~~~
"But I’ll know my song well
before I start singin’"

Bob Dylan
"A Hard Rain A-Gonna Fall"
~~~
thought this poem down years ago,
while hiking in a nature preserve,
never wrote it up,
never knew why

I'm a
top-of-lungs shower singer,
a hiking poet,
dripping italicized words from the
four corners of mine eyes

my voice,
*****,
my song,
a work in progress,
my brain, says,
challenge,
asking

how dare you sing words,
you know
that I know,
don't know your song well,
well enough,
to start singin'?

the flowers and the fauna,
sea grass, lagoon, deep forest cover, beach,
butterflies hiding in bamboo stalks,
the deer, the fox, the chipmunks

all start laughing at me

"look upon us,
a single preserve
is our shelter,
a thousand years in the making,
our song has hardly begun
we are a forever
work-in-progress,
just like you

so sing of us, sing of you,
learn the chords as you go along,
finger the word notes,
try out variations,
realize this unfixed change,
is all of us
preserving

that friend
is indeed,
your song

you know it
well enough,
that's why
you have
never stopped tryin' and never stopped
singin'
~~~

July 2012 ~ 2015
Mashomack Preserve|The Nature Conservancy,
Shelter Island, N.Y.












    






~~~

http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/hard-rains-gonna-fall#ixzz3gFdhKEW1

unfailing clockwork come,
no surcease tendered from its
onerous, regulated,
on-time scheduled,
yet, untimely demands

arise to serve,
serve the sentence,
the sentence of
"out, out,"
whether candle or spot,
but there be no out,
damnable or otherwise

flailing words,
uttered no matter how,
the burden of the inexorable
is freshened daily,
yet horribly unchanged

failing words,
dent not the injustice of,
the condemnation of,
tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

for if the play's the thing,
this thing,
on the morrow,
performed eight times a week,
the sound and the fury
of applause fading,
a chiming of intermission ending,
the sets struck,
yet the tick of tomorrow,
is but the tock,
the switch off
of today
that
Doesn't Work

the script, well memorized,
it's mastery demands  perfunctory performance,
and
an ending that sates,
but playwright,
none provides,
his woeful signature
his pas de coup,

signifying
that tomorrow returns faithfully,
desirious of its unfulfilled dissatisfaction,
for it kens none other
though calling out,
"out, out,"
but there be no out

designated washer, scrubber,
some dirt, brown burnt fire marks,
impervious to edgy pads, now,
aged into the very being of our
cooking hardware

can only be removed
by human fingernail

as I scrape away residues of years gone by,
mine tears amalgamate in the soapy waters
beneath my bent head

for I cannot remiss/remove
the oldest, burnt,
bottom of the pan,
stains between us,
not with embraces,
nor with whimsy recollections,
certainly not with our
fingernails...

an impurity
inherent or invasive,
identity, purpose, all unresolved,
substantive, long-lived, minute sized,
flexible, formed, yet more,
clearly shapelessly, so well visible
we'll disguise it
to survive it

without passport, an émigré
illegally legal border invasive,
but somehow more knowledgable
of the unmapped byways within,
more than me - how can that be?

never motionless, indeed,
always hurried, even when energy gathering,
despite it's detailed timetable,
detailing plentiful stops and
interminable unexplained
screeching wailings,
it has no smooth gliding,
nor rumbling grumbling halting,
to a final destination imprinted

this impurity,
a beheaded brainy horseman
searching for what,
I'm not permissioned,
unquenchable questioning,
all I am allowed is
sensory
surceasingly, unseasonably seeking

the undresser,
the verisign
of veritas
eyes mirrored reversal internal,
you can't understand why finishing
this poem is so hard

because you don't want to
confess this
impious impurity,
no étranger, it is but
copious insecurity,
of the all of you,

the ecstasy of
the rushing,
the upsetting,
universal unique to us, you,
unholy, ecclesiastical, catholic,
that impurity is just
the heart pumping the
mottled blood of
life coursing through your words
and out your fingertips,
onto those
stained drumsticks
used
to play the keyboard alphabet
about an
out-of-tempo
impure ecstasy

~For Deborah and Soul Survivor~

these words crash across
a sunday morning mind
gassed in caffeine solution,
rapid rabid?
from the hearted, heated tongue mis-issued
hard-scrabble words,
rabbled to demystify

would you like some oatmeal, babe?

love, love some

but first,
what I need
to feed upon,
more to discharge
is the
rapid rabid
good god, so many
poem~children
needy for
birthing

a litter to litter
the pages,
most to
look-live long quiet lives,
but they are all
whole and dear,
all my flesh,
surely of my blood,
rapid rabid disgorge
this my one true employment
my sunday labor,
my sunday prayer

long lusted to write a work
of which
on the top of the screwtop
poem wine bottle
was writ
"Let"

I know, no denying,
better artistes
have done it,
so you counsel

let it be,

but can't,
no letting
go of what has
emboldened me,
taken hold of me,
the infinite possibilities of
Let

within me,
endless storage,
a room for you to
let

me keep safe keep quiet
whatever you need,
that stuff you don't want
but can't yet disown,
the ashamed,
the not ready to be released,
the best work not ready quite,
a fine tuning required,
even secrets most intimate

let
me be your safe keeper,
until you need a safecracker
to let what you need to
let
go,
go free when
the letting is good

let
let be your verb,
your object,
don't matter to me

let
us escape,
to a better place

let
us through,
pass onto level next

let
me,
rent me, use me, I am
property tangible

let
me contract you, let me a poem,
give me the work I've commissioned
and let it please

let
us know the truth, the truth of you

let!
me see you truly!
let!
us go together!
let!
us try it,
let us be an us!

let

all the lets in our blood boil,

let
us make a list and
let
it become the goodly best

and yes,

let
it be,
the end-let possibilities!

"Son can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet
And I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes"

Billy Joel lyrics from
"Piano Man"*
~~~~~~~~~~~~

when I was very young
I wore Levi jeans and white
Hanes cotton T shirts
my mother bot me,
my feet, Ked clad, red
from the kid's "department" store
on Central Avenue,
the Main Street of my small town

when I was a young lad,
I wore workingman's cargo jeans and
white Hanes cotton T shirts
under red plaid
wooly shirts, itchy affairs,
that I bot for myself
in a real Army Navy store,
desert colored suede boots,
laced up high,
upon my feet

when I was of middling years,
my jeans were khaki pants,
Gap supplied,
and my Gap T shirts,
faded like me,
a non-descript color,
made in a gap of pale pastel colors
from Bangladesh or Vietnam,
pale pastel, like me

so as I slide~decline into
my nursing home years,
I wear unbranded jeans and
white cotton no name T shirts
with matching white disposable slippers,
that the Purchasing Department
bot for me, cause they know,
I like,

a younger man's clothes and
the memories that play all day
lost in day dreaming of a life
well dressed

2:01am

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

the curvaceous quality of a dreamy life,
the roller coaster, arms in the air,
screaming, I'm believing,
nah, not this time,
ain't ready yet,
dude, you just woke up!

drag a comb across my face,
getting on board,
a choice, me, ride up front,
the terror, a touch more tantalizing,
the romance, a hair more frantic,
the fullness of life, à la mode

eyes catch, I grin,
next step, bridal canopy,
but not until, she conditions,
I get me on late night tv,
me, Fallon and **** right,
together, recitating the Poem of the Day!

can't be that hard,
gonna dug up some text messages,
mush it and corn fry'em,
if that don't do the trick,
got me a twenty one gun salute,
word in reserve!

Pick me!
got picket fence,
mortgage, student loans,        
diamond ring,          
     all worthless              
unless I get me HP's

*Poem of the Day!