<>

~ “Above everything else, guard your heart; for it is the source of life's consequences.”~
Proverbs 4:23)

these days, good advice overnight trebles in value,
no one I’m sure has consulted Proverbs today,
not me, not you, not anybody, but these words
came to we, the confined, lonely hearted prisoners, we who

are needy to reflect, we raggedy people in solitary.

tonight, some of us will recall an exodus to free,
an escape from slavery, how we put at risk
our bodies in a sea, a desert, more crazy, in an
invisible deity, when that was a heretical concept, we who

are needy to reflect, we raggedy people in solitary.

Above everything else, guard your heart;
for it is the source of life's consequences,
the ***** above/beyond mouths, eyes, even lungs,
it’s what purposed we fragile, petal edging humans who
are needy to reflect, we raggedy people in solitary.

~~~
"But I’ll know my song well
before I start singin’"

Bob Dylan
"A Hard Rain A-Gonna Fall"
~~~
thought this poem down years ago,
while hiking in a nature preserve,
never wrote it up,
never knew why

I'm a
top-of-lungs shower singer,
a hiking poet,
dripping italicized words from the
four corners of mine eyes

my voice,
*****,
my song,
a work in progress,
my brain, says,
challenge,
asking

how dare you sing words,
you know
that I know,
don't know your song well,
well enough,
to start singin'?

the flowers and the fauna,
sea grass, lagoon, deep forest cover, beach,
butterflies hiding in bamboo stalks,
the deer, the fox, the chipmunks

all start laughing at me

"look upon us,
a single preserve
is our shelter,
a thousand years in the making,
our song has hardly begun
we are a forever
work-in-progress,
just like you

so sing of us, sing of you,
learn the chords as you go along,
finger the word notes,
try out variations,
realize this unfixed change,
is all of us
preserving

that friend
is indeed,
your song

you know it
well enough,
that's why
you have
never stopped tryin' and never stopped
singin'
~~~

July 2012 ~ 2015
Mashomack Preserve|The Nature Conservancy,
Shelter Island, N.Y.












    






~~~

http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/hard-rains-gonna-fall#ixzz3gFdhKEW1

“the simplest definition of our learning to count to infinity”

wrote those words
to a stranger in pain, awful pain,
asking him to count his blessings

now awful pain
no stranger to me

a pain four decades long,
that the surgeon promised was fully excised.

but today was triggered,
chest pain dagger ingredient emergency room

so I am counting for,
but not to,
counting on

infinity

when the wounding cannot be recalled,
only a minor scar to struggle from wonder whence
came it from

which is the definition of reaching the
infinity place,
where finite comes to rest

,how do you know when
(a human is too broken?)



<•>

human too broken?

like the light bulb, removal from its fixture, a simple shaking revelation of the tinkling filament spent, something that cannot be repaired, the only option is replacement and that makes
you cry

the empty box of oatmeal raisin cookies, you find secret’d,
hid by you, not to be found by you
at the bottom of the kitchen garbage,
but box betrayal, by the chartreuse tipped box lid sided
peeking upwards, asking, silencing screaming,
what did I do to deserve
this degrading

like the blouse now too tight that it brings stares as the buttons strain, unwelcome attention unintended,
you know it but still pretend not to see,
for you both once loved that silky guise that so
heightened the high tender, the match of your pink rose skin letting, no! making
your eyes glisten, like broken filament glass, on the sidewalk,
recalling the pleasured admiration,
rain remembered from the
prior priority of a life consisting of only
perfect gifts

so mean revert to the poseur question; this is how...

remove the human from a fixed place, whimpering-threatened,
you may hear clear the crackle cackling  of the innard shards against the misperception of a body intact,
even if you do,
no repair service you want,  can be found, see it nowhere,
is it even
anywhere advertised?

the body presumed intact is secret’d under a tactile coverlet,
holey scupperrd holy cuttered
so that the cells and bicuspids, the threads
no longer function in a tandem,
you keep it in the closet closed,
in the back, deep hid, where,
when it screams why,
it can be safe ignored,
because  ‘betrayed’ is no longer a word,
in your globe's dictionary,
the parental controls activated by you to
save your own inner child’s unconstrained confusion,
it has been removed


so the broken glass, the clothes you dressed each other,
if not weep-well,
well enough hid,
the fit is off,
the fit is off,
the coverlet ripped so bad and neither cares

“when down dreaming ups” (Pradip)*/

a mysterious phrasing sent,
the meaning devolving, beyond the obvious,
but slow like, as the mind turns and tastes
these words in different places, ways

when I lay me down to keep,
the dreaming up-ramping, the poems,
don’t know of absent muses, inspiratory lacking,
tongue tied eyes, all banished from the dream world,
where the poems come more than regular,
uninhibited and restless,
begging to be easy birthed,
oh please, oh please!

when down we lay,
up tempo do the brain’s creation ports
turn fiery red, agitated, masses of
tired, poor poems, yearning to be free
disembark all seeking a touchstone statue
to set them free to liberty

my speaking eyelids rapid typing,
placing whole writings in cracks in
the wailing wall, on my own temple mount,
where Hindi letters become stick figures
dancing praises to the lord and stars and
crescendo crescents interlock their tips,
until one dream complete is downloaded
to moistened, ready lips, for I am up, up,

from my down dreaming





10/20/19  8:54am