Don’t be ******* yourself   self
when you talk   talk
imagine what you would look like  like
if it were a walk   walk
you’ll be pacing back and forth   forth
tripping over of course   course
but only to get up   up
and you will get up   up  
because you can   can
you know how to repeat  Pete
if you’re as good as  as
your talk   talk
up on your feet   feet

A strange soft stirring begins in my heart
I’m not sure what caused this fluttering to start
Like innocence still uncorrupted captured in butterflies
Except my stomach is no longer where the majority flies
But just a little while ago a few still hovered there
But to trap or imprison them I wouldn’t dare
There hides a few more in the lungs in my chest
Only flap wings when I can’t catch my breath
When silence is the single sentence I have to not speak
Your smile leaves me speechless
Knees growing weak
No clock
No noise
All surroundings fade away
Colors suddenly emerge where before was only grey
Waiting for your melodic voice to disrupt that magic spell
Heaven momentarily suspended til one word snaps me back into hell
The illusion of perfection not once falters or affrights
As you come closer the swarm inside my body takes off in simultaneous flight
It’s mindblowing the way my senses react when you are near
How you still manage to give me butterflies even after all these years

-My Flaw


The root cause of my stuttering lies within my anxiety,

It is my one and only embarrassing insecurity.

<>

11:03 Sun Sep 20 2020
2nd Day Rosh Hashana 5781
S.I., N.Y.

when I was twenty years younger, I wrote oft introspectively,
nowadays, today, provoked by the High Holy Day, the New Year,
it is my only filter, lens, and this solitary perspective that this moment affords, permits, demands, commands, insists on,  
prepared by this confession, so that I may better return to the union of my divine spark, unify body and soul, recover my true self,
by acknowledging that I am
not beholden to anyone,
therefore, thereby,
     beholden to everyone

how inconsistently wonderful that additional experience, alive in a time of upheavals, pushes me past the first stanza, where most often, my poems, prayers, go to rest uneasy, incomplete, only to be buried alive in me.

Yet, here I am stuttering, sputtering, words that come unexpectedly!
I have reached a second stanza, with the ending well sighted, nearby. The collective, overlaid wake of each passing boat, finger pointing, a road line for following, to a larger directive, a river emptying into a great ocean, birthplace & graveyard

premature celebration as it’s weeks till I return to this poem-in-progress on a bleak week, the winterized grays have dominated, the freshness of sunlight is just an occasional peekaboo.

The larger directive now suppressed, the pilings of damp brown leaves, multi-message; funeral. mounds of good days gone to hell, the inward perspective has returned me to a deep, dark place.

(Stutter, stutter, each day asseverates solemnly with tinges of rancor, no, no, no, still no answers yet, the second and third stanzas are *******, suns of no man.)

He sang along to the trumpets in his head,
as the radio once did.
"I'll always be there for you,"
He stuttered past his heart.
The coldness locking his beath
in a frozen cloud of smoke
intertwining in the frosted skies,
"Then you told me no,"
His hands quivered in his sleeves where scars left no marks,
while his voice was breaking like broken bones.
He never finishes his dying lyrics,
with the notes dangling in the air,
for someone else to pair.
And an iris left at the stairs.

Ah.. Ah.. Aaron, I said my name,
Least did I expect that this stutter pushed me to shame;
Alalia syllabaris is a defect,
Still worthy enough for a prefect.

That darned laugh, that lost contact,
Shatters all of ‘em within..
‘Tip of the iceberg’ do we show,
The inner lies within; so little you know.

Parodying this isn’t funny, that interludes,
That seriously hurts dudes.

Stop that mock, bear our shock
Let me see how do you fare,
Mark my words because that’s a dare.