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but about cat ladies,
with cats attached

who most like their
fel~ine femin~ine
mistresses, also
come in many colors,
categories, shapes ‘n
sizes

looking to adopt a
pair of cute kiddies,
with promises of
much stroking and
endless affection to
fill the void in my
currently, sadly, totally
animal~less existence

But!

we want a pair,
cat & cat lady,
for how a woman
treats her cat is
the single best
indicator of how

she loves to love
poets, who are
most like cats,
needy for exchanging
purrings and many
other endearing
sounds and belly
stroking, inclusive
of the frequent
recitations of
onlylovepoetry


(a tiny amount of
mutual scratching
is to be happily
expected as well)
~for Maya~

(8/12/24)
never put off the important stuff
till tomorrow, defined as 202five,
first tend to the existential jive,
after all there are harvests
that need bringing in,
bills that need to be paid,
or yet to arrive,
and them older ones, children demanding
an installment to keep them happy’n
currently hip

the weather vane ventures an opinion,
another option, hard to discern, for the
vane spins wildly as almost undecided
as a teenager dreaming ‘bout which girl
to prom-vite, or a seven year old confronting
30 plus favors in the tuck shop before picking
the craziest, the most colorful,
& worst tasting,
then dropping cone et al, on dad’s ****** brand,
new sneakers

putting off poetry till the next year’s almanac
agrees a day off you need,
to seed,
to cede
for yourself, a practical decision
that any farmer could at arrive,
tho probably better things need doing,
****, even sleeping as there is never
enuf  seconds even for that, cause something
always needs fixing,
and

I ain’t even mentioned the vagaries of the
full time occupancy of worrying bout
the witches in charge of discharging
crazy unpredictable Canadian weather

but there is something that needs tending,
use those soil stained fingernails to unburden
the weights that don’t go away, just because
the body too tired to talk to the soul, cheat
sleep, scribble down that single verse that
the chest can’t get rid off, that rhyme in
your puzzled mind, as to what comes next,
and then the rest will follow; which
one you ask, me smiling, the one that
already burnt a hole in your breast,
complaining bout their orphaned status,
and looking to be one of the kids who get
luckily adopted

but what do I know, probably all wrong, me
with no plan on how to survive beyond T+1,
the way markets taught ya how to think
about additive time, a day at a time,
but still find a poem for you
squeezing itself in between his very different
list of worries that never quit, making those
hailstones falling in his can’t-sleep-either brain,
rising with the Eastern sun to pen
crazy poems about humans he’ll likely never
meet…

postscript
————-
his favored Persian poet penned, (1)

We are often in battle,
So often defending every side of the fort,
It may seem, all alone.

Sit down my dear,
Ttake a few breaths,
Think about a loyal friend,
Where is *your
music,
Your pet, a brush?

Now pick up your life again,
Let whatever is out there
Come charging in

Laugh and spit into the air,
There could be holy fallout.* (1)
she espied
my prone body
mostly unclenched
mostly unclothed
comes standing beside,

she,
a human eclipse
blocking half-a-sun

and
i without
surreption

slide my hand slowly,
languorously
up her inner thigh,
she laughs with a
chuckled giggle

asking

Really?

and the poet replies:

oh yes indeedy
“it’s the time of the season
When love runs high
In this time, give it to me easy
And let me try with pleasured hands

Time of the Season,
Song by Zombies
1 9 6 8
<~>
was 18 years young,
when first heard these words,
now in my-eighth decade,
times is both
plentiful
and yet delimited by the onsetting sunset finale,
but
and so are the
accumulated  dictionary of word’s available,
that I command,
legions, armies, corps,
all to command,
to properly say…
yes,
it is the
Time of Season

come to the. lean sheer clean paper single sheaf,
with no agenda,
perhaps to just amend an overdue,
thank you

these pleasure hands
have always been
greedy,
for the sensuality
that stroking fingers command,
the contextual sensuality
is far greater than you ordinarily
stop to think about…

but I remember
every face, every cheek,
that I have stroked,
think upon it!

the soft curvature of the skin’s mellifluous
shapely contouring to you
your pointer
finger,
thinking simple
nothing finer,
more pleasurable,
totally expressing
the emotive bonds
two human can share

mother trains her. children
with a deeper understanding
how love is simple,
enduring and stronger than
any time’s decay could contemplate
despoiling

and to those women I have
adored,
whose thieving stole my precious loving,
I
thank you,
for your taking was a giving to me,
making a whole person
understand than to be whole
was to be parted,
for two are the greatest
one,
an equation that proofs
our experience
that though solitude
inspires
our greatest creativity


is is only because my eyes are
infused with and for
love
aspired and  gained…

these hands,
more powerful than any other *****,
the eyes may have its
but will never touch
your child, your women,
your sense that giving up
yourself,
is an enehacemnt
of all you are,
a single finger
surveying the face of a beloved
is an electric shock
that soothes and satisfies
simultaneously,
unique…


keep those pleasured hands,
fully employed,
bring pleasure to the world,
so that others will understand
it is now or never,
a line drawn upon
a beloved
is
poem only you,
can write
75°F & Alive & Minding the Perfection

morning mindfulness,
surrounded by perfect,
once again, may it be
forever this-a-way

I have no idea what
I’ve done to be so
blessed; and I repay
with gratitude in this
psalm hymnal, poor
though it may be,
it is genuine, poured
from within the open
confines of all I have
learned, earned, & burned;

75°F & Alive  & Minding the Perfection,
the color contrast is  an overwhelming,
an all encompassed scheme
makes neighbors,
even,
total strangers greet each
other like beloved brothers & sisters,
this heaven is infecting,
an infectious breeze of the
stillness of early morn
born and carried in our cell’s walls,
strong are the nuclei, and this
memory, this poem devotion,
this ttributary of words
flows with slowed ease,
and the
troubles are banished to the
back of the pack,
tho the line be long,
the golden oldies music
banishes them to a temporary oblivion
and within a totality of solitude alone,  
momentarily,
my heart,
fulsome,
yes trite but true, is crazy
overflowing,
I’m in danger of loving everyone,
for to not,
would be
criminal
if it were even a
possibility

if i could snap my genie fingers,
beware, I’d summon y’all,
a global contraction perfect,
to convent/sit beside me, your presence
welcomed with a hot beverage,
a cooling drink, for every one
always get what they w a n t

*and
yea, yeah, yeah
this is a forever & always,
only  a
love poem…
10:53am
where perfection is  the ruler….
even when I lived with another,
their were divisions, we even
remembered memories different

which was a grandiose hint that
our eye to eye was dissimilar, and
the connection, the We~key never

truly locked our door from the
inside, from the outside, and we
were faithful to separate but

unequal…
”You going away with no word of farewell
Will there be not a trace left behind
Well, I could've loved you better, didn't mean to be unkind
You know that was the last thing on my mind*”
Tom Paxton
<>

the lyrics get caught in my throat,
of Tom’s guilty confessional,
so instead of voice emitted,
the letters and words
fall to the ground en-
capsulated in tears
multicolored,
the salt & &pepper
coloration of sad regret
for the multifold &
man-I-fold
mistakes
recalled in black & white graydations
of reflections of loves lost that yet haunt
and now honored, at last, 
 with their very own
words of
farewell
“Not yet,” I whisper to the heavens. “I love it here.” — Clare Cory

<>

when desperate thoughts come seeking me
in the dark dear moments of near insanity,
when the hounding is bounding and baying,
nipping at my heels but aiming for my throat,
and the litany of next time, we’ll meet again,
is a whispery threating thread in my head that no scrubbing,
can unravel, erase, debase, or erase that awful distaste of
my embittered saliva, and a peace of mind finale
comes with a disgustingly disguising crook finger,
offering a taste of relief,
I will remember this story and  clap my hands
and reach for the quill,
put down the temptation of the knife
and let it pour on to the paper
thus,

expiating and excavating and expectorating
sugary salty bile of
mine own self~hate
by whispering the magic of
Not Yet,  Not Yet.*”
May 21, 2024, 3:00 p.m. ET New York Times

Finally Finding “The Magic”

Since childhood, I yearned for love. Once, I came within weeks of marriage before it abruptly fell apart. He said we were missing “the magic,” and, admittedly, he was right. A few men came and went. I’m now 59 with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. I still don’t have a partner, but I’ve fallen desperately in love with life. Exquisite beauty emerges everywhere: my cat on my lap, a cashier extending an unexpected smile, sunlight skipping across a lake. I use each day to soak up the world’s splendor. “Not yet,” I whisper to the heavens. “I love it here.” — Clare Cory
love~worn to the extremity (get a dog)**


rare condition but not so rare,
that a first year intern might guess
the prognosis from visible symptoms,
the alternating listless groans, contextual
unexplained weeping, no singlized source
of pain but short hard stabbings in odd,
multiplex moving theaters of the brain ‘n body

slow onset, then signs manifest in increasing
rapidity, till your buddies attempt to drown
your context in a local pub, but to no avail,
just a guttural persistent wailing failing
where they beside themselves, send you home,
you’re tossed on your bed, to search for no rest,
for this malignancy is cured by lingering time,
and even then, it is a never fully excised tumor,
shedding bad humors, cells to witness to exist,
decades, a precursor to a life long disease, composing
just
one more bad
lost love poem, a
disease cancerous
in its aspect, look for the paling, waning now near
permanent discoloration around the eyes, and surely
you will have ease instantaneously recognizing me

get a dog they said,
so I did, so now, two sad eyed
lowland lady mates, two basset hounds walking each
other on silent daily trip with no destination until
one of them commences the serenade of howling


olp
march 2024
I like the way she holds my arm when walking…

up high, under the shoulder,
firm grasp on muscle, feeling
the blood beat acoustically, in joy,
sensually sensing a thrumming
thrombosis messaging, this is a
full bodied animation, liquid life,
“strong to drink”
“strength to break
off pieces and keep,”
a supporting mutuel
pillar column post,
given, taken, entrapped,
enwrapped, ensnared,
and
enshrined, mighty fine
feeling
“indeed”
pieces to mine,
pieces of mine

her taking is acceptable
my taking reciprocal
for her needs fulfill,
I,
walk taller, straighter,
in fuller strides, and when
she stumbles in the obstacle
course of nyc crack-ed sidewalkslop,
her whoosh of breath expelled
when saved by the arm firmament,
goes unremarked, for this is my
purposed occupation and the
occlusion of our skin cells
in tight bandwidth is certification
that our love is so much more than
mere skin deep,
or as she so oft summarizes, life is,
“indeed,” or in deed.

olp
Fri Mar 22-2024
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