The Unbearable Winter’s mist

The winter’s mist,
peculiar,
the sky augurs
blue and sun mellow,
but clouded vision
begets and besets,
my own and owned
melancholy vision is
a consequential
snake like blurry speckled band,
of my own drawing,
covering my eyes,
when I read Márai‘s
wit, write, legal writ,
but with my corrected
add
of the
un
and my own self assigned
grade is a bright red
F


eye of the beholder

Life becomes unbearable
”when one has come to
terms with who one is,
both in one's own eyes
and in the eyes of the world.
We all of us must come to terms
with what and who we are, and
recognize that this wisdom is not
going to earn us any praise, that
life is not going to pin a medal on
us for recognizing and enduring
our own vanity or egoism or
baldness or our potbelly. No, the
secret is that there's no reward
and we have to endure our characters
and our natures as best we can, because
no amount of experience or insight is
going to rectify our deficiencies, our
self-regard, or our cupidity. We have
to learn that our desires do not find
any real echo in the world. We have
to accept that the people we love
do not love us, or not in the way
we hope. We have to accept betrayal
and disloyalty, and, hardest of all,
that someone is finer
than we are in
character or intelligence.”

Sándor Márai

(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.

Lay My Body Down

Sunday sipping my Hawaiian java,
the world’s end is hallmarked this weekend,
like hash marks on a old fashioned
wood ruler,
and unrequested and unbequested,
heady voices demand a retelling,
even a tallied
recounting
of 2023
the year I almost blew it.

took some pics, even a video,
of my-internals, and pronounced me
nearer my god than thee,
I was precisely, scientifically,
97% almost dead,
said the occultist
said see you tomorrow
for a haircut and a nip and tuck
upon thy heart

strangely,
I was of good cheer,
not fully comprehending my walk on the edge,
and
strangely,
never gave it too much thought,
which for a poet,
is just plain weird.

But this Sunday,
as I lay my body down,
thinking about “deadlines,”
all missed,
and are all still, cursing me,
residuals of 2022 & 2023,
which are carry on baggage
for the next trip through the
door of
2024

and these words come jumbled and
we are out of time to sort
them better than this,
but
as I lay this body down,
one last time,
on the ruler’s edges edge,
the last hash mark nearly touched,
and almost
equidistant from this year and the
unmeasured blankness of a clean white sheet
of Next!

<>

a good ole saying, a good ole lyric,
“lay my body down”
invokes image of spring water
a brook wash~flowing
over the shell of man
clothed in white linen shroud,

water of clarity crystalline,
taking a tour~trip with an itinerary
of (must-see!) sights,
cracks and crevices,
slats, slots and slits,
apertures and orifices,
groans and worry lines
accumulated this nearby past,
my body’s own poem

<>

but I recall W.H. Auden’s words
about the revitalization quality of water,
and I decide to
baptize myself,
like recommissioning, retrofitting
an-old ship

(though I am a serious jew,
who knows nothing of this rite)

“But fortunate seemed that

Day because of my dream, and enlightened,

And dearer,

water,

than ever your voice as if
Glad—though goodness knows why—to run with the human race,
Wishing, I thought, the least of men their
Figures of splendor, their holy places.”

<>

in some places, you can follow the dotted lines,
on my physical container;
man-made marks from
exploration of my body,
now understanding these lines and holes
are a schoolboy’s
long division’s remainder,
(always annoying)
bits & pieces of him,
looking for a surety that one can
yet call it home,
one more year?

<>
my interstices,
tween the manmade decorations
of medical foreplay
and the cri de coeur
of my mental anguish,
are life reminders,
I am
alive and still hurting,
BUT

could be worse.


enough.