"adirondacks" poems
I cannot restore the lakes that teemed with fish,
nor the maples cultivated by the Mohawk,
the Adirondacks now more remote than boyhood,
a lost dark conversation with jejune oblivion.
Events became the storyline of my life,
and events were always stronger than resolve.
My journey took me inward without time schedule,
dredged up expediencies as layovers.
Still, I felt drawn to the people,
who bejeweled my dreams in neuron flashes,
became therapy, billboards along the escape route.
Turned out that vital knowledge would suffice.
Jun 1, 2012
Jun 1, 2012 at 10:02 AM UTC
I loved it,
whitewater rafting
in the Adirondacks,
sleeping in tents
cooking on woodsmoke
having a joke with
the
New Yorker yokels
known locally as the locals.
It was Yellowstone that stole my heart,
rings of fire on the end of a rainbow
dreams that we lived and
we lived for the dream,
all the rest is just history
and most of that went to the scrapyard.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 12:26 PM UTC
So many stars tonight,
No moon though.
What profound silence fills the December air.
I love it out here.
Just me and my thoughts.
With only the wind bearing judgment on my scatterbrained ideas.
Here I can run until my chest heaves with agony,
Here I can scream to the heavens with joy,
Here I can sing at the top of my lungs and wildly off tune,
Here I can cry on an old oak tree and ask God why.
This place is my everything.
My childhood, my memories, my comfort, my whole life.
This is the ground I run on barefoot all year,
The frozen rivers I learned to swim in,
The berries I pick every season,
The stars that made me wonder who I am.
Stars that will take me on adventures far from home,
Yet lead me back to those whom I love and to the place I call home,
The Adirondacks.
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 10:39 PM UTC
My soul married yours long before it told the heart,
That was your secret gestures, it had been concealing
And shy alphabet letters formed our non-linear talks
On which ancient symbols were awakening with the news,
That my rapt countenance longed to behold only you.
And in Morse code, my riotous pulse was pinging,
In tiptoeing tiny steps, toward your smile-fragranced planes;
With small sips of blind and drunken-wheeling wonder,
On Adirondacks of time, I finally met your gaze.
And together found, we were writing the same vows;
Our fingers following a bright-feathered knowing,
And scented blooms of flowers knew your older names;
And avalanching comets swept clean the turgid dawns.
Then the seeds of forever were pocketed in your breath,
Wreathed by stars, and saved for hidden yearning.
Jul 13, 2010
Jul 13, 2010 at 12:27 PM UTC
From a high pass in the Adirondacks,
I once gazed upon
the first tendrils of dawn,
bursting forth from hills beyond
to snake their way through
a rolling forest.
Setting it ablaze
with a magnificent rainbow of color.
Finally settling upon a small lake,
far below.
And as I watched the sun
breathe warm life into this beautiful,
secluded landscape
I thought
"She was far more alluring,
than the wonder I behold before me,
but,
At least this is a memory,
I can keep."
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 11:05 PM UTC
People walk. they drive, talk is cheap
like some Red Wine by the gallon my dad bought, often
he was not a nice man to most, what they could not change, they overlooked.
Overnight when the sun rises things,
will have changed as much as they stay the, same,
it will rain somewhere, and as many tear drops will fall from eyes of those with
broken hearts, and those eyes if you looked in them, you would never forget, ever.
Ever sit there on the dewy grass at night or in some Adirondack,
chair, actually in the Adirondacks, and just want to shrink and be small
enough to disappear and travel at the speed of light, with out getting
tangled, under the stars, in string theory.
Totally impossible you think and that may be where all of our problems start, we dwell on the
impossible when the possible is one small step away from you until you get so
close, the impossible becomes I'm possible, I'm possible, repeat and repeat.
Riches, little can be so varied, there are some common ones, money, jewelry, stock portfolio,
there are so many tangible and all most intangible, love, joy, goodness, kindness,
gratitude, notice no mention of war, violence, death enough of that out there, they
are devalued right now, yes, yes they are yes.
You are the best advocate of change I ever met, start with a small, stay close to your heart and close to home, write poetry, take care of yourself and when you find the ONE, take care of each other, there is power in right relationships, now if you have found the ONE, teach your children too, end your day with a laugh and smile, but be alone as little as you need to, teach peace.
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 1:05 AM UTC
when was the last time you rode the subway without inhibition? there are city streetlights throbbing in your stomach that make you want to *****
a father’s nightmare. a mother shrinking as you expand. a mother gives birth to three children all in the wrong places. a mother rides the subway. a mother rides the subway. a mother rides the subway.
a mother rides the subway & sees brown splotches dripping from the ceiling like crown from womb dripping onto pavement. hitting pavement like a cemetery. buried in a cemetery with grandparents. you knew your grandparents for a year before they died, or so you tell yourself; you did not know your grandparents at all before they died.
ribbons of newspaper cover the floor & litter your legs & your bulging stomach. stomach swollen like a stung ankle. stomach tastes bitter like rat’s blood. rats crawl around your feet, creating a set rhythm.
where is the f train & should i even be taking it. a subway rising in the dark like a mountain, like you driving to the adirondacks, catchy acoustic song playing on the radio. a song like the one you listened to when you were three years old on your parents’ bed, faces of peter paul & mary gleaming out from the television screen.
in this black jacket you are overheated but also you are too afraid to take it off. you are overheated & afraid & you imagine that this is what a death must feel (like). when a subway station roars it sounds like ocean.
(a body, a body, a body. bodies echoing in your head, your body all soft - too soft - your body crumpled on the floor)
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 5:51 PM UTC
The beauty unmatchable,
An every changing allure.
Every moment unique.
Every moment a gift.
A place of wonderment.
Different paths,
Taking you further.
Bringing you closer to its blue companion,
Passing friendly giants breathing life,
And listening to the creatures that inhabit.
Each step unfolding a mystery,
Opening itself to you,
Allowing you to see it secrets,
Allowing you to hear its fascination.
A place of astonishment.
With each season brings new adventure.
A spectacle of snow and ice.
A performance of budding life and growth.
An exhibition of heat and connection to its flowing sisters.
A phenomenon of color and crisp air.
A place of fate and expansion,
Of friendships and family.
A serenade of nature, a dance with elegance,
Where love flourished,
And a life began.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 12:37 PM UTC
it’s a daiquiri colored morn, countlessly
as I, gazing never tiring, of a vista I’ve seen,
awoken to, endlessly changing, voyagers of
birds and boats, the redecorating minimalists,
moving pieces on a latticed shadow lawn
the Sun eastern, asking the trees to turn and bow,
hence the shadows their branches cast are a waffling,
hopscotch pattern irregular, so jumping from/to
yellow-green sunspots, the children are delighted by a
new game, moving to and from and between an ever
changing crazy chessboard of light-patches unsquared
described, written of, yet here I am, once again, a servant
despairing, looking for new combinations of superlatives,
though I never spoke before of it as a vista,
until today, wondering why, perhaps because
it’s here, one lives, one doesn’t conceive of being
part and parcel of a vista, humans, just visitors,
pawn observers, gallery visitors, art appreciators,
transient hobos after forty years, truthfully claiming
that they’re merely still, passing thru, passing by
9:40 am, respectable hour to meander over
to the throne room, the four Adirondacks, them,
the year round poetry nook authorities, are equal
sunned, shaded, simultaneous, stately shadowing,
observing, advertising as perfect for composing,
willing to make verbal suggestions, rhyming notions,
especially when the poem pays proper obeisance
and so it does, and so it is, as you can clearly read
9:53am Sunday Jun 14
Year of the Pandemic
Jun 17, 2020
Jun 17, 2020 at 8:45 AM UTC
I've been traveling,
Trying to return to my roots,
So return I did,
Returned to the woods,
That carpet the mountains of the Appalachian.
Up the mountains I climbed,
An old rifle slung across my back,
Boonie cap keeping eyes free from the harsh glare of the sun as it filters through the canopy above
Trying to find on the mountain that I've been lacking in the North..
Wildlife is active all around,
A breeze is flowing up the mountain,
Whisking the settling heat up and past the peak,
My footfalls soft and sure.
I come across old trails I haven't seen in years,
Mostly washed away and rendered impassible.
On the eastern face I find the remnants of a forest fire.
The field that once held nothing but cinders littered with healthy saplings,
Already taller than I,
New deer trails and bedding areas,
The old ones I discover to be abandoned and the new roost of varmint.
It finally strikes me,
As I descend off of the old mountain,
The truth of what it was I lacked,
I fell into the trap that ensnare many a men down in the South.
The trap that the Mountains lay,
From the Adirondacks to the Allegheny,
Of being a timeless place,
Where you are unplugged from the rest of the world,
And everything is simpler,
It's a trap that had not chains to wrap around arms and legs,
But to encase around the mind.
It is easier to leave than last time,
For I know I shall return,
To this little retreat,
In the Daniel Boone National Forest.
May 22, 2017
May 22, 2017 at 5:08 PM UTC
Winter’s length is measured
in your eyes.
And from our words
I can discern
that Spring steps hesitantly
around our brittle souls.
I know I have not weathered well.
I have not weathered well.
And is that why you cannot tell
me (the one who shares your cell)
what secret shadows
winter cast on you,
what aches it conjured
in your willow-lovely bones?
The Adirondacks shimmer
white to gray
as restless clouds
muster, murmur, and pass.
Am I vain to think
that your soul throws
itself against that swirling sky,
shares its passing moods,
broods as it broods,
‘til spring’s uncertain hope
blooms in your eyes?
Sep 30, 2016
Sep 30, 2016 at 1:18 PM UTC
wine print on neutral veronese,
some drink to live,
some live to drink
i spent a lowly year "out back"
high up in the Adirondacks
i spent a couple grand and change
lay a lady lay again...
here lies conquer with no-seq
ne vis plus, prefaced as con
harboring the depth of write
just to overcome the wrongs
always drone as rhythm does
pin and doily on the water
mag-a-nolia, Julian, golden
life of old and orchards open
send a silhouette to the cabin door...
happy getting older, broaden
road and carriage,
stock and bale
bail and stalk
walk o’er hill
neatly seated at heron
seated on the bench i stole
i knitted up the overgrowth
and lay i shall think of the olds
of plum-stained linens from the gods,
rags and gore,
pale blue bones
the modern peril is destination and fortified knowns.
Oct 31, 2019
Oct 31, 2019 at 12:14 PM UTC
It all started at 1330 Pacific Street
There I lived in a two family Brownstone that couldn’t be beat
Heat in the winter sometimes didn’t come through
But we had back up plans in knowing what to do
Yet it was home where I belonged
But my story I won’t prolong
The winters were hard to take
But living in Brooklyn, New York being the stake
The memorable moments was at holiday times when I had a ** Scale Baltimore & Ohio passenger train set that always went around our Christmas Tree along with the decorated lights for all to see
Christmas cards would be hung all on the wall
The Christmas tree would be stand tall
I was living with my Grandparents and we moved from Pacific Street to a high rise COOP
This is where I am still living today
This was when I was the age of 7
It was a place in making one feel like a living Heaven
I travelled Across Country on a Hound Bus in the United States, Canada and Mexico
But remember Greyhound’s past slogan, “Take the bus and avoid the fuss”
I got my taste of Entertainment
I appeared at the Valley Forge Entertainment Center
Being an Adventurer type, I ventured out on a canoe riding the Water Rapids in the Adirondacks in Upstate New York
Later I decided to do some Writing and be a Poet
My day as a Writer was ideas like a sunrise
My inspiration was days having surprises
Everyday I become more Wiser
My tomorrow will be a continued advancement of wisdom
My Grandparents instilled “Commodity into Excellence”
Educate my mind in becoming my own business success
I graduated from CUNY Medgar Evers College
If they were alive they could surely contest and a testimony of confess
All that is all part of me
But there is something else I want you all too see
I was almost at near Death at Birth
Doctors had given up hope
This was something where it became hard for my Mother and Grandparents to cope
I was suffering from Asthma, Yellow Jaundice and Malnutrition
My Mother was smoking while carrying me
But my Grandmother was a praying warrior and believed in God
She felt the Doctors didn’t consult God directly, but she did
Well my readers, God gave me continued life and I am 59 years old
In fact in February 2017, I will be 60 years old
So there’s my memoir
Life where living continues on
A place in life where I belong
Dignity and Honor all in my heart
It was my Grandparents being my very start
As I live on, I will continue to illustrate my life and leaving my legacy mark.
Oct 22, 2016
Oct 22, 2016 at 4:46 PM UTC
My BMX was department store,
black and yellow
like a bumblebee,
and weighed a ton
compared to their
alloy framed bikes.
They made fun of the kickstand
and the chain guard.
I was the class runt
and wore hand me downs
and rolled up jeans
sometimes with patches,
more fodder for jokes.
In the summer we camped
in the Adirondacks,
and in the fall
at the bus stop
or in school
they talked about trips
to France or Spain.
I had a fist fight
with an older kid
down the block
who lived in a house
with a swimming pool
when he said my house
looked like a barn.
I think I still see the world
through the tint
of those dollar green glasses
they made me wear.
And I shout down
the echoes of those voices
that condemn others with less,
and me with them.
But I got tough taking beatings
from bigger older boys.
And my legs got strong
pedaling that heavy bike uphill.
Jul 21, 2018
Jul 21, 2018 at 12:26 AM UTC