when the bridge becomes a pier (Connectivity Poor!)


when:
extended arm, but finds no counterpart, empty air friction,
the bridge becomes a pier, ocean refuses to red sea split, yield,
road divides, dead-ended headed, no turnaround, only STOP! signs

when broken ends are splintered, jagged, glue won’t work, no fix,
two too twisted arms cannot hold on, too tense, too tight,  
being over-alone, solitude passed, secrets go untold

tongue buds are busted broke, vicissitudes of pandemic,
voices, once golden, now just rusted, red flecked word droppings,
only one message from above: Connectivity Poor, Try Life Again, Later!
                                                   <>
?What good is to be a King
when you cannot lead,
what good is to be a shepard
when the flock dying,
what good are David’s psalms
when God is not listening?

My Name is Shepard: When King David was very old, he could not keep warm


                                        *****­*
ancient kings grow aged, time offeres no exemptions,
hard life body, worn from glory, battle hoary, many women,
his story was not an allegory, it was allegorical story retold,
a poet loved the lord, sunk to sin, pride, yet, always asking why,
for all kings have boundaries, limits, even offenses unforgivable.

his psalms depleted, his eyes rapid failing, and the warmth
gone missing was not from his body, that but a side casualty,
his eyes were to mountains cast, wondering whence will come.
a warmth needed live forever, knowing full well no such power
exists except his Lord’s lasting embrace, their joint, last verse.

                                              <>

My name is David, born a shepard boy, dying a king, a human saved
by the hand of the Lord from the paw of the lion and jaws of the bear,
gave courageous trust to slay a Philistine giant, the greatest gift?

To pen powerful words that long outlived my actions and misdeeds,
a gift transferred to you and you, a certain knowledge that truthful
writs, will be your everlasting scrip and scripture, a name well recalled, poems of praise, songs of lament and sorrow, lyrics of wisdom, even those of mistakes, errors of sin, asking for wisdom for the greatest bravery, to ask, and greater still, to give forgiveness.

the warmth I seek will arrive at last, as the watchmen recite my poems by candlelight to me, as I ascend to meet my maker, the candle giving both heat and light for this is the dual nature of human life, this balance striven to leave our ledger level, letting our history be an honest reflection of we we were, who we hoped to be, and the record giving the warmth of our human truths long lasting.

                                            

why do the white gulls call? (everyday must have its poem)*


<>

the cries are intelligible,
each a separate story of:
patient waiting, of seas
unending waving, unchanging,
cycling, waiting, prophesying,
propelling history, retaining a
staining past, future similar...

why do the white gulls call?

for evening tide rapid approaching,
we may even have a decent sunset,
first worthy of being drunk toasted,
all reminders that this ordinary Monday,
has nearly escaped without an extraordinary
composition, you prone position negates
inspiration, so rouse yourself, rise taller

tribute due, tribute demanded, tribute needed,
that is why the gulls screech, fearful of lapse,
that poet will suppress what is compelled, no,
compulsed! the senescent days offer no excuse,
indeed, the time of limitation is nigh, is here,
the gulls know their history human, its lore,
needs foretelling, retelling, and keeping

humans come and go, but gull generations require
the prescient precision of their words, to define,
to record each day’s unique way of living/dying,
so they can become forebears of the future,
the passers down, of that they cannot exclaim well,
we humans are their heroes, living close by,
we carry the gulls thanks given, for skilled appreciation

so they cry out, is our poem be readied, for the day’s end
comes closer and every day must have its poem!

<>

“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

when there is no one there to disagree or temper your eyes appetite,
or bring you café with heart designs in caramel and white, or inquire
howz it taste so you nonetheless reply out loud with tears while wondering how memories live-on, in drinks and catch phrases,
you answer when she no longer, not here to ask, to gentle reprimand,
but answer the answer to everything, with an all encompassing

    crémeux à délicieux                           creamy unto delicious,

reminder to David, you now King of nothingness, Shepherd of no one,
no longer need a real voice to answer unto anything

did this poem just write itself, is more needed?

every day is holy, you just need to reason why!

could it be:

laundry day, a fresh starting, a new cleansing sparking

stroking her face, squeezing her apple cheekbones, smile extracting

making kissing her forehead, caressing her thumb knuckle, into a weapon of holy war

early to rise, coffee maker man, a saint she declares, from night risen

tracing her heart’s shape with a memorizing fingertip, transferable
to your own graying forested chest

happy new day, an everyday celebration; Happy Lockdown Day!

the strangeness that is realized when the words,
scattered and smattered, hardly useful enough to
com-paste/post a poem together, scrabbled letters
on a dining room table, ripe with possibilities,
ripe with the stink of inutility, for the
industrial-military complex of
mind-eye-tongue refuse to work together,
the letters, yes, scattered and smattered,
come on a regularly irregularly schedule,
not put together...

why should I write of this?
write of this of now?

my man-ifesto of inspirations loved and lost,
poems that arrive while I drive unable to record them,
for days now, a poem lay inert in my brain but just on the tip of
my rounded, tongue, the title knew me, knew it was mine to write,
but the man/poem coming together in mystical simultaneousness,
was nope, not conceivable,  
thus be advised somewhere in my body decaying
lies a decaying poem.

the title is
The *****, Dimples and Dents Upon My Body.

Perhaps this is that poem; but I suspect not.

This one was written in five minutes in one sitting, a run-on,
run-though
out of control.


so easy to write when out of control!

“creamy unto delicious” he marvels and marvelously replies,
when a hazy memory from mournings past asks howz it taste?
this café au lait in a french  handleless cup big enough to drown
your bad dreams, just the thing, the A way to start to day, manufacturing schemes to wipe the slate or just add to a long longingly “to never do” list, time frozen, whitened emptily clean, a familiar frenemy

but staying in bed on a beauty of mostly sunny, partly cloudsy day,
is tempting now that he is armed and dangerous with mug gigantic,
doing nothing is so sublime, until a lunchtime of Corona and lime,
reminds you that dinner planning will be needed under the influence of vin rosé, ordering by app so easy, marveling at the choicest array, easy quick under his non-currant existence, wordplay for no-audience

when there is no one there to disagree or temper your eyes appetite,
or bring you café with heart designs in caramel and white, or inquire
howz it taste so you nonetheless reply out loud with tears while wondering how memories live-on, in drinks and catch phrases,
you answer when she no longer, not here to ask, to gentle reprimand,
but answer the answer to everything, with an all encompassing
    crémeux à délicieux                           creamy unto delicious,
reminder to David, you now, king of nothingness, shepherd of no one,
no longer need a real voice to answer unto anything



~for my lover of everything french~

her milk is him

her eyes are full of good tidings,
washing my body with lavender soap cake,
all the dirt crumbs of a hard life drained
into a circle of holes that carry away carings,
to places where their squeaking can’t be heard

her hands, pillows for a head so sorrow-weighty,
her body, her hips, a bed upon to rest,
and he wonders,
how did he exist before she become his nest,
her hair of grass, now, a coverlet for twigs and strings,
when then he laid his body down for disturbed sleep

her milk is him, a restorative that refreshes his content,
how did, once upon a time, he let existence subtract
his time on earth without any relativity, time unrecognizable,
he was in no one place, pathless, subsidizing nothing,
unable to distinguish tween the straight and the curved

her milk in him, whitens his soul, she calls out,
“you are my shepherd, my king, my David,
my white marble sculpture of our current existence,
when you drink the white of me, it is I who is fulfilled,
when you write of me, your milk is me”