#whereshelter
Fall Leaves Fall
by Emily Brontë
<>
*Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.*
<>
the summer visage long faded from caramel,
to a bastardized version of ugly dirt brown,
the streets empty of traffic and the silence
is a sadder shade of lesser peace, the vibrancy
given way to sharper clearer long division disagreement
my worrisome peaks when the trees
denuded, less shelter than ever.
no cover offered, we stand divided,
visible lines of demarcation,
unable to hide, from each other,
unable to hide, from our selves,
the briefer day transits quicker
into night’s decay, and the words
we utter and state,, hollow sounded,
have no echo ability, no resounding,
and we all grow silenced, partly in
shame, partly because partisan words
bring no gain, or the satisfaction of a
response that makes us say ah ha! you see!
the leaves crumble breneath tired treads
and forested footsteps long ago forgotten,
beige dust that the wind swirls, delighted
by its new power to spread its grounded
memories of human interference into
a coverlet of dust
this fallen solitude hurts me, for it is in
opposition to the joy gay screams of children
in to water running, the oohs and ahs, of freedom’s fireworks gloried colors proclaiming we are “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”
Nov 5, 2024
Nov 5, 2024 at 3:13 PM UTC
typo of the first degree
meant to type passed,
better to letter the error,
write the poem you knew
was the one of the litter inside,
stewing & brewing in the internal
of you, regardless of the woulda
shoulda coulda of poetic eye~hand~brain
trinity of discombobulation…
we passed a 110% good-god-
another-glorious-day—perfect
in every aspect of deep respect,
lazing in sun and shade, no
matter, for the cool customer
of gentling breeze comforts
the global populace and each
draws comfort, deposits solace,
from the timeless day that slowly
slips inside us, a blessing for the
senses, that are inadequate to
praise it properly, ‘cept with a
nod of appreciation for the great
blessing that on us has been
bestowed…
we read, I write, bring her a
coffee unasked, for the chip
secreted by me in her temporal
lobes, lobs me a silent alarm:
snacks required!
we heartily dinner debate,
turkey burgers or mushrooms better?
Bun, No Bun?
Salad ingredients consumes a
de minimus 5 minutes before the
holy silence of our total environment,
soothes the phony discordiality of our
pretense, that there are two sides here,
not just hers, no matter what🙄
any diplomatic observer might
think…
the bunnies sense our presence,
emerging from the cool dark
of the shaded burrows dug beneath
our redwood deck, & get fed baby carrots,
that they pretend not to see until the babies
are summoned, from beneath the ledge!!!
the deck, that is now in its forty fifth year,
grows ancient stronger with a good annual,
steam blasting face lift, bettering with age,
keeping pace with the creatures resting on it,
just above the bunnies below’s steerage deck,
though the humans graceful age with no
artifices or outside help, except the air,
its salty flavoring, and the panoramic view’s
total encompassed comforting…
so the day passes, and it’s added
to our cull of perfection, distinctly
better than the day prior but who
can be sure, not I, for the poems
come easy, the music delivers delight,
the books read, additive to the engine
of the human body of know-more-ledge,
weighty matters, but zero caloric, and
thus, well deserved and served for dinner’s
chatter banter + desert with caramel M&M’s (1)
and the poet signals that the poem near complete,
and the trad sign off, today unnecessary, no need to query,
Where is Shelter?
for we are all a day wiser, and smile,
the answer before and inside us,
and the only open question remaining,
can heaven be better, and we secret wink,
cause the answer is. too obvious to we restees,
here, here is heaven, and go back to giving thanks
for our lucky stars…
Aug 13, 2024
Aug 13, 2024 at 3:28 PM UTC
Thursday
week has slo~mo’ed, edged on, visitors gone,
two and half rain days, but a mere coincidence (?),
it’s appearance, their concomitant dis-appearance,
inclemency has kept us closeted and cozily, but not a-lonely,
for the world’s tumult~tilting-plane distracting enough,
its axis! seems more than a few degrees a-kilter,
(lively, lovely word, rarely used), and since when have I awoken with
mine eyes have seen the dripping rhymes, for my germanic-jewish
is pretty prosaic, my musings confined to a middle-of -the-night “thingie,” but here and hear I am jingling away in anticipation of a rain-all-day situation, and frankly, a tad less political west wing,
King Lear worthy drama, polarizing, thee-ate-her, might incentivize an exciting trip to the emerald isle’s solitary gas station and IGA supermarket (weekend supplies for the newest arriving morrow-guest-mongers,) for sure-as-right-as-rain-it-will-be-ceasing,
they will be soon enough be landing by F-Day (3) ferry, on the morrow, with their own Shakespearean screenplay, and many compliments on the verdancy (a previous never employed actor’s verbosity) of our tree encased, oak surrounded, tiny cottage hideaway, where we are all the world’s a stage, and we, the designated locked down, can be all ~ heavenly host, wait staff, sommeliers, and most importantly, their captive audience members…for their small life’s litle newest pieces, require us to be fully updated…
enough folderol! first glance reveals wet everything, windows moisture painted; and a halfway penetrable fog means incautious
summer drivers will be out mise en vigueur, french for ‘in force’, testing their luck upon our **** curvaceous, ample bosomed hilllock roads, (stop), excited by their chance to prove their stupid mettle…and their auto’s european superior brakes & suspension…
so the six am borderline of unofficial time division has passed and it is still Thursday, still wet, fog-ever-so-light touch lifting, and the challenges of writing a good piece of poem, yet sizzling in the mind’s frying pan, is still a long haul walk down the creaky corridor to the
just-kitchen ing ya, and the bed’s seductive dulcets.
singing why not “Stay (just a little bit longer”) (1)…
thus throughly convinced, bury dreams of Javanese Enlightenment within the seducing drowsed plumpness of my pillow
unti they arrive in force, but that is a different story already written…(2)
<>
Stay… ah, just a little bit longer
(Please) please, please, please, please
Tell me that you're going to
… Now your daddy don't mind
And your mommy don't mind
If we have another dance, yeah
Just one more, one more time
… Oh, won't you stay, just a little bit longer
Please let me hear
You say that you will, say you will
… Won't you place your sweet lips to mine
Won't you say you love me all the time
… oh, yeah, just a little bit longer
(Please) please, please, please, please
Tell me you're going to
… Come on, come on, come on (stay), yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Come on, come on, come on (stay), yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Come on, come on, come on (stay), ooh, la-de-da
Come on, come on, come on (stay), my, my, my, my
Jul 25, 2024
Jul 25, 2024 at 12:06 PM UTC
about
a year ago the doctors ordered me to return,
put down the tablet, cease driving, stay seated,
you a skinny hair from dying, the drop dead
unkindly kind, come back to the city, there’s
an operating table Resy~reserved just for you,
the menu we will decide, two or three courses,
but for
the summering on your sheltering isle, where the
lapping waves sounds of the sound, the greenery
calming befuddles your senses is ended, the congress
of animals too have ordered your dispatch back to
the hubbub of pizza parlors, nail salons & bodegas,
and
we will slice and dice, drawn up plans to redirect
the arteries and veins that you’ve spent good money,
lazy years clogging & ******* sending you back after
you’re in fighting trim, and and recommence dialogus
with
the sun, sky, animals, the water and the waves, and
write of peace of mind, knowing that your body, too,
is
at peace, but not at rest, and let the writing begin
again, with a refreshed perspective, and re-greet
old friends, Hafiz and Whitman, who were left
behind in a hasty departure, your retreat is ended
and now, a new re-treating of the soul, to match a
newly refreshed body
postscript:
*where is shelter? why, within and without…both needed,
in happy juxtaposition*…
May 19, 2024
May 19, 2024 at 5:00 PM UTC
Inevitable, that the circle be completed,
celebrating our seasonal return to the
sheltering abode by river, bearing winded
surround sounds to our isle of near-perfection,
where slivered tongued foamy waves deposit
new & used poems on beach, emptied from
now repurposed sea shells and hardened
conchae's, evidence that the truest inhabitants
never leave, always return, with their markers
Inevitable, that I write this in premature
anticipation, amidst the towers of babble,
& honking taxis, imitating Canadian geese,
who await our presence to refute any paper,
that we fool human claimants, before Nature
pretense of ownership, are not mere renters, albeit
but for a few centuries, which by larger definition,
is an interim short term lease, writ in invisible ink, that tho it
yellowing disappears, the orange summer heat magic revives
Inevitable, that decades of worshiping this
place, now mindbound, as temple, shrine, to
a place extant in our minds, wherever we be,
as land that owns us; here, we have buried
super~hero figurines, sanded, polished memories
of loved ones, parents, friends, adventures, times,
confusing generations, for the children of earlier
children, whose children, now too scream with glee
& courageous abandon, familiar+identical to forbears
Inevitable, that we live here, though life demands
our presence elsewhere, in our minds,* for each
year burnishes our genes with sun rays, while sand
smoothes our roughened skin, and we are only refresher
modifications of our earlier selves, when we first were
lost, and stumbled upon this grail, with shovels and
red plastic pails, with which we commenced erecting
foundations, homes, gardens and vines, and images
that are always at home in our minds, living on,
in real time…
May 4, 2024
May 4, 2024 at 9:37 AM UTC
(for Daisy, a true companion to poet rr)
in the city,
we fight daily the toughest of hombres,
brown, grayed, mottled city pigeons,
who fear no human predator,
in the fight
for the crumbs and crusts of
inspiration
however, they may come our way
get a message, a post,
with the words
“a good create”
the words form a chord,
in my throat, taut, visible, tense
even knowing it’s likely a typo,
probably meant “creature,.”
but the phrase strikes me
as one too little spoke
in our diurnal drudgery
numbing~dumbing struggle,
but, I take them as (a) writ,
for the crumb of challenge
proffered
if we cannot justify our existence,
daily with a new create,
then incumbent upon us
to cherish, double and thrice,
the good and wonderful
creates,
the surround us
been decades since my body
was warmed by the shape of an animal’s
curves fitted into mine,
our sleep rhythm intertwined,
nay,
one
<>
so once again,
I mourn a living poem
who crossed my path
in photo, in words,
but never,
not in,
living color
but the sighs of loss,
real
*so as is my wont,
inquire within,
where shelter?
in the love
we create
tween us and our*
creatures.
Jan 3, 2024
Jan 3, 2024 at 10:56 AM UTC
In God’s No~Fly Zone
blessedly, so many of you are
unaware of the full color spectra
that be can seen only when an
age of experience has been reached,
reached, not attained, for the no~fly
zone is no place to be, without any
redeeming colorations, it is dark hued
twilight that inhibits vision clarity,
a precursor warning of the *hungry
darkness* that offers to swallow one
into shades of sad remorse, and other
miseries
How came I to earn this distinction,
was not by acting out, rather by inaction,
the failure to pick the correct fork in a
life of sentence diagramming, sentence
in the prison sense, all my sentences,
broken down, no connection sensible
to the next phrase, next phase, so I
sit beneath my vine and fig tree, unable
to fly, unable to tear shed,
grounded, pounded in my head
Dec 3, 2023
Dec 3, 2023 at 10:43 AM UTC
Black Tambourine by Rick Richardson
Death is a dark knife
that cuts the light
through the window.
A black car in the night.
A burning cigarette
bursting on the highway.
A fire going out.
A gypsy with whiskey
breath shaking
a black tambourine.
~~~~~
Black Tambourine Rebuttal by NM Lipstadt
Death is a lit light,
sundering the slowing,
defeating the resistance,
accepting with gratitude the surrendering of labored breathing,
tallying as complete the summation of
all the trials of errors
these accumulations,
accompanied
fittingly,
by an 1812 overture music spectacular,
with fireworks and cannons
pronouncing
victory, at long last!
a V-D Day,
over the onerous blackness
of too many soleless nights,
instead it offers a comforter
of Where Shelter?
Here!
in our starry be-Knighted,
our jointed crowning neath tapestry blanket of transport to
our immortality sheltering.
do not doubt its
peculiar nourishing
is
bountiful certainty
Sep 30, 2023
Sep 30, 2023 at 10:48 AM UTC
“A groan of tedium escapes me, startling the fearful
Is this a test? It has to be, otherwise I can't go on.
Haven't written a word in three and a half years.
Time to take the broom out to this shallow grave”
Middlesteps
~~~~(|)~~~~
For
deep is the fear, coated in thickening veneer
of might-be-bravery,
the weight, Oh, the weight!
of that writing utensil that both
bears and bares all,
an uncomfortable unconscious,
uncontrollable surrender
that sweeps down upon us,
when first we seek the unwieldy unwinding
of our proactive fist of a first step,
the unclenching, the open face palm,
seeing our lifeline’s revelation, the shame,
the lines we thought that faded away,
upended, open ended, that the worst
un-finishing, but here I am, my taking, the
baby steps of Middlesteps,
only looking
back to forwards for permission,
a new looking inward
forward!
we confesses, beg for our own forgiveness
for ourselves, the years of summary silence ,
at last!
unveiled and unbound, this first step stinks of
tremors, poems never writ up, but on our mouths
and fingertips yet memorized as IF they were bespoke
this return,
“startling the fearful,”
a provocation to the mirrored images
caked on my disheartened body,
goes lightly noticed, but not by me!
daily, I ask the bay and the sky, the animals,
the query lives in almost each of my scripts,
Where is Shelter?
today the answer is not an apparition,
but the question is rephrased,
not where! but when
the answer is now apparent,
for the seed planted, this is for you,
watering the seed, feeding the shoot,
that I know too well,
for asked and I answer,
everyday…
Sep 24, 2023
Sep 24, 2023 at 11:53 AM UTC
<>
**”To dream by the oak and awake by the sea
when August has ripened and turned Jubilee
you must enter dominion of summer's delight
and live in the rapture of candescent light
Oh to live and to love one must first learn to kiss,
the kinetics of summer, with eternal bliss.”**
~from vienna bombardieri’s poem, “Kinetics Of Summer~
(with her kind permission)
<>
First verse pinpoints accurate, this,
my spot!
by oak and sea,
my precise longitude and latitude, where my summertime
eyes open to receive the gift of morning’s light, observing
the conjunction of land, hard by the sea, the land-ed avian gentry
and sea~sailor birds interacting, sharing the uprising currents,
for sport and observation, travel and pleasured sailing,
these “Masters of the Sky can fly for hours (or days), while barely flapping,” and this verse stuns, and
my shock,
at these, her words
my breathing is gasped and grasped
by oak and sea, for so it be,
this is where
my morning’s operatic scrum, ballet and dance hall hullabaloo,
my diurnal natural choreography is performed,
while slow sipping my very heated first coffee
it was here
that I learned to love more easily,
for the kinetics of summers trio of sun, sky, and moderate breezes,
lulled the turbulence of my disheartened lives into an easier
order, the world~surround, a living, breathing exercise that
warmed the spirit, cooled the soul, and spoke without uttering
a single word,
here dear person, is the where and the when,
the comfort of the natural-blanket
that enwraps, covers, cherishes the atmosphere entire,
containing the healing elixirs and protective ointments,
that remove the
plaque of life’s accumulated injuries, slights and scar tissue
simply put,
here I breath freely,
here I see with clarity
here the infusions of
living in nature, prolongs,
restore, remind, enliven
and enhances,
the intermixture of
body and soul
here in actual deed,
the kiss of summer bliss
upon
my tiring cell’s walls,
are resurrected even unto the nuclei,
by the warm breath of sun life and sun light,
and the breezes of salty sweet caramel air
and under their loving, combined-dominion
am I
resurrected and will yet sense,
one more Jubilee again
as I lay dreaming
by the oak and the sea…
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 at 4:05 AM UTC
Where Is Shelter?
depends on the location of the storm…
so oft have I queried the gods and you?
Where is Shelter?
*to which, my response, while surrounded so well (!)
within
my moated island circumferences redoubt,
always was a simple:
“Here, Here is shelter!
But so human, thus so prone to delimited vision,
always, we scan the skies outward, fearful of
the hurricane and storm that approach,
from without, appearing, and the brewing
sky’s danger is visceral~visible to the naked eyes,
when,
it is disguised within the chambers of the
body, festering, until it is pestering, and
shelter, sadly, is not injectable, transferable,
easy remedial, and the hunkering down
with four walls not the solution, for the walls
themselves are damaged by decades of
waves of innocuous gently lapping that* still
*erode igneous granite(1) and fissure the self,
this secretive, enemy insidious…*
so it comes to be, that my own daggers have
pivoted, the pointy dangers pointed outwards,
well entrenched in their own defenses, now targeting
the whole of me, my outer walls breached, and
fired upon by cannons of cells, a treacherous
attack, bombardement par l'artillerie et les drones,
of the Fifth Column (2)…
so once more, say no more, but ask the brief of demand,
Where is Shelter?
the answer is as of yet to be decided,
but the forces
arrayed for and against
are equally determined!
W.S.
Jul 29, 2023
Jul 29, 2023 at 3:30 PM UTC
The Mendacity of Beauty, Marvels of the Mundane
<1/1/2023 10:38 PM>
commissioned by Pradip^
<>
A special carnet permits the day,
though day itself unremarkable,
permissioning of a thousand,
even, tens of ten thousand
grasping new love poems
all mundane, all marvelous
an aborning of odes re the
vastness of sea, sandy sky,
multifarious penumbras of hewn hues,
vibrantly diverse, still, requiring the
expanse and pretense of “new”
adjectives and metaphoric
in combos recalculating
precisely, it’s the enormity,
of the difficulty of verbal capture
upon tablet of these natural treasures,
once, more, yet again, but in somehow in a new-never
quite-before conceptional~postulation-realization
I sojourn amidst both man made and natural beauty,
provoking, invoking, a steady stream of potable knowledgeables, performing as a hand-written-thank-you-note for the grace, the imagination of their mishmash existences addressed only to
“whom it may truly concern…”
I’m eager to confess that the poetry inherent in the
mundane, requiring not-so-easy mining, a sales taxing
innovation to capture the subtlety of less visible flecks of gold, that present a rarer challenge to the poet’s senses where glory abides in pyrite pebbles strewn and trod upon by most indifferently,
*ah, write of the marvel of the mundane,
**** dare you!*
<>
^Pradip: “writing of the mundane is mandatory for me…”
Aug 12 2022
Jul 1, 2023
Jul 1, 2023 at 11:10 AM UTC
<6:36 AM>
~for Joanne Louise Veronika~
patches of light, snatches of sleep,
cumulative tallies of every 24 hour arrhythmia,
detect heart alarms ringing, watch warnings screeching beeping
who cares!
new commitment, self imposed!
greet the early ones with sooth and java,
a combination, “all across the nation,”
ease them in from sleeply lyrical dreams,
to a clear sky, renew anew, bay waters
running new tide fast, tiny tendrils of water points,
etch-a-sketch paths to a calm souls restoration
the smoke haze bad dream departed,
sun rays warmth for the invisible innards,
waves look like the EKG of human at peace,
resting heart rate steady and rhythmically sweet
and I laugh at myself, preposterous!
this is my secret path to restoration,
please laugh at me, join the raucous joy
of not-taking-yourself too seriously,
meaning of a new light, fresh waters,
of an old friend, the same diurnal perspective,
a new alphabet that spells but a singular duality,
a two-word~poem of
meditative perfection:
calm sheltering
Jun 10, 2023
Jun 10, 2023 at 7:05 AM UTC
Silver Beach: Always the Sole First
familiar white fishing boat, up with early light,
seeking sustenance and pleasure in = measure,
anchored ‘bout quarter mile east of my under-the-coverlet,
(of course! as the crow, raven or scavenging osprey flies),
it’s precise location amazingly exact, but alas, soon daily
familiarity breeds no secrecy, and now joined by a
farther out, smaller version, a compatriot in spotitude,
of the best spots for harvesting the early running
brackish bay water favorites, striped or black sea bass
what persistent fortitude these fisher-peoples display,
early to rise, first to depart, when others crowd its “spot,”
(amazed by its knowing precision the exactitude of “spot”)
this ship, always the sole-first, invokes a first poem of the day,
always a soul-first, an unburdening of deepest gratitude that
one more day granted me to imbibe this vista, awake to its
soothing silent heavenly serenity, absent machine or
electronic interference with my delicate sleepy wakefulness,
when newly minted words come into my mind, my
secret spot
Sat AM June 3
Jun 3, 2023
Jun 3, 2023 at 8:46 AM UTC
the words don’t come easy (Poet’s Nook)
~for the postman who always rings twice~
<>
nah, they come
too easy,
from me, for you, doesn’t mean
they’re cheap, quite the opposite!
hard earned, been through the
washing machine so often,
they claim recyclable status
ok, so they are worn, edges raggedy,
they don’t care, nor do I, cause you
can’t find me any that never been fired
in the kiln of experience that came before
the crucible of my eyes, that says to them
welcome back! old friends, easy and familiar
stay for a few minutes, before you must get
snatched by some younger person’s heart,
send them along with my thanks and my
fare-thee-well, bon voyage, stop by one more
time, if you pass this way, I’ll be in that place,
Poet’s Nook, in our atmosphere of inspiration
where we have cohabitated, cogitated, and
wept together, co-created, and dreamed of
new combinations of our old souls’ cross currents
8:11am Sep 10 ‘20
In the Nook,
S.I.
Sep 12, 2020
Sep 12, 2020 at 3:29 PM UTC
are you seventeen yet?
have the berries and the shells
stained impossibly
your youthful heart permanent,
have you matured and learned
to end sentences
in question marks?
surely certainty and
alack, its absence,
haunts
all your waking poems,
wonder does your mother know
what you’ve purloined,
stored in you
from her withins?
so young, so much love
oil spilling,
do you wonder about
the depth of the field
you are drilling, extracting -
is the soft supple supply,
so, close to the surface,
endless?
life so far is but a draft.
take copious notes
for the best is yet
and I await patiently
the novella of your
adventures!
Jan 25, 2015
Jan 25, 2015 at 10:07 AM UTC
*the worlds illness so pervasive,
the pandemic horror stories are my-brain-endemic,
so pervasive, every ache, tremor, is now virally suspected,
proof that my customized angel of death has arrived, I’m seizing up.
the latest wave session of walking depression, conflates both sides
of my brain, the intersection at right, left, the intellect is mowed
down with woe-down, by the stark reality of emergency facts,
apex or art, looking at months and lives ever trembilzed.
don’t even bother like I did at early firsts, when?
by asking where shelter, the raison d'être of my existence,
the poetry no longer synapses, the currents loop over and over,
the intellectual processes neutered by sadness virus un-encountered.
once upon a time I thought, even believed, that my life’s inquiry,
was answerable, with customized solutions for each,
but now, don’t believe in shelter of any kind, no,
acknowledging I’m so lost, no recovery efforts,
will be attempted.
Apr 12, 2020
Apr 12, 2020 at 1:44 PM UTC
The Prism Through Which We See Clearly
~
light saws our untrue selves with acute angles,
piercing our holistic pretenses, daily disambiguation features,
our sheltering disguises into our essence refractive elements
this is not a cute rainbow poem - run from here
it is a dissection of our true nature
why belabor, why elaborate?
through the prism
you color-coded self, tracted,
a mapping of your intersections,
what each color speaks, needs not an explication,
your hidden humanity comes to my eyes, in full revelation
at last I see you clearly
the lost and black withered limbs,
the stirring, leaping, enflamed flaring, never ceasing, breathing elements that mark your singularity
did you know your eyes are constant singers?
through prism, each note heard distinctly, as it rises uplifted,
your song, mine for observation and weeping exhalations,
your song, the production number of thy own composition,
through prism, our interior visual disinterred and released,
here I must cease, for what seen, grievous weeping deepens,
from the glory and the pain my blurred wetness overwhelms
the clarifying crystal useless when tear coated
through the prism,
before the full length mirror,
my own, unowned, never could be owned,
'mirror mirror on the wall,'
warped weave of tissues, mine,
the song sounds, mine,
from lungs disgorged
myself, diagnosed and displayed
of what I see, spitting speech
ceases and desists,
the only thought permitted, repeated,
where is my shelter now?
5/13/17 6:49am
May 13, 2017
May 13, 2017 at 7:02 AM UTC
I The Hard Part
~ be a good friend
II The Easy Part
~ write what you feel
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 12:09 AM UTC
bare it straight...
the knight-fool referenced here,
me, scrabbled, scrambled writer,
moat-surround builder,
petard hole-blower in walls of captivity.
letting those inside out,
letting those outside in...
all the beloveds from
ailments hurtful,
in and ex ternality
fearful of eternality
guise of knight errant,
salve and solve,
two pocket protectors,
needy, downtrodden, love-hurting,
slip inside and hide till ready
to come out on acceptable terms
entrapped, locked down and in,
show me the walls for to break,
make the solitary unobligatory
hands holding you will lead us,
all writ on clean new chance foolscap
open sourced coded for sharing
knock knock knock
come calling,
my calling...
to come...
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 12:53 PM UTC
bed unmade days,
kitchen cock-all-around-roaches
email me thank you notes,
cockaround gratingly grate full
the dry cleaning unwrapped,
the plastic sheets dust covered,
can't recall why it matters at all
any of it
but she,
no
but she,
now-gone
pass by
the bed,
see the sign,
"to let"
on the toilet seat
upright
lie ever inwards onwards
idiots who let little things come
between,
wishing there were
ever still,
noisy
and so very
between
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 10:41 AM UTC
I love cheap money
I love giving it away
cheap money is
that which you give
to the the brave ones....
not much of a poem
cheap
because it is the least expensive
way to justify your own existence
and better someone else's
someday I will write
actually share,
the poem long dusted on the bottom
of the pile entitled,
Just Money
a long tale of how I learned
the value of monetizing
happiness
but let us ask where shelter,
shelter is in the human embrace,
like I said,
not much of a poem,
more a good look
in the mirror
and the shelter of liking
what you see
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 12:34 PM UTC
~
shelter,
*two arms,
a human lean-to,
a pup tent,
all with a
welcome mat,
for you,
awaits
with graceful patience
simpatico smiling,
always avail,
awaiting,
no life clock countdown
prematurely pushing,
come when
there is
no other place
all,
on offer,
shelter places
that become
your home,
if you so
honor them thus,
your choice,
your decision
when to come n' go
shelter you,
no questions asked,
cloak you, us, even me, all, with human warmth,
easy silences, no unforced errors of pressures
for when my arms
bear your load,
mine, halved*
Feb 24, 2020
Feb 24, 2020 at 3:27 PM UTC
lay this body down, where shelter is..
<>
maybe you’ve been here, HP, awhile,
faintly remember the nook of poetry,
the four old soldier chairs, worn to a gray shade indescribable,
facing the merge of the river and the bay, lookin out southwest,
today, in nearly summer over Sunday best,
wearing a new old navy lime t-shirt,
ancient Champion grey cotton flannel shorts,
summer uniform of the generation that went boom and bust
as the sun escapes through apertures of now and then,
interrupting the partly cloudy forecast,
lazy me risking an end of summer skin reddening chastisement,
but life without danger, no life at all, especially poetry danger
the windy breezes jabbering quite excitedly,
deep in conversation with the waves
that loudly enough are washing the shore,
beneath my feet sitting in the poets nook
the gulls are squeaking their point of view,
at will, saying to me,
who asked you poet?
discussing they, the day, when the humans will be leaving,
they tell day and season by the degree of temperature reductions,
knowing full well it harbors hints that our departure sooner,
till next we poetry nook
the Adirondack chairs, with no cushions, are now described
as “scratchy,” by the Wendy of my life,
two and something granddaughter, who returns next weekend,
with new insights and open to opportunities to “use her words”
to teach me anew how to see the loveliness that is my blessing
sometimes a human takes an inventory of life’s stuff,
the ex and in-terior terrain, wades through the moraine
that his glacier has dragged behind, the coarse detritus of his course,
de icing/deciding what to keep, what stone skip throw into the bay
I could sail from our dock to the Atlantic,
meet you over a pint or a pinot, or head down to the Panama Canal,
north to Portland or Seattle, cruise the Willamette,
go as far as Vancouver,
before the spring winter runoff,
show you my shock, the shock of well past gray,
now the white feather of my head, signifying...old warrior, as it
falls over my forehead, a new signature of my ever changing body,
the city doormen see, shocked, now call me honorifically “abuelo”
read a story from a harvard doctor who believes living past 75,
makes little sense, cause we use up more resources
than we could ever add back
no, not saying go die, but give up the meds,
the artifices to extend life
once you pass past the inflection where you’re nothing but a taker,
which maybe explains why wrote a dozen poems this weekend,
trying to expel what resources I can add to the world before I
lay this body down
the cloud bank covering the southern fork of long island,
thickly viscous like fresh honeybee secretions, after which,
some will
lay their body down
next weekend is labor day, and maybe I’ll labor more,
disgorging poems too long and too varied, perchance you will
enjoy one or two, as we both be closer to the day when labor ceases,
and we can unhurriedly
lay this body down, sheltered at last
from wind waves and gulls jabbering,
the alternating current of cloud and sun
8/25/19
3:40pm
SI
Aug 25, 2019
Aug 25, 2019 at 4:45 PM UTC
your thoughts and prayers ****
highly ineffective,
bluntly,
they are defective
ain’t rendering no mo’ to god
and his good old timey thing,
righteous slaughtering of the innocents,
such fun for what does He care
what we got to do is do
something about on it earth,
time has come up,
the hurricane has begun,
and world is shaking from the movements in our bones,
for now is the hour
when we sail to the shore,
and until we are done,
the sun will not respect our faces
accept this introspective invective,
politely keep them guttural BS noises to yourself,
you know who’s the guilty ones,
that would be me and you
write to the congressmen,
who have been shot,
asking what ya got, forever protection,
the crazies know where you live,
state senators from places they don’t you represent,
all that we adjudged them lazy guilty, guilty of laziness,
and don’t forget to add a p.s.
we adjudge ourselves guilty as well,
too many knew in advance, the dangerous ones, who were
lurking, them waiting, us in desperation hoping,
it wouldn’t be happening then delaying one more time
all over again
*”Oh the foes will rise
With the sleep in their eyes
And they'll **** from their beds and think they're dreamin'
But they'll pinch themselves and squeal
And know that it's for real
The hour that the ship comes in.
Then they'll raise their hands
Sayin' we'll meet all your demands
But we'll shout from the bow your days are numbered
And like Pharaoh's tribe
They'll be drownded in the tide
And like Goliath, they'll be conquered.”* (Bob Dylan)
8/4/19 12:10
there is no shelter anywhere from madness for the madness
is ours, inside, and we have learnt to live with it’s reoccurring.
Why?
Aug 4, 2019
Aug 4, 2019 at 12:17 PM UTC