"my soul to keep"

this prayer
elegant, simple complexity,
comes me haunting,
every evening,
this notion,
a faint ghosting,
repeatedly reappearing
and nightly leaving,
disappointed,
from between my crumpled, sweaty bedsheets,
departing with a demanding unsatisfied, incessant,
coated with a diabolical, unfeigned challenge  -

write of me,
relentlessly commanding,
right me

only,
no notions,
come realized,
no poem body, resolved solutions,
are easy offered up

your inner voices,
fettered and deterred,
begging you,
screaming,
this one,
defer, defer,
for better days,
for better poets,
who require
no assembly instructions
cannot improve upon it

my distress, sensed;
the lady of  the house,
over the shoulder peering,
sees the moody poem title that
has self-selected to core this poet's core,
for endless torture,
raining down ruinous lamentation

she, ever softly spoken

"good man,
your soul,
your poems -
both mine to take
and
mine to keep

this title,
this poetic obligation
fulfillingly, fittingly,
my responsibility

mine to write
mine to keep
mine to right
mine to mine
for its
bejeweled contemplations

render easily unto me
what I have Caesarean seized,
pried lovingly and forcibly
from thee within

though seemingly rightfully thine,
title has passed,
legally, tenderly,
into your lover's arms

banish poet thine troubled assembled,
ensemble senses,
this particular poem's journey
and the soul that bears it,
released and relieved,
for now,
mine to take,
mine to keep,
and
thy soul,
in mine to dwell,
and
mine to complete"
~

"indeed,"

or,

what she says when she doesn't want to say what she's thinking,
denying me her angered feelings.  

by all your judgmental metrics
the title alone
is a poem,
done

indeed.  

the original
"whatever"

so many stanzas on this,
ramp up my manly ragings -
all begging to say
"I have been released"

but I daren't unleash the hormonal
masculinity
feelings

so, borrow her word
that says nothing while saying anything,
e v e r y t h i n g
you don't want to hear.  

indeed.

nobody knows
the troubles
you've seen

nobody knows them all,
maybe some here/there,
scattered pebbles, strung together in a too tight choker,
as if two hands grasping your  gasping neck,
as if you needed a reminder
of your own hands in slow mo,
cutting off of the oxygen supply,
to merest trickle,
the insufficient
be well

hell
no one knows the precision past,  decision nature
of thine owned Sisyphus boulder,
the one you alone shoulder

so you grin~grimace inside,
when they sincere, but casually bell,
un-beknowning, un-thinking
wishing you one mo' time,
an extra seasonal

be well
~
ah, well intentioned,
but you're getting older,
tireder from the loader,
each time it's tossed your way,
falling to the pitted bowls bottom
all these
be well wishes

it's like a glass of water trying to
fill a well mostly dry,
quench a bonfire of exhaustion,
that only grows stronger,
feeding on its own inexhaustible supply
of good wishes innocently poisoning

I have two* sons.

I hope they

be well

I,
a stranger never to be seen,
a million miles from the scene,
smile and weep,
loving the shallow for its deep,
finding amazement in the complexity
that only humans have
the capacity to commit,
all of us captains of the capital we store,
in the small hallmarks of every day living,
and in an overdue, catchup e-transmission,
a well wish comes true

a poem born,
a kindness to myself,
the best gift of and to,
those who are both,
well,
friends and strangers

who remind us that hope too,
is a
well

3/30/17 8:58

<•>

the freight of fright (one by one)

you don't see them often
out east,
the coupled cars of trains,
so long, one single train, touching,
two borders of one middle-of-the-country-state,
simultaneous

that said,
rode those couplers once or twice,
even now, sitting free fared on uncut lengths of rebar,
quiet humming on my knees, Clapton's Layla,
heading to a city that claims need for another skyscraper

but the freight train I ride and rode a million passenger miles,
so many miles, I ride now gold free for life,
that of course,
a curse,
an ironic joke
on me

the freight of fright,
of waking up tired,
after just having falling asleep
worthy of only short story nightmares,
alligator eaten dreams,
running from and to
the silver bullet band's lullaby;

"running against the wind,
a young man,
running against the wind"

this train, all mind mine,
don't carry no commodities,
no cars or washing machines,
its load is men, mostly me,
carrying grades of fright,
adding on and up a few more rail cars,
in strange cities,
different chemical formulas
but all prime fright, fear,
of waking up, still breathing

guess I can quit here,
no excuse making time to make a tome,
fright comes in small measures,
coupled together, this train,
this tracked, cracked dry riverbed
of a train,
and it goes on bye,
one by one


12:57am