(and I cannot live
from with-out)

<>
a poem in appreciation to Rossella Di Paolo

<>

I, too:
          - am an embryonic work in progress,
well into my seventh decade, with no ending in sight


                                I too,    
live in the house of poetry, the address likely differs,
but suspect the innards of the houses differs little,
the decor,  quite similar

         - my house shrewdly requests a rethinking,
                                    noting, it lives my artifice,

with in & with out

Then, we are a We:
                                  
          - my cavities house her, She, Poetry is of Ruth (1) born,

          - Poetry, She, reminds me, ”whither thou goest, I will go”


This duality:
          - where the haunting of words providential,
             emanate, both inhabiting & inhibits my breathing
              She, a fearsome creature, a fearful-something,
for it tears me and shreds tears its demands be wrung
from with in to with out

She, Poetry:
          - leaves me gaping, hollow, fills me with
            depressurizing boreholes exposed to the elements  of
            externalities of an admixed atmospheres, that nature demands             be refilled, fresh in, stale out,
for which the artifice trick is knowing which is which

when Poetry’s  birthing:
          - chest pounds, heart-rate beats heavy metal,
            abdomen contracts, there then, no languid in my language,
            no help untangling the alpha-bet jumbling,
            product of the screams of pushing,
squeezing it forth

you’re hoping to quick-catch newly formed combinations,
for if you fail, a poem
noisily crashes to and through the floorboard cracks,
where poetry’s chaotic glinting etes
maliciously glimmer~winks at me
with a sarcastic thank you

“ah, too bad, another creation stillborn,
gone to rest, biting the nether dust,
without hope of resuscitation…”*

just another unfinished work in progress

periodically
a survivor clean caught, transcribed, edited to be finished,
amniotic fluids cleared,
poem resurrected
blessed with eternal life,
readied to be shared and delivered,
affirmed

and you say to no one and to everyone:

this poem will be our poem,
wither it goes, ascending, descending,
all live in the house of poets,
one house,
many apartments,
each poem a god,
and
my God will be our God,
your God, my God,
in the House of Poetry

Willow herb floating

on silent certainty

ashes of sighs


not fleeting,

unvapoured on the

blossom of the rain,

I am too light to

pull or push

the swing of delight

through this land.




The rain left me for a

while

sun unshielding

-a thousand widows

more unyielding than the depths . .

Once shadowed whisperers

of delight,gossamer

sparkling , descending

their chains

of necromantic hope.





Lilith is no night owl

she is mother, eve

and my becoming:

sweet earth spun

at once ,

exhaling her .





The see saw

bumped gently

on my chin

it is a most gentle

form of awakening.




The silence bore no whispers

till sinking through the quicksand

-or was it quicksilver?

-in any case I could smell little

in my amniotic amnesia.

I made ten thousand friends,till their soap

made this place clean.



Is this a seed or a dying

hopefulness

-is my sallow sowing

beyond all shores of

reproduction;

a reflection of the child

they dared not bear?



Is my last breath like this

a forgotton yielding

will they catch me

as I fall ?

-(sweet earth)-



This moth of my ending,

a shallow recantation,

my fears-

their memories, mere

testubes of

stylish hope .





I breathe the elegant stare

you have forgotten .

Once more free

from such

rememberance






I need not ,

remained not ,

your imploded ,

wakefulness .





A thousand pardons

exhaled like silk

entwining

an unfinished race

spider of a thousand eyes .



One may say

I was

stared

to death

but surrogate air

mocks childish pity.



Taut refelexions

bear salt echoes

in silk convulsions

fresh water

a veneered hope .



Easier in death than life

is a child's sorrowed

partings ,

the illusion of

bouyancy

rippled tides

unfelt.



The oceans have not enough salt

for such shrunken sorrow.

if we could but once

have shared

unbreathed aspersion .



The room has come and gone

the pillow quite undry

unforgotten

unremembered.

A web untouched

Om
In The Beginning
Sound
needed a medium
for dissemination
space and time
was born.
As I sleep sitting cross legged I know these things to be Truth.
All things consist of matter
matter of molecules
molecules of atoms
atoms of  atomic particles
atomic particles of subatomic particles
subatomic particles composed of strings
yes strings
the vibrations of strings at certain resonant frequencies --
Sound
I’m referring to Sound --
accounts for the creation of all things
all things composed of matter --
I matter You matter --
and Sound is the variation of pressure waves propagating through matter
through You, and Me, We
are hereby beings of Sound
Per-Son
Earth, Sun
the birth hum permeates us all
all things soak in the amniotic ocean of Sound
it is the background, the foreground, before Sound
was Silence
Silence is the antithesis of hissing existence sibilance is diametrically opposed to nothingness antimatter to matter in an asymmetrical universe.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there as witness, it still fell and the timbre transpired, to be
is not to be seen, perception exists within existence
Real is a three inch wide magnetized Mobius Strip spinning counterclockwise in a corroding
centrifuge of perception carbon dated to The Beginning
and The Beginning occurs every second
in an umbrella opening in a firestorm
the collision of soapy bubbles
clay in a snow kiln
uranium decaying
a sari being wrapped
the chopping of wood
ice capped volcanoes
an oily rainbow
the exposure of negatives
the grinding of coffee beans
a cobra swaying
You can charm a cobra by biting an apple
the blur of sweat and palms on stretched animal skins
congas bongos tablas djembes tom toms snares timpani
hands at warp speeds in an innate rhythm inundating time
four four two four four three seven eight twelve o’clock
what is time to Sound but a permanent witching hour for feet to frenzy?
each stomp a falling star that sears a crater, each crater a subwoofer for the Earth’s movements
Sound is time being rendered elastic
quantized digitized equalized filtered phased distorted compressed processed
time has been tamed
fast forwarded paused rewound slow motioned skipped
from one timeline to another, Sound is the de-lineation of time
the unraveling of space the curling of dimensions dementia in rhyme
minds are traveling back to the present, pre sent from the future, the future has passed
We are light, massed
night is just another shadow our auras cast
mating calls
jarred halos
woodwinds in an airlock
disemboweled factories
pyramids of electric chairs
pipelines in the desert
grief slumped shoulders
paper lanterns in a whirlpool
poems read in darkness
laughs sobs shrieks cries cackles yelps howls laughs whimpers
worlds ending with a BANG
an infinite piece quantum philharmonic orchestra clamoring to be heard over the revolution of the spheres
We sing
reverberating to replace Saturn’s rings
every single note a secret love letter passed ear to ear read instantly
all sounds converging to singularity
an accretive disc of sonic entropy spinning around one point
all We have left to do is drop the needle
call
and let the response cascade into us
Chain Gang of the Universe swinging old ***** spirituals
the momentum of our pulsing song accelerates beyond relativity
the amplitude of our vibration transmits from soul to womb
each newborn tongue blessed with a honeyed Om
My son, Your daughter, I taught her, You taught him
and now they can play cat’s cradle with their strings
tap dance on quarks and make fiddlesticks sing
So even now the Rabbis sing
Hear O Israel, the Lord is Sound…
As I sleep sitting cross legged I know this Truth to be all things.
Om

I remember from my first memories with all senses humming waking up on Sunday mornings to the squealing seagulls. The smell of briney sea air was sharper

On most sunny sunday
mornings I would awken and lay in bed wake..dreaming for what seemed like hours.
The smells of grandma's rose and flower garden mingled with the smell of sunny Sundays.
The BBC wafted in through kitchen and bedroom windows.Mozart and Sinatra tag teamed  against The Ink Spots and, Stan Getz.  The Swallows flew back to Capistrano on yearning wings.
Then up and out on walk and sprint to the Caribbean sea, a gem coated shimmering twinkling dancing blanket of rising sun meets amniotic blue churning as froth and mist drifted in a sunday sermon from the water's deep and shallow.

A bubbling embrace as sprint turns to
Swan dive into the Sunday morning sea.
Seven day ritual baptism in the Sunday morning sea...at one with and free.
Now.
A sprint to the bobbing fishing boats that never drew fish from their restfull retreats of the morning Sea.

Breakfast
The sounds of tinkling teacups another ritual as granny stirred brown sugar and condensed milk into a carmel swirling with Johnny Cakes and coconut oil fried eggs waiting and wafting out
To the Sunday morning sea.
My Puppy and me then down through the flower garden.
Of we scampered with cares falling away and secrets to share while throwing stones into
The Sunday morning sea
My puppy named Ranger,barefeet and knee pants the hot sting on my ankle from a chastising fire ant rudly stabs at my reverie
As far as the horizon will let.
My imagination flees and unfetters to shores unknown that kiss and caresses my Sunday morning sea.