“I write blurt by blurt, edit once, then post and send it out like a puppy”
that is learning to walk, impossible to walk straightly,
thank gawd for walls and laundry baskets and single sneakers
that obstacle us into trouble, opportunities always a near
but never fatal crashing,
and our whisking swishing tail is an ever
countervailing, counterbalancing
waving gesture of
“oops,
there we one goes from nearly, nearer, almost another
nearest disaster

that is the style of substance of how I write
headlong smashing, bouncing off walls,
regrouping spindly words into a balletic
clown show,
startling off in a new and unforeseen direction,
scrambling energy like three sunny side up eggs,
whistling and crackling and popping,
god, this writing stuff is **** tiring,
so much easier to respose,
chew there upon,
selectfully taste and spit~select
a single word,
picking the appropriate apropos,
taking a nap in between,
then
recommencing
blurting
blurts
of escapading words
that tumble out,
falling all around,
requiring reassembly like
an impossible-to-put-together
new toy,

anyway,
here for you to play with
for your sensory pleasure
is my latest greatest
blurt,
which rhymes with
dessert,
which I will imbibe
after eating all my
vegetables.

“I fear that many people are put off by poetry because they don’t know where to start. If I have any advice for them, it is this: find what you like.

Who is to say what guides this process?

In my own case, it has simply been the fact that certain phrases, poems, and figures have acted like flare-lights along the path of my own life. Sometimes you see a flicker in the darkness and know that it is saying something—often something of great importance—and you sense that you have to go toward it, to get near to it, all the time looking out for other lights.

My love of certain poets stems from a single phrase they wrote that hit me like a great freight train of truth.

At other times, I have been attracted to a poem or a poet because I am taken by that feeling of recognition that someone else has felt or thought exactly the way I did. As C.S. Lewis says, as a character in the film Shadowlands, “We read to know we’re not alone.”

Sometimes, we read poets because we want to be like them, or because they are arbiters of good taste, or have been through something we want to know about. Literature—poetry, in particular—offers us a way to become different from what we are or might have been otherwise.

In the end, I suppose the question is: What is the purpose of all this? Why is it worth making our heads into a well-furnished room?

I think it’s because what we have up here—in our heads—is the only thing that cannot be taken. So long as we have memory, we cannot be made into automatons by man or machine…”

Which brings me back to Shakespeare.

The Tempest is the last play Shakespeare wrote on his own. And because of that—and because we know so little about his life that we always look for clues in his work—a lot of autobiography has always been read into the play.

It is about a magician, Prospero, at the end of his magical days. At the end of the play, he promises to drown his magic book and break his staff. It is impossible not to read a certain amount of biography into this, Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage.

Every now and then, somebody comes up with a new theory about Shakespeare. All have been heard before—for example, the vivid description of the sea in The Tempest indicates Shakespeare must have spent time as a sailor.

My response to this? In that case, Shakespeare must also have been a Roman emperor, several English and Scottish kings, a Danish prince, a shepherd boy, a teenage girl in love, a murderer, and almost every other person who ever lived. It is a reductive argument, because it forgets that in the realm of the imagination, you can be all things without actually being them.

And, in any case, at the end, it all disappears, falls apart, and comes together again somewhere else.

This speech, by Prospero, in the fourth act of The Tempest, is the finest farewell of any I know, and one I hope to keep in my own head for many years to come.

**Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep

The Level of Uncertainty, This Yellow Star

“Even though I’m OK right now,
there’s a sense it could all go
away in a second.”  

<>
foreboding,
a disease well known to me,
not “as if,” but in fact
been Cain-marked at
birth to be wary, be watchful,
ever alert, never inert in the
realm of possibilities,
the king
in my universe’s galaxy is the
randomness of existence,

microsecond, milligram minuscule,
muscular instability that even if
unspoke,

danger!
it’s bespoke nature, customized
just for me, lurks, prepared to ****
me into a hard fall, loss of balance

yes,
I prepare with subtleties, minute
measures, discrete and indiscreet,
measured steps, slow-wide turns,
“hands on the railing down the stairs we go”
motto~attitudinal, antithesis~carefree,
for this birthmark was forehead installed
from birth, as a reminder that
reckless abandon
is a countervailing force,
and there are whales in the ocean
and whole coteries of fish in the sea,
waiting, wanting to swallow me whole,

lions across the ocean faraway continents
eager for a nibble of my tender heart,
round ****, and
thousands of people
who hate me and my kind, for no reason,
other than my birth mark,
this foreheaded
yellow star,
notifying all eyes, that I am to be dreaded,
feared, for reasons no matter,
just but unjustly

because, I am a Jew

who prays thrice
times daily for peace
for the whole world.

Sat Feb 10
8:35am

Francie Lynch gets it! (The Thin Red Line)

https://hellopoetry.com/francie-lynch/

“A poem is like a tickle,
it gives both joy and pain:
with blissful tears and tearful
giggles, you'll read that poem again.

A poem is exactly like
a damaged heart in
need of surgery:
a cut that heals,
a line that
leaves a
scar along your heart.”
F. L.
<~>

I,
now in possess
of said thin red line,
where they cut me
just so, opened
stem to stern
for a rethreading repair, a repaving
of the highways & byways of
my little blue engine that
almost but couldn’t quite could but thought…
b e l i e v i n g
it could eke by for a little longer

new observable routine,
first item of my daily rising
now includes a pre-diurnal poetic
extraction~*******~ejection,
an intro~introspection
of an
introductory, petite reflexive
contemplative
reflection
of life’s mysteries,
like enjoying that
first bang of eye~opening conscious breath and a
disruptive need to spill
a few verbal beans before the
daily dead~lines of to do’s
strangle me into oblivion

a morning dispatched
by the poet paperboy
on his cardio bicycle

with
tearful eyes,
and many mirthful
gaggles of
giggles

yep,
a tickle
too,
no
extra

charge✅

“You are so kind.  
Thank you with all the
resolve
in my heart.”
J.V.

<>

A thank you note,
for a simple shining-of-light,
stuns me into inspiration,
deep chested thrombosis consternations and calculations,
palpitations of the boom-boom variety,
signaling the onset of  intracranial contractions
of a new birth~poem
aborning…

who of us these days,
speaks of the resolve in our hearts?
who of us free confesses deep natured thanks,
it is almost too old fashioned.

it is powerful.
it is a thanks that
powers the wattage sufficiency
to light up a city entire,

and even though inward focused,
it yet is shedding Moses-like
light beams
heavenward,
I wrack my heart to even comprehend,
that simplest of actions reciprocal:

1/Thank You

can it, (it can!)
steel the heart,
give its truthfulness a special
power, and more than resolve,
even solves
our equation solution

so elegantly is the endless searching for the
right way to give thanks, to receive thanks,
it is a mutual gifting, for our mutuality is of
two hearts, echoing the words of
all legislative bodies:

”Be it Resolved”

what is this resolution then?

the consummate of English words
with such a variety of shadings,
requiring a declarative,
not a narrative,
consummation

be it resolved,
that two resolute hearts
shall not depart this Earth
before their arms interlocute an
embrace,

the shadows of their eyes interlock,
casting away
interfering long distances,

a single atmosphere shall
be tasted, inhaled,
by their
combinatory sensories

then and only then:
their resolve tested
and surpassed
will their poem

commencé et terminé,
begun and completed

The Emotion is Carried




<<>>
“*The gender-neutral name Jamadhi comes
from Arabic origins, meaning “beauty.”
When thinking about all the beautiful
things in the world, your little one, with
their kind demeanor and bright smile,
no doubt springs to mind! But a name
simply meaning “beauty” doesn’t only
refer to their appearance. This name
is a reflection of their beautiful little
soul, too, on a journey through this world.
Baby Jamadhi could be a gentle soul
or the fiercest of little childon the playground,
but no matter what, a name meaning
“beauty” will always ring true.”

Our Holy Communion of Words

you wrest my words away, with tongue and teeth,
running their sounds out with your soft tonguing,
gentling their enunciated freedom to float airborne,
but not before,
your teeth hone them sharper, wiser, better,
before freeing the letters
for life eternal rebirthing,
swapping, warping words,
into a
a holy communion

then with thy lips closing after them,
wishing them godspeed,
safe travels to yet another’s eye imbibing,
until released once more,
traveling from souls you likely
never to meet, embrace, greet,
but to whom you have formed a
direct intangible tangling,
shared wafered words,
a holy communion*

But

yours,
your words,

gut punch me,
how could you know,
where/\were
you there beside me when in darkened hours
the sun shone brightly, illuminating with bent light
our crevices and our crevasses,
your, words, written,
stun me into crazy, as if
you were within my interior
a cacophony exposed for all to hear,
my grunts & oofs,
visceral, too real, and
my actual tears cascade unfiltered
into the cup of our tangible entangling,
salted & starry*


our holiest communion yet!

~~~~~~~~
Fri Feb 9,
10:00pm~10:30pm

Upon appearance of an untitled poem with no body in my Drafts
<>
never have I ever
written an untitled poem,
nor painted a human sans
a head;  arms, legs, o.k., but,
but when the purging urging
enwraps me at 12:22 in the AM,
i cannot birth my babies
stillborn,
unnamed, forlorn,
it’s every breath would be
an accusation, of breach, malfeasance,
a child nameless, is the worst of all orphans,

the poem’s title is its inner essence, a preface,
a forward, and epilogue, just as your names is
both begin and end, a hint of who you are and from
whence you came, and where you are bound to be bound,
it is your birth name, and final resting place, a hint of who you
we’re, ared destined to become, to be, and to come,
an entitlement!

ah you curse or bless, thy given name, no longer do
you examine it, write it repeatedly, to despise or admire
the sounds of it exiting thy mouth, a roomful of teeth
and tongue in concert cooperating and conniving, silky
hissing your who-you-are-ness, you, who are poem, exist not,
cannot be, without your entitlement; ah you pause and say
to the sleeping woman who neither hears nor cares,
who am I, who I am, and the differences
entre deux
that are my
character

yes, a untitled poem is forever
unwished, unfinished
unwashed?
and to eternity, forever lost,
unsigned, unconsigned,
unfortunate
unconsummated

a quote from Samuel Johnson, or Dr. Johnson, the storied eighteenth-century poet and essayist who once said:

“The sole aim of writing is to enable readers a little better to enjoy life, or a little better to endure it.”

<>
our “sole aim,”

Oh what burden the doctor places on our shoveling pens,
to be earthmovers
that dig trenches, uproot earth,
that lies and hides our faces, entombing our hearts,
eliciting and erupting emotions that cannot be contained,  
nor controlled,
indeed, deserving of replanting in
our shared selves, transplanted into a communal flowerpot
of our multi bursting colored commonality

lift my composing tools,
peer into
winter blue skies guarding the towers of
Manhattan isle, longing for guidance.
lusting for specificity of direction,
how,
how, to easy our burdens
with carefully selected and
careless wonderful words,
words that deal out caring uncarefully,
with a graceful recklessness of abandon
that open thy tears,
lift up the edges of your lips,
so that my duality is your duality,
the burden shared.
the burden eased…

to cry and laugh simultaneous,
lift and lighten,
a momentary distraction,
a cut flower in our vase,
that lasts but brief,
yet with each gaze repeated and
repeatedly,
well stains us with
eyes uplifting

"I will create as I speak."

<>
these profound and most serious of words,
vibrate within my chest (really!) as I
tongue test them, having just awoken
and a Sabbath ~Saturday looms before me,
naked and full of
potential.

I am hopeful, and unafraid, by the clean sheet of twenty four hours that covers me nearly toes to head, a singular occurrence,
normative
would be dread of the shroud of lists of items of urgencies that demand outage justifyingly,
urgencies crying out,
attend to me now!

but this day different, a sleepy peacefulness
compromises my interstitial spaces, and an amber color of
calming quiet fills them, no raucous splashes,
no errant droplets hinting at the fullness-yet-to-come
when the tanks of
empty are quietly, with a silent sigh of finality, announce the profundity of sufficiency and satisfaction facing
undefined emptiness,
that these contradictory sensations are
harmonious extant
within me for the foreseeable momentary.

Dai!

this single syllable Hebrew word for “enough,” issued in one breath, like “the end!” hits me with a slap of sensibility as a closing lid on this just about to possibly boil *** of emotions and internal combustion.

two last thoughts burr me mind before signing off:

the contradictory nature of the blanket of
an unscripted openness of a day ahead, and the
totality of its fulsome satisfaction it offers,
do not confuse me.

no scholar I, it occurs that the word Dai,
unlike any other, has a root unknown to me,
but internet of godlike humans had anticipated my query and offers me irony and reassurance that I am so not the first to wonder and know this satisfying confliction of this two headed Hydra send-story, sensatory, balanced imbalance
for the root of this common word used daily to say:
“enough,” “stop,” or “that's sufficient.”

comes from the root is DaWaH דוה which literally means
“to flow or extend outward.”

and though
*I created this poem as I spoke,**
I only reiterate what my ancestors already knew
thousands of years ago!

by the bye,
the Hebrew phrase "I will create as I speak,”
is well and better  known to you as:

Abracadabra.


Dai!

“a decade old is forever new, for
truth is never old.”
Pradip Chattopadhyay 


this man, ten years of inspiration, ten years of friendship, here,
on HP,
provides nourishment to my lagging body as it nears eight decades
of Earthly occupation, for
his eyes and heart and his mastery
of the songs of the tongue,
have wrenched me straight,
we, attentive to the tears
he makes me weep, for his insights penetrate my insides,

even now as one, unexpectedly, reflects midst
yet another first poem of the day, my eyelids blink away
the wet,
my brain revels at his pithy, how he corrals,
encapsulates the daily smoke and fire of life,
it truest value,
in words that make one wonder,

what admixture of mineral, chemical, history,
adventures, atmosphere, parentage, spices,
love gives him these super powers to gentle
seize the moment, size our souls, causing my
cheeks to wide smile, while mine eyes sheds
monsoon droplets of feelings so deep, that
my repaired heart oxygenates my very soul,
making me high, my mind reels that a day will
come inevitable
that one of us will be unable to sit by side,
swapping tales of granddaughters, and
other earth meaningful events, to walk his
streets or he, mine, finishing each other’s
couplets.

to think that I awoke with no intention of
composing this paean, but his brief pearl
knocks my head side to side,
and with the
tears, come words,
that age, or an entire
decade,
cannot restrain,
retrained to modesty,
for regarding my friend
Pradip,

my boundaries expand and cannot be
contained, even by my delimited vocabulary,
the paucity of my skill, the insufficiency of
the adjectives acquired over a lifetime, but
do my unequal-to-the-task best efforts,
but without choice, but compulsed, compelled,
one more time, to say,
to my new day,
perhaps my last,
I love this poet~man.
this is one of my truths.
<>
Wed Jan 17 8:31am
City of New York

<>

read the poetry of
https://hellopoetry.com/pradip-chattopadhyay/
<>