Jigsaw puzzle of greenery, the trees
Nestle next to each in the
slicing sideways light of sunset.
The yard in the back is filled with it,
Filled with the late late summer side slant
of sun,
The plastic Adirondack chairs, left, as we left them,
Me, looking at you, maybe my feet
in your lap...
No, it wasn’t us that set them ajar.
The one time we sat there, your discomfort
Grated on my tranquil storybook
Vision, of us sitting
in the sun,
Drinking,
The Wine,
so we went inside.

Now I see them, those pretend plastic,
Pale blue, light blue to match
The house,
chairs of ease,
One chair looking at the other, while
the other stares off into
Space.
We meant to build a fire that
Summer, a fire pit
evening of
Romance.
But, I saw your dis-ease.
Was it the heat? The drone
of the bugs?
The chance of a gnat,
Landing in your
drink?
 
Or was it,…something
Different.
Something not found
in the sideways slant of
cooling air.
Was it, something
else, off
in that horizon,
Blocked
by the pale blue, the light
Blue house.
Something,
cutting your sight
Off
from the road.

It must have been, because, you said
Goodbye, several times
That summer.  A nod, a
kiss, and you were
Off,
in your mind,
because you never
left, but sat in your uncomfortable
Sadness of not
Belonging here, or
Where you thought;
Wistful plans set,  a
Blaze, not by
Midnight cords of wood
in a pile among the
Rocks,
Set ablaze by whimsy,
A promise,  not
Promise.
 
So, we sat that summer,
and watched the flowers in the
pots bloom,
and the rains carry one
away,
And the gnats gnatting
as gnats do,
Cannon balling into pinot,
taking  up
Residence, in that
Pale blue, light blue
house
With plastic mountain
Chairs
On the lawn.

Those chairs,
Those, Adirondack chairs
Still sit, still sit askew, still
sit, in the slanting light,
Still sit, waiting,
as I do,
For a time
Things, will be right
with the
World.
We must get, to
the other side, of
That Summer.
Let the snow pile high,
on those Chairs,
Get to, the whimsy, and
the Promise.
Watch down the
road, for a time to
travel, and not sit,
in uncomfortable
Sadness,
Askew in plastic
Chairs.

Our skins barest bare
in this long awaited retreat
we sit on adirondack chair
waves washing our feet.

We know such times are fragile
like dreams leaving at dawn
are like an imagined mile
before are breaths withdrawn!

We ponder not on what to write
not pour one word from breast
just wait for when seeping night
push the ring of flame to the west!

When one by one they come on the far
two shadows grow on the shore
we string one poem with a silken star
hearts sing in joy encore!

We let our bloods flow to the sea
our souls on sands lay bare
When new tides rise in the morn to be
find two adirondack chair!

Life is but death's glorified twin
a delirious din in the hush
our days a riddle of earthly spin
an illusory maddening rush!

Growling and hissing, a storm formed along the road, portending the merging of the chaos that had been gripping our minds for months.  This day, this type of day, we could have dreamed up in the novel of our love affair.  The conversation along our drive into the country was as full and ***** as all other tête-à-têtes shared in our two months together.  We were never at a loss for words and his conversation had been more educated than the older men I had dated since the divorce.  I was forever astonished at him and with him.  

The first time I met him, I was sitting behind my desk and planning for another monotonous day of office politics and all the drama connected.  Lost in thought, I sipped coffee and read emails until, there was - him.  He opened my office door with such fervor and drama, I knew someone had just entered into my life that would leave me forever changed, and I welcomed it.  A mess of auburn hair, neither combed nor styled and yet quite fitting, haloed around his head and gave the visage of an angel.  He had a freckled nose and cheeks with blue eyes staring from behind all that wildness and they were the only calming feature about him.  I turned my head and grimaced a bit, “how dare someone charge into my office as if to own it”.  “How can I help you?” made its way from my lips with a bit of a sigh.  And he smiled, that smile which would make his face even younger and more deceptively angelic.  

“Hello” danced off his lips and in two syllables was able to sound singsong and my anger soon turned to anticipation.  He introduced himself as Parker and explained his new position as Junior Editor.  He went on to say someone instructed him to introduce himself to me since I was Senior Project Manager for the organization.  His fervent entrance into my office had sent a gush of wind that disheveled my tidy desk and his wide blue eyes looked around at the chaos he had rendered.  He seemed unable to offer apologies, and I soon learned this was his way.  His confident facade prevented admission of mistakes and the word “sorry” could not escape the tightness of his will to be correct.  This was my lover’s way and it was the structure built that only wrecking ***** could destroy.

As is expected of me, I extended my hand to welcome him, overmuch aware of my grip and strength in presenting my hand, I felt the need to dominate the grip.  I was a woman in a senior position inside the male dominated echelon of upper management.  I took his hand and with rehearsed quickness attempted to demonstrate my dominance, my superiority.   It was then, the first time I saw a devil behind his angelic face and I remember my expression churned up my secret thoughts.  He saw my eyes searching those thoughts and delight shone from his blue eyes like cold fire and I was burned.   Our hands soon contorted into a dance of dominance with fingers twisting as if in a finger shadow play.  No time for games or plays for control, I simply took the shake he offered and turned towards my coffee, my drama, my emails and without looking at him welcomed him again and gave a wave of dismissal.  He greeted my brush-off with a laugh and made his way to the chair in front of my desk.  He was tall and the light from behind silhouetted his broad shoulders and upright posture.  He was confident and sure.  His clothes were expensive, well-tailored and not at all the measure for his age.  He had a style about him and I believe it came as naturally to him as did the confidence in which he clothed himself.

I wanted to be angry at his overconfidence, his interruption, his disregard.  I was, instead, amused but annoyed.  He sensed he was beginning to irritate me and it seemed to delight him.  He would speak without taking a breath, eager to finish his thoughts, aware perhaps that time could steal the moment away and he would forever wonder.  He spoke with an accent I did not fully recognize and attempted to invite me to lunch or even coffee.  My lover was bold.  

I was succeeding in this corporate world, my world.  I was not ready to lose my focus for a moment alone with the delightful creature staring back at me, awaiting the “yes” he expected would be my answer.  He was a man who did not accept the “no’s”.    He would get what he wanted and would wait in predator mode until his prey was wounded, weak, ready.  He was not a predator in the malevolent sense, more in the need for survival mentality.  He would lift the wounded and weak above the limits of their afflictions and a “yes” would flow from their lips in fond gratitude.  Today I was not a “yes” and it did not feel like a final answer.  Somehow, I knew one day I would be naked with this man, my lover.  I knew I would take him inside me, and he would show me how to love in ways I had never known.  The “no’ and the explanations of the “no” exuded from my lips, and I could see him grow even more eager to know me.  He would learn the stories of my life from rumors and talk.  He would learn of my divorce, of the men I dated with expensive homes and cars.  He would hear about the occasional woman who would occupy my bed.   I had wished all of it to be true but only the divorce was correct.  I was not exceptional or exciting.  I was driven and focused.  

He stood there hearing my “no” with the sun behind him igniting the fire in his hair with his shoulders pinned back exposing his sculpted chest.  He stood there and allowed the silence after my rejection to hover the room, and there it was.  We locked eyes, and neither could emancipate from the other.  I wondered who he was and what he looked like naked in the morning with his disheveled hair, and we stared, locked in our gaze until my phone rang signaling the end of round one.  

Wrapped in my shawl, I moved between sipping coffee, as was my usual, and typing on my laptop.  He was behind me in the cabin.  I felt him approaching and knew he would quickly whisk me away from the overwhelming din of office emails and calls.  His presence behind me now was no longer disquieting but natural.  

The cabin had been his grandfathers and he had a noticeable pride about it when showing me through the door and gateway to his childhood memories.  He had a smile on his face I had never seen.  I delighted in how young it made his face appear, almost as if the childhood memories possessed him and he became the blithe youth here with his grandfather.  


It was fall at the cabin and the smell of musk and rotting leaves and ozone from the storm, filled the cabin and each deep breath was taking in a memory from my youth.   I was happy to be here with him and yet afraid.  Two months we flirted and touched over our shared lunches, eager to get inside each other physically, mentally.  The office was replete with stories of the happenings between the older woman executive and the younger up and coming man, how he must be using her to advance his career and how she was using him to heal the wounds of her recent divorce.  We heard these stories and watched them grow to the point we ended our touching, our flirting.  Soon the denial of our feelings and time apart turned to foreplay.  Soon there were stares across conference rooms, perceptive smiles as we crossed paths.  The total of it led us to this moment, to time alone together for the first time, this time.  

Fall in the country was the vangaurd to a glorious death.  The earth would explode with color announcing its final breath and moment upon the stage and we had arrived during the final bow and curtain call.  Trees draped in gold - and red - and orange heralded the fire to come and we too were ready to pour forth in glorious blaze and inferno.  During the entire ride into the country an ironical mist of dew and rain dotted the windshield as if nature attempted to douse the desires clawing to escape in each other’s arms.  There was a devil sitting next to me and I had to smile as his auburn hair blended so naturally with the landscape.  I was obviously lost in thought and he looked at me and asked if I was okay.  Him next to me, him crookedly smiling at me.  

“It’s nothing.  It’s just nice to see you in your element.”  My replay was short but my heart was beating so hard I was almost afraid he could see it bouncing behind my blouse, so I began to cover up but was met with his hand before I even reached the edge of my coat.  

“No.  I want to see you.”  His voice was soft but demanding and strong.  Often there were hints of a struggle for power between us.  His youth and position within the company prevented me from accepting his seriousness and his face would ***** into a grimace.  I never gave it much thought other than a bit of a nuisance.  His hand led mine to my lap, and I expected him to hold it, but he let go with a smile.  I enjoyed his show of power but refused to reveal a glint of it for fear I would lose the respect and control necessary over a subordinate.

Soon the cabin filled with the sounds of rain and thunder and as I stared out the window jealous of the drops of rain and their randomness, he touched my shoulder and looked down at me with his eyes bluer than wild lupine.  I smiled a painful smile and he knew I was overthinking the moment.  Taking my hand, he brought me to his chest and into his arms, arms that would embrace all of me and at times felt as if they could wrap around me twice.  I placed my head on his chest and began to reach for his belt.  The *** I had known was always routine.  This was expected, that was not allowed.  I fell into that routine naturally and was happy to oblige his needs in order to meet mine.  He kissed my forehead and still holding one hand, led me to the door of the cabin.  “What are we do…”  He stopped me with a single “shhh” from his lips.  I followed him and felt myself shiver.  I was not sure if I was shivering in fear or from the nip of fall air.  

“Don’t be afraid.  You have nothing to fear from me.  There’s no need to shiver my little poppet.”  He stepped back from me and stared as if I were a tiny bird in need of nestling back into its home.  “I’ve never seen you afraid.”  He touched my cheek and I felt so small and helpless, lost from home, and he was the only way back.  With a smile he took my hand and led me outside to the rain, lifting his face and savoring the drops bouncing off his cheeks.  

“W..w..what are you doing?”  I was trembling now and wondered if I had misjudged this man and he was in fact a lunatic ready to strangle me to my death.  My silk blouse, now drenched, clung to my ******* exposing an imprint of lace from my bra.  He reached for my shawl and pulled it off my shoulders.  He was looking at me so lovingly my body and mind calmed and I was once again in the moment.  Our moment.  This moment.  

His face, stern now, official, his mouth opening with such deliberateness that I was sure he had been in this situation before.  Once again my mind wanted to race to thoughts of not being good enough or that I was too old or too plain.  His voice pierced my thoughts and brought me to attention.  “There will be no talking unless I tell you to.  Nod if you understand”

My mind wanted to slap him with reminders of my superiority to him at work, how he was MY subordinate and how dare he.  My mouth would not open and my head began to nod in understanding.  My body and mind were bending to his will and acting upon his orders.  Shivering gave way to shaking now and I wanted to run to the warmth of the cabin and watch the fire burn the logs to a black crisp and wake up in his arms naked and giggling.  

Having seen my compliant nod, he began to speak.  “Undress.”  One word.  One word in response to the shaking mess of a woman standing in the rain, cold and afraid.  My hands were barely able to form the necessary movements to reach for the top button of my blouse.  I did not want to fail him or appear as if I were unfamiliar with tales of ***** men overpowering and having their way with a willing lover.  My fingers moved quickly now, wanting to end the scene and move on to the *******.  He stared.  He did not blink.  He did not nod or move.  He was enjoying every subtlety of me.  He was pleased.   I was a willing participant in his fantasy.  Nothing made me happier than to please him.  I began to feel hot and something inside me broke.  Was it my will, my pride, my fears?  I was not sure, but I felt alive.  Every thirsty pore of my skin opened up and lapped at the rain so very eager to feel it on my skin and the randomness of the drops was no longer something I envied but something in which I participated.  

My hands began to tug my blouse free from my skirt and the wet silk now draped over my hips like curtains, revealing the curves I was so painfully aware of hiding to keep anyone from noticing my *** and concentrate upon my words and actions.  I knew now I had one button remaining before I would, for the first time, display myself to him.  He did not flinch, rather, he maintained his stare and for a second I pleaded to him with my eyes not to expect me to do this.  He was resolute.  I spread open the soft, wet cloth and began to drape it off my shoulders.  I let it slide from my wrists, then fingertips, then to the ground blissfully unconcerned that my Hermes blouse was now draped over wet grass and mud.  

I looked down at my skin dripping and alive with goosebumps.  I had bought this bra in anticipation of this moment, in fear of this moment.  White lace bra and perfectly matched ******* were demonstrative of my control over even the small details.  My skirt was loose and heavy with the rain.  It was low on my waist and lay just below the navel leaving me the most exposed I had ever been with him.  I reached to touch the button on the back of my skirt.  Undone, I slipped my fingers along with the zipper feeling each click of the tiny teeth holding together the disguise of a powerful woman.  My hands traced the banded edge of the skirt pushing it over my hips allowing it to fall to the ground.  

His face looked stern but pleased, stoic and fixed.  I was in my bra, ******* and stilettos now.  I began to reach for the hinged part of my bra when he stopped me.  “No.  Stop.” He walked over to me.  He was close now and I was so cold I could feel heat from his body.  I wanted to kiss his lips, his full lips, but I did not move.  I knew now the rules and I would do only what was asked of me.  I stood rigid with no flinching.  I waited for any words that would pass from lips to ear.  He did not speak but leaned into me and reached over my right shoulder undoing the chignon in my hair.  He draped my shoulders with strands of liquid filament.  He took his time there, placing each strand in the exact order in which he was pleased.  With two steps back, he looked at my wet hair with the deliberate strands, as if he had created a masterpiece and for a moment I was unsure if the artwork he saw was me or his work.  

“Now be still.  Allow me to touch you, to admire you, my beautiful Moira.”  When he said my name even after these two months, he had the ability of saying it as if he were speaking it in serenade and for the first time.  He moved his hands to my back and unlinked my bra, one hook at a time with such dexterity I knew he must be a professional at *******.  He, who was to be my first professional lover.  He slid both straps off my shoulders, then taking my hands towards my abdomen, he slid the straps forward on my arms.  Lifting my hands, he demanded I keep them out and straight.  Me, the student to the professional, complied without question.  He bound my wrists with the lace bra, the bra I had bought just to please him, then lifted my arms above my head.  “You will keep your hands up until I tell you to move.”

I had become his toy.  I knew in this moment, I no longer existed for me, I was his, completely and entirely, and I abandoned myself to the rain, to the cold, to his gaze, realizing that surrendering to his urges strengthened me.  He turned and walked away.  He took a seat in an Adirondack chair and even it looked small in his presence.  “On your elbows and knees,” he spoke matter-of-factly.  Just five minutes ago, the struggle inside me to have the appearance of strength, would have denied me this happiness, this happiness to be free in his command.  “Now crawl to me, please.  Slowly.”

I did not care to be in the mud.  I wanted it.  I wanted to please him.  First to my knees, leaving an indention in the clay, then awkwardly at first, onto my elbows with my hands still tied at the wrist.  Crawling on my elbows, my back was arched with my waist higher than my head, giving him a view of the thong I had chosen only for this moment, my succeeding moment.  My position felt ungainly.  I looked to his face for approval.  “No.  You cannot look at me”, he commanded.  For a moment I felt I had lost his approval and self-doubt harried my brain.  My will to please was resolute.  I faced the ground, once again aware of the randomness of nature, the power of nature, how things in nature will do as they are told.  The reed is told to bend.  It does.  It does not question why but responds in its way.  Rivers do not question why they are shaped.  They just continue with powerful current.  I was the reed.  I was the river.  I did not question.

Face towards the ground, I could see the mud forming on my body, molding to my shape then rinsing with the rain.  It repeated.  Mud.  Rain.  Mud.  Rain.  This was the cadence to my crawl.  I arrived at his knees and waited there, a dog eager for a command from its master.  I was content to watch the rain beat ripples around his feet, splashing and shining his shoes with glossy drops.  “I cannot love you”, I thought to myself, “this is forbidden”.  “Being here in this moment, is forbidden.” We would have this moment.  Yes.  We could create this memory and think back on it in fondness and with both heaviness and happiness.  I would remember my young lover, my professional lover.  He would remember the obedient executive on her knees.  I would not regret our moment.  I would some day write it all down in my journal and press the pen deep into the paper.  It had to be etched, those words, my words, this memory.

His hand below my chin, lifted my gaze to his and he smiled, that smile, his smile, the smile that was like nature to my body, and I did not ask why.  I was a river being formed.  “You are so beautiful.  All of you.  Your skin so soft and pale.  Your eyes moving from fear to acceptance.  I see now you want to please me and I want you to know that I want to make you happy.  I want to be your lover.  I want to taste your lips kissed with rain and feel your shivering body pulled against me.  You are safe.  I will not hurt you.  Poppet.  I love you.  I have for awhile now, and I think you know it.  You, my wise, wise Moira.”  He lifted me up and for a moment pulled my body towards him burying his face in my abdomen.  He lingered there.  I felt how soft his red tufts of hair were and how soft his words were against my ears.  I loved him too.  Genuinely.  Profoundly.  I was afraid.

He inhaled deeply, there against my stomach, as if he were breathing in my essence.  I felt his breath turn from warm to cold against me as it mixed with rain.  He stretched his arms and moved my body backwards as he extended until I was a foot away from him.  “I would very much like to undress you, poppet.  I’ve been imagining it, aching for it.  I want to see all of you, naked and on display.”  He touched my abdomen with the tips of his fingers, as if afraid the pale china of my skin would disintegrate into a misty dream.  I relished it, the touch of him against parts of me he had not known.  I was always able to keep him at a distance, physically.  His hands traced the edge of my *******.  He moved slowly, and I knew he was wanting to etch this memory into his journal.  Nothing less than ink pressed hard to paper would release this memory to time.  His placed his hands on my hips and spun me around, my thong lining up with his gaze.  “Bend over.”  His voice from sweet to demanding again.

My hands were still bound, and I stumbled at first.  He seemed not to notice or to care, so I arched my back and pushed myself outward and into his view.  I felt his hands move from my thighs to my hips as gentle as summer winds that in their seductiveness turn our faces towards the impact.  I was in my forties and unsure how I would compare to the twenty-year-old’s he was known to date.  The gossip left nothing to imagination and everything to speculation.  My mind had conjured images of him, this professional lover, inside the firm thighs of a youthful companion.  Thoughts transformed to pleasure as the nature that was his hands took dominance over the thin lace that hid the only piece of me left unseen.  I became art in his hands, marble statue, exquisite with textures and curves wanting to be touched.  

The lace scraped my skin as he slid the *******, wet and splashed with earth, over the expanse of my hips and down to the ground at my ankles.  “Step out of them.”  He helped free my ankles, and I saw the delicate lace become one with the earth as the rain beat it into the mud.  This was freedom.  This was me with nature, me with my lover.  I was the reed and he was the wind.  

I was keenly aware of his eyes fixated on the valley of my mound, how my cheeks spread just enough to give hints of the pinkest of my flesh, now swollen and ripe.  “Turn around.”  I heard his voice and could tell the bombardment of rain was making it difficult to speak.  

I turned and began to ***** my body when I felt his hand on my back.  “No, poppet.  You must stay this way until I say stand.”  My body ached to be touched by him, by more than fingers and hands, but this, the anticipation, the wanting of it all, this was the skill of a professional lover.  I saw the earth drowned with a thick layer of rain now, and my shoes made splatters and ripples as I turned towards him.  I was cold now, too cold, unaware cold, numb in my cold.  I was happy to feel it.  I had for too long hid from rain, this glorious rain.  Now, I was one with the rain.  I was the river coursing its path as commanded by nature.  

He took my hands and untied them.  I watched the entire progression of it and I felt his presence now even more.  My hands were free, and I stared at my shoes and his shoes.  I was so small in his presence.  “Stand for me, poppet.”  His voice diffused through the rain and seemed softer now.  I stood there in my nakedness and he delighted in it.  My lover was not afraid and moved his head along with his eyes.  It was easy to know where upon my body his gaze had landed.  He seemed to linger the most on my face, and I thought how odd it was as most men concentrated on my ******* or mound.  My lover was different.  My lover was professional.

“Poppet, I want you to remove my shirt, but you will not toss it to the ground.  You will place it on the chair.  Nod if you understand me.”  He knew I understood but was confirming I was still in the moment and willing.  I obliged him with a nod and without looking at his face, began to unbutton each dot from its hole until he was shirtless before me.  His chest was firm and hairless and dotted with unobtrusive freckles as random as the rain.  I was delighted.  He was beautiful.  My lover was beautiful.

He placed one hand on my head, the other on my shoulder.  “On your knees for me, poppet.”  My knees once again bent for him, and I knelt in the rain, the thick rain and saw my knees again molded in the mud and earth.  I was unsure now.  Years had passed since I had taken a man inside my mouth.  I felt panic, like the river, run a course through me and I started to turn away.  But I was resolute.  “I will make him happy in all things this day” rang in my ears like a mantra.  I watched as he undid his belt and felt it as he wrapped it around my neck two times and pulled the loose end until it was taut but not constricted against my skin.  I was his.  I was the pet and he was the master.  It was official to me now in this symbol.  I was leashed and about to be tamed.  My lover was going to teach me his skill.  I was delighted.

I watched him free the one button on his pants and move to the patterned teeth of the zipper.  He rested his pants on his hips and pulled free the thing, that thing, the thing I was craving.  The thing I would take inside me, deep inside wherever my master wanted it.  I was the river.  

He was not large, not small, but thick, surprisingly thick, he was swollen and vascular.  I studied the curve of it.  The tip, the head.  I watched his hand grip it and move it towards my lips.  I opened my mouth and took him inside me.  He moved his hands to the sides of my head and began to direct me in the movement he needed from me.  I studied the thrusts and followed.  I moved my tongue, my eager tongue, in unison with the rain and percussion of the drops.  I slid him deep inside me devouring and savoring the taste of him.  The taste of my lover was satisfying, and I wanted to bring him to completion there in that moment.

We stayed in the rhythm, with the rain, both lost to the moment.  He stopped his ****** and lifted my chin.  “Moira.  My poppet.”  He led me to my feet and gave his crooked smile to me.  He gave me his smile in that moment, in that second, his smile was mine.  

“I love you”, I whispered, unsure he heard me.  He lifted me like a child and carried my nakedness to the bed.  He placed me there, like a doll.  He contemplated my skin in the light of the fire.  My lover the wind.  My lover the water.  

He was soon naked and drops of rain lit up on his body like little mirrors and I could see images of the room and myself reflected in them.  He removed the belt from my neck.  “We won’t need this.  In this moment, you know you are mine.  You know I am yours.”  We both wrapped our arms around the other, and I felt his skin on mine.  His body was hard and moved in perfect form with each muscle flinching the way it should, each squeeze and release in harmony with the other.  My pale, soft skin was beautiful contrast to his and was yin and yang.  He felt hard and long inside me, so engorged each vein touched the inside of me in a different fashion.  We each sealed our mouth on the other unable to drink as deeply as we wanted.  We were in our moment, this moment.  Alive in the seconds that passed to hours.  We were ready to etch ink on the pages telling of how I was the reed and he was the wind and on this day, I did not ask why, I only did as was I was told.

Soft leaves underfoot, mosaics of nature
Sleeping in shadows of yawning maples
Beneath these stretching branches I roam
Foot steps in rhythm with a woodpecker’s cadence
Humming to the harmony of dawn’s cool breeze

Sunlight weaves past distant mountain peaks
Warming my face, enhancing my vision
Miles evaporate like morning dew
Moments become an ever changing serenity
For happiness waits at the end of this journey

Clear water’s race between glistened stone
I splash my face in anticipation of a new day
Dreaming of her on an Adirondack kind of morning
Following a path through the mirrors of my thoughts
Listening for the endless echoes of love

Peaceful vistas beckon my heart’s desires
Cleansing my soul in lilac wanderings
Breathing the air of solitude affection
Knowing this sunrise lifts her from sleep
Praying her first thought is of me

miles mean nothing to a heart that is pure
words penned in grace, sent to ether
give heartease to the overstretched
sowing stiches of understanding
in tapestry threadbare

little suns and stars
shining bright in love and hope
from face unseen and adirondack chair
gives strength to one down, from down under
allows grief, the words needed the abilty to care
for these simple gifts, no payment required
from the heart open to care...

~

Soft leaves underfoot, mosaics of nature
Sleeping in shadows of yawning maples
Beneath these stretching branches I roam
Foot steps in rhythm with a woodpecker’s cadence
Humming to the harmony of dawn’s cool breeze

Sunlight weaves past distant mountain peaks
Warming my face, enhancing my vision
Miles evaporate like morning dew
Moments become an ever changing serenity
For happiness waits at the end of this journey

Clear waters race between glistened stone
I splash my face in anticipation of a new day
Dreaming of her on an Adirondack kind of morning
Following a path through the mirrors of my thoughts
Listening for the endless echoes of love

Peaceful vistas beckon my heart’s desires
Cleansing my soul in lilac wanderings
Breathing the air of solitude affection
Knowing this sunrise lifts her from sleep
Praying her first thought is of me

This is the game, set and matching end-piece to what is known as:

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/385266/poetry-round-find-your-self-within/

by way of an introduction....

T'is season to move forward,
back to old acquaintances renewed,
sand, water and salty sun,
three lifelong friends who,
Auld Lang Syne,
never ever forget me

I get drunk on their eternity,
their celestial beauty,
and they, upon my tarnished earthly being,
muse and are bemused

unreservedly and never judgingly,
share shards of inspiration unstintingly,
we share, never measuring
this captain's humanity, his human efficacy,
by mystical formulae of reads or hearts

grains of sand, water wave droplets and sun rays,
and his beloved words, derived there from,
all only know one measure...
immeasurable
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/699991/adieu-my-crew-my-crew/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Pilgrimage (Reunion)


at last to begin,
to begin the 'at last,'
this reunion occurs
this first day of June
where on my
body's flesh colored calendar,
X red-marked,
deeper than any real cut of despair


this morn, leave for familiar parts,
embarking 100 steps to that
Adirondack chair,
my name, my self,
(oh god at long last)
so often, long lovingly
revealed unto you


the garden's sundial welcomes me,
Prince, Guardian, of the gate to the green,
the green steppe way to bay and beach,
a brief song of "ring around the irises,"
blooming around him,
he issues,
to celebrate his own glory recalled,
his own purpled prosed long ago one ecrivez'd,
by having the third mate
ring the greened worn,
bronzed ship bell
upon conclusion of
his raising of the gate


shorts and T white hair shirt,
costume de rigueur
of this Peconic pilgrimage,
turban and baseball uncapped,
stepping humbly
toward that worn wood throne
where carved are
the initials of
my poetic friends,
and his vast modest,
Concordia of poetic essays


Those odd disordered
collection of aleph bets
that have been prepared for this hour,
are sun dappled,
breeze caressed,
wave watched,
a fresh redressing after a
dum hiems,
a long dark winter


all rise up welcoming with voices
tremulous yet oratory,
sing with a love so spectacular ,
Handel's Messiah Hallelujah Chorus,
au naturel


the armies of ants declare this a
Truce Day,
parading before me in formation,
the rabbits race
in elegant uniforms,
white tailed bemedaled, dress grays,
announcing their  showoff arrival
with a new across-the-lawn
land speed record


the dear **** deer,
familiar families and generational,
look upon this human and
grumble while chewing our shrubbery,
an act of sherwooded lawn high robbery
but perforce acknowledging our entrance,
by uttering a Balaam blessing/curse,
a neutralized
"****, they're back"


the seagulls on the dock,
sovereign state observers from
Montauk and the far island city,
sent by the mother winds superior,
observers and reporters to nature everywhere,
Summer Season of Man Has Begun


a few white wakes disturb the water's composure,
the early low arc'd sun has not peaked in strength,
at 10:00am, the temp just breaches 60 Fahrenheit,
the beach sand untrod, no unlasting human impressions,
no children's red pails yet to them decorate,
amidst the sea life's detritus and smooth licked pebbles


Enough.


each tree ring and grass blade demands a verse,
an all my own tributary accolade,
this too much to accommodate


a year ago I issued an invitation,
do so again for my word is my bond
my responsibilities, my *******,


there are chairs for all
on my righted round and my motet left,
here, there are
no Americans,
no Canadians,
no Aussies or Brits,
or Indians and Fillipinos,
no African or Asians present,
East nor West,
None Invited here,
Only Poets


even those hardy pioneer
West Coasters, a proud lot,
and my Southern family drawling,
and perhaps lessening the mourning
just a touch, a minute modicum,
all sit quiet in the admixture
of poets come to celebrate
the blessing to have been tasked,
to write from and of places we visit
in the cerebral,
and to imbibe each other's words


Three Hundred and Sixty Four Days ago,
I wrote :

We sit together in spirit, if not in body,
You join me in the Poet's Nook,
A few frayed and weathered Adirondack chairs
Overlooking the Peconic Bay,
Where inspiration glazes over the water,
And we drown happily in a sea of words...

I am exhausted.
So many gems (poets)
to decorate
My body, my soul

I must stop here,
So many of you have reached out,
none of you overlooked.

Overwhelmed, let us sit together now
And celebrate the silence that comes after the
Gasp, the sigh, that the words have taken from
Our selves, from within.

Once again, in your debt

Again,
I await your beckoning wave of hello,
greet you in your mellifluous native tongue,
iced drinks at the ready,
the opening ceremony already started,
when all are seats taken
we commence officially,
with a blessed

*"Now, let us begin"

the irises have passed,
their existence, entirety,
a three week, 21 day, gun salute,
to which I was witness to but an
abbreviated four short generational
days

the Kabbalist among us say Kaddish,
and a-Buddhist chants so-be-it,
both celebrating the brevity cycle
of natural things, both notating,
that death makes room for more

ugly yelloe'd and black now,
these irises are now
misfits on a breezy,
dancing summer lawn

today, shriveled and misshapen,
they compare and contrast
on a normative, glorious,
June Sunday that
picturesque presents
the living and the deceased,
side by side

all comrades,
all summer sundries
on a dancing grass blanket
half-graveyard battlefield,
the half-heaven

oft I have writ of the beach detritus,
the shells, the sun burnt *****,
a recycled funeral rectory where
no one utters prayers for the
no longer alive historical artifacts

what has this to do
with that human construct,
artifice of memory,
a string on the finger
of the mind,
a pausation, a man-made creation
to momentarily recall another of
nature's cycle -
your children

Have children.
Am a father.
Had a father in my youthful days.

this is a boy scout qualification medal,
marker of me as Expert,
permitting me to commentary
with gravitas, now that I’ve graduated
to grandfather status,
I enjoy superstar freedom
to opine inanely on such matters

of my father have I writ,
of my sons, those remain unseen,

likely neither will mark these day
with a telephone call
or an all-I-got-was-this-lousy-t shirt
gift of gall

I say that's ok for what else is there,
certainly not an unthinking, dismissive
whatever

it saddens me some for sure,
but it makes judge myself as human being
on a gradation of one to none

but more than this internal reflection,
I ponder this hallmark'd day,
as life cycle point notarized,
in verse and rhyme,
for that is what I do best

for before,
many father's day
in the priory passed,
most unrecallable,
just another ceremonial checkmark,
habitually acquitted,
but somewhere
in a drawer of shirts,
in a home I store stuff in,
I do believe, there are some cards
from decades past,
that prove nothing,
other than life goes on,
and we best capture
what we can, as best we can...
with small, objet d'art of sorts

Perhaps one will call after all...
in any event,
to honor the dead,
to mark the existing,
the bannered ship's bell rung,
its sonorous sound,
notable and onerous,
fades as well

but man and animal,
plant and tree,
a living fraternal sorority,
who all look over my shoulder
as I compose on
that Adirondack chair you
by now, we’ll acquainted

they know,
for whom the bell tolls this day,
and why as well,
as we all pause and contemplate
where we are on this day,
on our own overlapping cycles

once upon a wrote


here and there, in fables and tales,
some in no guile and others
in chancier disguises,
some sine-known and some sign-unknown,
some dead in stillbirth,
some penned these words,
some a few decades old,
some of but a moment ago eyelash distant,
making me think that
someday I will scribe,
cobble some truths and
some falsehoods into one
leaping heaping melting scoop,
letting you decide,
which for better,
which for worse...

<•>

"No matter that plain words
are my ordinary tools,
With them I shall scribe the small,
Cherish the little, grab the middle,
Simplicity my golden rule,
Write they say,
about what you know best,
Surely in the diurnal motions,
The arc of daily commotion,
Do we not all excel?"

<•>

the reason we say so oft,
in whispers emboldened,

I love you

to our children
is not the utility of
its summarizing brevity

no, no.
it is because
the eloquence of simplicity
supersedes any other poem
any of us could ever write...

<•>

is this craft that chose you,
not defined by machine millimeters,
precision absolute,
curvatures, so eye-pleasing,
they demonstrate no tolerance
for tolerance of the ordinary?

the skill of words, too, cut so fine,
find the  extraordinary within,
refine, refine, refine,
shave away the trite,
the reused,
discard the instant recognition,
unusable

<•>

There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the
whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away
what soully belongs to you,
do your own sums,
admit your own truths,
query not the lives of others,
approach the mirror...

<•>

The Truth Burden
is the accursed need obligatory,
the sacred sanctity requisitioned,
when the whenever,
chooses to drop in and upflag the mailbox,
an uninvited invitation,
announcing with precise bluntness,
that precisely now,
is the tool crafted moment
and you fool,
the selected tool

you must render unto Ceaser,
by your own hand,
render your own rendering,
do your own undoing,
go forth and in haste,
will thyself into the cauldron of the
Great Mystery of Creation

you cannot lie in poetry

<•>

come, sit for awhile, in poet's nook,
soft pillows for our hard Adirondack chairs,
situe hard by the bay, if too hot, we'll slow
drift to the sun room of
lace curtains and suicide poems,
still we'll observe the water, the rabbits, the cacophony low,
listening to all the noisier, nosier
creatures asking themselves,
and the trees and leaves,
where did all those poets come from?

<•>

to the interior delve,
via brush or limb,
pen or music,
the exposition, the exploration,
the reconstruction of composing
one's self, creation and destruction
of your own myths

movement of arms and legs,
sparseness of simplicity,
subsidiaries of centricity,
tributaries of complexity

<•>

how cold are the carpenter's hands,
the weather, but an added obstacle,
this heat, makes dying different difficult,
the wood bearing cross requires additional nails
and flesh, for the extra load he's bearing,
when it snows blood in Jerusalem

the whole world can transition
when one man dies and another is risen,
where oh where lies then, the juxtaposition?

there is none, for man is man,
his divine spark, embedded,
to his maker's mark, welded and wedded,
neither snow or sun,
can ever extinguish

<•>

now I ken better distance 'tween
artist and art,
I, a workingman's
daily dallying in simplistic machine craft,
my works deservedly lost in
the water-falling
of the endless also rans

non-nebulous distances.between skies of
Oregon country blue and
the worldy worn asphalt grayed words of
a graying man aging,
then let clarity speak, in plainest harmony,
know my deference’s soars to the high above,
one of us at birth, god gifted,
was not I,
it ain't me babe, but
one of us, his tongue,
like Moses-stung
with a hot coal
of language's divinity

<•>

supple and orange to the taste
like a water slide to a desert
in a wild goose chase
just a hair short of a bone
ninety nine of the smallest ones

cracked open ventilating
dancing vapor
a slow shift in flowing feel.
soak up the gray
you turn to cellophane

only on the inside
you're alright
the ball keeps on rolling
around that big old fire

the cushion smiled
warmed by your seat
pressed into a drowse
you catch the change

wonder the time
about that
settled cataracts
smooth rolling cadillacs
big old Adirondack
smiling in the cottage.

chapped lips
sticky and sweet
the popsicle melts
and stains my crisp white dress
a seagull steals the french fry out of a little boy’s hands,
he begins to cry
the busker’s sing songs
of love and loss,
whiskey and wine
the boardwalk creaks
and i dream
of a cold beer on the beach,
the melody of waves reuniting with sand
like long lost friends
the soothing slap of sandals on pavement
freckles and homemade jam
midnight adventures to the park
skinny-dipping in a strangers pool
hopscotch and chalk
freshly painted toenails
the sun gifting us with golden skin and golden hair
adirondack chairs and campfires
fishing in lady evelyn and portaging in temagami
braving the falls at muskegoe
and counting the stars while lying on the bridge
catching frogs in the pond
while drinking coolers in paddle boats
sweaty palms and first kisses,
nervous anticipation
red skies mark the beginning of endless nights
i dip my toes in the fresh water
and the ripples skew my reflection
the man in the moon is happy
and so am i

Poetry Round (find your self within)

We sit together in spirit, if not in body,
You join me in the Poet's Nook,
A few frayed and weathered Adirondack chairs
Overlooking the Peconic Bay,
Where inspiration glazes over the water,
And we drown happily in a sea of words,
Commencing:

You say unto me, whitecaps, I reply,

"Solitary swimmers, poets, arms crooked over head, in the sea of us"

I say flooded with gratitude, and Stephanie replies,

"Thou art my carved destiny-and the river that permits my blood to flood...And all this noise shall fall into poetry; Which every day grows statelier and comelier.

You say to us Moonlight, and we laugh, delighted, for she has given us

"This love can be ours,
Under the iridescent moonlight
Embraced within one another,
To live for an eternity,
Languid and soft"

Someone calls out Bala,
And Vicarpio Gale favors us with his words,

"a poetic rain, in small print, fills the white sky page"

And we pray nightly, that come next morn, he will rain upon us once again

We pretend it is night and there are
Stars to Touch,  but this poet of pax corrects us and writes, t'is but,

"late afternoon sun slanting
behold, jaune compassion
alfalfa ocherous leans willowy in wind
distance of silence yearns on
afternoon shadows lie within majestic vales"

Who is it that calls out
Have Mercie  B.e  upon us,
for she reminds us of what we B.e tasked individually,

"Provoking ideas and intoxicating imagery overflow from within and yet somehow you can't see.  There are dreams that run wild inside of this heart and there is no way I'll let them be tamed"

Sunshineflowers every where,
But even more beautiful when she coaxes us to laugh
at ourselves
when writing of true love,

"Why don't i have bananas, said the monkey.
The tiger said, because you are my soulmate"

Did you C Holmes reminding us that

"when you're certain you've
painted the next Van Gogh
with the swirls and gusts
of blues so pure,
any mortal would
stop stare & lose track of time?"

Fyi, Fyi,

"Her callous persecution insinuates,
The elusive flaws of humanity and life,
It implicitly elucidates,
The sombre reality"

About certain Angels  was writ, that both in heaven and on earth, she was garbed, for

"She wore an air of mysticism
Her memory bore prophetic visions
From ancient egyptian
And judaic traditions
She knows every star system
And every night is a mission
Where she wishes and wishes
For help from the legends"

Emily  has met an unwanted friend, familiar to all of us,

"Cemented shoes
And silenced talk
It's even hard to describe
Writer's block"

Sara B.  from B'kara, that's in Malta, gives advice most sensible,

"Times they are a changing
make everybody feel blue
just turn up the music
and forget what you're supposed to do"

Victor  claims not to be a

"poet, a musician even less
but I may be kind of a beggar
when I beg of you
don't forget me
or let your music fade out
of my rainy days"

Dare I disagree? **** right I do!

Little RedWritingHood,  from my city hails, so wise, far beyond her years, reveals that,

"people try to
make me see reason
or their definition of it
but reason is relative
as is too much in this world"

Should I go on? Why not!

Something's are ForeverMarvelous,  like

"Hurt is fading
Fists are pumping
Bass is trembling
Some are hating-
But I keep dancing"

mybarefootdrives  me forward because

"every seed of thought
starts itself out like a whisper.
Until weight behind words
allows them to stand on their own merit"

Maria GH  could be an old friend, who

"draws me near,
it's slender form bleeding into
the background.
Slowly, kindly,
it extends a hand and
I take it
as to forever hold comfort
in mine"

Andy from Mombasa, your poetry

"conspires to purge me of my sense of reasoning
Leaving me bare to suffer the perils of an incongruous world"
And I am a better poet for it...

Brendan'  I've watched your words,

"Crack the veil of tired souls
cloaked in lonely sorrows,
broken by faithless wanderings,
and feel the strings course through your veins"

I am blindsided and Blastsided  when I read

"Onomatopoeia
I love words
for their meanings
their woven tapestries
but also
for their taste"
For I know exactly what you mean

I am exhausted. So many gems to decorate
My body, my soul. I must stop here,
So many of you have reached out, none of you overlooked.

Overwhelmed, let us sit together now
And celebrate the silence that comes after the
Gasp, the sigh, that the words have taken from
Our selves, from within.

Once again, in your debt.

perhaps if you have time,
take a moment to read the
predecessor poem in the notes below first,
in order to better understand this one


<>

the love poetry curfew so lately announced
misshapen, growing without respite, by hate extensions distended,
poet's sanity uncomprehending, for yet another! sabbath desecration,
debating internally, how long should this cessation be extended,
for the pockmarking of earth's face with fresh bloodshed,
continues unashamedly, swiftly apace, these unholy days of dread,
all haggard his mind, hazard his eyes, harden his heart
no muse could sway

but shocking himself,
poet's mirror image stares and dares
with a finger-pointing,
his own specter's absurd challenge of

"and yet, now more than ever "

when children are killed like bowling pins,
there can be no satisfaction in revenge
cannot expiate evil deeds with avenge
measure for measure add-on sins,

and yet,

poet thinks quietly, repeatedly, self-surprisingly,

and yet,
love poetry, now more than ever

asking confusedly, almost ashamedly, out loudly, yet secretly,
how can this be, for there will be again, more painful awakenings,
is it the end of days, of greeting sunrise, with a love for love poetry?
with madness come and confusion everywhere rampant,
'tis a doubtful thought, the carnage having wrought
an insoluble dissolution and can love poetry be any solution?

in poet's Adirondack safe place where life tributes were
birthed, bred and trials borne, a right writ place for unmasking,
a private soul in equal parts of joy and shame,
love and pain, loss and gain,
here the weighing scales bore equal measures
of old bereft, and life uplifting visions of,
what will come, what will be, the unforeseen,
the hopeful yet of

"and yet"

a dotted line of whitecaps  beckons the poet to tread upon,
the glassine bay's waters that lay before him, go, walk on water,
a path to point where and whence the quaking waves
have gathered, calmly begging, Oh poet!
provide  assurance, explanation, comprehension,
querying him as if all sanity, has flightly, unsightly, fled
from the home shores of human sailors, gently asking poet,

"your fellow walking earth-beasts have all sensibility killed,
these times so human terrible, we waters, cannot understand"

poet's rebellious soul all so confused, asking and answering the
waters in his head, the waters that address his eyes,
seeking wisdom words from a place where logic
has been whittled and willed away,

and yet,

love poetry, now more than ever

now is the time when a love poem beyond merely necessary,
poet's eyes cast downward in shame, his thinking, hesitant and wary,
time for prayer, not madness distraction of a love poetry commentary

the waters dissatisfied at his confusion,
part as if by Moses's staff, majesticly powerful rise up,
confronting poet with the sweetest tasking
as if they were the downtrodden and the hurting, asking...

"we storm, drown and take, for such is nature's angry periodic way,
something beyond our control no matter what we say,
to another's dictate and momentum, we must bow and obey,
but you human, have choice, and we have none -
choose love poetry and let it comfort like no other"

and the poet sighed and wrote

this poem

this poem of love,
realized and conjectured,
with inserted verses of

"and yet,"

for though the poet possessed no well of well words
more than these few saddened and impoverished,
wearied, hard scrabbled ones

and yet,

gasping and grasping a potent notion, a portent of what if,
of a world with no love poetry,
a planet that could not ever-overcome hate, dooming itself,
for love poetry and all its cousins and associates,
the only method to confiscate
these grill blackened marking silent barbell weights
so let this be ,
this is a love poem,
and now,
this is the time,
to let

"and yet"

vindicate...


<>
6:20am
Saturday July 16, 2016
and yet

Inadequate to the task
Humbled by the enormity of our love,
The perfection of our joining,
Where are the words kept that sufficient
Honor and portray what we have achieved?

You seated, beside me by the bay, finally,
Two old adirondack trees side by side,
By the sheltered place you bequeathed me,
Where poems are raindrops, so numerous,
And you, if not the subject, the source.

The waves rolling in, mirror the
Fluidity of thy dancing,
Fluidity of the adaptation,
Two lives, now one bay blue colored,
The merging, the unification,
Many waves, but one bay,
The Bay of Us.

Yet so different.
We are cloud worshippers,
Does not the Skye's Tableau inconstancy,
Mirror our ever changing form, individuality,
Yet, one sky,
The Sky of Us.

So many times have I lain be-sided
Even as we this afternoon sit now a-sided,
Tears welling up, above and beyond control,
This man's steady nerves, constant on patrol,
Our secret open, visible, un-hided,
Your are my Magi
My Yogi,
i.am, your, obedient devotee, shaped to you please.

This is the birthday present my words present.

Words, unremarkable,
Except for the contentment
That lies within them.

Let me love you more,
Recklessly abandon norms,
Kiss you at the supermarket, at the opera,
Unashamedly, take you in my arms
Wherever wonderment and wandering lead us.

T'is so very hard to compose
When tears flow upon my writing tablet,
To wipe, blot them away, I refuse,
For tears are joyous emblems,
Salty badges of love,
All compliments of our complementary beings,
The Tears of Us.

The soaring music we gather in.
The shimmering sparkles upon the bay,
My gift of natural diamonds better, this day,
Than jeweled glitterati I hide in the refrigerator.
All this treasure, part and sparkle of
The Treasure of Us.

T'is truth,
I know not, forgot, your age nor care,
The day the time the year,
What matter they to me these artifice markers,
I weep carelessly, undone, overcome,
Every day, but this day, most, united joy.

Need-No reminder,
I am a survivor,
From a concentration camp
That slow programmed to destroy,
Perhaps the kindness you claim
As the hallmark of my fame,
An inadvertent gift, from the devil?

You shook my hand on our first meet,
Don't think, have I ever let go?
Let me be your driver, entertainer, your only poet,
Let me be whatever you need,
Even as now, I laugh-cry, your tissue carrier.

For t'is I who weeps and keeps
These tissues as part of our history.
You are the first,
Who has ever read
The Words of Us.

Come closer won't you, Dear
my loving friend
you're always out there hanging on the
fringe of my heart
it's that white knuckled fear
surely Freedom stands near
and you dare not even tell her you're afraid.

She's your favorite pillow on a double wide recliner
or your front porch Adirondack with your early evening stogie
peace and quiet is the theme of your real life day-dream
the only noise you want to hear is from your 60 inch flat screen
with surround sound and remote, watching oldies you old goat,
Twilight Zone and Walking Dead, you've got Stooges in your head, and all the talkshows and the news  is in between

you're not hangry, you're not mean, Freedom understands your bean
with your crockpot full of chili you've been full since you've left Philly
and don't really need a maid around in fact the thought seems silly
you can cook and you can clean, you can work from home and preen
occupied  with daily orders and you like to clean your quarters
you've got all the latest gadgets you're not wanting for a house guest
since deliveries come daily  thank the UPS guy, Bailey
and by now you're feeling quite blessed
'cause the shipping on your stuff is mostly free.

Come closer won't you, Dear
my loving friend
you're always out there hanging on the
fringe of my heart
it's that white knuckled fear
surely Freedom stands near
and you dare not even tell her you're afraid.

On those days you're feeling needy, there's that lady at the counter
who knows you by your first name and the waitress with her smile
and the few words back and forth let's you know she recognizes you
remembers how you like your coffee since you come for breakfast weekly
and it's so nice to chat with Kathy for a while.

Who could blame you, loving freedom since she doesn't seem to take
but will fill your heart with pleasure never make your head to ache
never needing any comfort, never waiting at the table
after cookingup your favorite, never asking you to come home
from wherever else you're hanging never asking any questions
always free from expectations who could measure up to Freedom's wit and charm?

Come closer won't you, Dear
my loving friend
you're always out there hanging on the
fringe of my heart
it's that white knuckled fear
surely Freedom stands near
and you dare not even tell her you're afraid.

So called friends there on your Facebook clinging to your every word
as if coming from a guru when you're feeling like a nerd.
they applaud your sense of humor, all the items you are SHARING
and they LIKE the way you're looking and the way you that you respond
for your intellect is hooking and you're forming a close bond
over politics and reason, like your thoughts on this election
and the president and treason or the stuff that you've been cookin'
yeah, you've got a wife named freedom and I know, if you can't beat 'em
I'd be wise to choose my freedom over you.

Come closer won't you, Dear
my loving friend
you're always out there hanging on the
fringe of my heart
it's that white knuckled fear
surely Freedom stands near
and you dare not even tell her you're afraid.

Now you've filled up all your neediness without a real lover
hey there now but that's your business between you and Freedom's cover
as for women, you don't need 'em cause you've sworn off love for living
and for sure you love your Freedom and to these ends you watch your giving.
Now you're turning up the music and then you're surfing through your favorites
and flipping through the channels and those periodic moments
gotta catch up on your reading,organize your book collection
get your Ebay up and running you can do without direction
or distraction or attention

do the laundry
mow the lawn
fix what's broken
nothings wrong

Come closer won't you, Dear
my loving friend
you're always out there hanging on the
fringe of my heart
it's that white knuckled fear
surely Freedom stands near
and you dare not even tell her you're afraid.

maybe you go and take a shower and then shave for like an hour
don't forget to flush the toilet, boil an egg and eat some yogurt
top if off with some granola plan your week out, date with Lola
watch the leaves fall and then scatter,
rake 'em up
'cause these things matter,
crack a beer and catch a rerun
never mind the stuff that's undone...

Somewhere deep inside you, you are still the same old lonely
as you were the other year, never mind that second beer
think you realize you miss me, bet sometimes you'd like to kiss me
holding hands while watching TV, maybe someone just to talk to
and to laugh at all your old jokes and to share a little something
that you whipped up in your crockpot, glass of wine, latte or mocha
never mind, let's dance the polka, right that tightness in your shoulder
like John Lennon and his Yoko...

You decide to dial my number  
I usually don't usually like to answer
on the first ring  but by chance, you're
  saying something, wait a second
'cause I gotta turn my sound down
oh you're singing something funny,
and I like your phone voice honey
it's this old familiar tune I wrote for you

"Come closer to me, Dear
my loving friend
you're always out there hangin'
on the fringe of my heart
with your white knuckled fear
for our freedom stands near
and we dare not even tell her we're afraid"

For my dear old friend, a confirmed bachelor, who goes by Poppy, or Bubba.

Yeah I am young once more morn late,
Call it the year of somebody's lord,
Call it nineteen sixty eight,
Hair to my shoulders
Makes me see better,
Parted down the middle,
The older black ladies,
On the new.york city subway,
One and all, bless me cause this Jew,
Looks just like Our Lord
In them Renaissance picture-books.

Ironically, that winter time,
I wear a white sheepskin jacket,
Purchased in the Old City of
Jerusalem, but don't tell'm that,
Cause they would have marched up to Harlem,
No telling what might've happened next...

Next summer reality intruded,
Money in pocket aid and ain't not enough,
Riding the bus on Euclid Ave.
To go downtown Cleveland, the Flats,
Drag racing and watching,
The river Cuyahoga burn,
Kinda of a bus drag, but very very, kinda cool.


Summer next,
Worked in a Republic Steel mill,
They called me the Macaroni Kid,
Cause stoopidly I told them that is
What I et,, with ketchup Heinz sauce,
Desert, a heath bar!
Cause I was saving my pennies,
This college kid they loved to hate,
Caused he bicycled to work and
Wasn't one of them.


Put me, little ole wiry me,
In the boxcars,
Loading and loafing the
Rebar, twisted and straight,
Came it, sent it all over,
Me, black as a
Pennsylvania coal miner,
A San Fran homeless man.
To this day, can't get my
Fingernails really clean.

At night, me and the boys on the porch,
Gettin ******, ****, music and a view of
Cleveland East, the sirens rushing around,
To the houses on fire, the next ******.

First freaked us out,
Coming to get us,
Then it became the best, finest ***
"That was so stony cool" light show.
The girls looked like Joan Baez,
And if they didn't,
We still took 'em to bed,
Pretending it was Janis,
If Joan was busy
In the dorm room next store.

Hey babe,
Wanna come back to my dorm room,
And drink wine, listen to Blood Sweat and Tears,
Make some of our own,
Cause my roomie gone down to Canton,
To visit his cleaning lady mom.

I loved that guy liked he was the first
Real person I'd ever met.
On my first day, without asking,
Ran his hands both all over my head,
Looking for the horns on the Jews head,
According his parish priest, we all had'em,
God's official representative on the consecrated earth of
Ohio.

In those days, I applied to schools
Farthest away from home,
That the student discounted airfare was no more than
59bucks which I could afford so I could go back to
NYC, and find out what was really
"Happening" man.

The summer next, worked in the East Village,
Summer Office Boy for a big corporation
In a part of town where you could buy
Leather fringed vests and the headshops sold
The paraphernalia to get hookah high,
And if you hookah lookah right,
That wasn't the thing they sold for cash money.

Took my steel mill blues money,
Bot me a '65 red mustang car,
That needed to be jumped to get started,
Courtesy of the Cleveland special hell called
Midwest winter.

That car, the floor was made of cardboard,
The four cylinders were bolted to the car,
So when u opened the hood, you saw mostly
The pavement of the parking lot,
Some tiny engine,
In between holding on for dear life.
Always kept extra brake fluid in the trunk,
In case the leak got bad on the Heights.

Needed to do what I needed to do,
So I wrote a resume of whom I was,
And whom I ain't, so I could get me a
Real big time job.

More on that someday,
When the resume is resumed,
Getting updated, that will be kinda funny,
Cause it will run about 500 pages long.

Right now, strange,
I am hard by hard by the Frisco bay,
The Ferry Building and the tripartite
Disposal systems of three garbage cans,
And who should appear, but
Otis and Sara B., (live from the Fillmore)
Singing to me about a dock on this bay.

Got me those 'high flying blues,'
The kind that say;

"Lord, look at me here,
I'm rooted like a tree here,
Got those sit-down, can't cry,
Oh, Lord, gonna die blues."

Missing that dock of mine,
In the picture next to my invisible head.
You want to know my face?
Maybe when back east,
I'll find that photo of that long haired college boy,
Leaning in on, so proud against that red Mustang.

Right now all I got these here old vignettes,
True stories one and all,
Making me miss my dock, my shelter,
On that old adirondack chair,
Where my **** aches, and my mind fevered
With poems of love children and a life that
Tho dim recalled, I see it all so well.

All is revealed.

Look at my photo.
You see the solitary Adirondack.
So oft writ, it is almost yours,
From which I ply my craft.

Sentinel, overlooking the bay,
Looking for poem invaders,
Need prisoners to do the hard labor,
For I am on duty, elsewhere, peripatetically,
A new tour of duty to family.

See the coffee mug,
The contents, a warm hug,
For though it sumer still,
The sky and breeze beg to differ.

I think time is nigh,
To close this chapter,
A few itinerant thots yet rumbling,
But the rush is gone, like my contented season.

Wise men do not deny perception,
Grown cold, my warm invitation,
Perhaps, I injusticed you with repetition,
But I left you a motet for comfort.


And hints of an address,
In case some enchanted evening....

the watermelon strikes an evening match
and crows a-roostin' on the adirondack
what wipporwill wouldn't ire o' that
with dungaree vest and wacky tobacc'

It is where it is, not where you are...

Switched this week from ice coffee,
Back to hot, on September Thirteenth.

The chain busted,
No Adirondack throne, no audiences of
Southbound geese, my new ******* fans,
No **** arrogant deer
Pitying the stupid humans,
Occupying their lands.
No racing rabbits, crickets underfoot,
And in the house,
No raccoons bigger than a colt.

No just living, breathing eyes, seeing paradiso,
No place for god to come visit to chill,
And ask for atonement for chemical weapons

No bay waves soulfully soothing,
No sun, no cherries by command,
The breeze, voila, a nasty cold wind,
The bath-waves ain't no **** substitute,
Not-Near good enough,
No matter how hard I splash.

**** right I was worried.
I lifted up my eyes to the mountains—
From where will my poetry come from?

From men.
From women.
From you-reminding me,
It is where it is, not where you are...

It is here in the unread tragedies,
The wails so plain, repetitive,
The screams that never cease, the
Poems, yours, that deserve ten thousand likes,
But die ignored, despite, my best efforts.

It is in the newspapers,
Chroniclers of our daily,
Inhumanity,
And papal words, that lift a jew's heart,
That poems get birthed.

It is in the woman's dictums
About doing this and that
And where that is most preferred.

Point made. Quitting time.
It is where it is, not where you are...

Once (not that long ago, perhaps, though we likely know better)
The summers were languid, liquid things without end
Each day fully equipped with a high sky,
The blue so all-encompassing, so all consuming,
That lazy fly ***** seemed to disappear
As if God had scooped them up like so many routine grounders.
We played, in a field long since abandoned
To crownvetch and scrub grass,
Twenty one--five points for those *****
The celestial powers had bobbled
And we were able to catch on the fly,
Three points if we took it on the hop,
One if we safely trapped it before it rolled stone dead,
And so our Julys and Augusts fluttered by,
Every bit lazy and aimless as butterflies or knuckleballs,
With the exception of the de riguer tribunals
In which the assembled debated and determined
Where bounce ended and roll began,
Where shoestring catch was reduced to single-point trap.

It all came to an end, of course;
At some point, we crossed a line
(Undelineated but firmly established nonetheless)
Where it was no longer advisable to attempt this at home,
Mere joy no longer an acceptable substitute for proficiency.
Find something else to do, kid, we were told,
And the bats went to the back of the closet,
The gloves and ***** consigned to a spot
(Where we would surely remember to find them)
Behind some canned tuna and Christmas lights,
The fastball blurring by us now,
The field a warren of subdevelopments and cul-de-sacs.

And so you’d forgotten,
Or perhaps just suppressed, the whole notion;
There were, after all, a gaggle of coupon books
With return addresses from an ever-changing confusion of banks,
Sales on pasta and milk, other fees and foundations
Politely requesting ones attention,
So you couldn’t be sure
That it was really the crack of an old thick-handled Adirondack,
Or the comforting thwick of the ball landing squarely
In the pocket of a Wilson A-2000,
Yet when you wandered to the window and peered out,
There they were, looking straight up at you,
Waving their hands like childlike Prosperos
Gesturing to reveal some fairytale glen.  
Come on back, they are saying, and you go down,
Powerless to resist, even if you had wanted to,
Returned instantly, seamlessly to a time and place
Where a shout of I got it! I got it!
Was all the prerequisite or vitae that was required,
And you are unable to bring even mock-edginess to your voice
When you insist I got that cleanly on the hop.  That’s three points.

Per Your Request

Who am I?
See the picture.

The bell, an old ship's-tool,
Now an oxidized lime,
Legs, rust decorated,
Was used when her boy was small,
To call, home to dinner,
From the beach, a child recall.

Someday soon, used this way again?

It never failed, for the
Ringtones of that time,
Atomic, sonic, and unafraid,
Not PC.

See the old chair in the photo.
I am in it now, post-bed, pre-eat,
In a state of grace, prayer,
Close by, the bay, beach, and the Poet's Nook,
Your place, your adirondack awaiting.

Sunny September morn,
The coffee stays sun warmed while
Practicing my three r's,
Reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.

Reading your hard worked words
Writing appreciation thereof,
Counting my allures (few),
My failures, woo hoo.

I swear to God,
With a hand beneath my thigh,
Taking the Patriarchal Oath,
That I am what I am.
The words I scribe,
My truth, my dust.
There is no hidden story.

All you need is not hinted.
Asked and answered.

In the songs of my lips,
The scripts of my finger.
Need only read them,
From start to finish!

You know where I live.
You know my decades
Upon this Earth.

Every now then, I present my face,
With egg upon it.
Some of you, viewed, actually saw it,
And laughed, as intended,
For when gloomy, I stand before the mirror.
Start laughing.
But you knew that already.

You know of my children,
Theirs too, the kisses incessant I gift them.
My children, I hereby disclose,
One speaks to me not,
The other, somewhat.

This ****, this sadness,
is so rooted,
Like bamboo, it chokes,
And near impossible to uproot.

I have told you how
To dress for my funeral.
I have told you my lover's names,
The women with whom I have slept,
Sleep with yet today, yet again, tonight.

You know that unsightly bulge
In pocket rear, is a packet of
Tissues, past and present.

You know perhaps,
I am not religious,
Yet, not a prob,
Cause He and me,
Got an open line,
Chat regularly.

Saves a lot of time.

Of my woman,
You know too much,
For I have chronicled
Our adventures, mis- and otherwise,
Time and time again.

Told you, a poet in search of his style,
Though now I think simple verse, it be.

That I am a Summer Man.
That my mother died, but two months ago,
She gifted the pleasure of the word to her
Children, and the good hair gene.

My friends, named the few,
King Lear, Humpty Dumpty, Paul Simon
And a few of you, if you will take my hand?

Confessed that with each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me.

That I still ride a funeral train
To hold your special words warm and close,
That I have followed you across vast plains,
That I love your names, real and imagined,
Could write poem-pen about each one of you,
For I read your lines, and taste the unseen,
The lines unwritten, the ones in between.

Already been arrested for
Excessive poem writing,
For half my life,
Put me in jail,
Where I had no paper, no love,
When released from a loveless marriage,
The verse explosion was recorded on the moon,

But I ramble, unnecessarily, for as indicated above,
In Para 5, Subsection Jive,
All this is just a summary, a summation,
Of what my body has already served you.

There  is on thing I never told anyone.
I have a Nat-ional Anthem,
Which I enclose in the notes.
Like the way Willie Nelson sings it,
At my funeral this will be my dirge.

Reread this scrambled ramble,
This frittata omelette,
Not only the eggs cracked,
Me too, cracking up at this silliness,
Cracking up, his cracks creaking wider,
Because he can't stop,
Writing poems and
Laughing at himself before
The mirror which cannot lie.

the thermometer's rising red mercury,
a truest signal-fire of  the
approaching well-fated
army of summer days,
their inevitable return
prophesied and more accurately foretold by heated degree,
than any solitary red X penned,
marked upon an island's
dog-eared firehouse kitchen calendar

the imaginary sounds of their solacement
inside the heart beats louder
than any timekeeper's ticking clocking counts,
mechanical reminders of a return inevitable,
comforting but impoverished upon compare,
to the warming solace of hearty silent sun sounds
far louder in the mind, than that of measuring throbbing metal

for nigh, nigh the hour's of your carriage come hither
does near approach and laden heavy by
the long time distanced poet's exhausted hopes,
a labored long voyage, soon to be ended,
yet worthy-word laden,
promised peace, carried within it,
a steady straight forward rolling gait heard,
that, it's Paul Revered lanterned combined signaling,
one if by land, two, if by sea,
for I will come back, traversing both

"return, return poet
to where thy fellow musketeers,
wind, sun and sea
have impatiently waited,
we, your corporate grayed chair's guardians and protectors,
memorizer's of the poetry of our yellow scented,
electric conspiracy, rusted silent, now too many months,
your voice transmogrified
by sophisticate urban airs,
man's unnatural pollutions,
we woo and will you, make over"

Ah, that Adirondack throne,
my summer body's glove,
magical wooden carpet
flying the mind's eye
to places where unfriendly times,
give way to reworked words
in a refreshed world, that makes sense again,
the joy tears that layup on and in it imbedded,
know only of the comfort of a
nature's shelter never withheld

"the winter's pale thrashing has skinned
and stripped your voice of its true timbre,
you gaze only inward, obstacled your vision,
seeing only whitecap seas of internal distress

come hear the seagrasses waving windy welcome
listening rapt  to your summons of convocation,
and the celebration of your traditioned blessed evocation,
a combine of old poems, old tears, and fine oak memories,
new candles lit, new waves crashing but soul soothing,
let us cleanse the taunting taints that inhabit,
our duty to inhibit the unforgiving stale self-reproach
of winter's ugly poems and slushy fears

we are folk honest, your summer companions,
acknowledging that what haunts your interior,
to the task of cease and desist we are inferior,
but in your chair, by the bay, the old words refreshed,
and the new poems of hope and scents
of yet better days promised

of that, of that
we do not promise,
of that that we bonded guarantee
a pledge of mutual fealty

we smell you and taste you in every old recirculated breeze,
as you inhale us and exhale toiled tribulations,
we will be married-vow renewed,
a new peace of sorts imbued,
far far better, than no peace at all!"

As a child I walked, no ran, downtown
a dollar grasped in hands that wanted to move small plastic armies
to Woolworth's for a bag of soldiers in Gloversville

Then as the places that made things left
and Main Street began to starve and it's abandoned bones bleached in the Adirondack sun
We drove to shop, like everyone else in Gloversville

Standing once proud and full of life
Then left to decay and die
The resurrection of the Schine brings light to Gloversville

In the midst of the abandoned and empty
a spark grows to a small flame
and a more vibrant life returns to Gloversville

Simple verses, blessed be the uncomplex,
But the visions, the glimpses,
The sightings, in and out,
Are celestial of, in, and on
This planet shared.

I will walk with you to
Henry's Isle,
You, with me, on the beach,
We will ford Crab Creek,
When the tide is low,
And repair to The  Poet's Nook,
Where a moss stained Adirondack chair
Awaits the Poet Prince,
Your poems carved into
It's soul, it's arms, it's back,
Giving comfort continuous.

This chai, this chair, this throne,
Reserved for the lyricist of our lives,
The shedder of light upon the special,
The seconds, that fete our senses.

I await you arrival.

Tender this serenade, this overdue apology,
For having not thanked you properly
For your living kindness,
Yet my words, insufficient, compared to yours...

A sweet scent of pine needles
In the Adirondack air,
Animals moving
With complete freedom
And choice,
A view of the lake
And the sun with beauty
Unmatchable,
A whole different
World not too loud
And not too quiet,
Muted from electronics
And social media,

Because memories aren’t made playing video games

Uncle Sam reclines and unwinds
In his Adirondack chair
The Statue of Liberty reminds the Mater at Arms
Of the time when he was put in a peyote trance
It was only then he caught on
He rammed his head against his headboard every night
Wracking your brain, trying to wrap it around the concept of the excommunication of those who have had their mouths washed out with soap

There will be no fanfare for the stray lambs
They are only meal tickets for the clergy
Concord grapes and word of mouth
Raise the question, "what is in a hot dog?"

Don't latch on to me after I dance with you into mad denial under a brass florescent chandelier in front of all the stock brokers and shareholders
I'll dismantle your silver lining with a spork

The  cow pies disappear due to erosion

It's good to see you, I didn't know burlap sacks were all the rage right now
Stencil your name on it for good measure
How do you feel after your ego death?