Neck-deep in the business
of business,
only his head remains sleepless
in the dark of early mornings
to enlighten those
who sleep in, and spotlight
his peers who delight him.

His capital investment
is love and empathy;
he replenishes the funds spent
on an island of shelter,
the helter-skelter of Monday-Friday
a Distressway away.
North Country chair on the dock
over beckoning waves
sounding their Circe song,
drawing him to the bedrock
of peace
with himself and others.

Generous with his words
his head runneth over
and verses cascade down,
filling one from another
like a mountain of flutes
poured from a veritable jeroboam
of the muse's vintage.

Only love shows as he writes
doing the poetic hokey-pokey,
left foot in, left foot out.
He has turned my world around...
and that's what it's all about.

maelstrom meltdown on Third Avenue**

<•>

the crushing came from nowhere external,
walking calm, southbound on Third Avenue, 7:00am,
found myself lost, slumped up against an unopened bank

copious weeping an acceptable addition to the malignant,
maelstrom meltdown turmoil, turbulence,
such tumult that weighed so-heavy that my disordered confusion recognized no boundaries of shame,
all chaos fission fussing into fusion

new friends, passerby's all, asking, even pleading,
offering water, coffee, solace with milk, counseling kindness,
the inexplicity, thereof, a suited man, so normally workbound;
the timidity, to inquire what's wrong, fearful of an answer's danger,
the enormity, thereof, worse, the hollowness of any responsive words

there lay I, till the police asked me to move along
or be arrested; I moved on for was I not already arrested?

my vortex, center of a swirling eddy,
a wind whipped maelstrom whirlpool,
shortly to consumed, bedlam no more, and the blood in me revererbrates that mournful prayer music of my child that cohabits,
never departs or wavers,
n'ere ceases or changes,
Les Miserables
"Bring Him Home"
supplanting the desperation of a living sin,
mine own breathing sounds

as I said,
the crushing came from nowhere external


<•>
for Steve and Tonya

If misery was a gift
she had Christmas every day.
Her clouds had clouds
and she traded the silver linings
for an overstock of black mold.

 She once had been happy,
but peace never challenged her
the way chaos did.
Now, the only thing she loves
is tending her garden of discontent
with **** rakes and spades
for 50 shades of defeat.

 If she achieved every goal on her checklist
she kept Einstein’s,
Hawking’s,
and Jesus Christ’s in her pocket
to remind her of the insufficiencies.

She complains that she has no friends
and assures it
with a magnifying glass of faults.
The profile for her perfect man
is rigid. So rigid
that even God didn’t qualify.
If she found a glass half-full
she’d grumble that it wasn’t Cognac Champagne.

 She has long since forgotten
the important thing -
the power of light.
For light heals
light brings hope
light always dispels darkness
unless YOU become an eclipse
between it and the world.

[VERSION 2.0]

SHE FORGOT

If misery was a gift
she had Christmas every day.
Paper and bows
she’d wrapped herself,
hand signed cards
To: Me, From: Me
every box opened
then rewrapped
and opened again
with tattered Scotch-tape scars
unsalvageable
like the excitement of a child
who found her hidden presents
in the closet 10 days
before Santa would come.

And clouds! How did you know!?
Gray, snowless,
pointless holidays
hopelessdays
all her days.

Her clouds had clouds
and she had traded the silver linings
for black mold.
They always fit her just right.

She once had been happy
but peace never challenged her
the way chaos did.
So she labors passionately in
a garden of discontent
nurtured year-‘round
but always growing winter
watering resentment and acrimony
with bitterness,
drawn from a barrel full
of moldy cloud rain.

Regardless of what she might achieve
she reminds herself
of others doing more
comparing checklists with Jesus Christ’s.
If she had fed the 5000,
she would still be
lacking the crucifixion.

You see, nothing grows
by accident in a well-kept
garden

including withered friends whom
she weeds, though beautiful
assuring they will never be more.
Those she doesn't pluck, she bakes
under her magnifying glass of faults.

She knows nothing of content
whether love, or God,
or a half-goblet of possibility.
If she found a glass half-full
she’d grumble that it wasn’t Cognac Champagne.

She has long since forgotten
the important thing –
the power of light.
How it heals and grows
hopeful sprouts, green
through struggling soil.
Light always dispels darkness
unless YOU become an eclipse
between it and the world.
When you cast your own
shadow
it’s easy to forget
the way flowers
grow back on their own
every spring

the way the clouds
sometimes break

unexpectedly.