#ip
~for Honey~
upon arrival in May, 2020, at the sheltering island:
sparser, leaner, the overage of summer fullness lacking,
some of the presumptuous early blooms silly attempting
with no success, the deceiving of new arrivals, while the many
naked branches, leaf-less, trees, struggling be fully realized, needy
to join, volunteer, with the troops of advancing green recruits
this no poem, just descriptive, a viewpoint, my eyes awaken
to calm waterways, white boat dots trawling, looking
for new births, bounties of raw refreshment, sailing to an audience
of landed, gentrified emerald grasses, their chorale singing ‘thirsty!’
of me they ask, who be you, we’ve not seen nary a human trod
our land and seascape for months many, we have no recollection,
no issuing, of an invitation to any two legged slightly-familiar interlopers, reply simple, essence of essential, I’m being, being here!
your shores shore me in ways undefinable, that my
travels and travails don’t dare accompany or defy,
looking for old friends, natural ones, some likely passed, all
whilst I sing Over the Rainbow, wishing wishes wonderful
already becoming truth, eyes daren’t deceive, my somewhere
here, where a winter’s rainbow made its landing, dreams truthful revealed, richly greeted, our presence yet welcomed, by sea salted
odiferous air, lapidaries of sapphiric waves, animals of the Kingdom
the poetry nook members, askance asking, why, what so long took,
we, your audience, waiting patiently for a coming, to pen our
woods and tales, long, short and tall, prophecies of storms,
lighting crashes, of a stilling peacefulness, heaven-bequeathed
the Adirondack thrones, four kings, wearied worn, beyond gray,
show their weathering rings pride of ‘another year, we’ve survived,’
saying now, we’ll speak to the world, through you-man-poet,
our minions too, deer, wolves, rabbits, starfish, osprey, sea trout, piping plover, all winter survivors, will enjoin your verses
much to tell, newly created, new spells, to trance your eyes,
you seeing only our surfaces, guessing at our depths, our inherency,
looking for recovered keys to unlock your own hardy boyish mysteries, but ours, are perpetual unsolvable which is why,
you humans, ne’er fail to return
your soft footfalls, children’s shrieks, jewels to adorn us,
our nature, needs adoration and adulation, our tree limbs
for swinging on lumber-cut swings, flying towards our blued skies, requires humans to summer-slum, breaching the winters remaining slumbering yet few ends to join you when you at last first chant,
that, that’s where
you will find me,
thinking,
think to myself,
oh, what a wonderful world!
May 25, 2020
May 25, 2020 at 1:53 PM UTC
The Thew Of Phantasmagoria
<for Sanders Maurice Foulke III>
The Thew Of Phantasmagoria
the muscles of the brain, design bridges, author poems, obviously
the strongest force upon the Earth, whence & where the powerful
coiling of our mortal coexistence energies be stored & unleashed
muscles summon previous unknowns, establishing neural connectivity
between colliding galaxies, undiscovered planetary rings, using kinetics
to create a vocabulary for the express purpose of astounding creation
the modest only dare inquire of themselves in wondrous silence
how came this thematic landscape, new language, to escape my
optics, my ken, my viewfinder, purview, essential essence sensories?
the deniers claim magic lanterns, optical illusions, love, par example,
they ascertain, a chemical imbalance stimulates the sensorineural,
mocking those who believe the comet’s tail visible wags its orbital path
this poem abstruse, yet full of truths, a working man’s lunch pail
full of fine china chicanery, fooling those who observe only exteriors,
but we who live on bounded islands recognize safe passages available
when the thew of the phantasmagorical is debunked, acknowledging
that for something to be truly true, it must be agreed upon by two,
thus creating a language clarifying even if it’s punctuated by shadows
621pm 23-2-2020
IP lmn
Feb 23, 2020
Feb 23, 2020 at 6:29 PM UTC
“Moby **** Herman Melville
<•>
~for the lost at sea~
after a year of saltwater absence and abstinence,
return to the island caught between two land forks
surrounded by river-heading flows
bound for the ocean great joining
the Atlantic welcomes the fresh water fools,
bringing with them hopefully, but hopeless gifts of obeisances,
peace-offerings endeavoring to keep their infinite souls
sea accepts them then drowns the
warm newcomers in the unaccustomed
deep cold salinity, which
sometimes erodes
sometimes preserving
their former freshwater cold originality
I’m called to depart my beach shoreline unarmed,
no kayak, sunfish or glass bottomed boat needed,
walk on water and my toes, ten eyes to see the bottom,
no depth perception limitation,
reading the floor’s topography,
millions of minion’s stories infinite,
many Munch screaming
god’s foot, heavy upon my shoulders,
a daytime travel guide, hired for me,
not a friendly travel companion, nope,
God a pusher showing off a drug called deep water salvation,
designated for the masses, can handle large parties
my in-camera brain eyes,
record everything for playback -
the lost and unburied, bone crossword puzzles
walk shore to ship, on soles to souls,
is this my new-summer nature welcome back greeting?
puzzled at the awesomeness of vastness,
conclude this clarification for me of the occluded-deep,
is a stern reminder of my insignificant existence,
my requirement to walk humbly, spare my sin of vanity, and
forgive my trespasses upon the lives of others
perhaps then the infinite of my soul perchance restored,
older visions clarified and future poems
will write themselves
and sea to it my predecessors
be better remembered
Memorial Day 2018
May 28, 2018
May 28, 2018 at 11:53 AM UTC
Savior or Savor
E.B. White
“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning, torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
<>
E.B.
you trap me tween savior and savor
and my plans well prescribed on a yellow pad
get ignored and the ignorant fool not cool
the poetry plane is my escape route
but that is now a locked door, saying goodbyes,
can neither save nor savor,
sorry have to return your world weary wise favor
frozen on a verse, a line too far for my composing,
but thanks for alliterating my stuck place
Feb 10, 2020
Feb 10, 2020 at 2:54 PM UTC
green island privilege
*we thread our way through the Johnstone Strait,
where every landmass, largest and smallish,
all islands, so this particular three-island-man is comforted and
comfortable in his surroundings, in his skin,
in his watery rivered veins
the outlines of myriads shapes, assorted puzzle pieces of earth adrift,
fitted sheets, awaiting assembly upon the magic of water,
fitting the continuously moving puzzling frame, accepting all,
mutually funding each other for each must, by definition,
define each other
the sky allows itself to be glimpsed, “yes, I’m still blue,” it teases,
but sky is busy bathing its undersides, in gloomy whites
of a bubble bath, of a deep morning mournful fog,
we underneath, observing, bestride a double sided fir and pine forests corridor either-sided of our the cold calm watershed,
a green privilege
fog above, touching so lightly our green tree waterway enclosure,
just as a human caresses his truly beloved’s cheeks, so so softly,
the fog sitting on top of the treetops, kissing, allowing that,
but no more,as the day is now only hours young,
disallowing mature sunset romance
close enough to touch, the fallen branches that people the shoreline and I, marvel at my privilege, my history, how I came to be
witness to this moment, testifying to the luck of life, cris cross continental running from European Black Forest persecution,
Spanish inquisitors, whose auto-da-fe cris cross burnings earned them no truth, no fame,
where racism hatred made my tribe an official inferior kind,
worthy of extermination, yet, here I am surviving to be arriving
to the serenity of this goddess Columbia moment in natural embrace
but here again, at this second, still excoriated as virus-privileged,
aligned this time to the guilt of my skin colorations,
guilty genetically, in my nation of 99% immigrants,
which confuses us,
for we, our troop, victimized by quotas, ghettos, crafted laws,
once upon a time burnished, now burnt by our successes,
we asked for nothing more, fair play,
a chance to win but never by stepping on the backs of others,
are told, no, no, guilty by chance,
cause you won the oppressors color coded lottery*
the sun keeps on battling, though now late afternoon,
its glare, no fair, makes me squint to see the horizon,
a thin lucent bright line, who knows how far away,
it challenges me, saying am I not the sun to everyone,
leading you to new islands, green end zones for anyone
to touch down, leading you back home to where you shelter
anyone who asks, a new horizon for anyone comes to me,
giver of words, my inspiration family history shared for anyone,
I adjudge guilty, your privilege was earned, by the exile you’ve endured and the truth of your island green privilege,
and the trees, in unison say, hallelujah selah
Aug 8, 2019
Aug 8, 2019 at 8:49 PM UTC
<|>
for some time,
in these troubled moments,
midst the uprooted formless firmament
where rawest poems come from,
and the saddest gentled, go to die,
colloquially a place, a space,
we call,
time
in these, them days of lockdown quarantine,
time has lost its preeminence,
the swagger of precision-swiss-definition
of the imposing measuring stick of
routine
is lost to that very
formless firmament
we look at each aghast,
with wild puzzlement faces,
inquiring of each other,
“what day of the week is it?”
the eavesdropping, spying voice of this device
answers,
“see the upper left corner”
which is kind of a miracle
but not nearly as amazing that
a few hours later,
or some time span of an approximate relevancy,
(we assume,)
we ask each other, once more,
in a reverie of hopelessness,
with total no-pretense of the
when,
no, worse,
the frightening pointy needlessness of
why
it matters
“*dearest darling,
pray, pray,
what day of the week is it?*”
Apr 29, 2020
Apr 29, 2020 at 4:38 AM UTC
I buy my paintings supplies from the only store in town
————————————————————————-
<>
I buy my paintings supplies from the only store in town, Jack’s on Bridge Street, the hardware *** toy *** anything-you-need store.
I buy my painting supplies by special order, delivered by ferry,where they get crazed at the colors I select, Vermillion, Drunk-tank pink, and the marvelous, quite scandalous, ***** Gallant.
My easel resides on my front porch, never moved, only when a wipe down is necessitated, or rain storm torrential makes it essential,
to avoid warping wood.
From the porch, I paint the view, from my house on the hill, overlooking the channel separating our tiny isle from the mainland is deemed magical amazing, for this same scene painted repeatedly, but differently,
a thousand times, a thousand changing ways.
Almost every home, only for the year rounders, has its own version, so my obituary, will be both in the town newspaper and forever before their eyes.
I do not sell my paintings, the ones supplied, gifted by my island.
Unasked, I notice that someone walks past my porch, my existence thus a daily-verification, in every season, but for the winter, but then, my presence is marked, publicized, nonetheless, duly reported,
by Jack’s delivery boys.
Apr 20, 2020
Apr 20, 2020 at 10:37 AM UTC
give you my word
——————
***‘tis but one, all you’ll ever receive,
not more than that, ‘tis all you’ll need
not one of the usual suspects,
not love or truth, beyond care,
neither joy and tears suffice,
certain it’s not suffering, even living
all those come to an end, ultimately,
and the word I surrender to you,
for pore absorption is unending,
unlimited, no horizon or sunsetting
the one thing that extends hope,
though that is not it either,
the one thing we will individualize,
agree to disagree amicably
the word?
why it is one we greet the day,
even if unthought or left unsaid,
our own shared secret chord,
the word I give you, and you to me, is
the very, the blessed unrationed reason,
the why and the wherefore,
to exist!***
beauty
Apr 15, 2020
Apr 15, 2020 at 3:21 PM UTC
~for Verlie Burroughs, a ‘fellow’ islander poet with a sense of human humor~
walking the reservoir on a warm spring day,
Central Park littered with tourists and pale face,
fellow islanders, all of non-Algonquin Indian descent
released from Rikers Island (of course) Prison,
six month sentence served
behind bars of winter grayscale skies
and snowy steel and grey prison everything
an out-of-townsfolk young lady passes me in a pink t-shirt,
where humans these lazy days declare their entire philosophy,
“I’d rather live on an island”
and thus a poem commissioned
well, rather brought forth from the chilled, deep waters surrounding the brain where winter vegetables rooted but cannot surface,
the iced ground frozen impermitting bodies to be buried,
no war and death monument foundations to be poured,
flower-powered poems unable to pierce as well,
even with the upwards ****** of cesarean birth
and or, one last push and me begging
breathe
winter strangled
but I walked today
the Central Park reservoir and
all I got was that stupid t-shirt provocation
with
tulips and daffodils, dogwood and magnolias, and
cherry blossoms confirming,
it’s okay today to write of
islands and shoreline once more,
of
boundaries now and again
though the idea had prior brief transversed
the thought canal, was struck into action
when realized suddenly a dawning -
a l l m y l i f e, I h a v e l i v e d o n a n i s l a n d
counting backwards seven decades with a
collegial exception, of living by a great lake,
which is but an island in reverse,
poet *** prophet had to always walk on water to get home
<•>
my poems are travelogues,
not pretty words and tonguing talk,
sorry not,
more tales than wagging tongue wordy tails
but dumbstruck by the ocean notion that I live by the
grace of an Ocean that waits patiently to reclaim my island,
stealing my unborn poem children and
tried with a Sandy haired girl a few years ago
hurry home to scribe, and imbibe,
write upon its streetscape
with colored chalk and
upon it once more,
the concrete paths and
a reservoir dirt path surrounding and shorelines
that are all the shaping of me
all my life, and Neverland realized
I am a seagull disguised as human*
Apr 16, 2018
Apr 16, 2018 at 11:25 PM UTC