the bus poets

we are the modern day chimney sweeps,
the ***** black faced coal miners of the city,
digging up its grit, toasted with its spit,
the gone and forgotten elevator operators,
the anonymous substitutable,
still yet glimpsed occasionally,
grunts of urbanity
provoking a surprised
whaddya know!

once like the bison and the buffalo,
we were thousands,
word workers roaming the cities,
the intercity rural routes and the lithe greyhounds
across the land of the brave,
free in ways the
founders wanted us to be
us, the stubs and stuff,
harder working poor and lower cases

we were the bus poets,
sitting always in the back of the bus,
where the engines growls loudest,
seated in the - the most overheated
in winter time, so much so
we nearly disrobed,
and then come the summer,
we were blasted with a joking
hot reverie from the vents,
but vent, no, we did not!

no - we wrote and wrote of all we heard,
passion overheated by currents within and without,
recording and ordering the
snatches and the soliloquies of the passengers,
into poem swatches;
the goings on passing by,
the overheard histories,
glimpsed in milliseconds, eternity preserved,
inscribed in a cheap blue lined five & dime notebook,
for all eternity what the eyes
sighed and saw

books ever passed
onto the next generation in boxes from the supermarket,
attic labeled, then forgotten beside the outgrown toys
with our names writ indelible with the magic of
black markers

if you stumble upon a breathing scripter,
let them be, just observe,
as they, you,
these movers and bus shakers,
as they, observe you

tell your children,
you knew one in your youth,
then take them to the attic
retrieve your mother's and father's,
teach your children
how to read, how to see,
the ways of their forefathers,
the forsaken,
the bus poets.

t'was not so long ago
in simple human years,
but eons, in poetic ones, that...

visions of fruited plains,
dimpled mountains,
candied wall-nutty natives,
easy lifted from his
eye's casual glances,
reformed to scribbled essays,
while daily walking on the
concrete steppes of his city,
gems of glass shard sidewalk sparkles
and bluest mailboxes were
raptured word tableaus,
rupturing easy with
volcanic force,
his body's planet,
mantle breaking,
crust-conquering poems,
breakout pimples waves,
molten and easy flowing...

he knew not then
what well now he knows,
the exhausted trembling
of asking,
the slowing wearing pace of
heartbeats of constant query,
the wonder of
wondering incessant,

Are You My Poem?

awoken by the body clock
in the wee, streaming,
rem sleeping hours,
asking the no longer
faithful friend,
his bathroom mirror,
is the accuracy of this
stubbled mess,
the white crusted lips and eyes,
is that my, my nowadays,
answer to

Are You My Poem?

he waits,
he, a red taillight speckle
among many, wait watching,
on a Brooklyn minor bridge
over a minor inlet
one of many, on a longer isle,
as the bridge lifts its arms,
opens its middle belly,
waving bye to a
passing-through freighter,
perhaps
destined for
happy springtime Morocco,
perhaps,
the Malay's divided isles,
wandering wondering
one more time,
if that's his etching,
line drawing poem,
passing by, bye, bye,
so each breathe forcing,
escape-asking,

Are You My Poem?

sometime ago,
a grown man,
his voice changed,
like a teenager,
writing now in but the
simplest terms,
plain jane poems,
in the cadence
of spoken words

for all the fancy phrases,
exhausted,
the sewing box of
precious alphabets,
emptied, leaving only
the tyranny of
hello, have a nice day, how are you feeling,
that's nice, goodnight sleep tight...

there were fewer poems
therein contained,
ceasing to fear,
no need for constancy of asking,
but failing in crafting to craft
even then,
trying but no one answering to

Are You My Poem?

one or two true,
asked,
are you busted,
the nib nub rusted,
your silence, long pauses,
worry us, your poem lovers,
if spent,
how deep is thy rent,
let our concern heal,
patch n' fill,
the cuttings,
the empty grooves that pockmark,
hope wishing asking,
sir sire man,
are you still hopeful,
interrogating,
asking the world,

Are You My Poem?

weeping from the
believed warmth
of their caring,
they too, knowing,
that life has its ways
of choking your voice off,
compelled to advise,
still and then and now,
the constant in my equation,
extant yet,
extant yes,
a voice that still rises
at the end of the
periodic element interrogatory of

Are You My Poem?

the poem answers,
muddled, muddied,
everyday life eats you up,
instead of you feasting upon it,
the tempo, the style,
all now humbug static interference,
but every know and every then,
a long winded answer dances
it's way from the core,
answering well
the question less asked,

Are You My Poem?

spent,
the poet
lol's,
for his truest friends here,
answer the pondering,
in deed, indeed,
you, near and dear
poet brothers and sisters,
you are the answer,
to words looking now,
a tod-toad-tad silly,

**You Are My Poem!

The Talmud Teaches...
With respect to his son, a father is obligated to circumcise him, to redeem him [if he is a firstborn], to teach him Torah, to marry him off, and to teach him a craft...he is also

obligated to teach him to swim...(Kiddushin 29a)


lay awake when the house is silent,
doing maths furiously in the head,
sleeping can be keeping while doing my calculus,
knowing in advance a conclusion comes coined
in only two colors, black or red

the question simple, did I meet my obligations?

and your read the passage for the umpteenth time,
and the same thought interferes as always,
should the order not be reversed,
the first thing to be fulfilled,

teach them to swim

based on experience life arrives in sequential, repeating waves,
purposed to drown the weak with no pretending that waters,
salt or sweet matters, so first order is business ought be survival preparation and

teach them to swim

if they can swim, stay afloat, then they can then comprehend
the glory of distinguishing right over wrong,
get their priorities straight, that saving others,
especially those you placed on the starting line of life,
is the first principle and overplants anything else when you

teach them to swim

my eyes see the tally, why, they are red! could it be lack of sleep?

I am smiling when I am lying,
teach them to swim always first,
but not enough, one must do it well, well,
and even then, better, 
as all else will, from the well, follow, when you

teach them to swim

3:10am

~~~