Freedom
is the feeling you get
when you breathe your first breath
and your ribs
no longer
press into
the floor.

dear god, you humble me into quietude

she says it’s sunny and 75
nearing 3’o’clock, cooling,
let’s go for our usual constitutional,
for a lovely afternoon walk to Shell Beach

can’t can’t can’t walking now in
a bottomless pit, every handhold,
poems, newly commissioned, newborn,
broken off the wall, revealing a gleaming,
light of iron pyrite, really good fool’s gold,
cause only fools write good poetry, or even try

but tonight I’m gonna feed you bucatini bolognese
babe, you gotta walk, make some room for all the words
that will come tumbling free falling while I’m sleeping next,
you’re up prowling looking for rhymes, lines, unheard of before,
you’ll need energy to bite, write, and make loving poetry and then,
then, sleep late, my laddie-baddie, new ones on my nightstand,
for my perusal, my usual unusual man who gifts me them to
in quantities of ‘more galore,’ that I accept, adore...adore

so afterwards, I must say my morning prayer, as an atheist forgiven,
the one I commissioned, and you composed, for me:

Dear God: you humble me into quietude, with gratitude...

it’s a daiquiri colored morn, countlessly
as I, gazing never tiring, of a vista I’ve seen,
awoken to, endlessly changing, voyagers of
birds and boats, the redecorating minimalists,
moving pieces on a latticed shadow lawn

the Sun eastern, asking the trees to turn and bow,
hence the shadows their branches cast are a waffling,
hopscotch pattern irregular, so jumping from/to
yellow-green sunspots, the children are delighted by a
new game, moving to and from and between an ever
changing crazy chessboard of light-patches unsquared

described, written of, yet here I am, once again, a servant
despairing, looking for new combinations of superlatives,
though I never spoke before of it as a vista,
until today, wondering why, perhaps because
it’s here, one lives, one doesn’t conceive of  being
part and parcel of a vista, humans, just visitors,
pawn observers, gallery visitors, art appreciators,
transient hobos after forty years, truthfully claiming
that they’re merely still, passing thru, passing by

9:40 am, respectable hour to meander over
to the throne room, the four Adirondacks, them,
the year round poetry nook authorities, are equal
sunned, shaded, simultaneous, stately shadowing,
observing, advertising as perfect for composing,
willing to make verbal suggestions, rhyming notions,
especially when the poem pays proper obeisance

and so it does, and so it is, as you can clearly read


9:53am Sunday Jun 14
Year of the Pandemic

I’m turning from Blanche DuBois into Chris Benoit
taking a streetcar named Desire to Monday Night Raw
after the oppression of the law got stuck in my craw
because the discretion of the flawed became the voice of God.

I’d always relied on the kindness of strangers
only to find the Million Dollar Man’s danger
directing the Army Rangers to Jesus’ manger
letting the Undertaker deal with the remainder.

I relinquished my rightful place
to the bank’s Crippler Crossface
taking everything until I lost grace
going into a holocaust craze.

I’m upset about the places I can’t go
because I’ll be ***** by Marlon Brando
when I ask the referee for a hand though
he just responds with a ****** no.

I have retired my display of Vivian Leigh
now Whatever by Our Lady Peace plays
as the Rabid Wolverine walks to the stage
to fight the Big Boss Man in a cage.

I gave up teaching class to my sister
to fight an *** who’s a mister
whose slaps can blister
so he blasts this spinster.

The law is a tougher opponent than Eddie Guerrero
so I apply my aptitude into becoming a pistolero
after getting jabbed by my French Quarter pharaohs
I can feel resistance down in my Marc Mero.

I start to take steroids
because there are boys
whose terror noise
impairs my poise.

I go all out performing flying headbutts
fighting until I see the dead’s guts
exterminating enemies like bed bugs
but then I start to dread hugs.

Now I assume a stranger’s spite
so I can immediately fight
I’m swallowed by night
wearing these tights.

In my rage I **** my wife and son
now my anger is no longer fun
even if it came from their gun
it’s me who’s the loneliest one.

I changed from a lady to a wrestler losing my ****** mind
fighting Mankind while stepping on landmines
until I can’t find any grand signs
and I’m anger defined.

man says, this life, for what, a thousand dry
holes drilled, wildcatting, a win-loss record,
that didn’t approach, come close, to breakeven,
not even an asterisk in the records kept

man says, this body, its rate of desolations
increasing, the goal line distance secretions,
decreasing, this broken runner, tackled from behind
by the past, as his future caught up with him

man says, goals, deadlines, hamstring him,
due dates, an invitation to a criminal activity,
rub, nobody wants to take it down, his record,
left behind, when they shut Rikers Island

man says, always poor at maths, a loser of words,
his parents, his children, all time despairing of him,
called the AAA to come, tow him away, but,
all the junkyards refused him entry

man says, what separates ought and nought,
a little letter, just an n, that screaming thought,
a little letter, insufficient to bridge a poem too far,
man digresses, the past is ever present, in every word

writ and forgot.

For a company, an economy, our species to succeed
everyone must work together
but not literally everyone
just enough to perpetuate sustainability
so some feel free to burn bridges to clear their own road.
Professional wrestlers use the phrase
“Going into business for themself”
when someone has to get all their **** in to display their move set
or no-sells their opponent’s moves to make themselves look tough
like in improv comedy
when one of the performers doesn’t go along with any of the jokes
it can be very funny, just not in a collectively beneficial manner
the audience laughs recognizing the performer as the standout
while the performer steps on their colleagues’ jokes
going into business for themself.
Capitalism indoctrinates us
to go into business for ourselves
like Bill Gates
driving companies out of business through economic hostility
then buying back his soul through economic charity
a tribute to those fallen—it’s a fractional penance
the apex predator keeps the lion’s share
adhering to the jungle mentality ingrained in us
telling us to go into business for ourselves.

Like a rose I bloomed
Like an Echinopsis
I was gone in a day
Too weak to stay

Sometimes I peek into Etheria,
Because I ponder where my soul lives,
Casually gliding in the ethereal area,
Trembling cascading chaotic abyss,
Casual sensations indulging in the journey sought.

It's overwhelming, what the power of thought can do;
Place you in realities broad and new,
A contented choke up on surprises, unexpected,
Setting a foundation for limitation is rejected.

What I found in the realm of wonder, Etheria,
From the glimpse, the journey, into an endless inside,
A song, sung so deeply and profoundly,
That only when I touched my face from hysteria,
Had I discovered my very soul, and from that, I cried.