still Sunday autumnal,
hymnal seasonal dark
at 700 am

the grand kids
going apple picking,
under parental supervision...

so the day looms small
with largely nothing,
nothing scheduled
according to Siri,
Goddess iPad
who loves all
in the same colorless voice
equally

poet quiet plays
with the pink plastic wristband,
his workplace awarded him
as a signature that
he was a
green donor
in a cause
that should not
even be anymore
a causal giving or taking,
but a once-upon-a-time,
just another busted,
another eradicated evil

rearranging the pillows
most quiet like,
the woman sleep slips,
exhausted from
prior eve's fierce exertion,
heroine worshipping
a fellow dancer artist extraordinaire
bidding her adieu
after three decades,
to standing adoration justified...

the yellow/whiteplaybill, ticket stubs,
just this once,
just this one,
will be preserved,
a bracelet
of achievement honorific terrific

(if his truth be revealed
this very last performance of 30 years
of creative perfection,
made this flat footed man
weep as well,
leading his mind
directly to composition)

thusly,
set the setting and the
variant,
nay,
the deviant lyrics
coming fast,
sleep sliding
from intangibles of
a waking mind
to pink resurrection,
as intangible electronic impulses
herein shared...

his recollecting,
deviant lyrics,
for they deviate
from the most tiring truth
that life is mostly drudge,
many defeats, few victories,
but they come with patience
and ****, hard work,
and a rainbow primal color
some call luck

so begins the deviant...

If pink is for breast cancer, what then...

*are the hues and tints of the
multiple myeloma invaders that
destroyed the soft marrow
of a poet's fathers bones,
a man so kind,
that all children who knew him,
honored him
walking slow behind his hearse,
so deserving of a longer life,
a far better, better end,
can you not see the tear grooves
his absence has gifted me as
his pink flesh colored-bracelet

what then,
are the shades,
or just the
color unique
of the slow dementia
that consumed
a woman, happenstance...his mother...
writer, art lover,
a verbal expressor,
a most in/appropriate disease,
robbing her of the
greatest human right
to articulate,
so I wear this poem
as her her gifted headband,
an inheritance
upon the poet's
pink proud forehead,
worn evermore

do I get a pin turned
ceremonially, right side up,
having made it this far?
will they take it away,
when I quit claim
this existence,
or if the poetry ceases...

and he wonders
when is the deviant course
the exact right one,
what color,
what instrument, what jewel
should he chose
for just opening his eyes,
on this,
his 23,378th day of existence

unable to sort
identify the days,
sign each one
with the color apropos,
how to mark rightly what matters,
how to signal that life tenuous,
is worth recording,
and giving quiet thanks
for the few colors and memories
and words,
the instrumental
symbols
that lyrically
variegate us each,
and let recall
our unique
deviations

you cannot miss me,
mathematical impossibility,
there is no null and void
wherein
parts of me reside,
in many places,
most far away,
inside you,
surely one of them,
that is so close,
so d e e p,
never lose or miss me,
for all you need do is
read and breathe
all~ally my poems,
the stain of me,
unerasable irascible immaterial
a permanent maker inked

~
touch~teach her eyelashes
with my index finger,
her toes ask why
they must, no choice,
curl,
my heart answers,
one, one, one

~~

The truths that sway
within my hands,
my body follows,
am music borne,
we each of us
sway differently,
because my hand traces,
my beloved's waist,
soon enough,
never soon enough,
we are
two, two, two

~~~

no no not religious,
but miracles observed
quite regular

two becomes one,
emerald melded,
a yellow blonde, how extraordinary,
his blue eyes, lately
gray flecked,
blue and yellow
combined make
emerald melded,
thus two becomes one,
one becomes
a recombinant color,
and new is now
three, three, three

three that rhymes
not with me,
or her,
but the three that rhymes
with me and thee
which makes
we,*
three, three, three, thee
for life

"Most men lead lives
of quiet desperation
and go to the grave
with the song still in them.”

Henry David Thoreau
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*this fearsome cursed thought,
rises fresh daily from
under death's precursor,
when sleep crusted eyelids broken

illusions none,
escapes zero,
go to my grave
with no lew'd selfie
foolish proclaiming
I was the greatest,
tho but an itinerant bit, an Internet curio

this so very quiet man,
sings his way every day,
with these worn tools,
dull, yet shiny from loving overuse,
the very things you
are currently grasping,
words,
his words

as you do as well...

each poem,
oil poured annotating
a new poem king anointed,
a psalmist on the lyre composing
of still waters to lie beside,
of valleys where he shall final rest

delusions none,
my bones and words will in dust meld,
ashes, couplets, dried essences,
a scents that is
this beings, his Eau de Cologne alone,
tints and hints of yellowed pixels,
tired bone and the worn flesh of
maybe's too plentiful,
coulda's, shoulda's,
if only

so in quiet desperation,
and human spirit ignited by lighter fluid burning,
write, and write yet thrice more,
that a leaden life be happy soiled,
each singing a freedom breaching birth,
a glorious failure, yet endeavour'd
to let his unique tune be heard

to my grave down, down,
but one contentment proudly, black-bold-etched,
amidst the forest of daily desperations,
protested he, with tunes herein shared,
marked by no copyright,
other than his name plain,
satisfied that his singing was
loudly heard until his voice,
could be, would be,
stilled only by Father Time