs of illegal in-bed brioche toast
amazingly invisible on unclean sheets,
state “breakfast in bed, was yummy in the tummy,
but next time use a big dinner plate,
down here, the burnt of the bread and the burnt
of other things (popcorn pieces)
is just a scratchiest fragrance too far,
needing a sheet wiped clean slate

even the colorless and tasteless water
absorb the ionosphere of smells,
because one does usually speak poetically,
one of us makes a (vice) presidential declaration:

she smells, I man-ually stink, each,
each glower shower nower,
open the window to the spring wet grass aroma fresh cut,
to exhume and then send away
this odor now christened,

nameless and shameless


11:47 28/4/19

coffee stain memories (an aging love)

our dozen or so mugs,
all white, her color of choice,
accumulating stains of black-brown coffee
that the dishwasher poetically concedes,
a decade plus of drinking, now, oh-now,
****** and can’t be removed

the lips of some are chipped,
the lips of some are chapped,
but they remain employed
for first coffee is a demonstrable
affectation of affection that losing
would be costly

but one of us soto voce, quietly whispers
the radical ionized idea,
shouldn’t we replace,
this should-not is an update, a cognition of
a bridge too far,
both agreeing, both conceding the symbolism,
the heart acknowledges a momentary thrombosis,
for the losing turnover is a winless loss
messaging in and about,
an aging staining love losing

~
A no ki tov tuesday poem

pleasant is this adverbial, complimentary-angled accusation,
but a ball masque covering
the huge desert ****** stretches where
water and words are one hundred
days and miles apart, with
no filling station on the navigation app

the relentless sounding silences
reverberate angrily between the cochleae,
spiral staircases to no impulse power space,
the impulse to create needy for a clean sparking,
**** if life doesn’t get in the way,
the responsibility tonnage, the never altered
‘to do’ list that knows only additions and sedition

have come to believe that poetry energy,
cannot be created and destroyed,
so pray the unwritten poem souls
are conserved further, awaiting a rainbow
Noah signal, that the *** of poems
are poet-that a-way, in attendance for me,
in attendance for a parental permission slip
from me, my father, my sons, and the ghost
that has never left but promises,
one day he will, absconding with all the drafts concealed

4/3/19

even tho the fire was never really lit truly human,
their tousled hair and sad eyed lowland blues owning the fullness of natural emptiness ain’t no crime, like a double negative,
to which no one no cares no objects when spoken

those bad boysenberries radiate a flirty tarty aure, venus fly traps
for those needy to do a saving, the sweets of the the three poems
memorized for wooing, oft another’s undoing, the top button
releasing a burning bush of chest heat
being misleading the  reddening cheeks

was a bad boy once of ill repute, daddies and mommies warning
their innocents of my word of mouth reputation, making me 100%
irresistible, so all forgot when climbing into my two-seater to go
moon gazing swooning,  learning the moves practiced in nightime

bad boys still need saving sooner but usually later, cause
moon gazing is still a thrill for his new audience of grand children,
proof that some of them boys are hiding well enough stuff
beneath their veneer

be the miner of a thousand years, teach these child boys well,
crack them open, let the empty escape and light rays spill in
**** if some of those bad boys grow up
now, just to be  bad poets laughing
at the foolishness of the early days of
discontented shortsightedness incontinence of a soul fumbling

the Hail Mary transgression:
falling in love with me when it crosses over the line

guilty of the same, so even when I condemn the errant woman,
with an ice block from a Northeastern pond of no soft forgiveness,
which is still and yet, the only cutoff ending appropriate

but you woman, deserve to learn that
emboldened fantasy that crosses broken bold lines,
is a jagged rot that doesn’t cure the dreamy unreality of
the-cannot-be,
it’s pouring hot water on scalding burns entrenched

guess time to share that your fantasy is the
number one commandment
that this boy also violates routinely so he has a phd of experience,
and the burn proofs when he thot he too could be,
Cervantes, the knight errant, lover of the impossible woman

I, guilty as charged by “The Duke,” am an idealist and bad poet,
so many poet-women here I secret cherish at levels that are nonsensical, absurd, ludicrous
and hold the fantastical fantasty of them dear,
so close and so near, so mine

wrote them each love poems, and they know it,
now, here, in my confessional booth,
my priestly punishment always the same,
ten thousand Hail Mary’s,
but I cheat the cohen priest,
and just write another poem,


this one is about the line that never can  could  will be
crossed, hail mary!

how do you know (when a broken human can be fixed)


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2644586/how-do-you-know-when-a-human-is-too-broken/

supermarket checkout line, so lazy broken down dressed,
I’m probably arrestible for disturbing the peace,
my haired piled, and held together by a broken clip,
makeup at home in
a drawer labeled ‘why bother’
my t shirt, don’t please look too closely,
yesterday’s coffee spillage outline
only mostly gone,
and the skinny jeans that felt inappropriate
ten pounds ago,
now looking semi-completely ridiculous

is this a tv show?
wallet, a twenty and a single,
who knew a pound of ground blue mountain
cost the better part of the the twenty
in that case no need for a gallon of milk
and *** a box of chocolate frosted donuts
silently slid far far away,
evidence of a guilty plea of irresponsibility resignation

short $2.42 (cut up the credit cards)
and no convenient pit to fall into
when the teenager cashier snickers,
when a sam elliot voice says here ya are,
stammering a no, a thank you, and thinking getaway direction

truck safely, made it,
knock on the window
sam elliot soundalike is a lookalike as well
standing outside with my wallet in hand,
two heads taller than my ex-petite figurine

more stammering ******* could I look any stupider

but inside a piece of brown shopping bag torn
with ten whole digits
I’ve never seen prior to this disaster
saying call when you want to return my $2.42

turns out he got, no, he is glue and paste,
an eraser man for fine lines and sad times,
and a lasso to keep me held together,
a pocket red handkerchief hanging half out
of his back pocket, never without, calls it his tear catcher

pulled out that too tight blues-blouse
from back of my closet
that still complements my complexion,
wear it ever time that day rolls around

just dumb luck ain’t much of an answer
so I’ll rephrase, dumb luck is in the everything
cause his number was 917-242-2424
and he is a gambler in matters of the heart

bust his ***** when he says he’s a lucky man,
reply he ain’t got no luck at all
compared to me on that daft day

and every daft day thereafter
I glue his lips shut to mine, no escaping,
and paste a new $2.42
into his wallet
when he is sleeping mine,
no erasing our lines,
just redrawing them deeper and finer,
just making sure my
dumb luck is working overtime

candle on the typewriter


~for V.B~


lit, to better see the typewriter keys,
as if the those longest fingers needed guidance as to
how to lay down a word, each a brick, mortared to the next
knowing full well, permanence a laughable notion,
and the old house lives on by the good graces of storm kings

the cat, lazy supervising, purring delightedly,
when the sunlight requests their lips porch presence
to see what the island gods have proffered to the inhabitants,
this new morning to feed the soul and the soil, and a cats tummy

never mind the mis-stacked old occupant documents,
important enough once, that too, yellowed by
times relentlessly agile agent aging imprimatur,
the candle is a needed, a promise to oneself, that the words
hidden in the keys, require that shadowed glow, to find the
way-out, to be released unto life, bonded onto bonded paper

you reveal in silent photos so much,
even your best work, a younger version,
who says a lit candle on a typewriter, that’s crazy,
and you laugh, crazy with - from words,
that reveal all, but not as much as the
light of candle burning on a typewriter

Ilion gray
poet extraordinary
is away
learning the codes hidden in raindrops

no reason for surprise;

for the mountains of Brooklyn, the Manhattan caverns of Sunhenge^, corridors of narrow focus for trapping the declining sun rays,

neither high enough, narrow blinding,
to keep a good man from doing good things that life provides as opportunities
to do the right thing

he muses that it took five years for the other poets to understand our
poem-dreams;
avant-garde he says,
but I laugh,
never felt more misunderstood
and reply take care, be
en garde!

no matter for he is learning a new language,
the codes hidden in raindrops in a land of wheat
once called Indian Territory and eager
await his return so we may
walk along the Brooklyn shoreline,
beginning from under the Brooklyn Bridge
where Washington’s men escaped a British trap

and he can decode for me the whispery thunderous noises of
NY
showers that come up so sudden,  so roughened, but right now,
the seductive sun blinks in Manhattan windowed towers reflecting back on to our East River as golden blinks of nature

We will walk lost in the absorption of our
different commonalities, holding the hands of
his young son, and my Wendy,
both of them equal in possession of round saucer eyes
that give us poems

He calls me me friend,
I call him brother, teacher, master, better than the best,
well recalling a late night message that bred
a five year conversation ongoing

not everything need be coded
what you read here
it is not coded,
for the raindrops come clear and clean
and the poems land on our tongues
bounce on the foreheads and eyes of the babes, all stored and saved for the future blessings spoken in a single tongue

7/18/18



^https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattanhenge

weeding ‘n planting,
(ten rows of garlic, waiting to bite caressing hands)

<•>

unsurprisingly to me
garlic native to northeastern Iran,
so says the arbiter-know-it-all, Senor Wikipedia

did you know that,
amongst us,
a young woman whose back
is bent,
bent over,
weeding and weeping, while picking,
retrieving the fruit of the plain earths plane

spending days
retrieving spring-planted bulbs in the sun,
a mysterious poet residing among us
conjuring up poems and, ****, even
plants questions
with granted permission

asks a strangers gasping queries
so simple she renders his
body from soul, makes him
disclose his crazy ill-at-ease
showing
his own
general roots,
slumbering deep in reddish brown soul’s earth

one whose only great escape
through the written poem
when his back is straight,
straight against the wall
backed up,
and ripe for the picking

in reparation

the favor will be returned
three inquiries will be fedex’d
if I ever learn her address

for now, in the  throes of soil resting within,
my need knowings just nurturing
until the calendar declares time!
harvesting is now

when we ready shake hands
when you say

“here is the garlic tended,
and here are our hands,
bitten and caressed”

till such time I get
the answers from
the farmer herself,
I can patient wait

further research needs
original sources,
till such time,
make up tales
that will hold in abeyance
my half contented garlic dreams
for was it not written centuries ago:

Even After All this time The Sun never says to the Earth, "You owe me." Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the whole sky.
Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī