He taught them well
~for all the teachers here~

He cared enough,
So much so,  
Reasoned with them.
Never diminishing their simplest prose,
Even if it rhymed with rose....

He loved them in his way,
Once his student,
This year, then forever.

Their woes he read,
In every submission,
No threat treated idly,
He knew but one grade,
Caring.

One rule strictly observed,
No touching,
In this sad age, a crime without
Any absolution.

Then came a day.
School arrived, pre-bell by ten minuets,
His customary arrival time.

This day different.

The long corridor to the classroom entree,
Lined like Noah's ark, two by two,
On each side,
His students past and present aligned,
They would not let him pass,
Till he hugged each and everyone.

Thus, they taught him well the meaning of

Just rewards

For they were his,
Yes, they were his,
Not for the taking,
But for the giving.

His subject,
Creative writing,
of course!

Let us imagine, we write together!

You come for a visit,
From Germany, the Philippines, Singapore,
India, Nepal, even from industrial Leeds,
Bring me some Aussies and some Kiwis,
Green Tennessee, Nevada City (Ca?), the Canadian Plains
Hampshire & Haverford, where the H's get lost,
Even London, where everything is pensive expensive!
Cannot forget Minnesota, hotbed of poets restless.
If you are crosstown, let's meet on the Great Lawn in
Central Park, by Shakespeare's castle,
Let us turn my, now our, town into a belle-ville!

Side by side,
Stride for stride,
Manhattan, we connive
As our source, spring waters
For inspiration.

You come to me not as tourist,
But as explorer.

Ever-after twenty blocks,
Movement ceased, halted,
The mile, approximately travelled,
We then stop-sit.

Park bench, museum steps, bus stop,
Street curb, ok ok, Starbucks!

We each write a poem.
Exchange fluid words.

No proceeding until each have
Completed composing.
That's the rule.

A poem per mile.

I see this lovely island,
As home,
The sidewalk cracks, my veins,
The harshest of noises, my siren harmonies,
The dirt, my soul food.

But you, fresh eyes for me to
Discover what's been missed, for
Familiarity breeds cataracts,
Clouds the visionary.

I need you beside me
To be my teacher
To see my city
Anew.

I lay with two women.

In an Economy seat,
emblematic nowadays of
the global economy,
"value" disguised as
a shrunken package size,
for which the cost thereof
can hardly be described as
economical.

my extremities are engaged in
extreme sport,
my competition,
my aisle mates,
young ladies both.

In recognition of the
early hour of our departure,
I have been awarded by them,
a singular honor,
a distinguished cross, of sorts,
pinned with a medal,
for gallantry under siege,
the medal is not of
two crisscrossed rifles,
but crisscrossed elbows,
for gallantry
upon the cross
of the middle seat.

Blanketed and hooded,
or should I say "hoodied,"
slumber comes too easily to
my young traveling cellmates,
as does the
flexibility of the body.

They seem to revel in the words,
akimbo and limbo,
upon my adjacent
body parts.

My sides, my shoulders,
my haunches and paunches,
punched, pillowed and pilloried,
summarily donated
(with a consent slip
called an airline ticket),
to scientific research:
"In Furtherance of the Study of
Sleeping on Airplanes."

My lap, however, sacrosanct,
how else could I type,
of heartfelt matters,
read on,
for you have been both
punked and pranked!

My mind freely wanders
while body is
captive and captivated,
(did I mention they were
young and attractive?)
to the manner
in which we
juggle proximity.

My darling:
You lie beside me,
a distance of
but a few inches,
but closer still,
for I am inside you,
I am yours
for your flesh,
I take,
a blood vow,
sealed with divine blessings
of mine own composition.

For the children of my children:
You are crosstown,
but I hardly know ya,
I am of your flesh, your blood,
eternal and immutable,
no poem can be allowed
to reveal what I owe you,
secret debts unpayable
till and after
death us do part.

Proximity in my tears,
proximity in my fears
for all of us,
for thoughts of you,
come regular,
with every breath.

Proximity at the cellular level,
until that day your
words first emerge,
your are of me and my issue,
mine to behold,
mine with which to dream,
mind to mind and mine.

So now there are two,
where speech is not
a viable tool.
Know that when
I no longer compose,
I will still eternal communicate
in ways, beyond belief.

You:
So many we touch, so briefly,
lose and fade from daily sight,
yet, forever, treasured,
measure for measured,
each one of you,
parcel posted upon who I am,
the tick in the tock
of my beating heart's
final prayer,
Grace after the Meal of Life.

At my funeral
please inform the rent-a-rabbi,
that I was this and that,
labels to write on post-its,
to be stuck on my gravestone
that no one will come visit,
but please someone,
tell him to say these words:

Between,
there was no between,
there was
no approximation,
no proximity,
there was no scientific instrument extant,
that could measure
the close love,
the heart and home
in which his faith resided,
for those who touched his life.

I love you,
Like my instinct
To live another day
Though every night,
I want to die
Asking why
You're so far
Asking why
You're not here,
Why you're everything
That I hold dear,
Yet I'm clutching
At nothing,
But my heart
From the pain
And yet
There is no gain
Whatsoever,
And if ever
I may find
Relief
For this
My ever present
Grief,
It scares me
That I want so badly
To stay alive
Because of you...

APAD13 - 138 © okpoet

The Process

There is the notion, the urging.
The first spilling, the self-congratulatory
Commencement ceremony for
The process.

Then there is the first short-pause,
a quick-freeze hibernation. Then,
The bubbling,
The querying, the special fear,
What have I started?
Where is it taking me,
Am I properly undressed for doing
T  he process?

A new vocabulary,
an arm extended, but distended,
Words are all angled puzzled,
Capable of unity, but first,
Unshaped but swollen,
By the process.

Hatching, head-aching,
words arrive rushed, but disordered,
Confused by the process.

{The exception has it own character.

One kingly, run-on sentence birthed,
After silent labor, a full poem, fully dilated,
A shocking head of hair, full developed,
So fast does "it" fall onto the paper
The obstetrician arrives too late
To process.}

The exception, exceptional.

The normal, normative.

Twenty four hours of labor,
False starts, much screaming,
Painful joys, hardly seamless,
This process.

Distractions the enemy,
Compulsion the master,
As you choreograph the work,
In loving servitude to
The process.

You the doctor, insert probes,
Looking for the tumors, the out of ordinary,
For normal flesh is not of interest as part of
The process.

Finally, you do exhale,
With unique the pleasure, of the longest sweetest
Female ******.
The breathing less labored,
Tho whole, sensing a diminish-meant to convey
That completion is the end of part of you,
The near-end of the continuum, lessened but continuing
The process.

The Night King Ego died...

The time, the place, the setting:

T'is some hour for sleep, prescribed,
For me, the reality of sleep, proscribed.

The strains of Bach's
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major
Haunt.
Richard II's words
Give pause, precision refinement of my cause courant.

“No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the ***** of the earth”

Two am in New York, sleep,
As advertised,
Literally, a passing acquaintance,
Doesn't make it to
The side of the bed occupied by
100% of me.
Seems he went
From chimney to chimney
This past Sunday morn.
Not having a chimney,
He flue right over me.

No matter.
Company aplenty,
Ego and moi,
We, had a long talkie.
A bit of a wrestle, a staring contest
In a mirror, we watched ourselves,
In the pitch black
where clarity is perfect,
For nothing else exists,
But ego and me,
To distract us.

“I'll read enough
When I do see the very book indeed
Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.
Give me that glass and therein will I read.
No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds?
O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity
Thou dost beguile me!”

Called my lawyer just now,
ordered her to commence
the divorce papers, serve them ASAP,
I need to rid myself of
My oldest nemesis, my oldest friend,
Mine vanity, my ego.

Let me explain
myself to myself.
You may tag along for the ride.

Writing is more important
than any of the individual
Five senses
That feed this addiction.
Without sound, sight, touch, smell and taste,
I can live quite well,
Thankee.

But ****** boy mind needs to write
Simple survival.
No write, no life.

But ****** bad boy ego is a curse,
A contaminate of each and every
Line, stanza,word and verse.

"Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin”

At first, for an audience of three
I performed,
Me, myself and I.

But the suckiness creepeth in,
and etches my distorted face,
Salutations and gradations,
demanding confirmation
Of Shakespearen magnification.

Do you like me?
Do you love me?
****** all.

Curse ye King Ego and your vainglorious occupations,
Divorce me, from the sad isle of
Self
Self worth,
Pride, vanity insurance,
The most deadly of the seven
Deadly sins.

Ego desperate in kind responds:

"I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?”

Slime and slippery, want is what you feel,
Taste grief, need friends,
Sly devil, you twist thy cunning tongue,
The reverse, your plain meaning!
You need nothing but subjects,
In earnest and forever praise,
Absent them, you mood and whine,
A pretender, a poseur, a drug addict cursed!

Let us purpose to dispose of thy spirit earthly,
Slow starvation too good for you,
Poison, arrows, the hilt of my blade,
The neck, thine bowel,
Let me embrace,
Prefer your steel hot or cold?

If we both must expire, then it be so, for
My honor taken, my life forsaken,
My poetry in disrepute,
Until that day when I write for me alone,
And ally my scripts, in coffin, with me interred.

"My dear, dear Lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away
Men are but gilded loan or painted clay...
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one;
Take honor from me, and my life is done."

In Concert


From the cold bathroom floor
Under bath robe, on top of the bath towel
She says weakly,
I've undressed,
My tummy, messed,
You go to the concert,
By yourself.

I smile and say,
The only thing I will attend this eve is
To you.

We will be,
Just the two of us,
In concert.