typo of the first degree
meant to type passed,
better to letter the error,
write the poem you knew
was the one of the litter inside,
stewing & brewing in the internal
of you, regardless of the woulda
shoulda coulda of poetic eye~hand~brain
trinity of discombobulation…

we passed a 110% good-god-
another-glorious-day—perfect
in every aspect of deep respect,
lazing in sun and shade, no
matter, for the cool customer
of gentling breeze comforts
the global populace and each
draws comfort, deposits solace,
from the timeless day that slowly
slips inside us, a blessing for the
senses, that are inadequate to
praise it properly, ‘cept with a
nod of appreciation for the great
blessing that on us has been
bestowed…

we read, I write, bring her a
coffee unasked, for the chip
secreted by me in her temporal
lobes, lobs me a silent alarm:
snacks required!

we heartily dinner debate,
turkey burgers or mushrooms better?  
Bun, No Bun?
Salad ingredients  consumes a
de minimus 5 minutes before the
holy silence of our total environment,
soothes the phony discordiality of our
pretense, that there are two sides here,
not just hers, no matter what🙄
any diplomatic observer might
think…

the bunnies sense our presence,
emerging from the cool dark
of the shaded burrows dug beneath
our redwood deck, & get fed baby carrots,
that they pretend not to see until the babies
are summoned, from beneath the ledge!!!

the deck, that is now in its forty fifth year,
grows ancient stronger with a good annual,
steam blasting face lift, bettering with age,
keeping pace with the creatures resting on it,
just above the bunnies below’s steerage deck,
though the humans graceful age with no
artifices or outside help, except the air,
its salty flavoring, and the panoramic view’s
total encompassed comforting…

so the day passes, and it’s added
to our cull of perfection, distinctly
better than the day prior but who
can be sure, not I, for the poems
come easy, the music delivers delight,
the books read, additive to the engine
of the human body of know-more-ledge,
weighty matters, but zero caloric, and
thus, well deserved and served for dinner’s
chatter banter + desert with caramel M&M’s (1)

and the poet signals that the poem near complete,
and the trad sign off, today unnecessary, no need to query,

Where is Shelter?

for we are all a day wiser, and smile,
the answer before and inside us,
and the only open question remaining,
can heaven be better, and we secret wink,
cause the answer is. too obvious to we restees,
here, here is heaven, and go back to giving thanks
for our lucky stars…

tired old ripped up rope,
shedding shredding,
interwoven from
worn~warnings, that
do not hint!
but volume speak,

of a lifetime well used,
the two ends, no longer straightforward,
now stretched, misshapen, countless uses,
left squiggly serpentine, from knots left tied
for~far too long, till they cannot be returned,
to a youthful vigor

them my lifelines;

that stretch from the Atlantic to Pacific
upon my new york hands, right & left,
end to nearing endings, do not hint at
stories untold, geezers, happy to reveal
their tiredness’s are denied a golden oldie
status, just a wind-ed wind-up doll winding
down, coiled-springs uncurling, decoiling…
tensions releasing…

this is the way of the poet,
the words no longer
streaming on demand,
they blip, scurry, a side dent,
glancing, like a windshield hit,
here and gone,
before a napkin secured,
a nearly dried out Bic
secured to scratch remnants
of a phrase spectacular,
end up crumpled, buried,
predeceased in a pocket of an-old fav, a Harris Tweed sport jacket, nurtured
over the years, the faint haze odor
stink of when he
smoked, a couple of
decades long ago…

he rambles,
like that rope end unraveling,
he is was a poet of the way,
for this the way of signing off,
intermittent coughing fits,
the nervous glances of strangers
as he pretends to sashay across Broadway when the light is flash down ten seconds to cross the width of Eighty Feet,
on that old American Indian path
that stretches from the tip of Manhattan Isle
to the Capitol of corruption, Albany, 150 miles…

you see,
poets garner knowledge,
then drip
drops drabs in simile and
metaphors, for this  poem
is just the unraveling of a poet
who has,
worn out his welcome,
and smirks/winces
notionally, a long way
to say, the poets has
lost his own way,
now untied, untitled,
unentiteled,
and that’s a
wrap…

you haven’t written me a love poem in so long


around midnight,
two too together,
climb in to bed,
covers tucked,
up to their chins,
happy old souls
settling in 4 the evening...

suddenly followed,
by a furious
sixty seconds of
running and rubbing,
semi-serious sinning,
hands up ‘n down
any part, nearest, handy,
public or private, dandy,
maybe even a minute moaning,
a simple reassurance,
a kind of insurance,
covering bases,
first, second and third,
yeah, he/she to me, attracted...

exhausted, contorted,
exalted, these two fossils,
rising like a holy ghosts,
from the dust bin of
a jointed storied history,
begin to race, who will,
be first to sleep-snoring...

yet

one of them thinking
in those waning moments,

you haven’t written me
a love poem in so long,

the other, thinking happily,

ha! finally learned to keep
poems, short and simple

and both of them
kaput, lights out darkened,
until coffee arrives by
seven thirty morn light,
handmade, by hand delivered...

oscillating between extremes

the seesaw tilts, slamming the body into hurtful,
no genteel daisy picking, nope, love me, love me not,
the mind playing warped ideologies, you, tossed about

I want her; all men do; the rapture is coming, her eyes,
preach to the converted and the soon-to-be; join her,
her semi-colon smile, represents a hell of near-completion!

discourse, pleadings, all for naught, she, teacher/grader,
A or F, frenzied thrown to the ground, her lips say oops,
but we know, a throwing intentional, a mastery of reminder!

barbs of  batting eyelids, whipping tongue tips reveal daggers,
woe is me, whoa I plead, there is no mercies extant, instead, we
oscillate up and down, tween extremes, I need her, can’t have her!

I hate her! and myself, for myself, I love her so, my hate for her is less
than our mutual mocking of me...

————

we oscillate between extremes, at least, we are together...

~for alison~

sun’s come out, yellow invitations issuing,
let’s walk, asking, my afternoon habitué, you’ll talk,
I’ll listen, maybe a poem, a tune, who knows,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear

Nina Simone on the phone, called,
letting you know, she’s feeling good,
subtly pointing out you could too,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear

Adele rang up, just in case,
you were undecided, to keep on
chasing pavements, even if,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear

Elle King came by, shame she said,
what’s you need getting into is shame
‘n trouble, the kind that makes ya shake,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear

Chris Stapleton, didn’t have no idea,
you knew him too, reminding you that
Tennessee Whiskey ain’t the answer neither,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear

Amy W. stopped in, in case you needed a ride
in her BMW, just to say hi, you ain’t no p.o.w.,
stop cheating on yourself, it ain’t no good,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear

my woman, sat down next to me, demanding all
my devices, pad and phone, you’ve got memories,
roots, a home on the ground, no nighttime gypsy you,^
don’t need no sad other women music, surely what comes

of it is exactly clear.




^Alice Merton

lest the best go to waste

~for the Grande Dame of Port Hardy~


this breathing fire, a coronating sense of mortality, internally
stronger than ever before, though unaffected, no visible signage,
his invisible labored breathing, the torn fabric of easy gone mentality,
yet so corrupted, his interiors polluted, his crying-out-loud goes

unheard, the sheltering alone in his head, which now is stretched,
way past the point of no return ever, this new strand of side-virus,
of dreary sameness, familiar but reimagined as an atmospheric cancer,
the urgency by which his olive oil words, from pitcher poured, astounds

no subterfuge, he’s made his Great-Escape, to the sheltering island,
his refuge, part redoubt, jagged coastlines a hardening shell, no access
until you declare fealty to the Ferry Captains, who let you board for a princely $2 bucks, if you meet their unstandards, upstanding, healthy?

to the old cottage where we have summered forty year more, The requested Crew assemblage by early dawn (no ****),  for animals unencumbered by time-stealing watches, animal mutual truce declared, mottled multiplying rabbits, squirrels who know not any fear, orange breasted robins, **** deer, mollusks, rainbow trout, osprey, cat-sized cawing crows, and the watchers, the sea-it-all gulls

even the Canadian geese send a scout, in the poet’s nook we are formed, nervous not for their safety, but worried for mine, a Memorial Day meeting very traditional, atmospheric condition cool-cloudy-overcast, party sunny a bold-faced forecasters lie-trick, for an island *******-bonding gloom, a glomming gray weight tamps the air down

Friends! My Audience for New Poets! (their honorific, now over-a-decade old): The Gods have tweeted, this year may not have a next, no Jerusalem for your human acquaintances, the luxurious slowdown of island life, infected by a new urgency, explaining the known and the unknowns facing the human interlopers

Where’s Shelter?**

a refrain, a greeting,  we have sung together, so many times, self-satisfied, fore we knew well, knew anew, we had the answer, here, here, though to life’s cycle we are not immunized, but now your human admirers face agents of death, by invisibility masked, giving us no pause, so we, all, write now, must forward on to:

live/write our best, lest, our partnership be for naught, always between us truce of mutual consent, a natural love of all living things

~for Honey~

upon arrival in May, 2020, at the sheltering island:

sparser, leaner, the overage of summer fullness lacking,
some of the presumptuous early blooms silly attempting
with no success, the deceiving of new arrivals, while the many
naked branches, leaf-less, trees, struggling be fully realized, needy
to join, volunteer, with the troops of advancing green recruits

this no poem, just descriptive, a viewpoint, my eyes awaken
to calm waterways, white boat dots trawling, looking
for new births, bounties of raw refreshment, sailing to an audience
of landed, gentrified emerald grasses, their chorale singing ‘thirsty!’

of me they ask, who be you, we’ve not seen nary a human trod
our land and seascape for months many, we have no recollection,
no issuing, of an invitation to any two legged slightly-familiar interlopers, reply simple, essence of essential, I’m being, being here!

your shores shore me in ways undefinable, that my
travels and travails don’t dare accompany or defy,
looking for old friends, natural ones, some likely passed,  all
whilst I sing Over the Rainbow, wishing wishes wonderful

already becoming truth, eyes daren’t deceive, my somewhere
here, where a winter’s rainbow made its landing, dreams truthful revealed, richly greeted, our presence yet welcomed, by sea salted
odiferous air, lapidaries of sapphiric waves, animals of the Kingdom

the poetry nook members, askance asking, why, what so long took,
we, your audience, waiting patiently for a coming, to pen our
woods and tales, long, short and tall, prophecies of storms,
lighting crashes, of a stilling peacefulness, heaven-bequeathed

the Adirondack thrones, four kings, wearied worn, beyond gray,
show their weathering rings pride of ‘another year, we’ve survived,’
saying now, we’ll speak to the world, through you-man-poet,
our minions too, deer, wolves, rabbits, starfish, osprey, sea trout, piping plover, all winter survivors, will enjoin your verses

much to tell, newly created, new spells, to trance your eyes,
you seeing only our surfaces, guessing at our depths, our inherency,
looking for recovered keys to unlock your own hardy boyish mysteries, but ours, are perpetual unsolvable which is why,
you humans, ne’er fail to return

your soft footfalls, children’s shrieks, jewels to adorn us,
our nature, needs adoration and adulation, our tree limbs
for swinging on lumber-cut swings, flying towards our blued skies, requires humans to summer-slum, breaching the winters remaining slumbering yet few ends to join you when you at last first chant,

                               that, that’s where
                               you will find me, 
                               thinking,
                               think to myself,
                                                         ­ oh, what a wonderful world!

among the millions who have never served, or wore uniform,
thought about it, was discouraged, and luck of the lottery,
the only one I’ve ever won, was #359 in the Vietnam draft,
cause my birthday was October X, and thus, stayed alive

yet, when, every time, hearing Henry V recite his battle speech,
copious weep that I was not there, for the deep need in my soul,
I too well ken, that I ne’er had the opportunity to become one of
a company, a band of brothers, this stripe, missing from my arm

would I have served if called? do not be absurd, the war was idiocy,
but that would not have prevented me from the chance, the luck,
to have been beside men, who would forevermore be mine, be my
very own band brothers...perhaps you think me mad, perverse,
not so, the bonds that formed such, gentle men for ever better...

“From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition”

she said:
you are a man knowing cruel, knowing hard,
with strangest soft skin, a funny way of talking,
lick my face with your words so I’ll learn,
to be tough and tender too, this I want, wanted

he replied:
life gave me splinters, broken from rough edges,
left under my exterior to fester, blister, and scar,
life licked my face, taught me mean, and the words
that came with that, were sand papered on my skin

she answered:
I’m not blind, I can feel, smell your contradictories,
want your antibodies in my blood, survival skills,
to be what I am not, and keep too, what I’ve got, to
be infected and protected, knowing words defensive

he listened:
what you desire, is the health that comes after,
after what you don’t understand, until you’ve
loved, lost, been beaten down so that getting up is
miraculous, this unteachable, this licking by words

she insisted:
your arrhythmic rhymes, skinflint perspectives,
this is what I ask, what I need, what you can give,
what is in your possess, what you need to unburden,
making me better for making you lessened

he wept:
and said nothing.

for nothing taught appreciating silence and that,
was the beginning,
of what she wanted,
of what he did not,
of what he gives reluctantly


8:16AM
Wed May 20
Isle of Mind