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.

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

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.

Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment,

The pleasure of love lasts only a moment,

chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie.

The grief of love lasts a lifetime.

J’ai tout quitté pour l’ingrate Sylvie,

I gave up everything for ungrateful Sylvia,

Elle me quitte et prend un autre amant.

She is leaving me for another lover.

Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment,

The pleasure of love lasts only a moment,

chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie.

The grief of love lasts a lifetime.

"Tant que cette eau coulera doucement

As long as this water will run gently

vers ce ruisseau qui borde la prairie,

Towards this brook which borders the meadow,

je t’aimerai", me répétait Sylvie,

I will love you", Sylvia told me repeatedly.

l’eau coule encor, elle a changé pourtant.

The water still runs, but she has changed.

Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment,

The pleasure of love lasts only a moment,

chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie.

The grief of love lasts a lifetime

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!

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*.

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

you supply me with titles
you supply me with entitlements
you supply me with fantasies

who you love is of no import
for whoever you compose to
you compose for me

in every line, a title
in every verse, a commandment
in everything, everything supplied

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

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

“This world was once a fluid haze of light,
Till toward the centre set the starry tides,
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast
The planets:
”then the monster, then the man”

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Princess”

tired old ripped up rope,
shedding shredding,
interwoven from
worn~warnings, that
do not hint!
but volume speak,

of a lifetime well used,
the two ends, no longer straightforward,
now stretched, misshapen, countless uses,
left squiggly serpentine, from knots left tied
for~far too long, till they cannot be returned,
to a youthful vigor

them my lifelines;

that stretch from the Atlantic to Pacific
upon my new york hands, right & left,
end to nearing endings, do not hint at
stories untold, geezers, happy to reveal
their tiredness’s are denied a golden oldie
status, just a wind-ed wind-up doll winding
down, coiled-springs uncurling, decoiling…
tensions releasing…

this is the way of the poet,
the words no longer
streaming on demand,
they blip, scurry, a side dent,
glancing, like a windshield hit,
here and gone,
before a napkin secured,
a nearly dried out Bic
secured to scratch remnants
of a phrase spectacular,
end up crumpled, buried,
predeceased in a pocket of an-old fav, a Harris Tweed sport jacket, nurtured
over the years, the faint haze odor
stink of when he
smoked, a couple of
decades long ago…

he rambles,
like that rope end unraveling,
he is was a poet of the way,
for this the way of signing off,
intermittent coughing fits,
the nervous glances of strangers
as he pretends to sashay across Broadway when the light is flash down ten seconds to cross the width of Eighty Feet,
on that old American Indian path
that stretches from the tip of Manhattan Isle
to the Capitol of corruption, Albany, 150 miles…

you see,
poets garner knowledge,
then drip
drops drabs in simile and
metaphors, for this  poem
is just the unraveling of a poet
who has,
worn out his welcome,
and smirks/winces
notionally, a long way
to say, the poets has
lost his own way,
now untied, untitled,
unentiteled,
and that’s a
wrap…

~for R.A.~

“ I don't think I could write a poem if my life depended on it”

pardon me, Madame,
past is prologue,
waiting is just delay,
a prolonging,
a satisfaction delayed,

so
take the dog for a walk,
observing his rambunctious
wanderings,
compare and contrast
your and our own
owned
wanderings
perhaps,
the parallels
will see a vision,
even a parable?

you’ll be feeling that
tugging pull,
a leashed excuse pulling
you own hands and head
to have a quiet meeting,
in front of a blank,
blue line ruled
clean sheet

just cause that
nagging, won’t ,
non stop
heart beating
rhythmically
is questioning,
then a funky
annoying
voice
assumes control
and your hand moves,
with no control,
and when all is said,
it is done.

early after-noon, she quizzes,
“would I be ok with
skinless boneless roasted
chicken breast, with sautéed
mushrooms for our dinner,
ce soir?”

so smile I,
for it is a favored menu
of pleasure,
from one who has never
presented us a meal
that is less than perfect

later, she shyly inquires,
“would be ok if we to eat
a little early, I have a salon,
followed by an
Argentine Tango dance milonga
tonight and one starts early (and
tango parties
end typically
the next  day?
(no|si, me, don’t dance)

of course, respondez in
the affirmative, thus
confirming our love with the
consideration that veins
out affection mutual

and then I add:

“instead of an hours food prep,
which distracts you from the hour
deeded for dressing
for dancing  motivation proper,
and add a little kick-her:

I love you so much,
would happily consume
your tuna fish salad sandwich,
every night, for the rest of our
lives together, it’s fast
and simple, a dis-less-stressing
concoction, that we both enjoy

she (s)miles a sweetened thanks,
after numerous reassurances,
that our love only grows
stronger with acts of smart
sensitivity to each others needs,
no standard of care breached,
au contraire, meant sincerely,
earning me a secondary
whiling smiling

and this true story is a poem,
has been writ a thousand times,
in a million different tiny gestures,
of which, I am proud

she exhales a breath elongated,
a release of an admixture of differing
pleasures released, and goes into the
night to dance in the arms of strangers,
which concerns me
not at all,
after all,
these  many years,
aware she moves exquisitely
in a dance that demands years
of practice, for it requires
intangible silent of the merest
slight finger  pressures to guide
the dancer what next steps
are coy coming,
and I have stolen this
knot of knowledge,
for mine own purposes,
secretly & selfishly,
employing these techniques,
for most of the time we’ve
been together

this poem of
tuna fish sandwiches,
becomes a dance of words
which is
my specialty, which she will
read in the morning l, maybe,
if I send it to her,
though obviously,
that is unnecessary 😉
as she returns to our bed,
me asleeping, she,
exhaustingly satisfied,
sleeeps deeper
secured by the knowing
that we, are both,
the beneficiaries of:
my learned dancing
practices
for such is

*the ways of the poet!

teacher says
alright class, line up by the cubbies,
time to go to the assembly,

invariably odd,
the same kids would always
rush to be
at the head of the line,
and some, always
the same different ones,
rush led to be
at the back
of the line-age

nobody made it their business to be in the
middle of the line, though statistically however likely,

the majority aligned,
arrived, diffentiated,
however desirable
or however
undesired,
in the prematurity
of a mid line
life crisis

few if any, said:
I want to be in the anonymous
mid of everything for the rest of my life

or am I,
si or no. incorrect,

will I lose this bet I made
with myself?

surely there are those who crave the anonymity, the safety of a blended
number, neither the tallest or the shortest,
oldest or youngest, smartest or the class
dummy, who never got it right
should the
teacher absentmindedly
in error called
upon him (always a boy),

and here I am so far away from those
elementary days, puzzling out this,
myself vis-a-vis
this ancient mystery,
struggling to muster the
memory of where I
was, how
and why I came
to be
where, to be me,
what
calculus did I perform to select
my “identifying”
person~ality

I’ll dwell on this today
until it is resolved, perhaps
that alone, is the key to
arriving successfully at
a soluble solution to this
question my brain made
unavoidable, but first
must write,
before They lay ne down to sleep,

The End (😉)

Be inconsistent
Change your mind, proudly
To be great, is to be misunderstood

There is always one person
you can rely upon

Read the notes,
and take the
words, and
press them
to your
flesh.

i declaim, even bellow,
as she turn the a/c to below
the below, to sleep deep,
but then the chillers
invade like an army of Orcs,
now that my body fat now
three Yules gone bye bye
(and twenty yrs too late)

N.B. (FYI: she’s typically the one with
frequently freezing appendages!)

She mocks my screaming,
you are declaring decidedly,
me to be the hottest man-nequin,
with whom
she has ever slept~in,
has bed shared, for a consistent
statiscally valid time of period,
and the proofs
she offers is by
climbing aboard
my chiller self
,
to steal my entire inner warmth,
she being a skinny shapeshifting,
luscious figure whose body temp
barely registers 98 degrees
(per Ouro device!)

i scream out loud,
     the neighbors knock,
hearing me utter in agony
“your cold body is burning me,”
which with practice
SHE~IT
has learned to ignore for i
am  but the fly to
be engorged in her
Venus fly trap,
suiting  her purposes  
happily unwittingly

She tells me once again,
baby, baby
“you’re  my heart’s desire,
set me on fire,
once is
never enough
of a man like you,
do it again,
one more time!”

and believing
she suckeredme again
wiley giggles
loudly in my
blueish ear

scraps and scrapes of
scripts,
from tears and  zippered weeping of
rips,
lie upon my consciousness like pimpled
irritants,
begging for compassion wetness of
completetedness,
but time is a bitchye mistress, fools not with
suffering,
so herein dispatched one of many driftwoods
dispatched

and let us say
who’s up next. Amen!