My best-ever for­tune cookie con­tained a vari­ant
of Feyn­man’s maxim:

“The work will teach you how to do it.”

    <|>

not yet noon on New Year’s Day,
the new words search begins croakingly,
then stumble upon a philosophical notional,
celebrating messy processes, equating to outcome,
robbing me of my lazy-all-in-NY Day-no-work-ethics

many a-poem writ, more half-baked, on shelf resting,
but the pointillist theoretical, paint by point, insists:
a clean year is a clean canvas deserving, so wade
in the water of frozen creeks silencing gurgles,
catch and release, a natural new work now!

an admonishment most personal, for the
production of poems has dimmed, excuses,
plentiful but it seemed my harshest critic, MM&I,^
never provide an editor’s sign off, these pieces of me,
pass their date of expiration, &  will then, my own passing

the work teaches how  
but never guaranteeing good enough





1/1/22 4:46PM
^Me, Myself, & I

measure me by quantity,
mine you, deep my shaft of data,
I got plenty,
lots of ill-advising words,
to a thousand poems...

keep 'em short, boy,
satisfy the appetite
of the new age for
short and sweet,
make the metaphors
obvious

make sure
the span of spam
tween moving the heart
and the ticking clock
is
brevity
that is the soullessness
of popular attention

you maybe, nah,
you are an old fool,
getting into movies
practically for free,
an ancient mariner,
(a what?)
but nobody wants to
read the longings that are
still and wild flowing
into and from,
erupting
of every pore,
every one a door
to to a different destination

"Your poems are too **** long"

So I will write what you want to hear...

**** it....

too long? Ok!

Suk it...
but using grownup words,
try,


Succinct me!

3/28/2015

Repeat Every Year! No End Date


a birthday reminder created;
lapsing memory necessitates
a firm calendar entry;

a reminder, with a proffered choice
every year without end
is a stark choice

for the body messages rapidly
a modest daily deterioration;
that sunrises will cease,
while sunsets not;
the smell of everything
fresh is familiar and therefore
stale in its own way

the five senses announce:
lazy man what did you expect?
why, my just desserts, which
is my tears behind rueful laughter

nearer my god than thee

~for Steve and Marshall~


“And the drowsy old world’s growing gloomy and gray,
While the joys that are sweetest are passing away;
And the charms that inspire like the picture of dawn
Are but playthings of Time—they gleam and are gone,
    While the drowsy world dreams on.”
"The Drowsy World Dreams On" by Walter Everette Hawkins

 <|>

my personal time ladder, nearer to the top step,
hungrily devour the photographs of time’s daily sweets,
every natural picture evokes gasping, wonderful wonder,
acutely aware and wary that this confirms my duality,
rejecting and welcoming the nearer end of my personal poem

the poems of many-a-day stored securely in the ever expanding
internet, for memory is the most untrustworthy partner, and who? will retrieve, reinspect them, clapping to their bright shining, who in teary wake, be commanded by my no more heart beat-throbbing, an irony unflattering, as my disposition ranking first among the
forever stillest

some few gleam and gone; in the wee hours, when I enter
the confessional, both priest and penitent, my sins gleam
for but a moment and the priest sadly informs, there is no prayer or poem that will forgive your multitude of poor paths taken, of love ungiven, craven cowardice of safety’s paths taken when choice was offered

these poems are merely
the residue of a life poorly lived,
poorly given, seeking no mercy,
for if I cannot forgive myself,
why should you?



10-18-21
11:39AM

Dear Nat,
come back to bed!

walk my hallways,
then upon my shoulder sleep,
rest in my nooks
soft, well worn, cosy crannies,
let your face go slack,
get back jack,
to where you always belong

I know too well
what ails thee,
and know no answers easy,
found walking around
an old creaky house's
groaning discordant concordance
of mystery sounds

do come back to bed!
I'll call you babe,
kiss those temples
rock 'n rolling,
soothing  them with
adagio classics from
the 1950's

I'll think of something
just back, bed bunk with me
your roommate of sole
****** sunset years

let you write poems on my tummy,
gurgling with the pleasure of
skin and words tender entwining,
just come back to bed,
pillow deep, fund the sleep
you desperate need,
from my countenance and body,
yours, no needy for asking,
just take what you're needing,
be my man,
be my child,
and come back to bed,
my still crazy man
after all these years,
before leaving me
sleepy smiling,
from a job well done

1/14/2015

“But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”
Psalms:4-8



Who knows? Who knew?
Marched, dragged, ordered, bottom line, taken,
to the synagogue was I abducted, every Sabbath;
on the Festivals, this Psalm recited, catching the
child’s eye, the words symmetry, the conceptual
contained, struck and stuck, and seven fingered
decades, he stumbles once again upon it, this time
in his file of poems yet unwrit,
aging along with the poet,
for almost the last five years.

the prayer book, black covered, thumbed well worn,
by father-supplied, periodically page number is whispered,
my childlike eyes gravitate to the English translation,
though Hebrew versed too, the English verses whip my attention,
the concept of the Lords invisibility, a super power in my mind,
early taught by storied Abraham’s idol smashing,
and the futility of idolatry,
since invisible God is everywhere

these days of memes and trolls,
idol worshiping grows strong,
the fast thirst to recognize, admire,
yes,
to worship;
plaster, alabaster, clay, marble,
even gold & silver

pay them no mind,
trained early on to covet only
what we cannot see,
sources of the pieces within of the divine surreal
that perfect our flawed shapeliness,
the electric human touch,
the simple kindest gesture,
the tender embrace,
the ineffable softness of child’s cheek
an old man’s childish innocence,
the love of all carved-by-hand woodwork
for beauty only,
the artistry of good, mastery of emotion,
all to perfect your vision to witness
what only the heart can envision

You do not understand the contrast contradictory?

You will.







____

Silvio

Silver and gold
Won't buy back the beat of a heart grown cold
Silvio
I gotta go
Find out something only dead men know

      SILVIO: WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN AND ROBERT HUNTER
                                                        ­                                                                 ­                        <>

Said the shepherd boy
To the mighty king
Do you know what I know?
In you palace wall mighty king
Do you know what I know?
A child, a child
Shivers in the cold
Let us bring him
Silver and gold
Let us bring him
Silver and gold
Let us bring him
Silver and gold
Do you know what I know/
So you see what I see?
Do you hear what I hear?


“**DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?”
LYRICS LEONARD COHEN