somewhere between the fourth and fifth

load of laundry,

sometime after breakfast~lunch,
now served in the USA at home,
as an all day meal, per the edict of Mcdonalds,
start fixing dinner, take a break, walk to the mailbox,
retrieve the post and quick retreat back inside,
ah that Texas sun, bilingual chili hot,
toss the unopened on the prior weeks pile,
cause everyone loves company

the home-cold-brewed ice coffee needs a filling
for the fridge has decided not to help
by automatically refilling the pitcher

even if it could
I, busy folding,
needing two hands
and all my teeth
for folding my master’s rocket ship

sheets

my master observes with one of his alternating demeanors,
this one, super silent watching, announcing that  I need a nap:

“don't you always say, baby,
take a nap when you can, baby,
for when you need one, baby,
you probably won’t be able, my baby”

with selected-hand-led fingers,
he lays me down to sleep,
bids me to slow slide to dreamland, dinner will keep,
curling inside my frame, hands a-cupping my *******,  
telling me a drowsy tale, inherited from his mother’s womb
and his granddaddy’s tongue, mindful of his family’s history

there, is where, they find us,
dinner fixings burnt,
me and my five year old baby boy,
still sleeping fast, around 5pm, bodies enwrapped,
tied by blood and entwined in old nursery rhymes,
Texas tall tales of Pecos Bill,
me and my very own

nap-ster master

<•>

p.s.  and they call me by my other name to wake me, momma

a poem I didn’t plan: but a foot upon my shoulder
gave me no choice

if perfection came along regularly
we would not take note of this August Sunday

the breeze looks steady, blowing a firm few knots
making the waves rulers of the bay
without the necessity of troublesome whitecap shoutouts,
the sailboats muttering ‘thankee’

the kids dock jumping into the water so warm
they shiver running in the chill of a warm summer day, 
 to home, where they do the coverup thing
with hoodies and their Great Aunts white haired cozy blankets
which appear in untold numbers,
one for everyone and don’t drip the cherry frozen sticks
stains from your tongue and lips!

the sun temp modulated and moderate, a summer kiss farewell,
after weekend of thunderstorms and house shakings, it is sad for now
we recount the costly lost days unretrievable and
sky watching
for  naught

the waters inviting again come walk-upon me Island Poet,
to  see my new sea bottom treasures that the heavens,
abetted by foolish men and children
have added to my storehouses of grains and pains

decline and recline for
Oh! have I not got one more weekend, to
close out that Melville tale^
and that is something one need not rush to complete

let me clarify -
!I am a Summer Man!^^
and the summers sunsetting
is a ring around my chest that sings ever louder
nearer my god than thee;
now at the age where one only counts down to zero at double time
marching, eye straight

in this place where we - god and me -
have sung and battled together
like good friend and peer,^^^
college roommate permanent enemies,
he keeps his teary rains in abeyance to remind
that the coming of his schooner is
inevitable and to pack my poems in
plastic for the journey
finale

Oh! how can perfect be so saddening but it is...

my perfection days are minimizing and should not complain
for wrote many poems to day, unable to refuse my traveling muses
who summer with me, one upon each shoulder
until god kicks them off, with a bossy look of
he’s more mine than yours

to make sure his presence acknowledged he
makes Pandora play Billie Holiday singing:
“I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day
In everything that's light and gay
I'll always think of you that way

I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you”

subtle, right?

but who am I to complain
the razor thin difference tween
blessings and curses so thin
sometimes are they not the same thing

ne sont-ils pas les mêmes?


an unplanned poem
naturally

part of the plan

~weary weighted~

flummoxed are the sea watchers;
the long rhythms of sea change reveal only minor modesties,
difficult discerned are the tidal subtleties

though repetitive thrashing extracts it toll,
only the weary-weighted see the true meaning of the beating,
knowing full well,
it beats for them

recalling their early day’d fascination with its endless chaining,
now knowing all are similar
detained-chained,
and  the ******* churning but a cover up masque,
they need not longer conceal,
an unrevealed confess:

water is heavy-weighted, you cannot forever float,
constancy is of a thing to be wary,
its sadder longevity,
a chipping away erosion of wearing,
‘tis is the knelling noise of  sad respite,
an unlight lighthouse


~for Victoria, a year later~

one more for Joni and the one who accuses me of
"owning the courage to care so blatantly."

<:>
accused of writing with blatant courage,
a  4 credit requirement for caring

blatant is a word of merger -
open obvious unsubtle and unashamed

and a dissembling misleading one!

it is all of these  and yet can be a contradictory mask of
opposing, differing faces

my blatant is none of these
but appearance only

**** muses keep me coming back
to a particular lyric,
keeps seeking me out, so successfully, wherever I go,
I hear it
it’s invading my both sides now

the dizzy dancing way you feel

you think I have my own blatant courage, untrue!
so oft you mistook my dizzy dancing,
all fluff all humbug so obvious so ashamed,
a cover up, a most subtle cosmetic pretense of the truth -
  of
no courage at all
and yet (they mock)
you do care...

just another of my peculiar
life’s illusions
(self-delusions)

  I really don’t have blatant courage at all

the job of the artist
is to be
luminous and dangerous

luminous to others
by being
dangerous to themselves

when the words are ripped from the chest,
atmosphere disbursed by the body’s projectile messes,
starburst fireworks,
luminous and dangerous,
luminating the shared night,
laminating your truths,
in poems disguised

and so the job,
our work,
begins