“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”
(Henry V, by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE)

Morning into Mourning

<>

I speak it softly, for though battlefield is steeped in quietude
of the lively greenery, endless lawns of healing fields
surrounded by multitudinous shades of blue waters,
my eyes piercing , joining in
as sunrising separates the veil
dividing light from dark, new from prior,
a went-before and a
soon-to-be
and a familiar-what-to-be-hereafter,
but a skyed breech it is,
with sun ray stairs inviting my
upright ascension into this newness

Welcoming the exposure of my trembling, though it is not fear that causes my shaking, but the colored warmth barely warming, yet,
stoking, stroking the drape of chill
away, away! from my night-sealed pores

the majestic surfacing of the waters peinture impasto, with its roughened but genteel thick, dabs, dots, swirls, swishes belie the overall atmosphere of calm it conveys, and Shakespeare’s rallying cry of men rises to the mind forefront, for the bay is my battlefield,
the day’s new light the breeching of the sky’s
envelopment of our world, summons to rise and
step forward intimately into the tableau of morning

into the breech, into the unknown,
to lift one more poem from breast,
shed tears of welcome, and death fears banished,
a battle to the unknown from the foretold past,
and, but

you shout
no!
<>
tis a day like all others,
of rectitude sans gratitude
another quantity of known drudgery, another,
“Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup”

The breach is within me,
a splitting of the head,
laid flat out upon my desk,
writing down scrupulously
officiously,
the same figures inconsequentially,
letters deranged, daily merely rearranged,
prison vista,steel and glass appearing with
the same exactitude of every day ever prior,
the sun invisible, the unceasingly unchanging
dark deep of the shadowy of manmade canyons…

speak to us no more of views, vistas,
but the fistulae, the empty places
where interconnected dots and dash’s,
light and ombre blends of dark ochre  
gradations of bland de~gray~ding
are our time’s patchworks of familiarity,
cursed with annualized daily reciprocity,
a *** for a tat,
a woolen watch cap,
a  black Balaclava,
drawn over our heads
lest the drudgery be too readily apparent!

<>
mere mortal am I,
mortal wounded by our disparate
and desperate differing points
of view,
and we split ourselves in two,
hoping for a way forward of
reconciliations,
successful hostage negotiations,
pushing these contradictions,
back inside my heads,
until confronted
once again,
and find new words coming,
to bind me of the divisions between
or even,
to blind
me to the gaps between
my left and right
brain.

for I am both men,
one and the same,
forever
battling

until the morrow, then…

Seeds could not prosper without the love of your fingers


what I know of soil and seeds,
is less than nothing, the dirt neath
my fingernails is only evidence of a
presence on this Earth, but no rapport
with the cold, damp earthy plains of  
what feeds, colors and gives forth
fruit

and yet,
you send this concretized city fella,
pictures of the seeds on your agenda,
the chosen ones that will in time, birth
healing to the world in natural mystical
ways, for what I see, what  I know is this:  

soil and rain, by themselves can bring forth
both hardy and hardluck weeds that eke out a
living home in a quarter inch of dirt in the
in~between of sidewalk cracks, trod upon,
but yet!
survivors to the
worst kind of human indifference

but when you plant, you fingers enwrap,
send coded message hid in the essential
oils of human love, for that is what only
certain hands can do…

Your hands much practiced in this messaging,
and peculiar kind of kind massaging
for I have seen your gardens, moreover I-know,
that hands such as yours overflow with both  
the take and give, inherent in only certain
specific humans, at a cellular level
not in my
possess

it takes a different kind of life experience, that
marries different kinds of cloth into a single weave,
that stores what is in your fingertips, nutrients of
your life, singular, homemade, that make
your botanicals
fully blossom




Jun 1 2024
12:50pm
in the sunroom

we are all liars.


in the endless combat battle of our internal infernal eternal
wills,

we lie-kid-delude ourselves with futuristic promises,
false pretenses,
oaths and rosy predictions
in bold and bareface thoughts,
all lies, as they pass from the conscious
to the part of the brain where
guilt is stored and storied

our success leads to extensions,
the big white lies we tell others
from shame, or kindness,
and trip so easy off our moistened,
tongue licked lips, that we are continually
amazed
by our ease telling
lies.

I read the words *factual liberty” in the “newspaper of record,”(1)

regarding some political figures who oft
do tell short and tall tales
with great frequency, are
feel free by taking
“factual liberty”
and so
my
heart

skips a beat:
hostages released,
lies well dressed
and redressed
in prom attire lies well
dressed poems birthed
for the arbiters of
worldwide
propriety,

have granted me
life and the
pursui of happiness,
and most importantly
liberty, from those terrorizing
the
factuals

Sun~Day
Jun9
2024
8:55AM
_in my hometown~

~with thanks to T. Riddle for the inspiring photos~

there are color photos of budding nascent fruits,
an unexpected delivery to the eye’s inbox
exuding new youthfulness in
variegated shades of green
and

solitary ant traveler on a leafy space shuttle,
making its way, crossing galaxies
drinking from eye-drop seas
living off the land
and

life bursting out unreservedly asking for
no favors, nor recompense but to
breath, drink of soil nutrients,
to live to give back more
than it takes
and

to be chosen, plucked, torn from its environs,
to be the fruit of sustenance and a
delivery system to pass on its
****, tasty, enhanced flavors,
its seeded progeny the
chance to same
and

the ant travels on and about fearless,
its mini-size and sure footed body
leaping leaf to leaf to live and
to be fruitful and
multiply
and

multiple multipurposed prayers multiply,
of human origin, as humans blink at the
new-life miracles repetitious, wistfully
wishing every prayer, could be
answered thusly so lusciously
but

this it cannot be always, so we accept
as best we can, small proofs,
of regeneration, life eternal,
wetting browned, dark
soil with blotches of
salty damp-tears
encased within a
moment~eased
hopeful heart

(an email titled, but no body, nor text,
a text, with no message, and followed
by a significant silence and I ask you,

Where does your mind go?

instantly or perniciously, slow  
de elevate to the lowest rung,
and the landing is hard, surface
rocky, disaster sooner to follow
for we rise to our lowest level
of equilibrium
when our
equipment
is needy for a fresh
oiling

raw April morn,
daffodils be looking
prematurely silly,

now a May morn,
daffodils no more,
irises blooming

though May itself
a hybrid of twixt
and cousin tween,
coldish morns,
summer afternoons,
evening gusts
winter reminders

yesterday, walked
50 blocks in 80+
Farenhot, sweaty much
and hypocrisy
now reigning,
oh my summer man
you your self,
selfishly forgot,
forgot the other side
of the coin, thinking
hot hot hot Not,
cranky old codger man,
yup, yup, yup.

and

you think you are done with it.
but the notion potion returns
with your stolen free will
taunting and tearing, sealing
and then dissolving
the seals

no retirement in this world
from where human means pliable
and pliable means capable of being
twisted; nay, retwisted...

last we left you,
we were weeping on the
concrete sidewalk of
Third Avenue, the police,
giving you a move on command,
as Jean Valjean earworms one into
the incapacity of movement  
because of the audacity to request
to bring him home

such is the sorrow of the lost child;
it comes with irregularity
yet, never failing to return,
the child lost, the residual, resides
within like a violin adagio reaching
the punishing silence
after a crescendo that  pretense
promised momentary relief

we struggle to keep any and all keepsakes,
polished and fed; rust and time,
no polish in the five & time dime
that does a good enough job,
but you buy it anyway

well aware that fate will inevitably
rob you, it’s so purposed

twist you, retest you and re-will you, to never forget until
you have no need for forgetting but the peace of
constant remembering when all on that day
molecules and nucleotides
collide in the atmosphere,
dog licking, cat weeping purrs, meaning hallelujah home

the endless sadness of the lost lad-ness,
dimly grow the recollections of the first word,
the first delight, the confidence complete
that your babe is non pareil;
the violin sweeps you along and the
genteel tide still too string strong to resist

the woman comes into the room;
the reddened eyes no hide
the weeping outside and in the centerpiece of a soul;
why she asks, not surprised for she’s seen it
too many **** poem-times:

my Adam, I answer;
suffices and wisely
leaves me to
compose and decompose simultaneously
weeping weeping forever weeping
even when not

furious eddies rock smashing,
curious they splash me with taunts
"you want for naught!"

but naught is the only possess
that owing it makes one impoverished

perhaps he will email me, ewail me,
does he know I am at the
Wailing Wall, Jerusalem,
insert parchment prayers for his safety

oh my Absalom, oh my Adam, my favorite first born,
come sit next to me on the sidewalk
so close to where you live,
comfort me as in the days of your youth,
now that we are both
so very much older

sleep well all you lads and children,
never mind these unstoppable tearings,
never mind the heaviness,
for it has passed
as the tears ~shed,
enlighten and lessen
my embodiment

7/16/18 prone and alone

I under stand!
_____

<>

perhaps I do
not fully,
understand,
but nonetheless,

I under stand!

Legs locked,
shoulders set,
eyes ahead straight,  
mouth firmly wavering,
range bound, between
a back n’ forth,
from grimace
to smile resolute,

my support promised,
here beneath,
is where I am,
you, set upon
my frame,
capable~able,
you, for,
to surmount,
overcome,
rise above,
see farther,
vision clearer,
any troubling
fray and say!
I am risen,
with help
of friends,
to place
my reach
never touched,
or exceeded…
until now!

2:34 pm

walking on the beach,
musing, scheming, always,
writing, grabbing words
from sea breezes,
and gusts that
order plain:
now, now,
now!
is the
time,
to share
that load**

May 26 2024

The River ("Every artist was first an amateur…")

rank, rank, rank ~ a word of multivariate meanings,
too many with hints of degrading nefariousness,
know
this
then:

the river we write upon, invites from all shores, enter!
where and when you will, let the current carry, or with
intent serious, furious paddle along side the rest of us
permanent beginners,

because each time we start to compose, all that we we
have composed before, is just loam, soil from to sprout anew,
no prior ordering survives, we begin as fumbling rank
beginners, amateurs, starting first and then over and over again
for each start
is not a statistically significant event, difference, indeed, it is clarity of challenge, search, and the joy to destroy, in order to be of finding,
it is same for one and for all,
we all are ranked, the same, first time amateurs…

so I bid you: run, get wet, welcome disasters, crumple too many
first drafts, BUT be ready when the ah ha period!
a gasp confirms: competed, satisfaction guaranteed…

it doesn’t query qualifications for quality is
yours to discern, yours to differentiate, yours to  own,
to give away freely in abundance, nor does quality be an enquirer,
doesn’t ask what are your bona fides
your good sides,  
just
to
bring and borrow,
impart and deport,
take us by surprise,
comfort and comport,
leaving behind outside a
crumb trail to make us follow
you to the coveted inside of that mystery
inner tube within that brain of yours that
roundly supports all of us ever lusting
for
just one…more




12:32 PM
Sabbath
May 25
2024

S.I.