prayer of hope, for young and old, who suffer from the slings and arrows sadness and the loss of love; I offer up this prayer of hope and offer you my hand around your shoulders until you no longer require it

more than once,
for lengthy periods,
by events, other people,
my self was eradicated
and limping from day
to night, and J faced
absolutes, choices choking,
alternating alternatives that
offered zero, or even less
than zero, and the inkwell
wasn't refillable, and I could
point to nothing yet encouraging a mystifying purposed existence

then came a woman

who asked nor proffered
conditionals
pre, prior post or otherwise
and
offered up the miraculous
drink, human kindly notice,
snd it
drained the bitters,
began fluid replacement,
and slow resuscitation

and then
poems rebirthed me,
 liberated the angry sacred
gory sadness words devoid of glory,
with a reworded score, and
the eyes could write without
a patina filter of jaundiced hatred,
and whispered private internally
many times a beloving
hallelujah

and when ever the remembrance of
the near misses are crackly occasionally appearing, the surge dissipates intact quick
into a netherworld for suppressing
and bid "away with you," and a
thin lipped smile part sneer
for having survived
even
prospered when
                    then came a woman

and the self, the my self,
returned
after an absence of destructed
decades...deadening decades

and I smile when
the grandchildren tell me
knock knock jokes
and gently knock me on the head,
to make sure I'm alert,
then came woman
who had already~all ready
knocked me on the
heart

Ah, Pradip,
once more, like a 1000 times before,
you submit title, demanding a poem,
daring me to author it's entire body & cell structure,
give it a native language birthmark, and a history unique,
even a name

Un fair!

Is it only me that you burden so, I doubt it.

Each of us has the right to the small tinys, things we see,
the embellishments of our lives,
filling our hives with pure honey,
and letting the other others peek
over our shoulders, as we write to each other,
always one more time until there is no more time

Do words have any boundaries?

How is it that words can cross the seas, the mountains, all the while,
interjecting the fullness of their import?

What time is it you ask?
Here, not yet 5 AM, and once more, here again, roused from sleep after vivid dreams, and finger pointing of my poetic life responsibility to complete this task, you gave me unasked, but know me too well, for well they rang like a bell in the brain,
a burr in the bed,
a gun to the head
Each
and all commanding,
fulfill me!

Do words require a passport to cross oceans? Do words have citizenship?
Why does entry into a different country require each time, a new poem?

yes, the house is dark,
I am alone, but not really…

The words that are conscripted to be issued, in this missive, fall so easily from my lips, that it is as if they were already there,
MRE's
?
pre-prepared, "meals – ready – to eat, "
for voyaging to the Indian continent, not caring if they came alone, or with my body in their person possessed

How is the little granddaughter?
Does she command you to write poetry too?
Does she write poetry too?
Does she learn English as well as her native tongue?
How do you tell her that you love her, celebrate her,
and that her fame and escapades are unkempt  
by real geographical boundaries,
and travel around the world?

Ah, You see
I have charged you now with responsibility!

Ah, the tables have turned, now boundaries must be crossed again with a passport issued from a foreign land (foreign to me anyway),
And I wonder and wander, when they arrive, how will I know,
commit them to memory, and love them with all my heart forever?

Praddip!
Go for one of your walks on quiet nearly empty roads, see the old people beside them, doing the things that old people do,

and memorialize these moments,
you do
so well, so fine, and let the other onlookers hear them spoke, in every language, so many love poems to life, we do not lack for any,
but always, always, always,
demand and require,
n e e d
(he howls)
one more!

Time: 5:1 2 AM
Eastern standard time
New York City
By the Atlantic Ocean
On an island surrounded by water,
That 1,000,000 or more every day pass by,
And here,
h e a r not the flow,
lost amidst
the blaring megaphone of silences
of
city noises, city words, cityscapes, human miracles, and tragedies, it cannot be.
that
I am
the only one so burdened!
And by well traveled poetry,
so un burdened

This semi private, totally public,
Love now,
Love note
is complete as of 5:16 a.m., and after a quick review, will be sent on to you, for submission of a unique-passport for
with its very own
valid entry stamp

nml

~for Lalit Kumar~*
Pandemic, retiring, no more bus riding,
alas, the inside insights are far, few, and
the ****/time contiunuum in between poems
and psalms has graduated from metered dashes
t  o o l o n g  d i s t a n c e   r u n n i n g s,  and
the social etiquette of the subterranean subway landscape
forbids making eye contact, (you looking at me??)
a un~delightful
poetry inhibitor!

And yet,

will draw my inspiration from the
holy imagined
city streets, rife with innundating
strivings, wriithings, out-loud-shoutings,  
though
I dare to imagine that noise of the Cities of India,
whose buses I envison as a spicy potpourri,
a combo spices of a human tagine,
a multi-vegatable curried stew,
spicy, noisy, and lip
smacking noises

but whose inhabitants
bear and bare little compare
electric beheamoth hybrid buses of
three plus bendable carriage long length,
carrying all passengers of irratable disposition,
& only a minimalist passing resembalance, of
mealy mouths & closed ****** lips, trying to ignore the
**** wetness damp of a rainy and chilled spring  temp
that demands winter coast still be employed and of
course overcook and overheat the already grumpy grumpuses
of everyone, regardless of age, creed, gender and age,
and all the other slice n' diced categorizations
of the human race(s)

here I shall quit this long winded apology
in all its minor grist and glory,
this just a **** proof of
my continued
existence,
and a dbt paid to
Lalit Kumar,
who asked impetuously

"Please sir,
may I have some more?"

and here be
your starter
dish
of un-sub-springlike weather
in a city bus here, with passengers
of a Western ilk

for she
<>
"I choose to love you in silence, for in silence I find no rejection.
I choose to love you in loneliness, for in loneliness no one owns you but me.
I choose to adore you from a distance, for distance will shield me from pain.
I chose to kiss you in the wind, for the wind is gentler than my lips.
I choose to hold you in my dreams, for in my dreams you have no end"

Rumi
<>

writ in a time, for when
there is never enough,
and yet,
always, waves of too much,
needy for
filling feeling fulfilling

We must learn,
be self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

ah the tender time is nonetheless
rightly and wrongly
rightly now,

for I have stumbled,
overheated, sweaty, from the night bed,
at 4.30am into another darkened toom,
and I have smacked~stumbled into
Rumi
and her

our paths continuously intersect,
in the same but
in different cities, continents,
and yet,
diffident, differing,
we silently choose
never to close those lady~last few miles
and tie the knot of
eyes, skin, lips
the instruments
that transmit thousands of
neuronal explosions that
seal the deal

so we write in poetry,
in silence broken by the gentility
of fingertips soundlessly
and yet,
boundlessly rocking,
explosively soundings of
tap tap tapping

my music mocks me,
it is definitively god interfering,
advising, conspiring,
wiring into my brain
better lyrics,
idealized notions,
exactly appropriate
and appreciated

with the lyrics urging me on,
and that we must be
self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

but my heart trembly refuses,
insightful informing
that now,
now! is
the moment to exchange
vows of words,
though un spoke,
they require
written completion
through
& though
apart, alone,
to finally out loud confess
what has always been known, only to each other,
to be
so real

and yet*,

we will never exchange
these sentiments
in out loud words

but though this be lacking,
it will never
diminish
their  ultimate
intimate
truthfulness

and I ask,
is this a poem?

surely
it is that, and
so much more,
an essay, a letter on
invisible NML stationary,
a heart carving in
an oaken barrelling of
ancient vintagery

and that interloper,
Him again,
eavesdropping
on this private communication,
insists that I draw deep
from her favorite
singer~songwriter,
words that say it better,
that for real seal the deal,
in the saddened perfection
of total, enwrapped,
silence:

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence"

and
it is time
to finish this task,
it is exactly one hour,
no time at all,
to complete a love poem that
is/was complete,
even before its
composition
and yet,
is never to be be familiar with
the finality of
completion
<>

postscript:

I taste your private shed tears,
hear the howling sigh,
but most of all,
'tis the explosion of
a deep smiling creasing
your lips,
spreading in all directions
saying and stating:

at last, at last!
a lasting, a confessional to you god,
though,
a through and through
silent
jubilation
                                              ­             nml

April 8, 2025
530am
New  York  City