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claire  Mar 2016
Moon Girl
claire Mar 2016
[new moon]
Moon girl is breath and curve. She catches light and throws it back to the universe. You see her and tremble, falling, as she once must have done from some heavenly place.

[waxing crescent]
Moon girl is wild. You follow her into the forest where she steps barefoot into a stream and takes your hand, water swirling over her feet and hers. She talks about roots and branches and flight. You are in love.

[first quarter]
Moon girl is dancing. Moving her body, dynamic, unpracticed elegance, shaping space, graceful, unafraid of audience, unafraid of pause, unafraid to bend and swish and rise, flying, electric, boundless. She gets everywhere. In your morning tea, clouds, April storms, wrapped in sparkling strung-out melodies, and especially in your head. You dream of waist, skin, movement holding her and warmth, closeness, desire kissing her and your heart burns soft inside your chest, a lantern lit by lunar beams.

[waxing gibbous]
Moon girl gives you violets. You give her your hands, open; your heart, open; your soul, open. You give her everything, or you try.

[full moon]
Moon girl is with you, always, this silver fire here in the filth and blood and terror, head on your shoulder, palm on your skin, speaking to you in ways language cannot, grounding you, saving you, saying your name, holy, lifting you up, repeated tenderness, voice low, eyes deep, glorious, and she is steel, she is iron, she is endless.

[waning gibbous]
Moon girl smiling. Moon girl watching. Moon girl brave. Moon girl rough and sweet. Moon girl creating. Moon girl radiating. Moon girl moving, toward you.

Moon girl.
Moon girl.
Moon girl.
Before I breathed
A young man held my mother
coaxed her with unpracticed grace
from Irish Catholic garments between
rough sheets that smelled
like carpentry and dirt.
In photographs from back then
we have the same wrinkled eyebrows,
the same reddish beards,
but different creases
kissing the corners of our eyes.

There are canyons in my knuckles
carved out by cold.
Not New Mexico cracks
in too-hot soil,
but staff-lines of the song
New England skin sings—
I cannot deny I was born here.

My father wears gloves now when he works outside
Says he never used to, but
the pain maybe got too much
Too many winters laying palms flat
against elm, ash, sycamore,
feeling for a pulse
counting on his wrist,
waiting for a murmur, subtle hush
in the rhythm;
telling symptom
of a faulty valve.

I work weekends at a veterinary clinic
and the doctor there does this, too,
though sometimes, being held,
cats purr too loud to listen
and I must reach across the room
and turn the handle on the faucet;
Most cats fear water.

Well Father, I cannot drink from the soil
and I do not always land on my feet
But father, listen to my heartbeat
Put your hand on my chest
and don’t fear as my body
creaks in the wind—

Hear it?

Father
My boughs, my winter-catchers
are thin, but
it is not root-rot, moth, parasite;
I am not felled
like the beard you hacked from your chin
the day you decided to love, to suffer
the rest of your life
with that Irish Catholic girl—
This is merely my first season.
Brush the snow from my shoulders.

Please
comfort me
quietly,
like skin,
cracking:
“My son
my sapling
you’ll grow.”


Walker Staples 15 March 2013
Gods1son Apr 2019
Bonded by love
Separated by greed and jealousy
I've seen families and friends fall apart
because of money
Empathy, sympathy, compassion, understanding, they've all gone missing
No wonder there's so much disunity

All we need is genuine love
I'm aware that statement is a cliché
Overused but not actively practiced
I say, true love is the way
Only if we would translate it from saying into doing.
neth jones Jul 2018
[Disclaimer : Collection edited from previous works for the purpose of competition.]

Notes during Jane’s night out
and its afterbathe.


Observe :

when your heart's beating overtime
you drool poison in your sleep
and you're looking down
on this wound of slaughter
simply turn your head
and repress the urge
for mischief
mirth
and laughter

Jane’s prayer of control


Observe :

Deathlessness 
becomes my Oedipus
Restlessness, my Vein
I spy from the Windows
upon the Exterior ;
It's Humid, Night and Rain
I pave my Thoughts ; 
all bark and froth
I Pound Drinks
It Powers tight my Bellows
I Hound the Clock
My energy thrives out a fan of nerves
I create an idea of what's soon to be
A plan of posable culture
forms flossy in my Tide
and
(as the Night Out steps up)
It Bites firm in my mind

I stride across the threshold
Betraying nothing
Of the Savage I've put together
Slough Suited in neat Disguise.


Observe :

Raw Meat and Red Teeth
I'm a Bow to the Moon
I Click over Cobbles
A Mad Energy
Bailed in my Stomach
I Task Myself
Open
And Daring Prey to Cross the Tension
Strung on my Senses
All Hot Gut and Wire
I'm Playing at Being
A Wild and Mean Thing
And I am Dedicated to this Wound.


Observe Others :

The exclusive clubbers present their cards of invite
And go swiftly about the social wetwork 
Their practices and manners 
Interact and ply
Pulling teeth of the guises
Harvesting an inflammation of words
A baffle of tongue chorings 
There is an hour
There follow more
Whittling time
Taming code
Resorting to a little physical...
Then they take their leave ;
Prizes into the nights snare.


Observe My Racing Brain :

Let’s put Sleep to Death
And purify madness
We shall practice giddy boils of imagination
Bright
And quick lives could flare
Brief celebrities
Hastily added
To this new chattering evolution
There'd be little lung for morals
And sorrows would be swift experiments
Let's make all lives what they really are
Put Sleep to Death
And be recognized
As blurs
As shots 
As stars and spittings
Firing in this universe
This playground
This raw wash of activity


Observe my Near Miss :

gunbeat
memory fleeing ;
murrums over soils
stresses and seas
desaturation
my colourless meat
mind down
hasty retreat
coma tones
my last retreat
failing the game
and foul on my feet

but then spoiled warmth floods back
my sponge reforms
damaged
but re-soaked
current again


Observe Hospital Stay :

Talisman
Brighter than a new spawned sage
Appears to me.
Abyss-less
It lisps of rest
And passes me its clay.
Obedient
I foster a dent
And begin to draw my feed.


Observe my learning :

take a breath
expel a myth
pattern a thought
create an action
reset and repetitude


Observe a Single Step :

This is a Me
(hands indicate body that they are a part of)
A responsive sock of meats
flush with The Other
and stringy with Thinker

From The Other 
operations may be performed
Within this mix
a View dwells
this could be said
to be a Me

The Being makes
a physical step forward
A Me indicated that it ought to
and it did


Observing Spark Plug :

...and 'oh my God' did I cry
I sparked like I was made of knives
and it carried me
I was adopted
I was addressing reasoning
burying it fiercely and fare
pounding clay over it
and enhancing my surroundings
content
yet
without trust
re-start
welled and sad
sick excited
a primal plug 
connected
and this world had once seemed so borrowed, adolescent and unpracticed.
2019 competition version
a weathered brain              Jane’s night out

Observe my Control Prayer

when your heart's beating overtime
and you drool poison in your sleep
and you're looking down
on this wound of slaughter
simply turn your head
and repress the urge
for mischief
mirth
and laughter

Observe

Deathlessness 
becomes my Oedipus
Restlessness, my Vein
I spy from the Windows
upon the Exterior ;
It's Humid, Night and Rain
I pave my Thoughts ; 
all bark and froth
I Pound Drinks
It Powers tight my Bellows
I Hound the Clock
My energy thrives out a fan of nerves
I create an idea of what's soon to be
A plan of posable culture
forms flossy in my Tide
and
(as the Night Out steps up)
It Bites firm in my mind
I stride across the threshold
Betraying nothing
Of the Savage I've put together
Slough Suited in neat Disguise.

Raw Meat and Red Teeth
I'm a Bow to the Moon
I Click over Cobbles
A Mad Energy
Bailed in my Stomach
I Task Myself
Open
And Daring Prey
To Cross the Tension
Strung on my Senses
All Hot Gut and Wire
I'm Playing at Being
A Wild and Mean Thing
And I am Dedicated to this Wound.

Observing Others Socially

Any platter but this sick heat beating sink of interbeing
With its ******* music and rapid lighting
Exclusive clubbers present their cards of invite
Go swiftly about the social wetwork 
Their manners interact and ply
Pulling teeth of the guises
Harvesting an inflammation of words
A baffle of tongues choring
There is an hour
There follow more
Whittling time
Taming code
Resorting to a little physical...
Then they take their leave ;
Prizes into the nights snare.

Observe Racing Brain

Put Sleep to Death
And purify madness
We shall practice giddy boils of imagination
Bright
And quick lives flare
Brief celebrities
Hastily added
To this new chattering evolution
There'd be little lung for morals
And sorrows would be swift experiments
Let's make all lives what they really are
Put Sleep to Death
And be recognized
As blurs
Shots 
As stars and spittings
Firing in this universe
This playground
This raw wash of activity

Observe Overdose  

gunbeat
memory fleeing ;
murrums over soils
stresses and seas
desaturation
my colourless meat
mind down
hasty retreat
coma tones
my last retreat
failing the game
foul on my feet

but then spoiled warmth floods back
my sponge reforms
damaged
but re-soaked
current again

Observe Hospital

Talisman
Brighter than
A new spawned sage
Appears to me.

Abyss-less
It lisps of rest
And passes me its clay.

Obedient
I foster a dent
And begin to draw my feed.

Observe Lesson

take a breath
expel a myth
pattern a thought
create an action
reset
repeat

Observe Step

This is a Me
(hands indicate body
that they are a part of)
A responsive sock of meats
flush with The Other
and stringy with Thinker

From The Other 
operations may be performed
Within this mix
View dwells
this could be said
to be a Me

Being makes
a physical step forward
A Me indicated that it ought to
and it did

Observing Spark Plug

...and 'oh my God' did I cry
I sparked like I was made of knives
and it carried me
I was adopted
I was addressing reasoning
burying it fiercely and fare
pounding clay over it
and enhancing my surroundings
content
yet
without trust
re-start
welled and sad
sick excited
a primal plug 
connected
and this world had once seemed so borrowed, adolescent and unpracticed

I throw up.






a weathered brain

Jane’s night out




Observe my Control Prayer

when your heart's beating overtime
and you drool poison in your sleep
and you're looking down
on this wound of slaughter
simply turn your head
and repress the urge
for mischief
mirth
and laughter





Observe

Deathlessness 
becomes my Oedipus
Restlessness, my Vein
I spy from the Windows
upon the Exterior ;
It's Humid, Night and Rain
I pave my Thoughts ; 
all bark and froth
I Pound Drinks
It Powers tight my Bellows
I Hound the Clock
My energy thrives out a fan of nerves
I create an idea of what's soon to be
A plan of posable culture
forms flossy in my Tide
and
(as the Night Out steps up)
It Bites firm in my mind

I stride across the threshold
Betraying nothing
Of the Savage I've put together
Slough Suited in neat Disguise.

Raw Meat and Red Teeth
I'm a Bow to the Moon
I Click over Cobbles
A Mad Energy
Bailed in my Stomach
I Task Myself
Open
And Daring Prey
To Cross the Tension
Strung on my Senses
All Hot Gut and Wire
I'm Playing at Being
A Wild and Mean Thing
And I am Dedicated to this Wound.




Observing Others Socially

Any platter but this sick heat beating sink of interbeing
With its ******* music and rapid lighting
Exclusive clubbers present their cards of invite
Go swiftly about the social wetwork 
Their manners interact and ply
Pulling teeth of the guises
Harvesting an inflammation of words
A baffle of tongues choring
There is an hour
There follow more
Whittling time
Taming code
Resorting to a little physical...
Then they take their leave ;
Prizes into the nights snare.








Observe Racing Brain

Put Sleep to Death
And purify madness
We shall practice giddy boils of imagination
Bright
And quick lives flare
Brief celebrities
Hastily added
To this new chattering evolution
There'd be little lung for morals
And sorrows would be swift experiments
Let's make all lives what they really are
Put Sleep to Death
And be recognized
As blurs
Shots 
As stars and spittings
Firing in this universe
This playground
This raw wash of activity




Observe Overdose  

gunbeat
memory fleeing ;
murrums over soils
stresses and seas
desaturation
my colourless meat
mind down
hasty retreat
coma tones
my last retreat
failing the game
foul on my feet

but then spoiled warmth floods back
my sponge reforms
damaged
but re-soaked
current again



Observe Hospital

Talisman
Brighter than
A new spawned sage
Appears to me.

Abyss-less
It lisps of rest
And passes me its clay.

Obedient
I foster a dent
And begin to draw my feed.




Observe Lesson

take a breath
expel a myth
pattern a thought
create an action
reset
repeat


















Observe Step

This is a Me
(hands indicate body
that they are a part of)
A responsive sock of meats
flush with The Other
and stringy with Thinker

From The Other 
operations may be performed
Within this mix
View dwells
this could be said
to be a Me

Being makes
a physical step forward
A Me indicated that it ought to
and it did




Observing Spark Plug

...and 'oh my God' did I cry
I sparked like I was made of knives
and it carried me
I was adopted
I was addressing reasoning
burying it fiercely and fare
pounding clay over it
and enhancing my surroundings
content
yet
without trust
re-start
welled and sad
sick excited
a primal plug 
connected
and this world had once seemed so borrowed, adolescent and unpracticed

I throw up.
C Jacobine Oct 2013
To a manner unpracticed I thoughtfully drift,
preparing the actions in which such hope might exist.
And though hopelessly broken, I cannot refrain
an intent that has woken: a refrain of disdain.

These shames be postponed while the outcomes could be,
lest the speaker alone should condone prophecy.
Other factors removed, in truth I'd concede;
for the evidence proves that I cannot succeed!

But in spite of the actor, hope must persist
though external factors and the chances of risk.
-Elicit reaction by means that are blind-
so that a manner unpracticed becomes a manner defined
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2016
~~~
"I would look at them in the audience:
the frail old lady with thin white hair;
the big, rough biker-looking guy;
the pleasant middle-aged teacher;
the silver-haired accountant with two young kids;
the beat-up middle-aged woman with rheumy alcoholic eyes who is sweetly gracious, modest, as she moves to give you a seat;
the obese, wild-haired man bursting out of his torn, cracked leather jacket;
the giggly, chatty middle-aged redhead in the NoLabels.org sweatshirt;
the Patti Smith-looking woman, tall, pale and austere; the hunky football player;
the skinny hipster girl in architect eyeglasses and torn jeans. Everybody listening so closely to the candidates.
Beret guy, too, with a white bandage on his eye and a beard that went down to the third button of his shirt.
What a crew we are."

Peggy Noonan, political columnist, writing about a New Hampshire meet-the-candidates Town Hall 2016

~~~

confess here an avowed legally, registered voter,
who fails to vote with almost
perfectly regular regularity

for his solitary voice almost always
swallowed whole,
living in the futility utility of a self-selected body politic,
geographical location where
dissent is a now pathetic revolutionary concept lost
in the new intolerance of a place,
where there is none of the
demanding New England hampshired state
that brooks, adheres to
only the standard highest,

"live free or die"

in the sweeping crush of nationalized,
commoditized would be Commodores,
whose sounds bite,
elephantine donkeys and donkeyed elephants,
leading us to the same slaughterhouse,
by different paths

but I am a crew member here...

proud and free,
proud to be,
amidst this mess of characters,
homogenous in their pursuit
of independent assaying
of the character of men
to whom we would
our liberty, entrust

God, it gives me breathing space,
these unusual common folk, who with the
unpracticed eye of a periodic literary critic,
in their first-in-the-nation primary,
selected the would be revolutionaries extremists,
polar opposites

God bless their orneriness,
though both of their final aisles choices to me,
anathema,
message received,
we are tired of the ordinary hacks,
who think their longevity means success,
want a sea core change,
a fresh revolution
as principled as the original...

but they suit up, on uncomfortable
folding chairs,
willing to listen,
all the while acknowledging
their presence physical,
evidentiary proofs each,
that you can fool some of the people
some of the time,
but you cannot fool
all the people
all the time

a man proud to be a crew member,
of this cantankerous irascible population
who will vote this time
but not on any machine that offers up
more of the same ole insane,
will exercise my vote,
in the most old fashioned now waining way

*the same way
I write poetry,
upon a ballot where I will
write in, write on with
ink and paper,
tag a name of person
good enough for representing the
interests best
of this rag tag crew o'mine,
who I love so....
July 4th - There are no tribes in America
There are no tribes in America.  This is my annual reposting of my July 4th poem, written years ago.  After reading about some tribal warfare in a far away land, I wrote this true story down....
~~~~~~~~~
one July 4th,
many years ago
walking the streets,
of the city of Nice, situe
on the Cote D'azur of France,
on the Mediterranean Sea,
where ships of navies
may safely park,
sailors ashore
leavened to
disembark^

how I came to be there is a
poem for another time

walking the streets,
of the palm tree resort
along Le Promenade Des Anglais,
coming at me,
Three Sailors,
unmistakably
American

One white,
One black,
One from California,
which I believe,
is still part of the USA

how we fell upon each other
in warm embrace,
smiling, bestowing
blessings of grace
not as strangers,
but as fellow signatories
on the Declaration of Independence

brothers,
long lost, reunited
as if it had been many years,
since we had our arms entwined,
one family from one far away united place

dialectical differences ignored,
even the wide-eyed 'Bama boy,
totally comprehensible,
for on that say,
we spoke a language that
encompassed a single brotherhood,
a common history,
all on that
holy day

no tribes in America, no colors,
no religions,
only brothers-in-arms

I need not choose to believe
that should it happen again
twenty years hence,
perhaps with their sons,
my embrace will exactly
the same be,
for I know it true,
for there are
no tribes
in an
American heart
ottaross Jun 2014
Difficult for unpracticed hands
Valuing it, protecting it, nurturing it.
It should have been all that she needed to carry
She felt sure it was there,
In the dark place
Beneath the joy,
Between this breath
And the next laugh.

I see some echo of it there still.
It shows itself in the negative spaces
And desperately needs the light and air.
She thinks it small and cheap, and well-covered
Beneath the bite of a vinegar voice
In the folds of a silken smile
Muffled by the thick wool of persona.
  
She keeps her arms folded
Her irises blank.
Idly pulling loosened threads,
And tunes the prototype.

Sometimes there is the terror
Of cutting isolation
Of an icy apartness  
In a dense and moving crowd
Of friends and cohorts.

Once she tried to let it free.
Arms spread wide in the street.
Ready to give that gift to herself
From deep within the erected façade
Amid the mass of anonymous humanity,
Amid the ******* legs and cab-hailing arms.

Later, a mirror brings a cold draft
Chilled by the empty spaces.
And then a fear,
Not knowing where it was anymore.
Hidden too deeply?
Lost along the path?

Maybe it was never given to her at all.
Cadence Musick Oct 2013
i am cracked ribs when it's
raining and the road
is slick
with car oil-
car crashes.
stinking rubble,
the bottle of oxycontin
that rests by your bed,
cold dead feet motionless in the morgue.
i am the graceless stroke of a violin
in unpracticed hands,
the rip rip ripping of a dress
torn off,
the chill in winter breath.
you are the sun that found me
fixable,
not hopeless
or yellow addiction.
you were the cast that healed my broken
bones
piecing back together my
fragmented whole.
Hao Nguyen Apr 2016
We all derive from the same paper
that which is forcefully folded,
patiently pressed and
carefully creased.

We all speak through the same pen
that wishes for stencils,
grimacing at unpracticed,
crooked lines.

We all take action with the same scissors,
cutting away from the whole
to create paper people
holding hands.

We all are constructed in the same accordion,
snipping away the background
that falls like snowflakes
to create identity.

We all fear severing the same sections
that conjoin one being to another,
waiting with knives in our hands,
anticipating to cut.

We all fall from the separation,
slicing the connections that bind us,
sacrificing our grip
that suspends us in safety.

We all meet at the bottom
of the same paper shredder,
lost in the screams of its blades,
obsessing ourselves to be
broken pieces of an individual,
but forgetting that we paper people
once all derived from the same paper.
jad Jul 2014
It was midday and the clouds loitered around the edges of the sky as if they were suspicious of the sun. Beams of light ricocheted off of goggles and snow and beads of sweat that were caught in my oldest brother's beard.  The hike up was our way of earning our run. The hard work and constant determination to get what was important to us made the view and the ridge taste so much sweeter. Finally able to rest, I planted a granola bar in my mouth and squinted through a frame of icy eyelashes to see a sight I had seen before, every day for the past week, but still punched the air out of my lungs. The powder was up to my thighs and the snow lovingly seeped its way into my boots just to kiss my toes with painful numbing. I wiggled them to try tickling some sanity and warmth into them. I only hoped that my toenails wouldn't fall off, but they would inevitably be purple. I pulled up my balaclava to dodge the lunges of frostbite's ravenous teeth. Each nip of cold, the company of my brothers, the view, and the raw interaction with the mountain created a moment that reeked of a dream: a seemingly perfect balance between pain and pleasure.
      The hype of the day kept us from settling our thoughts and quickly my siblings were bounding down the mountain on tele-skis, skis, snowboards, and giddiness. My mind was simultaneously crowded and opened by the superfluous love shared between myself and the people I shared this moment with, the people I look up to, the people who raised me.  My four brothers' elated screams echoed off the mountain ranges that boxed-in the valley below. I joined their chorus of "Shred the Gnar!" and yodels, knowingly embracing the carefree and somewhat foolish mindset of Mother Nature's glee. My skis led the way and found fresh tracks. The lines of the songs that blasted into my ears were translated into the lines that I skied. The music shuffled from Wu-Tang Clan to the Tibetan Monks Of Gaden Sharste & Corciolli but the abrupt change of pace did not hinder my contentedness. I have gained a knack for happily going with the flow, knowing that what the universe hands me is often what I need. The peaceful bellowing of the monks allowed me to take a moment to appreciate that my life is this one on top of this mountain not limited by my economic state with this physically fit and capable body and this working mind. While just minutes before, the fearlessness of Wu-Tang's hip-hop allowed me to bring an angst and stoke for life into my current experience, while also finding the gangster within me. The random shuffling of songs only fed my innate addiction to change and let my enthusiasm multiply and blossom.
Although childish in our hearts and in our unpracticed aerials, we were not childish in our perspective. We had a shared mature understanding of the bigger picture. This was a vast understanding of the world that comes with being a small, overrated mammal sliding on some sticks down the biggest thing it could get its hands on. Each of us took our fair share of tumbles and we iced them each with cacophonous laughter that got muffled by mouthfuls of snow. To be atop a mountain, to go almost unnoticed by a mountain really teaches the skill of not taking things too seriously. In one instance, I grabbed some air and landed scattered into a disorganized pile of all my gear. But my commitment to the bettering of my skills, my world, and myself, let me rise from even my greatest wrecks and the most deadly of wreckage, not unscathed but changed and always for the better. With such a brutal fall, I gained the experience necessary for landing it next time...and the next time, I did.
         After reaching the bottom, without hesitancy, we followed our spontaneous urges to pursue more. Every run I took and every moment spent on that mountain came from a drive to experience and learn. It was based off of my ceaseless search for something new...or for the rad or for the gnar or for swagger or for living a life that could inspire. The seed of this search was planted in me by my five older siblings who all held within their bellies a fire of the same breed. And we sewed that common thread together on ridge lines and in powdered fields where nature is in perfect harmony with man and my head is in perfect harmony with my heart...where my intelligence and ambition trust one another and I trust them because they have gotten me this far and I know they are not tired yet.
Left Foot Poet Aug 2016
none more than I,
surprised and wary,
that my all-my-life
urbanized body,
be so unnaturally well attuned
to a slight degree
temperature modification

I,
proud city dweller,
born and bred,
urban dust,
the sandblast used
to erode and etch-a-sketch
my body's skin pores hollows,
by definition, pride and myth,
a tough skin necessified
to survive where
plants cannot

the chill of fall,
and the follow up of
it's 'whiteout' afterwards,
faintly dimly but
remarkably present,
unmistakably different
from the chilling moisture
forming on the ice bucketed bottle
of dinner's colden, golden,
waiting white Sancerre

the lowest, coldest single note
any viola can exhale,
I,
hear coming from Itzhak Perlman's
so close, Shelter Island retreat,
a foghorn warning
clearly felt, smelling its deep fried heard mournful warning,
tonal hum, swelling from the outside in,
not despite, but to pointedly spite
the surrounding humidity condensation of August
on the air cooled window panes

the very same humidity
that makes humans
curse the blessing of sweating,
registering slews of
no-one-cares complaints to
no-ones-listening people,
about the drying out everywhere
wet dampness of the end of the
simmering season

a sliver, a musk,
a prophet's portent,
so subtly well entrenched,
secretly by nature sent,
a realtime single line of code,
message that winter is indeed coming,
but not to the Seven Kingdoms,
but to the Czar's literary summer palace

I,
the sole prosecution witness,
to winter's germination
as the evening cools,
testifying about the acorn droppings
felt beneath flip flops,
like hurtful peas
beneath a princess's ten deep mattresses,
reminders of too soon time to be mourned
as gone, gone, gone
the summer,
the peak of the foliage, the zenith, the crest
of this old and very peculiar man

but one?

how can this be,
one **** degree
of Fahrenheit
leads directly to
sniffles and endless
gesundheists?

one **** degree,
separates the operatic arias,
the shower sing-a-long songs of his summer soul's
contented tented revival,
which now, in these sultry days of  August,
he sings, so swell,
practiced with an artistic style of
summer lazy's 'doing nothing'
so, so well

soon to suffer the mysteries of
the longest day
of wintery night,
where silent snow falling,
beautifies but makes the man
put down his pen and
reread his summer poetry

tonite,
we fine and dine
dressed in summer attire,
sock-less, coolest linen with cotton blended,
only ******, good natured,
political discussions allowed,
some daring souls,
bare their left shoulders,
more tan skin out than in,
while others defend
the natural human right
of man to wear in tandem,
white socks and ugly cargo shorts

all the fabrics, all the friends,
crinkling wrinkling upon the tannins
of sweet brown sugar of caramelized skin

some wearing bright pastels
clean new white T's,
so eye brightening-whiting-delighting,
that they are legally required,
and illegal to wear anytime else,
except for this one abbreviated quarter
of the best days of his life

smell the snow,
hearing  the boots and parkas,
making tramping noises upon snow cleared paths
swimming unhappily across
slushy street corners, almost mountain pass impassable
all these molecules, wafting in the coolness
of the August shore breezes ,
fedex'd  up from the polar south winds
of wintertime Argentina

all of these hints,
present and accounted for
in the atmosphere,
but of them,
I,
do not speak
not out loudly anyway

why,
to be lost beneath,
under the munching noises of summer corn
summer fruits, tongue exploding,
clinking of happy glasses,
toasts of "what a great summer eve!"
the wisdom of silence loudly asserts

for who am I to
rob us the deceit,
the human natural conceit,
that the future is the identity of our
permanent press present

that the unpracticed pleasures
of lapping up breezes,
the genteel salted aroma of
heated sweated forehead beads and sea water,
the cocktail odors of barbecue sauce,
fishing boat's diesel, Campari,
root beer floats,
strawberry shortcake's speaking of its peaking,
little children laughing with carousel joy at
running unshod and free upon bunnies and frogs,
all words and thoughts somehow miracle rhyming with...
forever

soon to end in the
disenchantment of reruns on
a flickering black and white tv night,
once again, no longer obsolete,
unlike the man

the eyes glisten from held back tears,
all come to give me hugs, thinking
the old man, in his white apron is
joyous simply happy or simply,
grill smoke got in his eyes

but that one **** degree...
8-7-16     7:21am
_______________

The Cold Heaven
W. B. Yeats

Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven
That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,
And thereupon imagination and heart were driven
So wild that every casual thought of that and this
Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season

--------------

DAY

84°HI
RealFeel® 91°
Precipitation 2%
Mostly sunny and less humid
WSW 6 mph
Gusts: 10 mph
Max UV Index: 7 (High)
Thunderstorms: 0%
Precipitation: 0 in
Rain: 0 in
Snow: 0 in
Ice: 0 in
Hours of Precipitation: 0 hrs
Hours of Rain: 0 hrs

NIGHT

65°LO
RealFeel® 64°
Precipitation 12%
Clear


all clear?

— The End —