A single lyric on a single song, sung, by one of my chosen ones, a brother and friend,
a brethren, whose hidden meanings are never hidden from me,
as we both, both gentle souls who, when lost, have been
lost
witnesses and also been witnessed:
weeping into the rags of remorse

this season is nearing conclusion, I know the sun rays penetrate, in a vain vanity of a last attempt to purify and make my soul stains,
a burnt offering, rising as smoke up to the wind,
my hearted words lifted,
letter by letter, to whence they came from

My senses are not cold, rhymes run, forgiving the sun for it’s inevitable disappearance, so it shall be displaced,
just lie us,
over then under, a nearby horizon,
with a sunset wave goodbye, a multi colored coat spectacle,
that reflects well off & on
my pallid skin

When it returns, it will be a different star, re-angled, in such a way that it can no longer do heavens work on my body and soul, both
kindred entities, each with each other,
a commemorative tree ring commonality,
a newly incised cain mark

sensitive locomotives ply between the sides of my head, knowing better than most the true meaning of fleeting, for although I am in my eighth decade now, and those words,
“there is nothing new under the sun,”
ring inherent inside like
they too newly born
 but,
running on a track well worn,
now nearly scrap iron

yet clothed in my sinner’s wet rags, the remorse ever lingers,
directed to mine own mark of Cain,
awaiting the day when the sun touches my
forehead, and those loco- motives ride higher,
for their denouement, their untying(2)

Aug 30 2024
fini 2:17 pm
by the Sound

~ for spygrandson ~

with deep affection


https://hellopoetry.com/spysgrandson/


<>

I am en~titled
by him,
commissioned by his exacting wording
of this poem’s titular naming,
all my previous attempts are failures,
over designed, too artistic
for his modest self~reckoning &
bearded demeanor,
they demanded
denial with
request for
simplicity of an unflowery
reckoning,
a clean shave,
so to speak…



a potholder of simple design,
a modest picture self-drawn,
but his stories are
sorties tall,
he draws you in, worthy draftsman sketches
of words, tales short, poems complete,
tales so sweet, of characters uniquely complete,
and you think,
can they not be fictional?

and you know they’re no such thing,
ok, maybe,
some taller and a few perhaps dreamed,
the big characters of those
giants of simple men,
whose deeds were not mythical,
ok, almost mythical…

but truth of the humans of the hammered and nailed tough skin,
who built homesteads in the
plain, in mountains, by rivers that snaked,
unmapped,
except on their hearts and feet

the humans,
that made up
the raw & naked bond holders of
these United States:
bonded by character to the soil and
its curvaceous dancing topography
from
& of the center of our country,
but with eyes keen enough
to stretch from
coast to coast,
to see to shining seas

yes, true,
the grandson be he
to/of an almost mythical man,
and so took thus
his penned name,
the grandfather, a real person
of whom stories are yet told,
for no one can be sure
that & of what deeds
this spy did,
on hostile, unfamiliar,
continents,
but the photographic proofs,
I have seen…

His blood thickened by many infusions,
a cross cultural experiment,
happily not unique,
just **** rare

but enough of this;
read him,
let his
tongue take you to
the unfamiliar,
a literary Ansel Adams,
who never saw the plain(s) men & women,
unworthy of being forgotten but
forever being
celebrated


ask him for a potpourri of his short stories
of war, the bonds that men forge in combat,
tween the dead that still live on and
the living,
who have unreadable dead spots within,
they carry their dying glances,
their dying wishes,
and who are honored by him
in his continuing recollections

with walking stick in hand,
even if going outside
to “just” measure the snowy depths,
he leave markers and trailers,
for us to recall how to weep,
from love and pain,
from following generations of his
beautiful blonde
children who are poster models for
the traditional all american imagery,
but thriving within,
with  his
wanderlust, his mixed fiery visions,
and acting, singing out dramas
befitting their inherited
visions…

<>
here
I cease,
here
I weep,
at the impoverished words
scrivened in haste,
through tears of pleasure
intended to give honor
to this man,
who cedes me the pleasure of his existence,
and enhances my world
when he asks me,
unwittingly commissions!
a poem,
about
the human character,
who see himself unusually!
“as a potholder with a simple design”
and as usual,

I fail miserable…
maybe,
nick the outer edge of a bullseye target,
because the important words that he deserves,
I have not yet mentioned:

honor, loving kindness and friend.

perhaps he is correct,
but doesn’t grasp
that without simple men like him
to hold the *** upright and firm,
we all would be lesser or
even lost.


maybe,
now I am one
with
done

My First Anniversary…
(August 3, 2024)

This title, this poem, a wholly unexpected,
never thinking this path,  
this particular tango existential
would/was needed,
to be added to
my dance card

an early exit, a poem unplanned,
second chance was not a poem in my long
list of titles awaiting a turn to be written

a year ago,
they sent me to the surgeon,
who had prepared, with no hesitancy declared,
informed that we needed to start
all over again,
my poor heart
was waxing and waning,
and I was currently stuck on
the dark side of the moon,
with no jitney making stops theron

by the way,
the accumulation of damage had attained
a level where heart was
nearly exhausted,
( I believe he mentioned 98%)
that attention must be made,
how about
tomorrow we asked,
he laughed no can do,
but the day after would be ok,
and was I an earlier riser,
a coveted 600am slot available,
my name could be penciled in…

One tear ago, 
 wheeled me in, cracking jokes,
thinking what’s the big deal,
laughing hardest
was me,
for my motto was always leave them
(oops, poor choice of words) laughing…
fear was not in my lexicon, nor in my heart,
nor was
a ferry cross the
Rubicon

so many changes, so many poems 365 days later,
the life marked by many a Cain scar,
the big one, a pencil thin ****  hesty reminder,
plus assorted scars scattershot all over, where the “borrowed” veins and arteries, like pieces of twine, mighty fine,
(no, I never slashed a wrist, though it looks like it)
moved to different places,
repurposed, for I was now a used car
but with an extended warranty…

do not think on it much, but as markers come and go,
you think:

oh! I’ll never forget this trip, event, celebration,
and a week later your mind has nearly deleted it from the
critical events memory synapses, just another
day in the blah blah blasphemy
of a insignificant man’s unremarkable life…

but when I shower, the scars rise to the surface,
all over my body’s map, they come out shouting,
“look what I did for you,” from places weird,
they tingle, insuring my never ending surprise,
at that Olympic trial,
they raced, earning a piece & place
on my gold, overall medley team medaling,
or meddling
(when I tease them…)

so, let us bring this to a close, one man’s life,
ain’t making much a difference to most everybody else,
but the question that needyfor asking,
have you changed, how have you changed?

Less than you think, still write you poems with head and heart,
with humor and wit, sweet revelations, reverent with feeling, somehow a
bit original, leaving you laughing,
or maybe even better, smiling…

my mistakes all shared, and my burdens, some shared,
some too dark to be ever revealed, and I’m guessing I’m pretty
((much😉))
the same as I was before, older, not much wiser,

but these days, I surprise myself, for I sit outside
overlooking the wide waters surrounding,
embrace the sun at its earliest morn appearance,
love me the whipping snap of the
sound of great continuous wind gusts,
all the while surveying the world,
while winds are flowing all over me
like vibrant caresses, excavating my creases,
the ancient and recent
lineage
upon my face,
and sit in utter peace
thinking about everything,
and never tire,
staying for longer than a man has a right to do nothing
but to
reassess,
evaluate,
judge,
convey…
and
always
refresh
and confront
today’s
tally…

it is the place each day, before it,
I morning sit,
but technically:

A sound is
“valley that has been filled with sea water sound
is usually formed by the flooding of a river valley…
This means that the topography
is usually less narrow
and more gently sloping than a fjord, but it is no less spectacular.”

it is my vista blessing, that a quiet Sound,
my Sound, asks daily,
this reborn morn body & soul for their
exchange of blessings
in a give and take of
purity of greatness of
restoration gratitude…

the days is early maturing,
the day but a
toddler growing up too fast,
the heated warmth of the
not yet adult noon sun is exactly
that, a teen warmth that penetrates the
cell’s nuclei, with the casual breeze
perfect offset cooling, waving the branches,
with a gentility genuine, even
the tree  swing swinging
is of a mind, moved to a gentle rocking
in preparation for neighbors children to
later come and make it raucous rocking!

the shore opposite is a deep forest green
population of thick trees, that
thankfully
masks most
of the human pollution, the mega mansions
and their trending markings of grown-up toys…

This is my morning ~

Vista and I
recreate the earth’s rough edged birth,
but celebrate with a flooding quietude that only
that word,
Sound,
could so capture and continue to captivate
and
re~
form me
anew,
not blameless or innocent,
but cleanly reopened

and willingly, desirous,
of being better, doing better,
and shed betterment,
to any all that understand that
this momentous but momentary
miracle of a soundless Sound
roars with clean, white glowing,
of a thirst slaking
hope

<>

oh i wish u were beside me…

Friday’s Fumble Crumble:
writ/wrote /needs/work

the WR juggernaut,
of write/writ/ wrote
and associated WoRdy derivatives,
a vast complex,
the crossover
from notion to lively potion,
the ****** of completion;
a tricky *******,
1st an  enticement, inevitably a
first unsatisfactory shot,
the dispiriting recognition
that what you got ain’t good…

a dissolution of resolution,
the look back~try again,
picking off the fleshy morsels
from the Valley of Bones,
that demands a really funereal
and t. swift
sea burial,
thus energized by seawater ,
or the slapping (s)hit from *****+ dirt

comes re~energy, a burst of a covert  coverup,
then comes a gleam,
the light of a beam in the seams
of your fingertips,
a repeating  secretion of ideas that refuse
to give in to a ceremony of deletion,
a prescrip for a sad~glad emotive repast,
a look back,
longing glance, but with a new hope of
rejiggering, that sticky secretion ‘pon
dying, yet enervating,
dancing fingertips,
spewing gobs so fast of wordy worthy
battered batter,
throwing in some Heath bar crumble,
soon enuf the oven is cooking!
baking and the smoking aroma of
over~heated sheets of paper
of soon to be crisply delivering cookies extraordinaire,
but alas,
‘twas all in the mind and is unjustly
a recipe, for ashes of a burnt dreams

and the tenses clench/de clench
when the writ is wrote,
but never,
not ever
is it ever just rote…

@nd that’s what ya get when you witty-gritty-wrote
@

2:06am
7/26/2024

A Dyad of Love…

<>

for my friend, Poetoftheway,
whose love stories
chipped this one off the
stoneface of ancien memories..

<>

The dyad definition is the close relationship of two people over a long period with many interactions in different settings. The most basic requirement for dyad sociology is that there are two members of the group. The dyadic communication definition pertains to how the two group members interact with each other.

<>
What business is this!

Curmudgeon crusty old man,
go back to bed, it’s early morn,
and you’ve got no business, any more,
writing of trances of love dyads!

the vague recall of the vagaries
of complete surrender to a state
of captivity, a single star of devoted
adoration ‘of the lovers, by the lovers,
for the lovers,’ which ties us up
helpless, forming bonds that crazy
stretch in ways that cannot be but are,
these recollections bare~remembered,
of driving through the night, to capture
one more moment of love~light~night, before life’s
necessity imposed an unthinkable, a
separate conscious that made the
chest groan out loud with alternating
currents of elation and a loss, that
collapses and coalesces and grows
beyond unbearable…

no reason to step back to that dyad,
when the world was defined by sideways
glances that thrilled, oh my god, all
control lost, every sonnet, every song
on the radio was written

exclusively

for your telescopic universe of
microscopic mutual gravity

and you two misspell words with unconscious
rapport, soul and sole used side by side
easy
interchangeably, and no else can perceive
the lack of definition, where the amoeba
bodies merge into a single cell unity…
and seeings  new composition merge, a blending, exact,
the world is comme il faut,  as it must be,
properly…

not yet Seven AM, and you sputter and weep,
teary eyed of memory of seconds of a single days helping,
when you understood the
meaning of peaks, and nothing of valleys,
and the unthinkable did not exist, and the
one next to you sleeps soundly secured by
the knowledge, fervent belief, that you will
be there to welcome her back to life, with smilies
of smiles, fresh coffee, and fingers that soothe
the temples, erasing all that need not be
remembered, not now, not today, and the old
man whimpers with delight at these, his very
own words, that drifted from his consciousness,
unexpectedly, just because he stumbled on
that very old word, dyad, with its multiplicity
of shadings, but! a singular expression,
so all encompassing that he must cease to
compose for his eyes are too blurred to see…