Broken flight

They went down somewhere
in the trees

The sky is sad
and full of remorse

But never Calliope

Broadway and 52

God knows
they got to you

She sings songs
of their misfortune

Decidely the muse and
mother of importune

In a sacred garden
where no one treads,
the wildness claims all;
overrun, overgrown
none can observe
nothing is known.

There is no friend here for you
once trust is betrayed
no paradise to be shown
the path is blocked
no way to return to home.

Yet, I---
here I remain, here I become,
for all seasons that come and go;
a living epithet of past Adam and Eve
I am the angel
who holds the withered branch
with a story none shall believe.

Sometimes I think,
Whether Satan is an impostor of God.

-Water

Hot and relaxing,
Cool and refreshing,
Water is precious to all life.

Worth more than money,
Gems and jewelry,
For water keeps all life alive.

<>
“Stop this day and night with me
and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun,
(there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things
at second or third hand,
nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either,
nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides
and filter them from your self.”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by WALT WHITMAN

                                                      ­§§§

*These admonitions are the ten conditionals
commandments of straight talk,
boy,
you’ve spent a life lessening and lesson-learning
and all laid before you for taking, gaining,
but for what? for naught?

Start this day, having spent my night with you,
possessing less than what is my now
completed,
this,
my unfinished commencement,
provisioned, a simultaneous beginning and finishing,
emptying a void of
fulfilling questioning.

What does this life desire of me,
that it granted and then removed,
the knowledge of perfection?
leaving me striving, writhing,
shivering unceasingly,
in my saddened, bursting, hacking
and hackneyed chest.

I walk the same cobblestone streets,
observing the descendants of your ancestral tugs
portaging, paying homage to East River tides,
carrying those goods,
the origins of all poems,
from where? to where?
unknown,
but always past our conjoined eyes.

And yet do I look, with our merged eyes,
filtered by a century’s discoloration,
forgive me Walt, for now recalling sights
that you first observed,
that I witness first hand,
100 and fifty years later,
sharing a stolen wisdom with you.

Todays new millionth sunrise bids me stand,
observe the river traffic from my kitchen window,
accept that my takings are debts,
a few, even paid back,
yet, most still owed,
for the origins of all my poems,
are oddly and oddity old,
unoriginal, second, third handed
as I look through the eyes of the dead,
and yours too,
this my unoriginal,
original sin....
(pretending  I am a poet)



                                                   §§§§§

6:24AM
Manhattan Island,
By the East River
Thu. May 14, 2020

Happy and content
in this garden of delight,
yet curiously alone.
Am I one of a kind?
On the verge of sleep
as the sun slips under its blanket.
After the butterflies,
after the somnolent dream,
I was bestirred
by what first seemed a chimera.
The grace and splendor
of a remarkable creation,
and there she stood
making doe eyes,
a twinkle of a smile
curling about her lips.

At once I was besotted,
God had bequeathed to me
His crowning achievement,
and into my care she was placed.
So much to impart,
so much to share.
Together now as united residents,
one flesh,
she will complete me,
and I will dote on her.
A gift to always cherish
as we walk hand in hand.

Her task each new day
is strolling about paradise
in search of nourishment,
to feed us from the fruitage therein,
lest one tree’s offering.
And yet this morning,
another voice summons to be heard,
the rasped utterances
of the cunning,
with tales of his own kingdom coming,
one nibble to freedom, she was assured.
How I wish she’d taken her leave.

She proved too inquisitive,
it took root,
this germination,
and there she lingered.
Eyes caught, unblinking,
her open heart
heavy with wanton hunger.
Who whispered unto you, my darling?

Standing before me
I surrendered to her,
an ill-fated collusion,
co-conspirators to sin.
We ate in the shadow of a silver birch
and awakened to our nakedness.
Eyes wide open!

Discomfited, we struggled
to conceal our shame
What has happened to us, dearest?
Avowal and discord.
Trouble and strife.

"It was the woman you gave me!"
"It was the serpent," she countered.
A betrayal to our God
neither of us wished to confess.
Dust had been thrown in her eyes,
my transgressions were clear-sighted.
Together now as
evicted tenants,
flawed, imperfect flesh,
she will pine for me,
and I will reign over her.

Oh, how I vanquished this gift,
this blessed union.
What tragedy,
what irony:
As I take her hand,
I also fully understand
she is now eternally,
irrevocably,
lost to me...

This is the story of a box
and a girl.
And this box –
and this box
was like no other box – No,
like no other box that owned its existence.
Eons of history lived on its walls – I mean, moved on its walls,
I mean, carvings of history played out on the walls
Waves smashed their own heads onto ocean floor dunes,
The lightning swung fierce on the clouds into squalls,
The engravings – the caves shook with war, the volcanoes,
They spat and they hissed, and the nymphs in their watery mists
Danced with haloes on graves of the fallen.
The lifeblood, it pulsed through the veins of this box,
Through the veins of my palm as I held it, the carvings,
They danced with their raw, starving ardors, their bloods and their stardust
And lifeblood, it seeped, lotus droplets, it leaped onto grooves of my skin
Splashed as sparks on my skin and spilled into my palms,
Till my body was filled with the life of this box, with the thrums of this box, with the force of this box
Till the sweet little voice called my name through this box
Whispered, “Open the lid and release me. This box
Is my prison. I’ve risen through hellfire and sunlight and war-blood,
And isn’t it time for the earth to revere me? I am Hope,
I am weary; I am tired of Death and Despair huddled near me
I yearn for the taste of the earth and the Furies
Release me, my vassal, unchain me, release me.”
This is the story of a box
and a girl,
and a thrum, and a voice, and a palm, and a life -
and a war, and a choice, and a hope, and a price,
and a voice that implored me to open the lid
through the trembling, quivering walls,
and I did.