#sunrain
the acorns tumble, the dried leaves slip slowly sideways,
each a slow motion death, almost balletic, or acrobatic,
the decedents, like bodies on the Field of Hastings, their
skeletons to be consumed by a history ******* earthy soil
this more than any thing, as much as covid deaths of known
older brothers more than the messages on the answering
machine from robotic nurses and truly concerned doctors,
impatiently waiting to discuss test results with still alive patients
four lines in each stanza was unplanned like sets of decades,
that the man’s life can be retrospectively be divisibly assayed,
each titled, consistent of games and sets, until the last match
not on center court, is finale tie-broken, the faults too numerous
he writes this unshaken, but stirred, for the hours spent observing,
of each trajectory of every fallen leaf is distinctly connected to losses,
oh! how the losses multiplied; loves, children, unspoken words of
affection and forgiveness, mounted, moats, barriers to fulfillment,
a lawn of dead shriveled things, mounting, dear mother of god, all
préludes that hasten(ed) the shedding of lives every August!
Aug 25, 2020
Aug 25, 2020 at 3:52 PM UTC
a thousand days, mornings of mortality debated,
irregular they come, days of stranger awakenings,
my soul kept, yet residuals of torn indecision,
what value, do I bring, purposed me for what?
this letter addressed to the however, the whomever,
who know the asking is greatest yielder, creator of
valuable doubts
them those, that beggar the question,
their unceasing answer repeated, confident and
without shame and remorse, their constancy, granite,
the surety of logical visions sourced from the holy dark,
give yourself away, what you got, give, let them take it away
let them reap what you have sown,
for the great designer will surely inquire
what everybody knows is the forecast standard to be met,
it is not what, how much you got, but what you begat, when, left
gave yourself away till ‘tis nothing right is left, and the emptiness
is greatest fulfillment, the slate shared, is the joint fate best reaped,
your best storehouse spent on the sustenance of others, give, away...
Mar 18, 2020
Mar 18, 2020 at 7:32 AM UTC
in these days of sheltering on the isle-of-isolactation,
a place amazingly located just ‘bout everywhere,
staying occupado is muy importanto
taught myself Latvian, can identify a thousand Avian,
can vacuum the house in ten minutes flat,
can count my steps mentally walking from the bed
to the kitchen and on the way back again, detour via the den
when I get really bored, sneak away to grab the laundry
from the dryer, I’m on fire, desirous of my sanity, fold them twice,
so they’ll be enough nice to meet her exacting standards,
going directly into her highest level, Type A, storage drawers
but hit a snag, on certain articles of activewear, not to mention
you know, the unmentionables, which don’t present corners or angles
to lend novice folders directional cues, cannot even determine
which is inside out, or outside out, with too many bedeviling straps
too proud to ask for directions, after all I am a grown man,
checked youtube buddy, they had no clue, unless it was a tutorial
on how to remove them bodices from them body, which I will,
study later...but I winged it except for those couple of items
which I hid under her too many bed pillows!
Apr 15, 2020
Apr 15, 2020 at 5:54 PM UTC
next to never (a pair of ones)
squeezed between nuh-uh and fugetaboutit,
is that long gone notion in the nation of concepts,
like one true love, the connected lines on each of our
bodies, certifying we are a pair of ones, a strong hand.
there are chores to be done:
reread Guy de Maupassant,
delete two thousand unread emails
cry for my so lost children
let Walt Whitman wash over my body like oil
kick the guy out of bed so he can make us coffee.
a ton of stuff to do, good thing, we got a strong hand,
that pair of ones.
which I am now informed is called a pair of
Aces.
Who Knew?
7:51 Sun Jul 12
Jul 12, 2020
Jul 12, 2020 at 8:06 AM UTC
~for alison~
sun’s come out, yellow invitations issuing,
let’s walk, asking, my afternoon habitué, you’ll talk,
I’ll listen, maybe a poem, a tune, who knows,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear
Nina Simone on the phone, called,
letting you know, she’s feeling good,
subtly pointing out you could too,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear
Adele rang up, just in case,
you were undecided, to keep on
chasing pavements, even if,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear
Elle King came by, shame she said,
what’s you need getting into is shame
‘n trouble, the kind that makes ya shake,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear
Chris Stapleton, didn’t have no idea,
you knew him too, reminding you that
Tennessee Whiskey ain’t the answer neither,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear
Amy W. stopped in, in case you needed a ride
in her BMW, just to say hi, you ain’t no p.o.w.,
stop cheating on yourself, it ain’t no good,
what will come of it, surely ain’t exactly clear
my woman, sat down next to me, demanding all
my devices, pad and phone, you’ve got memories,
roots, a home on the ground, no nighttime gypsy you,^
don’t need no sad other women music, surely what comes
of it is exactly clear.
^Alice Merton
May 27, 2020
May 27, 2020 at 3:27 PM UTC
in quarantine locked is the mind
never free,
when the body enslaved
you think,
you are free to dispute
this contention
or so you think...
*but when you write of your current condition,
understand you’ve lost in thinking winning
the body|mind a single singularity, so
when you smack your head against the Fifth wall,
desperate to believe, concede to conceive that
no in Hindi, same in any language, caged body
is pleased to misdirect, dress up yes, but my elder
wisdom, has read Monte Cristo, and no matter how
you count, until free in both organs,*
you can’t count as far as 1,
the nomenclature of unity.*
May 11, 2020
May 11, 2020 at 11:19 AM UTC
strange professions and true confessions from a lockdown town (4/17/20)
————————————————————————————-————-
not a great idea,
in the not-yet-dawn,
to write
a poem entitled
strange professions,
true confessions
dried stains of prior leakings
upon old ‘n yellowed linoleum,
no need for more friends,
for sure, for sure,
that’s the smart play
you see! right there
I’m professing age
old wisdom,
confessing my sorry face is
well acquainted with
floor coverings,
where even the
soles of my shoes
won’t admit they been polluted,
having stepped in rooms
of low and ill repute,
those them there,
right in here
poetry writing sites
where there ain’t no
guideposts, reminding
what’s in the heart
pretend stays in Vegas,
but what the heck,
since I’m here already,
might as well,
ready go and spill,
things you don’t
need to know but...
help the time pass
in this lockdown town,
where total silence is
the loudest sound around
wine, empty beery bottles,
bad rhymes give me up,
just before I start a hey look!
it’s a brand new
sunny rain afternoon
the governor pronounced
we all gotta be masked,
24/7 inside and out,
the women complain that it
musses hair, the men say,
who me? nah, got
nothing to say about that,
We, don’t make no con-cessions...
when you can’t see
my lips moving, or my
one good eye be winking,
means it’s likely that I’m lying
they say, I’m going
stir crazy,
not me says he,
unlike some guy who
wanted to blow up the
Alice-in Wonderland statue in
Central Park, hell,
u could look it up!
guess I coulda call this
here epistle, official “Lockdown Blues,”
but I jes heard gotta stay inside
till June Seventeen
that’s the good news,
plenty o’time to set
my affairs in order,
burn the poems nobody
needs seeing, those them
there with weirdness galore,
say no more,
you can whine, it’s fine,
no caring, no hearing,
past way the point,
where running or returning
is an option viable for nut jobs
them, with strange professions
and true confessions...
May 19, 2020
May 19, 2020 at 4:56 PM UTC
what you leave when you’ve left (mending the tormenting silence^)
———————————————————-—————————-
your words rock me, like an old time preacher,
mending, begetting, tormenting,
fire and brimstone you sinner,
if I don’t quit this life of loving words, saloon music,
guitar picking in low down dives,
liquoring and sinning,
choosing to choose poorly,
never and always thinking about the songs
you’ve left behind unplayed, pained
got the sun and the rain and all afternoon,
to contemplating leavings,
the crumbs you let drop,
the missteps took and missed,
drank too much, hurt too hard,
the silence of my history, it’s renting,
unrelenting, tormenting, lamenting and such,
those loves, labors that don’t amounted much,
a slow rush to fall, to count it all
you say, always time to mend what life
has rent, if you spend the time thinking,
‘bout what you gained, what you lost,
the net of both added and subtracted,
what you got, what you gave,
the sum of your begat,
a life’s story, to tell,
of life’s misgiving, unforced errors, and
crimes committed only you know
not sure what the total bill due gonna be,
combining the costs of the here,
the now, what was and wasn’t,
what was said, not believing but yet singing,
so when the check comes,
the summation of your life’s calculations,
get to add on a tip, a good-as-gold saying
it’s time that can mend, but knowing the true costs of time,
maybe, maybe not...
<§>
let them reap what you have sown,
for the great designer will surely inquire
what everybody knows is the forecast standard to be met,
it is not what, how much you got, but what you begat, when,
you’ve left
Apr 17, 2020
Apr 17, 2020 at 5:41 AM UTC
No know sense of infinitude (asking why not?)
~
noun: the state, the quality of being without limit, infinite
drew first breath, woken to the heart’s thankless task,
conscious aware, that the solved proofs deny infinitude,
yet, triumvirate of five senses, brain waving, a steadying thumping heart,
all asking why not?
can I will it?
the body’s parts convene, debating furious, some claiming
a sell-by-date cellular programmed, nothing to be done,
dimming of the day, a human necessity, the self-salvaging process
but a single cell, a mouse-sized squeaker, boldface stuns,
”feed me, moisturize, give me sleep + blue blood nourishment,”
the others ashamed of their festival of fear, knowing well
what has gone before, thought dreaming of infinitude, go silent,
while “why not?”
lingers in the lungs, the breathable atmosphere,
the senses spread the quest to every remote province,
with each continuing a chant grows ever louder,
a millennium of poems concealed, yet awaiting conception,
all entitled
“why not”reverberating.
<+>
7:36am 2022020
nyc everywhere
Feb 2, 2020
Feb 2, 2020 at 7:43 AM UTC
the architecture: our design, our formulation
~
**we design as we go along.
plans develop themselves organically.
somehow, we formalize, organize spontaneity.
learning-as-we-go, ourselves teaching each other’s selfs.
celebrating, locating our tangent intersections,
plotting points on the X Y axes of us.
labelling our quadrants,
past, now, planned but yet-to-be,
the unknown unknowns,
all upon blue lined graph skins.
a formula of a celebrated curvature, two unknowns, solvable, we are quadratic.
the precise precious precarious solution,
a single square root,
that intuits the wee of our
innate
relationship.
our solution is annotated for all
mathematicians as the**
square root of us.
2/18/20
6:25am
somewhere in the internals
Feb 19, 2020
Feb 19, 2020 at 5:47 PM UTC
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
<>
Jun 30, 2019
Jun 30, 2019 at 5:04 PM UTC
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
Jan 3, 2020
Jan 3, 2020 at 12:13 PM UTC
Adult Alternative Poem
not for the young, reserved just for the young, just at heart,
your skin, face, crinkled, for smiling is you resting face positivity,
you daily existence free of punctuation, no separation,
your body tilted, falling forward, only direction the chest understands
your words sewn on tapestry of silence, yet voices never stilled,
fingertips spark on command when touch is earnest, casual, fierce,
Bublé, Sting, Daughtry, Allison and Adele, ****** tears commingling,
read her your love poetry & her chest breathing, your oxygen tube
easy to be an adult when the alternatives are all
proximity discoverable, nearness constant, distance an irrelevancy,
age just another construct and love, an ageless deconstruction+
unfinished reconstruction, adult alternative channel, our only playlist
Dec 23, 2019
Dec 23, 2019 at 9:28 AM UTC
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
Dec 9, 2019
Dec 9, 2019 at 3:17 AM UTC
“poet, it’s your day,” she says.
groggily growls the growler,
“what’d ya mean?”
“the sun came up today early,
but partly cloudy interrupt-us has arrived subsequently,
worse, the Great Swami Interpet predicts rain comes
heavy this afternoon on our journey home.”
he reflects upon his craggy, scraggly image that is
reflected upon the cold brewed black coffee.
replies carefully without thinking,
“today I will commence writing under
a new guise, a new name, a different persona!”
“whom shall we be today then?”
“come back to bed revelation poet”
sunrain
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 7:38 AM UTC
~for Cathy Leff, curator~
no bugler blaring ‘pay attention’ to me,
no emergent bad news bearish telephone cell call of an absurd tonal,
no alarm clock retaliating agin a humans daily defying double-slap,
no young children sneaking in, with a guard dog in accompaniment,
joy-ending a deep parental sleep from the exhaustion they induced
but as if shot, the humans burst into alertness,
from prone to moan, they instantly revert, becoming **** Erectus,
gasping from shock troop dreams, and a chest-pounding message,
a whisper growing, an ever increasing crescendo, an unnatural law,
an unsullied foot-stomping battle cry that self-terrorizes, undeniable:
write me, your poem, write me now!
ah, it must be 5:00 am...
May 31, 2019
May 31, 2019 at 4:02 PM UTC
*
~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.
May 26, 2019
May 26, 2019 at 1:44 PM UTC
the newbie failure complex(ity)
the poems come torrentially,
hurricane, waterfall & tornado are working adjectives
worthy of the task, yet unequal to the unlimited army
of the written dead of unread poems and poets
that occupy the nether of blog, podcast, and poetry sites,
orphan stars in the un-salvaged junkyard galaxy of verbiage
a faceless wight, once alive, now permanently dead,
we shuffle march, chanting each our own newbie poem,
onward soldiers to ignominy and glory so fleeting,
we are forgot before we are remembered
*this is life in poetry,
or better yet,
the worst of it, (sigh)
this is the poetry of lives*
all for nought,
nought for all,
at least we pass our prison time
in the company of fellow strugglers*
May 13, 2019
May 13, 2019 at 5:44 PM UTC