First know this:
In my peoples’ history,
an old evil, revived,
a real pretend
a”new” enemy, but
merely a derivative of a-prior,
old name, same hatred,
irrational and raw,
rising up in every generation,
under cover of a ‘philosophy,’
lies buried a purity of motive,
purity of hate for hate’s sake

<•>

For my people
and their beliefs
Our secret to our
survival is manifest,
you may have heard it called,
A Secret Chord (1)

Tears and Laughter,
Tears Behind Laughter
intertwined, or else,
we would not indeed be  
the long going on tribe
studied by curious
historians & idiots

me?
still crazy, after all these generations

Grandparents & Parents
chased by ‘professionals’
from places well known to you
(hey! we somehow got away
with huge luck, and courageous daring)

Not requiring your sympathy
not asking for a special empathy,
not rejecting your clucks,
but we manage
though tears aplenty
that we mask under a guise
via self-deprecating humor

I would love to tell
the Bible and the liturgy
is full of sly winks,
cutish double entendres,
bartender jokes,
but it ain’t necessarily so
don’t ya know

if the bible had made
gentle laughter at/of/
angelic & human foibles
and maybe
even God laughing at
all too human characteristics

but that’s a very big ask,
not sure He’s up to the task,
making fun of yourself
when you’re the
top of the chain
requires
humanility
which’s not a master’s
first calling
but should have been its
first blessing

so that’s up to us,
we irreverent creatures
of his design,
and why we are the absolute tgw only
species that cries
to express
sadness-
and mockery maker
of ourselves
the oy in
oh vey beings
Still crazy after all these years

it’s just me…funny like that…

~for touka, just because…~

my foibles are little pretty doilies,
all dressed up in preparation for
getting stained, as is their due,
their birthright, for they wait in
service for the slippage and the
crumbly stains of strange lyrics

wait! this poem has. gone astray,
my intention to make confession
about my quirks which are more
than numerous, repetitious, and
a little crazy, which is why my very
few friends delight in homaging me
”still crazy after all these years…”

‘tis truth, for better or worse, I’m
not superstitious but don’t step
on cracks or any lines between
the in between, always retrieve
pennies on the street, cause the
Benny Franklin about a penny
earned makes smile because
he stole it from someone prior,
and it goes with friends in the
tip jar at my corner bodega,
where they save me
a raisin scone,
knowing full well, i may not appear
till quite late, or never on bad days
when the poem urges kick me out
of bed, and inspiration is a 3am
pastry…

make me repetitive cups of java all
de day long, wander around from
zoom
to room doing odd-jobs, thisnthats,
never recalling where my muggle is
sojourning till I hear the call of the
microwave “here,  here ye old man…
where else would I be so lovingly
reheated?”

put my wallet, watch, spectacles &
testicles (an old rhyming) on the nite
stand in prep for the next day, but oh,
the keys have their little own ceramic
cup lest they scratch the ochre stain,
and I catch holy hell, so ipso-facto, I
am more often than not locked out…

we won’t talk about the too many times,
my phone has gone astray (1j many
countries where recovery was hardly
assured, but have never suffered its
loss, or consequential identity theft,
but then again, no one seems to
want to steal my name, till Paul Simon
up and done it, after sitting next to me
on a Redeye flight from LA to NYC.(1j

it drives me nuts when pompous men
pontificate on the obvious but forget
to pull their tie up to mind the gap tween
knot and the top button, making their
words look..how shall I say it…sloppy,
and my shouting out at the television
at the sartorial stupidity of news “anchors”
for naughty

Making to do lists is my artistical métier,
which only grow longer with age and the
wisdom that their purpose is to taunt me,
my failures to face the difficulties that
reverberate in my guilty conscience, so
that when I remember something to do
and actually do it because the deadline
has passed and I fear her wrath of and
disappointment
which is worse than
disapproval
which I can often
dismiss
with a historical, practiced, “easy peasy”

and if said item even doesn’t appear on my
lists (plural), I add it and derive copious pleasure,
when I cross it out with great
red inked celebratory deliberateness…

ok, okay, (you choose) I’ll wrap and rap it
up, as I go on too long as children oft tell
me when I’m being regaling with my stories,
(is there a point to this story?)
well because…it’s

just me…funnily like that


(1) somewhere on HP is the poem/story