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night unkind Jun 2020
an ancient lyric, come to haunt,
no longer a shield, now thinner,
of gossamer consistency,
a tissue-thin papyrus,
“my poetry to protect me”

the poem words always were
a clarinet reed, capable of singing,
a highest pitch voice for turning
blades of clean steel clean away,
now blunting paper bunting, penetrated.

re-formed my shield, re-purposed,
into a stabbing instrument offensive,
my poetry pricking tearings in my worn
thin fabric tapestry, woven from linen
excuses of why I can’t, why couldn’t I.

this is life. moats becoming drowning
pools, castle walls reversed to entrapments,
wrecking machines, boulders hurling,
medieval defenseless against modern rhymes
giving away to free verse horde onslaught.

too late to apologize to myself, alas, my words,
my protectorate, island redoubt, now ruined
by doubts treachery breech birthed from within,
these verses hollow point bullets engineered,
Caesar’s words clarified, you, et tu, are Brutus
too, two, for the price of one, betrayer and betrayed.
night unkind Jul 2020
new words for an old day that’s just begun

even I, author of the conundrum above,
confused but let us sort it out as we
descend into the elixir that is our combo
of noises, prejudices, limited vocabularies

time noted, not even the nine o’clock mark,
so the day qualifies as new, but it’s an aged
sun rising, skills displaying, historical precedent,
ancient practice, adjusted for atmosphericals

the lawn is speckled, mottled, as light ray guns
through the defending battalion branches and
platoons of leaves facing up, to a certain death
later than sooner, no killing fields till September

the oak tree generals, wisdomed experiential,
prepare plans, take light a prisoner in sufficient
quantity to nourish the troops, yet, not too much,
for the sun can be fickle, a flame thrower machina

all that vision leads me to this pronouncement:
*Oh Lord, bountiful be provided, beloved, inscribed,
this day, its mega-millennium predecessors and
successors gifted precision amounts needed, then,

Cast me gently into morning,
For the night has been unkind,
Take me to a, a place so holy,
That I can wash this from my mind,
The memory of choosing not to fight.


Sara Mclachlan “The Answer”




9:18am Thu Jul 9 ‘20
456 · Aug 2020
the transitional day
night unkind Aug 2020
the transitional day


august August practicing her Academy Award speech,
“Best Month of the Summer, 2020,” between you ‘n me,
there wasn’t much in the way of competition, nonetheless,
careful chosen backdrop, sound effects, mood music -
The Zombies playing “Time of the Season,” inter-inter,
mixing in cool weather, blue skies, intermittent cumulative
cumulus, pushed around by a whitecapping 16 MPH wind

the transitional effects, the leaves dropping fast, **** pointy
s.o.b., pointy acorns, under bare feet means a lot of cursing,
nobody likes change and kissing sweet summer goodbye for a
chilly tonguing neath a smirking smile, for the fates, having
a mischievous hot streak going, promising fall_ing fireworks,
(insert hacking, can’t breathe noises, gunshots and last rites)

try to wrap my arms around the summering highlights, never,
to let go, but you can’t successful hold onto, grasp aholt of
sunlight, traveling clouds, tanning oil, when the breeze is already
autumn weight tweed sturdy strong, and your new bathing suit
(so flattering, so long!) got no unsightly pockets (uncool) and
they got motion, and you have no traction and they just ‘adieu’ you

transition from chilled to trepidated, worries change seasonal colors,
green trees gone, green money worries replacements, and brown is
generally an ugly color, what life leaves behind, brown things,when
things die. Even bay waters have got the fall blues, no more robust
blue eyed girls to decorate white beaches, shades of grays tryout to
be the signature of coloration of symbolic, leave-less, denuded trees

frankly,  I’m in a lousy mood and wait and weight mix, a new coffee flavor from Dunkin’ Depressed, gonna be a big seller if there’s any left, don’t wonder why, ain’t gonna be much around, since I’m gonna drown this magnifique summer body in a tub of coffee that came all the way from June and July, it turned bitter soured, ain’t gonna think twice ‘bout it, heck, after this, may not even think of ‘bout it at all, ain’t nothing to, for, or say...’cept

<> <>

“When a man loves a season
Spend his very last dime
Trying to hold on to what he needs
He'd give up all his comforts
And sleep out in the rain
If Mother Nature said that's the way
It ought to be.”


apologies to the songwriters of
“When a Man Loves a Woman”
324 · Jun 2020
the night has been unkind
night unkind Jun 2020
a truism, an overused, abused entrée to the first poem of the day,
they always are night-born, from a slow passage of dark to a light-triggering recording event, a 6 hr. poem period, gestation, incantation

and a sort of relief, temporary

many the miles voyeured, a mentaller feasting sated,
simple rhymes to covet, rephrasing the complexities of
our other lives, where our sub-selfs exclaim, out loud!
this is me unchained, this is me chained, this is...someone


besotted by the rottenness of honesty, once air-exposed,
eyes fixed, no away-turntable, all that well hidden spoilage
in dreams reverent, forsaken, my ashamed-ness, is willing
taken to the scaffold, and by daylight first, perceived, conceived


we may examine the half of me, nay, the all of me, open-face
secrets secreted in my nighttime travelogue, of crimes, revelations,
insects, drownings, strawberry moons, all the fraying edges of a
linen covering, my cadaver pouch of well used words


inscribed thus:

”human born from a sac, and to earth returned, in sackcloth
night unkind Jun 2020
some silly time/space tween multiple choice questions
————————————————————————-



past midnight but before
the **** crowing, busting
you awake, woken, unrested,
thinking, **** not this again.

can’t find love, peace of mind,
at least let me sleep, be rested,
for the inevitability/ energy, the
questions & tasks that require
two to
offload
hoping they don’t appear on any
multiple choice tests,
multiplicity ain’t in my skill set

— The End —