forgiveness for self is a thunderstorm ferocious,
cracking sounds so god awful fearful
that one questions his-her sanity,
an overage so unnatural that
only nature could create it

it is a moment momentousness
when the exhalation of exhaustion,
the winner and loser, both you,
surrender ne’er knowing
which you is which,
life’s son of *****, or just a plain jane mothering version,
either way you say to yourself got to
get past that lousy stinking
love affair
win the race to clean slate,
where the end is insight where everything replaced
in its used to be placed

goaded into melted nothingness,
goaded into believing that’s a real thing,
that when you finally get there,
enough is enough,  
get out of jail ticket will work,
but it ain’t never free,
even if you paid for it in
what you call
throwing bad after good,
monopoly money,
nope, ain’t never free

no idea what to put in the second empty closet,
who needs an attached to-the-wall-tile
toothbrush holder with one extra emptying space,
where to hide picture albums in a space
outta sight, outta mind, you still can find

why you didn’t care enough to
daily mat-wipe street shoes before
riveted in place
before entering your own! apartment and no,
you are consciously unconscious immobilized by
the missing calling out of her “don’t forget”

in the car’s ashtray,
a red kissed blotted red lipstick
tissue that needs discard-action,
but you incapable of either,
those collected records and cd’s,
her teasing your old fashion ways,
reluctance to let go

so you read
“that to forgive one self doesn’t forgive forgetting”
and it hits home, home run, score to the core,
since you wrote those words on a sun rain afternoon,
a punctuating thunderstorm day
refusing to decide
which
haunts worse

<>

my congenital heart defect


~for C.E.H.~

’tis true, my heart long damaged by repeated resuscitations,
the endless revivals invasive + new favorite hits, now so enlarged,
the doctors say, no más, no más, mr. boss, don’t let your guard down

too small to accept more standbys, ones needy most, the beseechers,
the ones who only know a single equation, love = pain, are witnesses,
no theorem proofs required, the ****** expressions unholy sufficient

a few invitees rush the red velvet ropes, inside, they hunker down,
finding a cozy artistic artery hangout, filtering my blood-streaming,
eyes for new artists, new poems, new strangers to take in, shelter...

much caring for the living, strains existence, a heart has limitations,
every human has capacity constraints for loving, but they bring their
friends, coequals in pain/heartaches/false positives, no rinse cycle

it is like calcium layering on you bones, additive, addictive, andieting
is a precursor to exhilarating dying, when love and pain passes
the point of no return, once, then, there is no expiation, no forgiveness

for the trail of your damaged acts requires admittance, recompense,
3 in 1 motor oil de minimus, you want to love equally, but impossible
task, yo, won’t last, but stretch flex skin to squeeze one more in, SMH

the puzzled doctors find my weakness DNA genetic, my lexicon has
no word in any language for barricade, fence, restraints, keep out, the hearts, smelling my blood, open cells, pile in, no blame attached

lender of first resort, giving my organs, what an exceptional way
to hasten my inevitable and total fulfillment, stretching my limits

where shall I send my poems?**

to my eyelashes,
for they beat irregularly
unconcealed and unconscious
like my poems

to my fingertips,
where they are released fluidly
they grasp, strained and staining, tapping breaths
like my poems

to my smile,
fleeting and happy weeping fortuitously
a lifetime of a whisper, glimpsed and gone
like my poems

to my brain,
where they are symmetrically born only to die ceremonially
a fireworks duration evaporating into a rich velvet
like my poems

like my poems,
none will survive me,
blemishes, pockmarks, beauty marks, residues,
in a flash bang born, in a flash bang consumed

3:08am dec. 9 2019

~for Bill T. Jones~

two poets, laureates both,
on the nature of hunger, they discourse,
in temple, where sacrificing is to living arts

I was there, hungry in every aspect,
seeking wisdom of the hungering nature of human.

examine the word, hunger,
hardly a rolling off the tongue mellifluous.
you growl it from the gut, in gowned resplendent ugliness,
go ahead, try it, it’s coarse and powerful insistent.

awoken empty but for the hunger, hungover from
dancing words and imagery not mine, now mine,
maddeningly demanding my dutiful attentions,
as if hunger was the master, me, obedient pupil.

the clean white slate the IPad re-presents repeatedly,
insulted that I have yet to crayon color it with the coherence
of hunger-exhaled words, dismissive that I am but an also-ran,
my village of lexical too unsophisticated,
the page addressed yet unplanned,
Apple white
is the color of the
starving artist.