one word. one thing
shows up on my face.

everybody knows it is a
keepsake:
keep away from me today,
for fks sake!

certain peculiarmornings
wake with a cross on forehead.

days when you certain,
everything worth saying
has been written, sung,
not a **** thing left to
contribute, except whining.

no way to purge, the compulsion
welling up, coursing down.
this overwhelms, my outlet store,
permanent closed, sign says
don’t ya know it’s a recession.

a one man recession.
no government intervention
gonna come my way.

the notion that I’ll never just
once more, feel the thrill of a
first love, a new born progeny,
woman, baby, poem, no diff,
wrecks me badly, worried sun consults
my animal friends, what’s to be done?

knowing the answer to my curse is,
not one wiling to courage to curettage
the lining of my decrepitude,
the end then, of no more next time.

though there is a first here. ever.
first time, every stanza writ,
closed off, finally ended, with a flourish,
a puncture of a period.

~~~~~~~~

postscript:


the closing scheduled for now,
have to change the name, says York,
it’s the common law, I’m legal bound,
gonna sign the documents as
no more love poetry.

919am Wed Jul 22 2020

this word love,
heavy with import, alternatively,
falsely called out too breezily,
diminished by over-usage,
till you admit it doesn’t fit
like your formerly fav pair of jeans

stretched, too many stains,
cut for a different body,
a different soul,
a different existence,
a former you

so when the mind and mouth
glimpse a synchronized synapse,
and just ‘bout ready to let the “L”
bomb slip past the guardians of
your own galaxy, you nick time,
modify it to a moderate, but yet
fulfill your need with a differentiated
four letters.

(“Cariño para ti.”)
“Care for you.”

bad day omens come in threes (and a P.S.):

1. bad day omens come in threes,
a Trinity Church with a graveyard
included and attached, (1);
when your breakfast
navel orange targets,
aims & squirts on
its namesake orifice,,
a prescient hint for
a freshly cleaned
white T-shirt day,
first bite of the date

2. a trinity requires three,
the day is young,
so when sun up shines,
surely a positivity, nah, no!
just to make a point,
immediate comes out a
glazed donut
coating haze
that says impolitely,
no sir, “nun-uh”

3. go to the kitchen
for fresh coffee,
hearing a car
pulling out,
finding note,
on coffeepot-propped,
neatly folded,
To: Only Love Poetry

”Cannot do this anymore,
don’t forget to turn the
coffee machine off”

P.S.
Can’t afford another costly mistake.  Pre-treat that orange spot.
It was good for awhile, till it wasn’t, but our spots, just won’t 
come out, no matter how many times we tried, stained permanent. Sorry.


onlylovepoetry

on account of you:

she says: do you know you often smile when, day dream dozing?

me says: on account of you

she says: c’mon sweet talking man, ain’t gonna fall for that hooey!

me says: hooey, phooey, on account of you

she says: nah, you writing poetry, no fooling me no more!

me says: on account of you

she says: I bet you got one of your girl friends singing to you, through
those wireless earbuds, doncha? who is it this time? a Sara or Joni?

me says: on account of you.

she says: you think big shot, you can multitask b.s. me? doing three things
at the same time!

me says: on account of you

she says: on account of you, I’m seriously ******, you don’t tell me anymore
sweet lies and alibis, probably writing an ode to one of your poetry gf babes!

me says: on account of you, can’t count no more, how many love poems in my lifetime written, and this one too, going out to you, charged to my tab, you babe,
are my account, my accountant, my accounting....

put down the pen,

gown thyself in coats
of many riotous colors,
banish ‘never’ and ‘hope’
from thy lexicon, and
begin with a smile
always a smile as you
walk the streets as if to say
open open says me,
open sesame and let the
good works begin,
for having found your
captain of the muses,
your Calliope,
your rosebud,
lucky you!
you will need not write

another word

awhile, a time ago, wrote:

“the oven's writing warmth,
still faint discernible,
giving off the aroma of heated ink,
upon a skin-smooth page..”

                         <>

my words returned by the commentator-in-chief:

“Tells me why the best part of my
time with her was spent in the kitchen.”^

lay fallow my emotive, a response due catalogued
but unfulfilled till today, oh hell it is a moody way,
partly cloudy day, raining in between sunny  brief teasing episodic.

perfect.

for the mixed mood, a melancholia of innocence with a dash of a salty, self-reflective hazing, choosing careful words when I write without clear direction, you want to rush outside, get set up, and then surrender-retreat inside to the comfort zone, the hearty, all-involving,  kitchen where the ink is always kept on warm on the glass topped oven, and the dripping-coffee-machine never shuts down, at-the-ready stale crackers in the cupboard, and all these writing utensils at the two-handy, when she comes in, and with a quick surveying, kicks me out, to make us accoladed good food, with these words:

“my darling only love poetry man, render unto me, this captaincy,
my fiefdom now, and herein are kept my ingredients and tools, whe my words are secreted.”  You mistake the warmth here as a necessary condition for thy composition, but not so, the warmth required travels in the hearth of the body, get thee to the nook, to the sunroom, or our bed where I catch you prepositioning conjunctions to join weeping verbs, adjective so riotous their beauteous is stolen by God i’m the fall, thoughts worthy of becoming verses and stanzas, the exclaim the wonders of thy perspective, thy goodly nature, thy odor of freshly stirred vocabulary, an alluring stew in a new ***, surrender this cooking place to me in order that you might chef a new creation, half mine, half yours, all ours.”

dear god, you humble me into quietude

she says it’s sunny and 75
nearing 3’o’clock, cooling,
let’s go for our usual constitutional,
for a lovely afternoon walk to Shell Beach

can’t can’t can’t walking now in
a bottomless pit, every handhold,
poems, newly commissioned, newborn,
broken off the wall, revealing a gleaming,
light of iron pyrite, really good fool’s gold,
cause only fools write good poetry, or even try

but tonight I’m gonna feed you bucatini bolognese
babe, you gotta walk, make some room for all the words
that will come tumbling free falling while I’m sleeping next,
you’re up prowling looking for rhymes, lines, unheard of before,
you’ll need energy to bite, write, and make loving poetry and then,
then, sleep late, my laddie-baddie, new ones on my nightstand,
for my perusal, my usual unusual man who gifts me them to
in quantities of ‘more galore,’ that I accept, adore...adore

so afterwards, I must say my morning prayer, as an atheist forgiven,
the one I commissioned, and you composed, for me:

Dear God: you humble me into quietude, with gratitude...

this lyric licks your face,
leaving you-salty-caramel
smiling, while listening to Janis, singing
”(You Don’t know What It Is Like) to Love Somebody”

no babe,
nothing lasts,
not you, not love,
not me,
no matter how hard you
rhyme, theorize,
forget and memorize,
life’s only constant is
constantly refreshing all,
endlessly remembering
and forgetting how to
hold on to a heart, to love...

sometime a breeze, usually a hurricane,
comes along, prying your hands
off what you got, or,
prying your eyes away
onto something new, cause
that’s just the way it is
with human foolishness,
you gotta
“to walk, talk,
rhyme and theorize,
forget and memorize,
always refreshing,
knowing that
nothing lasts”


until it maybe does...









———————————————————————————————

“To walk, talk, rhyme and theorize, to forget and memorize, always refreshing, knowing nothing lasts, except things that last forever, last never, poems and decisions needing completion, choices, reordering songs loved best, replete all sorrowed pains, uplifting prayers, hallelujah hymns, last rites....”^



—————————————————————-

that fog horn blows,
worries my mind, lord knows, we don’t need,
more obstacles in this tired world, so the horn
trying, to be blowing fog away, without success

the sound’s remainder air-lingers like foam bubbles
ridden down to coffee cup bottom, resisting, protesting,
refusing to expire, useless/nonetheless, says no dying

sole boat outlined, bout mile out, must be anchored, it’s
unmoved by fog danger or noise, fishing is my informed
best guess, but fish ain’t stoopid, swimming another way

the fog horn wakes the woman who looks askance
cause there is neither coffee or a newly christened
poem upon her nightstand, an explanation is sought

“stand by me,” I sing, “be unafraid my darling, stand now,
stand by me,” poet said “been guarding our bed, this long
foggy night, agin interlopers, bad dreams and sea troubles”

shied ‘em away, knowing that when a man loves a woman,
she can lean on him, cause he’s load bearing, her safety is
always first, poem second, coffee coming, with sun rising

she bemused, funny you’re, kooky like the poems you’ve up-
written all night, up all life long, all stored up in my nightstand,
you’re sweet, like  Tennessee whiskey, ignore my scowling my own
poet-mr. coffeeman-sea guardian, you’re alright with me