Life presents you with many gifts.
Some may be opportunities,
Some may be material things.
My favorite gift is the people in my life,
Especially her.

Who is she?

She is a fierce dark angel who is not afraid to fight,
But do not be fooled by the masks she wears.
Her closet is filled with them,
And she chooses multiple options for her day ahead.
They have never fooled me.

My favorite mask is the one she was born with,
Her in her natural state.
She shakes off her beauty,
Denying it to the world.
Her blue-green eyes are hidden behind books,
Or they hide under her mane of dark hair when she writes.
She will smile when you approach her,
But it is just another mask she employs to hide the pain I see in her eyes.
The masks have never fooled me.

In my thoughts she is my Bellona,
Fighting battles on a terrifying battlefield.
Her choice of weapon is inconsequential,
Her eyes and words can be fatal.

Her friendship is rare and unique,
She is my Guildenstern and I am Rosencratz.
I would follow her across the galaxy,
And together we would be kicked out of Elysium.
Deep secrets are traded between us,
A currency worth more than money.

She is a woman of many layers.
Every day is full of surprise, laughter, and mischief.
No one could manage us.
Conversations are endless,
Hearts are placed on the table.
Trust is gained and built,
Each brick of trust adding to the celestial temple of our friendship,
Where masks are left at the door.

She is a precious and stubborn gift life presented me with,
No matter how much she denies her importance.
She is my dark angel...my master of masks.
She is my war goddess...my protector and supporter.
She is my partner in crime...my creator of oh so delicious ides.
She is the thread that keeps me tethered today this enchanting life.

awhile, a time ago, wrote:

“the oven's writing warmth,
still faint discernible,
giving off the aroma of heated ink,
upon a skin-smooth page..”

                         <>

my words returned by the commentator-in-chief:

“Tells me why the best part of my
time with her was spent in the kitchen.”^

lay fallow my emotive, a response due catalogued
but unfulfilled till today, oh hell it is a moody way,
partly cloudy day, raining in between sunny  brief teasing episodic.

perfect.

for the mixed mood, a melancholia of innocence with a dash of a salty, self-reflective hazing, choosing careful words when I write without clear direction, you want to rush outside, get set up, and then surrender-retreat inside to the comfort zone, the hearty, all-involving,  kitchen where the ink is always kept on warm on the glass topped oven, and the dripping-coffee-machine never shuts down, at-the-ready stale crackers in the cupboard, and all these writing utensils at the two-handy, when she comes in, and with a quick surveying, kicks me out, to make us accoladed good food, with these words:

“my darling only love poetry man, render unto me, this captaincy,
my fiefdom now, and herein are kept my ingredients and tools, whe my words are secreted.”  You mistake the warmth here as a necessary condition for thy composition, but not so, the warmth required travels in the hearth of the body, get thee to the nook, to the sunroom, or our bed where I catch you prepositioning conjunctions to join weeping verbs, adjective so riotous their beauteous is stolen by God i’m the fall, thoughts worthy of becoming verses and stanzas, the exclaim the wonders of thy perspective, thy goodly nature, thy odor of freshly stirred vocabulary, an alluring stew in a new ***, surrender this cooking place to me in order that you might chef a new creation, half mine, half yours, all ours.”

I don't know what will happen
In the world of tomorrow.
So today, I'll do my best
With the time I've borrowed

lest the best go to waste

~for the Grande Dame of Port Hardy~


this breathing fire, a coronating sense of mortality, internally
stronger than ever before, though unaffected, no visible signage,
his invisible labored breathing, the torn fabric of easy gone mentality,
yet so corrupted, his interiors polluted, his crying-out-loud goes

unheard, the sheltering alone in his head, which now is stretched,
way past the point of no return ever, this new strand of side-virus,
of dreary sameness, familiar but reimagined as an atmospheric cancer,
the urgency by which his olive oil words, from pitcher poured, astounds

no subterfuge, he’s made his Great-Escape, to the sheltering island,
his refuge, part redoubt, jagged coastlines a hardening shell, no access
until you declare fealty to the Ferry Captains, who let you board for a princely $2 bucks, if you meet their unstandards, upstanding, healthy?

to the old cottage where we have summered forty year more, The requested Crew assemblage by early dawn (no ****),  for animals unencumbered by time-stealing watches, animal mutual truce declared, mottled multiplying rabbits, squirrels who know not any fear, orange breasted robins, **** deer, mollusks, rainbow trout, osprey, cat-sized cawing crows, and the watchers, the sea-it-all gulls

even the Canadian geese send a scout, in the poet’s nook we are formed, nervous not for their safety, but worried for mine, a Memorial Day meeting very traditional, atmospheric condition cool-cloudy-overcast, party sunny a bold-faced forecasters lie-trick, for an island *******-bonding gloom, a glomming gray weight tamps the air down

Friends! My Audience for New Poets! (their honorific, now over-a-decade old): The Gods have tweeted, this year may not have a next, no Jerusalem for your human acquaintances, the luxurious slowdown of island life, infected by a new urgency, explaining the known and the unknowns facing the human interlopers

Where’s Shelter?**

a refrain, a greeting,  we have sung together, so many times, self-satisfied, fore we knew well, knew anew, we had the answer, here, here, though to life’s cycle we are not immunized, but now your human admirers face agents of death, by invisibility masked, giving us no pause, so we, all, write now, must forward on to:

live/write our best, lest, our partnership be for naught, always between us truce of mutual consent, a natural love of all living things

It’s better to cover your ears.

It’s better to just close your eyes.

It’s better not to hold on to anyone.

It’s better if you will not feel any single
pain that I have been ignoring

this whole **** time.