Emerson and Fuller,
Thoreau and Whitman,
Again and again, it has been written:
Nothing ever ends, death is no
Impasse;
So when you’re gone we’ll look for you,
In our Leaves Of Grass.

Solemn sweet pipes of de o'gan
     Heaven's music I've hyead play,
But I'll tell you somefin' truly
     Certain ez is Judgment Day:
Angels present at de service
     Ev'ry Sunday spread dey wings,
Lif' dey hands, an' witness glory
     When Malindy sings.

I contain multitudes I will
it so
multitudes more than I maybe
can contain comfortably I
seek comfort in
discomfort

The weeds live side by side,
With the roses in a meadow,
Fallen branches of a dead tree,
Help its neighbor grow,
Nothing ever ends,
Death is not an impasse,
When you’re gone,
We’ll look for you in a blade of grass.

Thoughts begin to racquetball,
of Ginsberg’s peaches and Whitman’s lilacs
in a field of green and Diane Di Prima,
just Diane Di Prima, in her translucent garb,
completely exposed
as vulnerable as can be, breaking a heart
in every line

Then they bounce off to other places,
like the milk you forgot to buy,
or the mildewed laundry you’ll have to hang
on the flank-y drying rack
in the afternoon moon,
or that long-awaited
message
from a friend
taking up space,
while dust bunnies flop around,
left and right, with every hesitant
primordial blow
that you feed them

Then again, back to
Auden’s weighing clocks, ticking away
at something you can’t quite grasp
or would like to, as the signal
returns

even temporarily, this day, your emeralding grass handkerchief,
equates our dispositions, so differently identical,
your name, our initials, in opposing corners, embroidered,
your grass tapestry upon this troubled earth, a scented, joint, poetic
remembrance, that though it’s but words that bind us, we! we know!
the songs we sing of ourselves, we sing in synchrony harmony.

misty days
of moisture and sun rays
grass as tall as tree trunks
rolling by
a breeze fills my eyes
with skunk

nose blind
we roll on
and on we roll
between the weeds
this private show
no one need no
what goes
on and on and on
inside misty
days of mine

kisses by the sun define
golden brown backs
where nails scratch
eggs hatch
we lay

message relay

you cannot escape fate
nor hide truth
but one thing you can do
is be you
honest and true

no matter where you learn
nor from who
relay races
ideas and encompassed facts
as a matter of lies
I feel that
this poem is out of wack

started writing
what I want
the universe only gives
what I need

always pleased to know
I need not much
but provided
and more and more
I remain faithful to you
and more and more
I give to you
you give me too

Full circle
everything everlasting
dance and sing
from night till morning
these are my days  
rich and plentiful
watch as my garden grows
under the misty rays of my
moisture

<>

“I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat,
gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals,
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the
day and night”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by  WALT WHITMAN

                                                   §§§

Irony great, some say unto delicious, for my writing,
be a fusing of surroundings of silences, admixture of
inconsequential noises, atomic horn and geese honking,
sun rays speaking in tongues, my skin translating, both,
the sounds of the city, those of out of city, merged, both,
accessible, instant recall, stored for tongue tasing upon

these blank pages below, needy for wordy fulfillment,
copy and place these mishmash of cacophonous,
on a single page, simmer, blend and sauce, of course,
salt to taste, mine, author of this recipe being born,
born in the night, prepped by day, the lovely sounds,
kettle or pan, broiler, fryer, slow cooked on full flame

they are the melted butter sweetness crossing the span
between the body of the heartbeat, the ache of the brain,
shot out in rapidity, error’d and stain’d, their state natural,
for this mess of beans, collection of noises, stir my soul
where they contain’d, aromatic, fanatic, exotic, sticky hot,
only a singular harsh invades, the shrill of the voice human

this piece, this poem, a flavoring, a dish-not-to-be-repeated,
once consumed, spoiled milk, molded with Jello mold green,
back to hiding in place of unseen, of bravura masked as cowardice,
when crackle of easy wasted word cowards, daily spewed,
so precious these ingredients, these artful sounds, easy ruined,
chitchats of nothingness, parlous blasé wastrels, seize! cease!

take thy tongue, let it memorize all the oddities that fill your ears,
ecrivez! the cooing, smacking, the alliteration of snap, crackle, and
yes, pop! and if you can love the human voice, of that too, tho not me,
more beloved, the exterior symphony of kettle drum, soft cry of violin,
timpani tingling, guitar plucking, the voice of men, too oft abusing and abused by untruths, emboldened lies, they are the sounds
I love least, love to hate.  a shrill disease, the TV liars...

                                                     §§§§§



May
Manhattan Island