all my life
wanted to write just
the way
Joni (Mitchell) sings

seesawing
rising unexpected,
write the changing temperament
in the pitch,
of now

yawing, oscillating,
speedy slow,
enunciating the whip of
love crazy

twist to fall into a
double-time
bass baritone insane
from and into a higher pitch,
switch on the
en garde,
blue ink
onto cloth napkin poetry

plain plaintive,
rendering the scene,
rendering my heart,
it's crazy high-lows,
emotion backyard
swing set

Oh Joni!
I could drink a case of you

that is was what I
told the single girls
when I was a wooing man

send me home,
high and crying,
thinking uneven,
creatively,
drinking you,
pounding the dashboard,
sing our palpitating poems

thinking up
the in-between
songs of
till next time

that they loved so much
they begged,
sing it again and again

I drank them all
and think now of poem love songs,
vintages that never caged,
never aging,
those songs I wrote for them,
back in the day
when Joni
taught me how to
see life in verse

For Al*

your limbs,
a finger, a toe,
an arm, a leg,
cannot be amputated,
without your presence...

when the men
drive in the car together,
the women, best friends,
absent,
temporarily away,
their men,
time release the
the secret shavings
of truthful conversations,
the unconstrained sharings,
spoke, untold,
free from the raised eyebrow,
the serious shushing
of censoring partners,
Lionesses-in-Absentia

who else
where else can you tell
the complaints unspoken,
the peculiarities, the ironies,
that make you smile/wince
laughingly grimace

and now the men are
friends

so when he asks,
come to the movies with us,
tho you are neat beat,
dead on the feet,
you now know,
too late, too late,
always and evermore
say sure,
cause,
now that he is gone
in a single swoop felling,
his oak trembling,
fallen
oh my friend,
now on his side,
lifeless

you say sure,
always
sure,
cause you have to be there,
just in case,
it is time they declare
to severe sever
one of your very own
limbs

I'm thinking of loving you,
make a note of that!

put a yellow stickum
on the fridge
already curling up,
from the good steam of
the first coffee atmospheric

I'm thinking of moving in!

clear me a drawer,
half a closet will do,
not much for possessions,
thinking I'll stay awhile,
as long as you possess me
and vice versa too!

could be seasonal,
winter marking me,
scarf dug out from somewhere,
but that just means
it is the season for
better slow loving

baby,
don't please misunderstand,
my intentions good,
just human, no regretting,
motives purely selfish,
want to put this self in you,
and see what comes of it

the stickum note,
to the floor now fallen,
in the under the fridge space,
where things go that...

no omen, no, oh man!
cause when I decided,
got past the thinking point,
arrived at the sticking point,
appears to be a long time
such a long time
to be loving you,
so many other things
curled,
neither of us noticed
that first stickum fallen

make a note of that!

run the hands over every
tissued cell,
race the tongue upon and under every
unsealed pore

linger, tarry,
only if you must,
here, there and where
you stop only to drink
my body's must...

lid to lobe,
crevice to mound,
uncover the obvious,
reveal the infinitesimal,
finite the desire,
end at the beginning,
fire up the cool hearth,
emblazon the shields ofordinary,
exit and enter
simultaneously

refill the apertures
with~not~my
peptones, enzymes, amino acids,
replenish my
well

then drain
well
the abscesses and repair
the wearable wounds ,
reminder remains
of prior contests,
won and lost

make me better
than well

know before,
realize afterwards
that ceasing,
never and always,
is an always never*

for this route
forever changing,
for your hands and tongue
redraw me
every time
they run the course

every time,
ever and when you
exit and enter
always and ever
simultaneous,
the course of
my flesh

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