It's just a moment
A crinkly smile
An innocent thought,
About babies or ambitions,
And suddenly I'm old,
Suddenly I crinkle.
I watch myself crack slowly,
No wait--all too fast.
Suddenly it's empty, as it was before
But I can't remember
It must have slipped my mind.
What does nothing feel like?
Like sleep or pointless thought?
Is it rice cakes or white or black,
Or all those words unsaid?
I'll never know what nothing is.
Not even when I'm dead.
Nothing comes and nothing leaves
The nothingness again.

It isn't names that brings me there,
Or tombs or words or history,
It's when I blink and see before me,
Me, but crinkly.
Me, but looking back on the supple face of now,
Looking back and seeing the story from the other end,
And standing in the epilogue
All in a single blink.

I see so much, and hear so much
I smell, touch, I taste and fear
And love and hate and joke so much
It should have killed me
Made my hardware overheat,
Made me want the nothing.

But even when I see her,
(Me, but crinkly)
I know she's laughed and cried much more,
And I'm glad I gave her the chance

Crinkly in madness, self doubt and pity
I laugh like a madman and speak as if witty
I dance with your demons for they dance with me too
I lost mine some time back
They're left dancing in you
For lovers come and go
And so do demons
You know

And I wonder 'neath dimming night light
Why happiness's never seem to sit right
And then become little forgottens
in all the wrong places
Where flesh lies half rotten
In little jump-jerkles
Upon sensing the fear
Of being forgotten, here
I know

That maybe some weren't ever meant
To lead it foolish and giddy
Joyful and witty
Maybe I
Aye I
Was destined to die
Crinkly in madness, self doubt and pity

"Be the harpooner of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody, comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders into crinkly eye-lined smilers."



l<>|

writ many years past, just another dusted off phrasing,
composed from life's lecture notes, collected by eyes tired
from the hazing,
eyes wearied by the addict-strong,
incessant observational needing,
of celebrating the loopy,
they who make this planet
capable of laughing at itself,
a helping habit for mutual survival...

should you spot a man ungainly wrought,
weighted down by a harpoon cross
cursed  'pon his Cain-marked back,
you need not move to the other side,
'tis only a make-believe poet,
with his recording device,
seizing your rhapsodies to rhyme,
his collected artifacts, your crinkly smiles,
his meat, his metier, his chosen career,
a comfort caresser of your illusions into
a shapely sculpture of words for you to keep,
a token of your now examined worth,
a celebration for the keeping...

Hello Poetry


Yearned.
Ached.
For so long, for a community,
That values the ineffable wonder
Of a wordsmith's creations, intended to
Repair himself and the world with bullets of
Verses.

And here you are.

Like/Dislike, matters not,
So long as we value each others work,
And the the heart echoes within
What the eyes read and the mouth whispers.

The array and disparity of your names,
A delight,
Each name a poem
In its own right.

So I resubmit a question for your consideration,
The answer is now known,
The answer is all of us.
May 2013
---------------------------------------------------------


­Who's Who In Poetry  



T'is a curious thing,
these verbal peddlers, tribal members,
famously well known to no one,
perhaps at best,
a kindred few, fellow-travelers.

Each a troop,
bloodied, purple hearted,
word-wounded,
anonymous unto each other,
yet all bonded intimates,
in solitary struggle united,
yet sea-parted by the very nature
of the solitude of composition.

All poets are Cain scar-marked,
purposed for everyone to see,
a warning to rabbled boors,
imagination suppressors!

World:

cherish these flawed ones,
gentle these frail but gritty,
the Lord has tasked them
to be prophets in one tongue untied,
undo the strife of Babel's division.

Poets!

Be the harpooners
of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody,
comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy
to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders
into crinkly eye-lined smilers.

With clinical observation,
dense and demanding,
make us laugh at
the comedy of our situation,
teach us our free-to-see peep show,
reveal, unseal us
with **** empathy!

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
tastes his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
and becomes one who was,
yet is,
because of you,
in poetry.
---------------
Postscript (1/25/17)

Even more true today, than four years ago.
Thank You.

queasy
upset stomach
shaky knees
spill out of a packed van
with choking seatbelts.
feet that are tired of wearing shoes
and sitting
for houuuuuuurrrrs
hit the hot concrete...
foreign land:
gas station.
dad tells me to run around a bit
stretch my legs
mom sits in the car
pregnant
fanning herself
smiling
at me
out the open
window
i smile back.
i'm wearing the white shirt
with the blue trim
that mom made me
special
for our trip
it has a silly sun
with sunglasses and a crinkly smile
that she embroidered on it
it is
my favorite...
i smell the acrid gasoline
look around
the first time
i've been
anywhere
i am only eight
dad comes out of the store
his hands full
of funny little cardboard boats
me and my sister
run up to him
he hands me
a chili dog
with onions...
first bite....
burst of onion
spice of chili
sweetness of bread
orange
mouths
i look at my sister
she points to my shirt
shows me the chili stain
against the perfect white
i
cry

First, I spotted the gaggle sagging innocently enough,
One might say blissfully reflected in the laptop screen.
Then out of nowhere came the phrase, "whodunit?”
And from the hanging sag, a sly, silky, voice whispered,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

Clearly a few clues were left behind, wispy hair strands,
Scattered age spots, skin tags, a few moles, posed upon a
Pale listless, crinkly, lightly pimpled, surface, and from a
Wrinkly, shallow crevasse a voice teased,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

Totally hooked, curiosity piqued, southward I spied,
A once upon a time perky, treasure chest, half hidden,
Now two solemn, empty grain sacks laid east to west,
And close to death but not quite, lazily they muttered,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

The final chapter, an ancient, untold mystery solved,
No crime, no villain, nothing stolen, only flesh alchemy,
Where a plateau of supple, touchable, skin once resided,
A lumpy, bumpy, flabby flesh pillow lolled, and it murmured,
“Ahhh, Boston cream pie, a quick nap, that's the ticket."

Out on the path, I wait for her
my friend who’s just for me.
We play and sing and laugh a lot,
though no-one else can see.

You call her imaginary,
but she’s real and best of all,
she’s made a solemn promise
to be here when I call.

My mum says she’s not really there,
though the truth is mum don’t know
the fun me and my friend have had
or the places that we go.

We get lost in the forest
and fly up to the stars,
then sit upon the rooftops
throwing jelly beans at cars.

We’ve dug up buried treasure
and stared Blackbeard in the face.
And we’ve ridden Pegasus
to see the earth from space.

If you think I may be fibbing,
I’ll tell you it’s no lie -
to say we’ve seen most everything,
my secret friend and I.

But now the time is ticking,
she’s never usually late.
But here I am still waiting
sitting by the gate.

I feel the world revolving
as seasons come and go.
I never thought she wouldn’t come,
but perhaps I finally know.

That secret friends are mortal
and don’t last forever,
but I’m quite sure I won’t forget
the times we spent together.

I think I hear the clock indoors
chiming half past four.
The day has almost passed without her,
I’m not so little anymore.

But, just as I turn to go inside,
I hear the squeaking gate
“I’m so sorry,” my friend cries
“I didn’t mean to be this late”!

The world turns again to greet the moon
and my friend and I shall roam,
weaving in and out of dreams
making memories our own.

So, grown-ups if you’re finding,
modern life hard to survive,
wait a while, by the gate
you never know who may arrive.

Though you may not have seen them
for about a hundred years,
secret friends remain with us
and help allay our fears

that we all grow old and crinkly
and forget how to dance and laugh
just have a little patience
and pause there on the path.

Oh freddled gruntbuggly
thy micturations are to me

As plurdled gabbleblotchits
on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee
my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts
with my blurglecruncheon,

see if I don't

Compliments of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy & Wiki

A GARLAND FOR NATIONAL POETRY DAY 2014

My Once and Only Garden

It’s no longer mine
But I pass it
Nearly every morning.
It’s untended,
Overgrown, autumned,
The camellia needs a prune,
The irises have gone;
The garden needs
A good seeing to.
A sad garden to pass
Nearly every morning.



The Chestnut Avenue

I came back to fallen chestnut
Shells, conkers, everywhere,
But the leaves are still
Thinking about falling.
No wind you see.
On other trees I pass,
The lime,the white-beam,
There’s a crinkly brownness
Scattered across the path.
So dry, no wind,
September sun.
The chestnut avenue
Has some way to go.
Wind, rain, frost perhaps
And the leaves will fall.


******* a Boat

There’s this girl,
A young woman really,
On a boat.
Not living on it yet
But plans are afoot,
Along with essential repairs.
It’s not ‘Offshore’
Like Penelope Fitzgerald’s
Boat on the Thames.
But in a quiet and placid mooring
On the River Lea instead.
I thought of sending her this book,
But it’s all about liminality,
People somewhere in between,
People who don’t belong on land or sea
. . . And the boat (eventually) sinks.


Still Waiting

We sat on the seat
Under a bower of roses
In the herb garden
And she talked in that singing
Way of talking that she does;
Such a tessitura she commands
Between the high and the low
With a falling off portamento
Glide - from the high to the low.
Her hair stills falls
Across serious freckles, auburn hair,
Gold with a touch of red
Like her mother’s only softer,
Like mine once was, and my mother’s too.
She has a slighter frame though,
and is still waiting, waiting
For a real life, a woman’s life.


Cyclamen Restored

I went away and left it
On a saucer, watered,
In a north light
Near a window sill.
Its pink flowers were *****
And nodded a little
When I moved about the room.

On my return it had drooped,
Its leaves yellowed.
There were tiny pink petals
Scattered on the floor.
I put the plant in the sink
For half an hour.
It revived,
And the next day
Seemed quite restored.


Driving South

Driving south through
Dalton, Shoreditch,
Hackney and Hoxteth,
The Hasidic community
Garnished the Sunday street.
Driving down the A10
South towards the city:
The Gleaming Gerkin,
the Walkie Talkie,
and further still,
a Misty Shard.

As a child, the buildings here
Were so much slighter
And a grimy black;
The highest then, the spires
Of Wren’s city churches.

Sundays to sing at ‘Temple’,
With lunch at the BBC,
Driving south from New Barnet
In my Great Uncle’s Morris,
Great Aunt Violet dozing in the back.


Gallery

Small but beautifully right
For her London show,
Good to see her surrounded
By tide marks from the shore,
Those neutral surfaces,
Colours of sand and stone,
Rust (of course) from the beaches
Treasured trove, metal
Waiting to become wet
And stain those marks with colour.


Ascemic Sewing

Having no semantic content
These ‘words’ appear on the back
Of a chequered cloth of leaves
Backed all black
Stitched white,
A script of a garden
Receding into
Trans-linguistical memory.


September Dreaming

Facing the morning
Above a barrier of trees,
Oaked, foxed, hardly birded,
I would  wonder while she slept
About the richness of her dreams,
Dreams she had spoken of
(Yesterday, and out of the blue)
And, for the first time, in all
These precious but frustrating
years we’d slept together,
shared together.
I had always thought her dreamless;
Too fast asleep to experience
Envisioned images,
Sounds and sensations.


Think of a Poem

She told me in a text about
Think of a Poem
On National Poetry Day
Just a week away.
That’s easy, I thought,
There’s always that poem
Safe and sure in my memory store
Once spoken nervously,
under a rose garden walk,
but there, there
for evermore . . .

Who says it’s by my desire
This separation, this living so far from you. . .


Missing Music

Today I read a poem
Called The Lute: a Rhapsody.
‘From the days of my youth
I have loved music,
So have practised it ever since,’
Says Xi Kung.

In his exquisite language
He then describes its mysterious virtues,
And all the materials from which it’s made.

How I miss my lute, its music,
And the voice that once sang to its song.


Drawing

I wonder if she’s drawn today,
And what? I wonder.
John Berger says:
Drawing goes on every day.
It is that rare thing
That gives you a chance
Of a very close identification
With something, or somebody
Who is not you.
I wonder if she’s drawn today,
And what? I wonder.

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts
With my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!