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Poetoftheway Aug 2017
"the ever shifting light of ourselves"
(a poem such as this)

For Jamadhi V.

<•>
8/28/17

at 11:09am,
the phrase arrests itself, then assertive,
ungently demanding fulfillment,
implanted, it cares not my whereabouts,
it is a child~phrase, inexact, mysterious,
wanting its breast milk feeding immediate
no matter where my presence visible

but to me, it stinks of familiarity,
for my shifts, my redrawn shapes,
exhausting, giving me cause to grieve,
write poems such as this,
which I regret both
before~after conception~completion,
written in a fevered misery of fervor,
hoping,
no one ever likes it and its witnessing

as light ever shifts,
it consumes, extinguishes, reignites,
poorly lit, revealing dregs and dustbins

better then to sit in the darkness
the one you call,
getting it over with...

6:00pm
<•>

~~~~~~~~

*the swelling and the spume


for Lucy:

who gave me the title, three poems, a compliment, and the X Factor {inspiration}
~~~
the spume, the sea foam concentrate,
a greener white
by the the salt and the souls of the
million dead organisms,
that are are the compost of its formation,
it, watches the poet, who watches the spume,
come ashore for its final act of
immolation by evaporation

which is why the random act of
an unseen ministering force,
fills my ears with humbling glory of
Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei,^
my fresh reminder that this swelling chest
in this temporary abode of mine,
by the sea, passage is prepaid for my
expiration by evaporation too,
all lambs march to the sea,
returning to spume
~
Lyrics to Agnus Dei:
^ Alleluia Alleluia
For our Lord God Almighty reigns
Alleluia Alleluia
For our Load God Almighty reigns
Alleluia
Holy Holy
Are You Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
Worthy is the Lamb
You are Holy
Holy
Are You Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
Worthy is the Lamb
Amen

~~~~~~

"may all my lost lovers haunt me"

for Vinnie Brown

even your kindergarten crushes?

what burdens you seek to retain,
the edgy border of delicious and pain is a raggedy cut line,
as lost lovings rhymes with duality

Once upon a time,
a middle aged man
left the woman he married,
the one who drained and cruel reigned
over the destruction of his-dreams
for one accidentally stumbled into,
the love who blurred his edges as well,
between forgotten happiness and
pain so bad when she grew tired
of his life's complications and the
valises of drama,
she left him,
weeping on the corner of Broadway and 83rd Street

was that 20, 30 years ago?
a memory
from no matters land
but
the physical ache that marred the hearth in the chest for months and months,
sent him to the doc who smiled sweetly
but gave him, had no, no relief for busted grownup hearts
that had normal  EKG's

and that remains a treasured affirmation to this day of
life's capacity to love that comes with an ingrown danger
of never forgetting

did you know the French outlawed the use of the term
Mademoiselle in '12 (Mlle.)?

I loved that salutation,
calling my one true lovers
with the soft feminism of that address

and still do

and you want to recall
kindergarten crushes?

Mister Vinnie
possesses a lovely contradiction,
holding onto
lost lover sickness
that lives on in good love poems

this my new found poet
is how that he, this aching heart,
fast approaching his shore line for one last return and final departure
repays a sweet compliment,
from one who complements
another man's lovely's insane desire to
never forget any of it

~~~~~~*

reading love poetry and listening to
Joni M.,
at 3:09AM
never wise,
but always full of hindsight
Poetoftheway Mar 2019
she pens a thank you note, for my stealing inspiration from her observation,
to create a “beautiful bundle of words”

my vocabulary acquired by just hanging around this planet of aged years,
(hirsute, multifarious, repacked packets of globbed and gloated pins and notions),
is minimally useful in the arced architecture of reassembling a new combination
that pretends to be a beautiful bundle of words, a nouveau riches,
a poem rearrangement is only addition but that a new poem, does not make

to make a creation, one requires
a beautiful bungle  of words,
each tripping upon the next, somehow discordantly harmonious,
a humorous pin ***** sordid that moves the lips into an O shape light emitting,
“why in the hell did not I think of that”

if it makes sensible than it’s likely just recombinant, i.e. a used car
if it makes sensitive as if it’s a new cry, unheralded unheard and
the first newborn among its peerage

bungle your pictionary mistakable notions from fumes of intoxication
stumble into a new theorem predicting the relativity of the impossible,
combine cross pollinations, fish and fowl, meat and milk, stench and best,
faucet drips of hurricane magnitude, draw insights from inside a child’s vision,
and say to yourself repeatedly,
this is how I bungle breathing into new poems,

this is how I birth beautiful
sunday 3/10/19
Poetoftheway Apr 2018
so someone remarks and thus a poem commissioned...

a better world, a wish no one can turn a back to...
a literacy of mine own, a bridge too far...
but such a lie too glorious to ignore...
blessed be the wisher for he gave this day
water and wine to a lapsed Jew who reincarnates
the containership of body and soul from the Star of David,


it,
burr~etched upon his chest, and embraces lost tourists
who unfated unfazed stumble
upon the guide dog of his verbal chicanery and funny bone,
smiling for as long as it takes to cross that last bridge,
nearer our god, you than me..
for Elea
Poetoftheway Jun 2023
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
Poetoftheway Feb 2018
she writes me from Paris

wanting a command,
exactement comme moi
all her own.
to scribe.
in “a style with strength”

exactement comme moi
exactly like me

where the ideas percolate
for the precise gestation period
and the birth-born poems a-coming
without and within silent no belabored pain,
making the child appear as if it was only waiting
already, on its own good time. for saying thank you
for your patient waiting and who is really in
command?

when the overwhelming light orders “write”
I am gone from yesterday and the safe of picayune
does that sound like I am in
command?

you wish to command?

join the navy, the army,
become a paratrooper,
command in poetry is illusory,
for it comes from the bell tower rage of madness
of what my ancestors planted and bequeathed genetically,
and I have wasted the better half of a century appealing for
relief and making it clear who commands and who is the
“poetoftheway” slave

rejoindre la marine, l'armée,
devenir un parachutiste,
commande en poésie est illusoire,
car il vient du clocher de la rage de la folie
de ce que mes ancêtres ont planté et légué génétiquement,
et j'ai gaspillé la meilleure moitié d'un siècle attrayant pour
soulagement et en précisant qui commande et qui est le
“Poetoftheway" esclave

exactement comme moi
exactly like me?

exactly.
Poetoftheway May 2020
~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
Poetoftheway Jul 2023
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?
Poetoftheway Feb 2018
the pleasured thrills of a
une liaison dangereuse
the mystery du triangle hypoténuse

two open, unended lines attached
to make a so interesting right (wrong) angle,
mais sans l'hypoténuse leur est pas de connectivité

indeed the hypotenuse hypothetical is crack for my brain
imagination steel furnace fired, molten are my fingers
as they trace the line you left for me on your body

to adore to cherish to lick to follow an arrow pointing
where?

to the heavenly pleasures that earth reside
in our differences substantial
which intrigue rather than
divide

opposites attract is true and not,
we could be
we could not be more unalike
that so excites for dreams only I can uncover
in the rounded shape  of thine wide eyes

a horrific inserts
she is only teasing me

but the need to dance on the brink
the fulfillment that origins in a need perpetual
is the one that satisfies because it cannot
be fully satisfied

if you know this need, then you are mine bonded

beyond is at where the hypotenuse connect our lines,*

"we'd be beyond human,  beyond poem, beyond horizon,
beyond stars and black holes and daisy-chains and metaphors
with  nothing to say to say to an end, because it goes on, my dear,   -- I'll see you at the brink...dance with me there"
a woman in the shape of a young girl,
her eyes wider than a grand boulevard,
who writes me in scattered verses I can’t comprehend
takes my hands in the metro on our way to
St. Germain-des-Pres, where she will make confession
she loves another, forgetting that was her first reveal
and why I now laugh/love her maintenant, plus complètement

<•>
un jour je vous enverrai un message au parc Monceau à 1500 heures; être prêt
Poetoftheway Aug 2017
cannot find true rest,
all the tumult in this world,
writ both large and small,
saps my upraised arms
alternate
flexing angry fists eager to strike hard
my revived new **** enemies,
and gods inexcusable and conspicuous absence in
Barcelona, Finland and my own
Charlottesville,
and
to quiet comfort commiserating, and storing
all the pain of individual souls I've acquired willingly

and the sunset comes quiet,
trying to sooth by adding
a gentling cream of cooling breeze,
the squirrels eye me suspiciously,
sensing the amiss within,
and all perfect sailboats voyaging past,
yet none stopping at the dock
to offer condolences or solaces

my watch ticks louder

each tick,
a worrisome cursed reminder
this real life seems to be endless struggle
interrupted by small comforts of little voices and
promises that escape is inevitable

each tock,
a fresh notification
the week's approach will contain
another visit from
Hamlet's ghost,
warning of warring factions
battlefield clashing
in a chesterfield plain
between two of mine shoulder blades

constantly reminded how lucky I am,
makes me grow quiet and put pen to one side,
and try to balance accounts, using this time,
pencil and erasure

I need a break and some glue
I need reparations and a battle plan
or happily learn to surrender
and accept being a
dumb terminal,
a slave,
that doesn't ask for
peace of mind
and knock off this poet of the
no way
Poetoftheway Apr 2017
awaiting the diagnosis/I need/selfish motives


yours,
that should have arrived days ago

the email silence - no different than the phone unringing,
like the sad bells of Rhymney,
those bells, asking questions
instead of singing and pealing,
so
in my yeah yeah peculiar accented english which
screams robustly in a whisper

dudewhatgivescluemein*

in a single breath, rushed as if but just one word

believe me,
my motive purely selfish
needy for a celebration
hope from a crisis avoided, originating a new seed modified,
two planted for a future spirit tree available for more than
just two poets regardless of their limited coastal biases

negative that too
a selfishness for me
cause I come willing
to exercise my
heart shoulders and arms to trim our mutualized sails,
keep our mind's eyes focused aside
towards the good bad the great in life's littlest things

I need
you to reassure me
that my own mortality,
which can only thrive,
with your poetry voice alive and
keeping track of the absurdity of the
worlds tomfoolery and lighting fast trickery
so I will be stronger longer


I need
you to make me sweet smile when you regale
with dog licking face moment tales
have to cease here for reasons evidently inexplicable

so in summary
what ere the word be,
the outlook commandeering you,
I need
Poetoftheway Aug 2014
"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
Poetoftheway Jul 2020
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.
Poetoftheway Sep 2023
“But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a barbarous tongue.”

“To a Child Dancing in the Wind” by William Butler Yeats

<|>
saw this poem on the site,
and it ripped a tear in my warp,
shredded edges rubbing each other,
violently, volubly, saying be wary child,

for what we don’t tell the children well
in advance of their sad discovery
that the world is not the perfection  and
that good night moon story world
is not as it purport does if
it really exists,

and I am bitter that all warning asunder,
inutile, wasted, going unbelieved till time
is they must discover in their own pain,
their own sorrow that our world and words,
are imperfect, and that I am sordid saddened
that there is little one can do to protect them,
other than,
speak in a barbarous tongue


”But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a barbarous tongue.”

Yeats

~~~

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4756146/to-a-child-dancing-in-the-wind-by-william-butler-yeats/
weeping
Poetoftheway Jul 2015
~~~
"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
Poetoftheway Aug 2018
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
Poetoftheway Sep 2017
parse and praise the phrase,
checkerboard fraction,
appréhendé immédiatement,
a poem title!
put aside to marinate,
stamped "will not expire,"
doing the research legwork,
**** it is a real thing!

toujours,
where the best words and titles come from,
if one listens well
romantic notions swell the chest,
all the love affairs over so many decades,
all checkerboard games
with Kings a-crowning and Queens a-moaning,
poet, no way, never planned ahead,
always lost by a fractious split,
more than a fractional loss,
losing
most triumphantly!

each lover took and left a fraction behind,
a numerator, a denominator, never a whole number,
for then there would be no poetry need

you want,
have need for
une idée fixe
whom I should be, but i could be a
multiple choice answer
a three scoop ice cream treat,
or perhaps, a mix of forty favorered flavors
a new one,
chaque coup,
why not?

our first disagreement
both of us wish to nominate the other to be the nominator

the denominator is a definition of what is the whole
because i am gracious,
foolish and less than whole
already
I concede cause I am in already in retreat,
conceding comes supernaturally nowadays,
so move me forward on the checkerboard
and triple jump me, and any way
I am pas de nom
we close today with an American
yay...
https://www.scribd.com/doc/200770223/decimal-checkerboard-lesson
Poetoftheway May 2020
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?
Poetoftheway Apr 2019
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
11:36 tuesday ki tov 16/4/2000+nineteen

http://hebrewmeanings.blogspot.com/2016/04/ki-tov.html

“The third day of Creation [Bereshis 1:9-13] is the only day in which the expression “G-d saw that it was good” is mentioned twice. This expression is mentioned both following the gathering of the waters which divided the seas from the dry land, and following the sprouting of vegetation and seed- bearing plants – both of which occurred on the third day of Creation.
As a result of the fact that Tuesday had a double portion of “ki tov” [that it was good], Tuesday is considered a particularly fortuitous day of the week. Many people specifically plan their wedding for this day. When moving into a new house, many people plan to move on Tuesday. Many people try to start a new job on Tuesday.”
Poetoftheway Nov 2017
"looking at the future of your creation...
when creation is the art of being in the moment"

~program notes from the Grand Finale, a dance by Hofesh Schecter, choreographer, composer~

<•>

as one who makes their living, affirms their existence,
by staring at the blue-white screen,
a blank black backdrop, an empty stage,
a blue lined spiral-notebook, stationary store fresh

thinking only of the inky black commandment of
what next -

a contradiction comprehended with perfect understanding,
for the composition unborn unimagined yet
shaping, chafing, child birthing, will be seeded thru
many tiny moments of webbed connected secretions,
imaging the whole, yet the future arrives serialized as drops,
slow and singular, additive and adhering, even addicting

throw them all up to the ceiling tableau,
a letter, a note, a visionary imagery
of many dancers bodies
in photo time-lapse time captured

what sticks, what returns, the returns
needy of refurbishment, a fresh dice throw,
the retrofitting of a new combination moment

thus the future forms, the wet moments fill the crystal glass,
spilling over, spilling out from within, when all spent,
all the next moments are silent, water stilling,
le futur est arrivé,
but the individuals that are its construct,
wave friendly to you, asking do you remember me,
tenderly, parentally, I concede to each their birthright,
how they transversed from the past,
presented into the future, only to arrive in
the here and now,

as a present to us all

11/11/17 8:55am
Poetoftheway Oct 2019
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
Poetoftheway Jun 2017
all day long the internet sells wisdom like
fruit in bins fronting the bodegas,
the one Spanish word every New Yorker speaks,
some ripe, some not and
some on the cusp of going home as mulch to the wet earth,
sooner than later

you can't squeeze the wisdoms proffered like a piece of fruit,
from the exterior, there rarely be a dashboard indicator saying
check engine light or this one is one worth picking

so gobsmack like Dylan croaking in an obvious in a way something obvious yet you thinking hey! that's interesting, read
earn good friends
something I ain't done so well and yet here I am,
passing it on like I know what the fruit-picking trick is,  
but on your fourth cup of joe and it's barely noon,
in your seventh decade you take the right to croak,
even if you aint got no expertise, that the emphisis
is on the earn part

you dont buy 'em in the store, no winning the lottery,
gotta use your eyes and no, lovers don't count neither,
guess you gotta stick out that hand, have somebody's back,
unasked,
and being gracious when saying thanks,
but then again never had more than one or two,
but for fhem
I'd lay down my life for them to survive so not exactly clueless

earn good friends, that sounds bout right...that, the right way...
1:25pm 7/25/17
Poetoftheway Mar 2019
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
I swear I meet fellow grandmothers who confirm the whisperings 3-16-19
Poetoftheway Nov 2
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm gettin' older, too

lyric from “Landslide” by Stevie Nicks

<>
climbing stairs, balancing two breakfasts,
two fill-to-brim-rims warning sloshing,
earbuds in place, always,
lest the news
interrupts and plunges me first thing into
moody murderous disheartened failure,
and Miz Minx Nicks lays me low

this lyric knocks me to rock,
there and then,
consequences be ******, the unstoppable
lyric rocks grinding me to an
immovable halt,
all spills,
don’t care, for the need to scream-
bleed-finally
write to understand why these
a l w a y s words arrest my soul

children
the most costly thing anyone can
create,
the lost, the found
the ones in the grave way too early,
and the ones who were born
knowing better,

children
whose inviolable sense of
totally righteousness
makes forgiveness
disabled, disallowed
for the poor clueless fools
them who naively know~nothings
who chose to raise them

here I am not getting,
no, unsteadily unreadily
too late
am older,
up-to the shaking-head age
so unexpected,
almost ridiculous
untimely unthinkable
‘cept for:

it’s an impossiblity ~
and just
don’t understand this injustice
perpetrated upon this
unsuspecting and in denial,
sorrowful old man


so I weep
on the steps so steep,
Woman comes to see if I'm
fallen,
my wailing at the realization of
my losses all
totally tallied
is heavy much more than
my now empty hands,
but busy them,
attempting to staunch the
flowing
overwhelming regrets that
gush from every pore,
and that no one can
ever be cleansed,
and the permance of
stains

for I am only
getting older too
killing me
way too slowly
Poetoftheway Apr 2019
extending thought and delving into intent
(where the poems come from)*


when I was younger, say five years ago,
the summer poems breezed by ripe for plucking,
airborne from the compost fat of
sun, water and soiled nature and its intersecting creatures

then winter poet soldiered on, past the easy season,
seeing rhymes-in-city-fireplaces snap cracking pops,
the wet dog smell of humans in overheated buses,
the seasonal wet sock torture that debated suicide alternately

and the early afternoon dark that closed doors,
a jailing of the populace; when by the glow of reruns,
we perform surgery upon ourselves and poems entitled
all sad words begin with a D get composed

now they don’t come that way

now, wait for you to ***** my eyes into seeing
what it’s that ails us all, what repeatedly fails us all,
and what makes living more than just mere presentable,
oh! your scrappy hints, chocolate covered mints and
oatmeal raisin clues

read now a word that exact interrupts


soloduo

and its timed arrival perfect, making my point too well,
the poems come from you and we transmigrate into a duo,
you are equally responsible for the fat places

in the messages and texts, in the storied themes
underlying all your writings, saying, see man, what the babies
can’t say outright or keep in the studio crevices artfully partially hidden,
the list so credibly lengthy, god sent B12 shots
of extra strong caffe inspiration

that’s why you co create the paintings we paint,
I, paint, you, hang them in the place where they can’t be missed,
in the exact spot when you walk in the door, or overhead,
in bed-overhead ceiling,
cursing that prayerful ******* you let slip

making you mark, verified your, Hancock signatory
in the lower corner

so many pins becoming dagger stories,
change is gonna come, and in every letter is the risk,
that what will be brought, what needing saying,
the penultimate penury,
when you can’t pay the bills with monthly unsocial  insecurity

for what is for the best, or worse, reliving the worst twice more,
it cannot be helped in prevented, only reverted,
what you tell me is the what, of the wherefore
and where the poems come from

so you force me to live in every season,
“breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit,
and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
(Henry David Thoreau, Walden)


and its inhabitants that inhabit my every seeing,
which is why I am, is
where you are...


1:33 pm April 6, 2019
Poetoftheway Sep 2017
for Eléa

<•

feel you my love, between my thumb and forefinger ,
beyond obsession, have rubbed them,
thumb and forefinger tips pebble smooth,
lying there, lying to myself, saying don't know why,
probably the standard ****** busybodies annoying,
no big deal, just the chocolate stuffing of day to day living,
but I know better, I'm home after 23:00, in bed alone,
you love are at a milonga ce soir,
and I, still rubbing them glossy shiny,
unconsciously, subconsciously, consciously, stubbornly

my light, shut off, grab the silky top sheet,
between the same thumb and forefinger,
pull it up, to under the neck,
comfort covering my chilled bare chested unheated heart,
and the rubbing yet, gets stronger, the sheet sensation,
an unforeseen, trigger warning

the sensation, at last, dulling and in the dark,
the fingers worn, body worn, and the worn cold admissions
easy slip out, worn by denial, a sash across the chest-ache,
the fingers instrumental, now more useless from imprecision

I know, I know,
fingers are memorizing touch, memorizing memories,
at the crossroads of two Burgundy country roads intersecting,
because when no one is seeing, no one you want,
that no one won't be joining you later, ya see,
just the normal nite dreams

with that self-same tireless thumb and forefinger,
pull a tissue from the box hid in the second drawer to blot the
wet spots on the pillow, can't be having that,
no one, no,
she wouldn't like that,
and you
nonetheless and all the more,
surprised
cause no one told you,
you didn't know that,

*fingers could weep
2:05am
9/21/17

please read
https://hellopoetry.com/Eleajane/
Poetoftheway May 2017
Never Acclimate!

~

For Mr. Keith Wilson, an Answer...

from the British Isles to the Shelter Island,
a former colony, a scion of a special relation
a question arrives, wind wafted, upon wings of bytes
it is not an inquiry of heated
weather

rather,
an inquisition question of heated
whether

will we grow acclimated to the heat
of impossibly unjustifiable man murdering himself?

by acclamation!
we announce
not ever
Manchester
Poetoftheway Nov 2015
~for SPT~
whose poems transform with lovingness

~~

*distinguishing, extinguishing,
the knowledges to retain,
reuse daily, mightily,
pleasures insights beloved,
honored with the stripes of daily use

then there are,
the knowledges to retrain,
non-removable, rising up from your
edges
of the very fine line
tween
pain and experience

they must Main Street remain,
be thankful for that,
for love regained,
needs the benchmark
of having lived love,
the loss of loss when recalled,
when new gets a turn, reinstalled,
is now twice sweeter
8:14 am
Nov. 1, 2015
nyc/nml

~~~
SPTSPT
7 hours ago
Scar
I need something other than food to keep me calm to take my mind off I need something other than drugs to keep me here and free from harm I need something other than people to know I'll be ok I need to know there is a god one at times I'm willing to die for to ask him why for if I fear to be alive why lord can I not die..if live is to remember to what love I had surrendered was only taken to dip my hands in death..why then do you take my breath only to give it back.. Is it to remember as I do to live in shame of fear to nothing but his humbling way... I'll never understand
Poetoftheway Oct 2019
“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


<>
Poetoftheway Apr 2018
making your day (good job great pay)


comes so easy that the forbidden thot mind crosses

maybe that’s what I’m here for

good job great pay

nah

but tween o u r
trials and tributes
get a job you enjoy
is the common wisdom

so i’m stuck
in the uncommon heaven
of making your day
the highest paying job
ever


especially on weekends


(someone teases,
change you name
poet of the pay)
Poetoftheway Aug 13
there are thousands who know me,
the now me ~
too well…
an idea-phrase that stankles (rankles and stings),
for though my goal is a gaol to hideaway within,
betray myself too oft with my fingerprints upon the
cheeks of all I hold dear…

in that summer breeze you feel
tickling the hairs upon the back of thy neck like a
surprised,
unsirpassed
sunrise,
exactly like a lover who loves reminding you that love is the unexpected kiss upon said neck that weakens
you with pleasuring, and that,
a steady stream of surprises,
is the greatest loving,
treat of all…like that
morning miracle mystery
of a fresh baked
still bakery warm,
croissant
that tickles the taste buds
upon the tongue that tickles the
hairs on the back of your neck..

every croissant kissing butter fragrance,
the aroma of every day for
me knowing,
you moaning
and the fragrance
we together
create
Poetoftheway Oct 2017
Growing Hazelnuts in the Pacific Northwest
(a conversation between two coastal poets)


we periodic update each other by
email or poetry...writers choice

~~~
my turn but
not an easy poem to commence,
for its eminent domain fraught
with relative comparisons favoring one side,
emphasizing the differences that life prefers to offer
a magnetic choice,
attract or repel

a language conundrum
an iron-strong irony that the poem's ending,
its commencement, its ceremonial completion,
far easier for me to forecast before the real work initiated
<•>
commanded  by you to write of me and mine,
with detailed, careful accuracy
as if it were a poem!

So Why Not a Poem Then?**

my hasty notes emailed upon my current status
you dislike for they are both brief and oblique,
poorly scripted, yet generous
with typological confusion, writing in this genre of
self-evaluation always is concluded by me as:

devolving into either boring, pompous or delusional aggrandizement or the final infinity-indignity of
mealy mouth whining

so an updated poem will be writ,
the happenings of my life have not changed greatly,
the struggle to earn daily bread that supports a familial universe, grows more difficult as demand for buggy whips drops even more ferociously with the onset of miracle
self-driving cars

your son fights fires, commands the earned allegiance of men who fight that which threatens the survival of others life and limb, mine, fights for the his daily bread which is only equivalent in its mind numbing insidious mental exhaustion

I make no judgements or place any emphasis erroneous

the California fire, your sons volunteered absence,
leaves living holes in your family to be filled,
and the burden shifts with the Oregon wind, northward,
upon your old-er tired-er shoulders,
a somewhat similar etching on my body
carved in Eastern Standard Time worry lines

reading between the lines of your concerns,
read of all the plans in process,
feel the cares and concerns that  lself-sacrifice impose,
among them the 75 acres of hazelnuts harvest ready
that need his missing hands to do the harvesting work

which makes my daily shifting of financial instruments
seem very, very, petite bourgeoisie

I have studied in some detail the minutiae of hazelnut harvesting methodologies which makes me into another
east coast expert poet - confident in his opinions validity,
tho devoid of any hands-on experience and would not recognize a hazelnut from the ones (nuts) floating in my head

well, here must also admit into evidence that every potted plant or tree I ever purchased in the Flower District (West 30's) died. ignominiously. that a delicious word deserved of being spoken aloud for the
accuracy of its sounds

as predicted ending this poem, far, far easier than the writing

we cross pollinate each others lives; selfishly think, nay,
convinced, each, I am the possessor of the better half of the deal, for me the loving of your ordinary of soil and ash,
*** wee football, the honest labor of building things
is getting an honors degree in sharing

though,
though worrying about our children
seems to be deemed a bi-coastal commonality

perhaps the Yankees will win tonite, (nope)
perhaps the Giants will upend the Seahawks tomorrow, (nah)
items of passing interest that will soon pass,
for your real serious worries are
combulated confabulated and combusted with mine,
what is yours - now mine shared

this intersection happens when two poets from opposite ends of these united states cross pollinate via manly hugs,
75 acres of friendship that need harvesting,
and the earned respect of insight into our singular
psyche so rich-earth deserved

with manly hugs and respect

your friend the n-man
Oct 20-22, 2017

~~~
3:31am
Poetoftheway Feb 2019
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!
The Duke from Man of La Mancha
Poetoftheway Nov 22
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
.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays
Poetoftheway Oct 2018
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
Poetoftheway Aug 2018
,how do you know when
(a human is too broken?)




<•>

human too broken?

like the light bulb, removal from its fixture, a simple shaking revelation of the tinkling filament spent, something that cannot be repaired, the only option is replacement and that makes
you cry

the empty box of oatmeal raisin cookies, you find secret’d,
hid by you, not to be found by you
at the bottom of the kitchen garbage,
but box betrayal, by the chartreuse tipped box lid sided
peeking upwards, asking, silencing screaming,
what did I do to deserve
this degrading

like the blouse now too tight that it brings stares as the buttons strain, unwelcome attention unintended,
you know it but still pretend not to see,
for you both once loved that silky guise that so
heightened the high tender, the match of your pink rose skin letting, no! making
your eyes glisten, like broken filament glass, on the sidewalk,
recalling the pleasured admiration,
rain remembered from the
prior priority of a life consisting of only
perfect gifts

so mean revert to the poseur question; this is how...

remove the human from a fixed place, whimpering-threatened,
you may hear clear the crackle cackling  of the innard shards against the misperception of a body intact,
even if you do,
no repair service you want,  can be found, see it nowhere,
is it even
anywhere advertised?

the body presumed intact is secret’d under a tactile coverlet,
holey scupperrd holy cuttered
so that the cells and bicuspids, the threads
no longer function in a tandem,
you keep it in the closet closed,
in the back, deep hid, where,
when it screams why,
it can be safe ignored,
because  ‘betrayed’ is no longer a word,
in your globe's dictionary,
the parental controls activated by you to
save your own inner child’s unconstrained confusion,
it has been removed


so the broken glass, the clothes you dressed each other,
if not weep-well,
well enough hid,
the fit is off,
the fit is off,
the coverlet ripped so bad and neither cares
an unexpected poem, unplanned, needing work
aug 4-5
Poetoftheway Feb 2020
I could believe in you

I could.

believe you, real, open hearted, viable. unafraid.
easy smiling, genuine, easy listening, maybe mine.
even real.

a slow Saturday being, doing nothing,
loving it, languid. high time for downtime musing.
I could.

I could.
you could too.
believe in me.
pinch me awake.

I could believe in me
when, you grant permission,
give me permission to could,

to believe.




2/8/2020
7:24am
Poetoftheway Apr 6
I do love my poets so, those ones, soft spoken, genteel, feeling,
using first, but never, guile, words mano-melo~harmonizing,
softening the edges so smoothly, no rough necessary
for me to protect, confounding the harsh takers,
who never think to ask, end by cradle, stroke,
don’t go below, see deeper that my nerves
are feminine, that pink is but a color,
that anyone could be love, not an
invitation, but a philosophy of
the mutuality of surrender

now you know why I write poems,
to understand better the heart human,
ferret out the chaff, the bad, for everyone else.

June 2020
Poetoftheway May 25
~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.
Poetoftheway Jul 2018
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
#Ilion codes brooklyn by NY
Poetoftheway Jan 17
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?
Poetoftheway Dec 2023
(when first I learned my
intellect paled by compare,)

I,
did not weep,
for my eyes
with love keeps

reminding with
every glance,
my intuition
is where my
value lay…

<>

of course, it a genius creative choreographer,
Lar Lubovitch,
to remind of the obvious
I forget
Poetoftheway Jul 2018
July 1


so much to do, the to do list so ginormous,
provides shady cover to
all the invasive species trolling the beach

but there it is in bold and beautiful black on my calendar app,

July 1

and a half year gone with its multitudinous
hordes of troubled waters
and no one offering a bridge for sale
when you really need it

a half a year is a rounding error
when you use your fingers to count the decades;
guess you could employ the pinkie as 1 1/2 (one & a laugh)

but that July 1 comes but once
so employ this kiss in the ***,
**** slap,
your children
and take the next step unafraid (but nervous)

6 months is a very long time when you’re losing the race
to Poppy Time


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeorgeC.Parker
Poetoftheway Jul 23
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!
Let
Poetoftheway Nov 2014
Let
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!
Poetoftheway Oct 11
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…
Poetoftheway Feb 2020
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
Poetoftheway Sep 2017
for the Missouri Ma'am, a reminder, for the "show me" lady,
who should know better than
like a novice lawyer,
never ask a question,
the question,
you don't want to
know the answer to...

struggling for months to answer truly
your Aristotelian query,
from now over a year ago:

who the hell writes poems like this...?

the older early answers are writ in another place, three, four drafts,
by another's face, and another hand, curdled and burdensome,
none to ever see complete-shun

now I believe, those early answers provided are out of sync,
life is messy and stressy and my pre-pubescent, precipitously yet
carefully considered, visionary imaginary invisibles, naive,
now comes similar, like this piece, which sat down and wrote 
in a minute, charging myself a lot,
mostly the costly breathing the stupid from a failure stench,
whose face is locked into a grimace

without missing a heartbeat,
messy and stressy,
fully forged, seeing a head ahead,
breathing out the fire of the dying dragon who does not,
give no longer giveth a good *******

see the man on the street, the man,
lying on the street whose cardboard sign says:

for two bucks,
will write you a commemorative,
custom tailored for the occasion, name and season,
no waiting, done in five minutes

four lines $2
eight lines $4
(obits cost more)


who the hell writes poems like this...?

the sad angry ***** *** on the concrete,
who stinks from
overuse and misuse,
everybody's fave faun, now gone,
now writing *****
for a living dying

now, that's who writes poems like this!
ask him nothing, and he will rhyme it for you, child,
the prior life, previous name, the perchance poems, ah, who cares...
just don't ask a question, that you may not want to know
the answer
Poetoftheway Oct 25
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 (😉)
1:06am
Poetoftheway Nov 2017
“My poems are often wiser than me, lean into a more keen universe of understanding.” Joy Harjo

<•>

instant recognition moment, Joy, your words,
(despite the kitchen cooking clanging chatter next door),
spilling into the quiet space of my thanksgiving brain

my wiser poems are insights inscribed inside,
exposed and released all in their own good time,
they, always blogging, leaning out to escape,
asking the Governor for clemency, early release

poems that are my self-defensive explicit explanations,
excuses, convoluted ratinocations, prosecutorial accusations, leveled by my disbelieving, revealing, sworn to silence
not-to-be-trusted-confessor-me against the indefensible

nobody likes a wise guy,  
but out they come, under the covers, dem poems  
of nighttime darkness, spilling beans and silent screams,
asking you if we remember that time when we...

yes, we.

but writ in the first person personal,
in words summoned from his own ****** deep darkness?

better in plain english when sharing shadings of universal,
and you leaning in on me from within,
presence of pressure, a plaintive palliative wailing,
ejecting an ******* of joy

when “please release us” is honored with our
collective wisdom

<•>
11/24/17
9:07am
Poetoftheway Jan 2018
this one, this one poem,
this old birth, renascent,
is not in the file

the file place where the
half started, nearly done,
but never truly satisfactory
fester, marinate, awaiting confrontation,
some kind of contentment of a sort,
final solution of annihation or completion

many a bare-***** title,
that the lords of hosts of
itinerant peddlers seeded,
notions await coating, stroking,
full flesh embodiment,
awaiting perhaps peepholes
for a someday poem

but not this one

this one I possessed,
better said, better reflected,
it possessed me,
rooted so deep, thick limbed,  
it, larger than my life,
though of my life,
cut, diced, sliced amd muddled

no confession of the cheapside here,
this, more a rescission, breaking of a contract,
annulment of a reputation in ten thousand words earned,
now comes, the longest day apology

why now,why ever?
there was a trigger that flipped the lock,
to open and accursed,
keys that filled the keyholes,
opened them peepholes,
that prior asked to kindly be
left let to rust in peace

this one composed itself,
asking no permission,
in the sense that I am more
recorder of the disorder,
than author

don't beg to differ, do not countenance opposition to
what here exposed, as the only witness,
I yam the guilty poet party, the jury, the prosecutor,
the fool client, all one and the same
who must perforce defend himself,
for no counsel needed for one
who guilty pleads
to charges of high crimes and misdemeanors, that
he himself created, so numerous,
no ear could tolerate the hear,
the alphabet of sins committed against
man and God*

of course you want details,
you wish enablement, the *** of the
simple syrup of satisfaction of the
titillation of the knowing

pick a letter any letter
and I will supply the action, or worse,
the inaction


for the greatest pockmarks that Cain marked this man,
were the failure to be brave,
be there when needed,
the shaming of thinking
instead of instinct reacting,
tiny inconsequential fears
that work word whisper
why you? not you?  somebody else?
when so clearly you
were the anointed one,
but stayed behind as
the one who disappointed

each grass blade censures,
each water sun sparkle accuses,
our prior direct line connection,
now ******
the winds voice shocked unto summer stultifying stillness
and you, still here, still reading?


cheated lied even murdered,

told to crank away the cranky somber,
unmistakeable,
but this shaming don't know no quitting time,
having surfaced, it is
my burnishment, the polished gloss
of rubbing off the now vanished varnish


who knew truths so foul could gleam,
my side listing, so angular lengthy,
that I walk unrighted,
signed below as,
this is the poet of the way, the who l am
June 6, 2017
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