robin’s-egg blue walls
contain two empty shells—
one lamp on, one lamp off
four eyes open
both minds closed

submerged in a cascade of
cacophony, my pieces wade
like fish, into semptember's silvery net
so its plundering pull would heave them
                                                          ­       out
from their misery, grant them purpose
in the mouths of fortunes, that gobble them
as delicacies;  they wither, till my egg-fragile
                                                          heart
unravels itself, savors the warmth
of the virgo sun, and hatches
immaculately, into me.

what would force a wise septuagenarian to imagine himself
President of the USA?

Could it be
A ghost of war's glory days in the
grand old industrious gay nineties
days of smokestack landmarks of civic pride,
as seen by stevedores loading dry buffalo hides,... nay,

I trow not... war as imagined in a wise septuagenarian,
has no glory, but value, in depleting the other
side, and

rubbing away the bank on that distant shore, make it

seem so much further away...

what would force a wise septuagenarian to imagine himself
herself President of the USA?
see who salutes, nobody salutes
but military minds, tie-wearers.

nope, nothing comes to mind as reasonable,
save
pride

a broken-spirited, old-mind-bound hero-sell-out,
in my opinion,

with a plan to scuttle spaceship earth.

Okeh. We stop that. What next? It gets better.

“Emotionally Impregnated”
was the phrase that came to mind
when I tried to make sense
of what had happened to me
half way through listening to
the song he had sent

“You know you gave me all the time
Oh, did I give enough of mine?”

It was the unchangeable joining
of thought and feeling that produced
within me a growing emotional experience
that no more asked permission to be
than did any other seed and egg.

“Say you don’t know me anymore
But that’s a bullet on your floor”

I have never been a reliable narrator though
how many negative tests have I produced
even amid ******* that imagined they were swollen
nausea that persisted for days
and blood that stained sheets much later than expected?

Had I just spent the last two years
in an elaborate emotional pregnancy scare?
Had the joining of lyrics
of hungry bodies
of insatiable hearts
produced within me an embryo of empty hope?

Have I sabotaged my own lifeblood
in a desire to force from my womb
some monstrous and malformed product
of what had been lifegiving friendship?

hot butter strolls down my face
and rolls down my nose
dribbles down my chin
and spatters the floor
the lustrous linoleum

i cry tears of sugar
it tastes much too sweet
as they mix with my thoughts
and pour into the cracked bowl
the jaded green memory

my hands are matted with white
and caked with delight
but it's a less-than-pleasant mess
i've used too much
it called for just a teaspoon