my way to say,
present, in Wonderland.

present in your life when least expected,
no qualifying reassurance reason,
and best!
dessert-deserved more than the rest of the days

prefer to have a postman ring twice,
imagining the look on your confused face,
the genuine life velocity wholeheartedly surprised,
the tickling happiest angst of wondering why...

the present of presence is selfish, me-gleeful,
good for the soul, and the surprise message,
for my presence is all the greater by my absence,
well, it tickles that warm spot you almost forgot about
that no rowed columnar calendar manager can pretend provide

that’s what is all about...
(and stop grinning already)
the unexpected, the ******* jack wondering,
the whys grows lesser,  
the message très simple:
the no reason season of surprise,
starts with a daily sunrise..  

C'est la vie au pays des merveilles


postscript
————-
(Holiday and Birthday wishes/presents are now de rigeur, obligatory,
forgetting unacceptable, even as a date’s meaning grow less significant,
now that we’re on Facebook to be advised by AI that controls it & destroys simultaneously,
the reduction of the remembering quality of life)

head to toe kissing


I   the mundane

moonlight madnesses, a possessive noun,
commissions gravitational pulls that disobey and obey
laws of interstellar loving. The antique modalities once and forever, forever laying still, stilled in places of antiquities and historical need, are thundershower and hail rudely reawakened, the undertow of
pull and push, the yanking hands  of need for others, for others,
it’s the explosive-knowledge, the opening of the old kitbag of perpetual principles, that crazy head to toe kissing is no less necessary, more so, than the computation of the total breaths mundane, unnoticed even now as I write of them, that we will count from that very first, in deed, they are one and the same, like the same
kisses given from head to toe

II   the profane

at the first, the body insists, I am but a long haul trailer, no taxi me,
cargo and passengers, are my quatrain accompaniments,
traveling companions boon, my own toons, too soon disembarked,
songs of parents and lovers, children and others, your visage passed
without your permission, but with your happy encouragement,
to generations that will see things that futurists dare not
even mention, but the profane urge to warn them all, kisses from head to toe, elevates, and overcomes...so when most of my names dusted with forgetfulness, lost in the waves, my scorching soft lips will be recalled just as an airy flight of light brushing upon a newborn’s eyelids just at the moment of birth.  A rustling more felt than heard, the ****** and bruised carrying body will sensate and instantly forget, but nonetheless transmit genetically, that the profane of birth and life renewing can be only washed away, when past and future, recalled and recreated, kisses from head to toes, dripping with softening saltwater tears, a chemical organic reagent of creation,
inside the histories of head to toe kissing

III  the insane

so when, somewhere, some place, a man’s body prepares  
tous ses adieux, his memory foolishly sane and strong,
his wasted paper bag container ship, rust bucketed,
crinkled and wrinkled, skin folding in on itself, hanging to bones
by stretched sinews and tendons that no longer tend to business,
loosened and gangly, they hang on barely to the bare nakedness of
evolutionary processes, mostly not, offset, by the tenderizing effects of kisses, from invisible attendees,  unconscious they,
willingly and unwillingly, offering farewells in actuality...
head to toes, noses to belly buttons, tatted, tattered, and still tasted by dying cells.  It’s insane to think it’s even possible  one retains each and all, but he does, those few given, those few  millions he gave away for cheap belly laughs and poems, decade upon decade accumulated are the totality of him, all of them free and sealed in kisses from head to toes

always throw caution to the wind

for a life well lived, for I did not, and lived a life well-lied

always throw caution to the wind

our life in this realm is short-lived, no bigger than
the size and brevity of our divine sparks existence

always throw caution to the wind

long winters and short summers recalled on paper,
have you not realized that mere gods worship immortal men,
our gloried markers, our stories, our ephemeral skin - forever

always throw caution to the wind

jump in after it, the winds course is a buffeting, head knock heading,
breeze, gust, gale and storm, a recovery chance of chances, a tourney
where the thrill of the unpredictable toss is not a simple head or tails,
but a slot machine of innumerable outcomes randomly optimized

always throw caution to the wind

the life irregular is the normative, the outcomes always positive,
this is the only thought that should ever provoke -
be wild but not crazy, think clearly and dare define safety
on your own terms, your own odds calculating, sew your own net,,
pick your wind and as a parent, always dress appropriately

for I am still crazy after all these years

Poem Analysis

1st read, I thought gibberish,
2nd I thought Hmmm,
3rd I thought interesting,
4th I felt genius.  billy


your poem comment-dissects my poem
my process,
a marathon interview for a new poem pole position,
limb by limb, word by word,
chewed and re-chewed,
like a tiring piece of bubble gum,
the flavor remaining ebbs, but is not extinguished,
and can live in your mouth,
forever

and the praise and this poem,
not a rodomontade,
for your comment dear Billy,
is the process description of a poet’s labor,
from word first to a baby’s birth,

gibberish into genius

emergent from first pain, then pushing, then tilled, at long last,
the dirtiest immaculate conception beautiful

billy reads my rambling, silly abstruse^ & wrote me:
1st read I thought gibberish,
2nd I thought Hmmm,
3rd I thought interesting,
4th I felt genius

this is a much loved critique
for I well recall each step of creation,
a summarizing parallel
that your words+genes replicated so well,
forgiving you a minor typo, Billy,

it was genus, not genius that you meant

(but then again, why quibble over a miscellaneous, harmless, delighting, tiny little  extra i...not me, said he, my muse ego )

Billy has gone gray dotted, but his dot, his comment,
with gratitude,
in me, he,
lives for ever

I feel gibberish coming on...