for Harlon Rivers

the river potion,
the river portent,
the river potent

it is all of these and not one

he is bank sided,
observing the false idols,
the image mirrored
in the glass of the river

transfigured molecularly
he becomes something ferried frothily, forcefully

as if a twig
or a small thing of human manufacture,
an object tossed up airborne-repeatedly

his poetry:
the clash of particles at the many junctions
of objects and water, eddies and the currents,
ceaselessly circumnavigating,  
searching revisionary pathways

directed,
but randomized,
prisoner of the flows,
servant to the wind's directives and the
earths magnetic indivisible undulating waves

thinking,
this life,
its unsteady gait, 
the irreverent wavering of drunkenness
resultant from potent potions,
portents of inopportune position

in him,
my own histories, 
my poetic recordings
also become
water borne,
watermarked,
replayed back for me,
for erasure, censure, closure
and rededication

this River
is a tapestry,
a torn map,
drawn on broken shards
of slivered water,
living with all the others

but we,
are the untitled,
we,
are the un-entitled,
and he is the
Rivers

<•>

for my dad

I crack myself up,
twice
once, at the doctor's office,
a steady stream of me~repartee
made the waiting room, the warring harried receptionist,
and ultimately herr doktor, his royal himself, as well,
somewhere combobulated, somewhere beware and between chuckling to uproarious clutching their sides,
and many stations/gradations in between

finally the teary eyed doc inquired not how
but why I do it,
well, replied I,
somewhat of a family tradition,
doing waiting room shtick,
because the sound of infectious laughter,
fills in the cracks quite nicely
where you cut me open, and also drains away
the deposits of chemotherapy poisoned sinful residuals
just a tad quicker,

and that is why I crack myself up first,
when I boldly look in the mirror and

laugh at the silly scarecrow I have become

{•}

unwanted love

we, the human counting crows, tracking everything, steps, bank balances, heartbeats & especially,
those dastardly calories that need burning

pre yoga, her morning banana,
she takes but a half, and looks to unload the balance on a sucker/victim in the vicinity because a whole
is greater than a half,
and God knows a whole could make you fatter!

fully prepared for her desperate supplication, reply so quick,
"you're forcing me to eat unwanted calories,"
she crestfallen,
near to weeping from guilty feelings,
a crime so heinous!

but more than ready, added words, prepared years ago:

but to save your life gladly give you any body part,
step in front of a vehicle, for a certain somebody,
you may know, to preserve, life and liberty,
put up with your inanities, border-lining on insanities,
answer your questions before you think of them,
and will restrict my singing to sole showers in the basement
but never will I eat for two, that so undesirable,
in the name of love

to which she came to my bedside, kissed my nose, whispering,
"thank you for my life saving,"
while stuffing my mouth with said weapon,
"thank you again,
please don't make this into a poem"*


somedays you just ain't gonna win,
you see she loves me too well
and knows
my answers before I do...

~~
The Trial of His Worthiness 2017

for betterdays, explorer of my complaints to the heavens,
and Patty, who asks,
who writes like this...answers from an old man



~~~
the 2017 baptism yesterday, by calendar dictate,
to my park, nature's commune, the poet wills himself to be
forcibly removed from city, greeted in solemn robes of blue/green,
by the triumvirate of bay, animals and flora & trees interlocking,
who stand in judgement of the humans interloping off-islanders
summer internees

to the double entendre dock removed,
so the bay, the Chief Justice, now a bit hard of hearing,
from the thunder and lighting of cymbal and drum crackling of the winter waves clashing, can hear my deposition clearer

the chief prosecutor, the tallest tree, wraps her branches,
around my legs, my feet, my heart, my head, not to restrain,
but to listen to my internals to adjudge the electrocardiogram
veracity of my words, a natural lie detector machine

the animals requested and sequestered to jury service,
large and small, from forest, the beneath-the-deck rabbits,
all learned in the human language, after 5 centuries of
less than social *******

put to me queries only I could answer

why have you returned?

humanity wearing me so, come to nature that knows only natural laws where existence is primary, good and evil are undefined and premeditation of ****** for no purpose of one's own kind is rare

will you write of us as in years as past?

will write of the commingling taffy of your
salt waters and my salt tears,
taking of your oxygen gifts, returning my dioxides,
both of us sharing the munificence of a warm sun goddess,
will plant my irises and kiss your cherry blossom leaves,
will step aside, over the ant mounds, harming nothing living,
for rightful life is not accorded by precedence or size
or your chosen version of a holy book

will you play for us your human music?

contrapuntal canons, adagios of Barber, Adele & Dudamel,
"a song for you"by the master Charles, some by the
poet Cohen, and even of a Rocky Raccoon, and for our kids,
a tale of a Yellow Submarine and the Dr.'s Mississippi Mud,
dash of Joni's pure voice, Eva Cassidy's unreal, none better,
rock to Elvis, Beethoven, Mozart and the Zombies,
**** deer demand Pavarotti (who knew)
all but  a chocolate sauce for a sundae of your own air strings,
waves baying, rabbits madly dashing, and birds texting,
the bellows of trombone honking of the
s-hit and run Canadian geese,
multi colored seagull's violin-like protestation squeaks of
'feed me human,
my survival share of the catch'

the tree limbs released, to now stroke my skin, pat my head,
the ants perform an arabesque, the gossipy fish come to the surface as
his Honor, Justice Bay, pronounces my sentencing term:

come,
stay with us warmed and welcomed,
shaded in our attentive embrace human
and of us
be a witness deposed, testified,
of our true nature

go,
to your unattended, impatiently waiting, Adrionack throne, go,
(once of us, a living tree departed)
observe and record, without distortion and human bias,
as you have so oft in years past,
tho mere eye-blinks to us,
life and death and preservation can coexist in a harmony

perhaps your infant species may learn from nature & beasts,
that bounty well fair shared is what humans call
the worthiness of living
~~~~
5/28/17 11:09