a  flawless poem
if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy spent, easy get

if only, how I wish I
could harvest my best,
with golden cutlery excise
the single flawless poem,
that I know in my possess

lay down this hand so weary
from cupping tears,
be satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that my casket lowered,
hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best, easing his rest,
a paper record to join his ash,
his flawless poem,
at long last

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,—
The finger-points look through the rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
’Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
’Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:
So this wing’d hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, -
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: -
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.

Only a long, low-lying lane
That follows to the misty sea,
Across a bare and russet plain
Where wild winds whistle vagrantly;
I know that many a fairer path
With lure of song and bloom may woo,
But oh ! I love this lonely strath
Because it is so full of you.

Here we have walked in elder years,
And here your truest memories wait,
This spot is sacred to your tears,
That to your laughter dedicate;
Here, by this turn, you gave to me
A gem of thought that glitters yet,
This tawny ***** is graciously
By a remembered smile beset.

Here once you lingered on an hour
When stars were shining in the west,
To gather one pale, scented flower
And place it smiling on your breast;
And since that eve its fragrance blows
For me across the grasses sere,
Far sweeter than the latest rose,
That faded bloom of yesteryear.

For me the sky, the sea, the wold,
Have beckoning visions wild and fair,
The mystery of a tale untold,
The grace of an unuttered prayer.
Let others choose the fairer path
That winds the dimpling valley through,
I gladly seek this lonely strath
Companioned by my dreams of you.

BECAUSE we love bare hills and stunted trees
And were the last to choose the settled ground,
Its boredom of the desk or of the *****, because
So many years companioned by a hound,
Our voices carry; and though slumber-bound,
Some few half wake and half renew their choice,
Give tongue, proclaim their hidden name -- "Hound Voice."

The women that I picked spoke sweet and low
And yet gave tongue.  "Hound Voices' were they all.
We picked each other from afar and knew
What hour of terror comes to test the soul,
And in that terror's name obeyed the call,
And understood, what none have understood,
Those images that waken in the blood.
Some day we shall get up before the dawn
And find our ancient hounds before the door,
And wide awake know that the hunt is on;
Stumbling upon the blood-dark track once more,
Then stumbling to the **** beside the shore;
Then cleaning out and bandaging of wounds,
And chantS of victory amid the encircling hounds.

He never taught me
how to perform
the art of the jump-shot.
I simply watched.
He would dribble down
the clumsy circle
of our carport, back up
behind the exomaed bicycle
and detach his body
from the world, against
gravity’s insistent pull
and fade into a legend,
his wrist becoming a swan
pecking toward the sun.

He never taught me
how to arc a blade,
the gripping bite of a razor,
against my cheek.
I simply watched. He would
lather his face with foam
and I sat conversing with him
as the blade giddily glided,
graceful as a demi-god
reaping the crop of auburn
from his then young face.
When I tried, as a teenager,
I nicked my upper lip and
only harvested my own blood.

When he grilled, he flipped
the meat like an ace of spades,
magic in his wrist revealed.
When he drove, his hands
and feet became extensions
of the car. When he drove
a bus, his eyes sought all angles
of the road, chatoyant caution
in the flicker of his iris.
When he fiddled with our old,
beaten, mellow-toned guitar
he was articulate though
he never knew a chord’s name
nor what song erupted from him.

He read the Bible, but kept
the gospel in his eyes, at the tip
of his green thumb. He read
the Koran, the Torah, the words
of Gotham. I read how he
sought truth, beauty, in all
people. I simply watched him
traverse the dividing line
between saint and stubborn,
between sinner and relinquish.
If there was ever a man
after some God’s heart, he was
one who asked questions
and lived into the answers.

He kept his hands clean, kept
his chin high and mind
was always lofty and companioned
with a world of dreams.
He would often stare out windows
sitting at the dinner table, and I
knew he was living into a prayer.
I never asked what he was doing,
never asked how to do what he
could do. What my Father taught me
was to listen to my own inner voice,
no other’s, and if I wanted to be
a man, I was to simply watch
what a man did for that spoke
a language more fluid than air.

the perfect poem*         A flawless poem
eats its siblings


did not know this.          *a flawless poem
chose to disbelieve.        if such there were,
                                           will always be
overconfident.                 the next one
three years back,
wrote a piece,                   my poor soul,
called it "flawless,"          my rag tag heart,
sensing, knowing,           has no censor,
that was an,                      so careless,reckless,
unobtainable condition. as if words were but
                                           frivolous treasures
loved it so,                        easy spent, easy get
pinned to my chest,
funny, loved me back,    if only, how I wish
if ever such thing            could harvest my best
could ever be.           with golden cutlery excise
                                       the single flawless poem,
sumbitch.                     I know in my possess
knew it but didn't.      lay down this hand
                                       so weary    
accept there was,        from cupping tears,
any itch that couldn't be satisfied at king last
be scratched                 so much so
into oblivion.                that my casket lowered,
                             hands in repose companioned
three years back,          clutching his best
on top of the world,     easing his rest,
chose not to believe      a paper record
that life is cyclical,         to join his ash,
and i would always.      his flawless poem,
have in my posses,        at long last
more and more.        
perfect poems.                 11/13/14

now my poems,
flawed.
like me.

4/8/16

I have bared my soul,
Spoke my truth,
To all who would listen.

I walked through the flames,
Wondering if I would be burned,
Or scarred on the other side.

I wore it like a badge of honour,
Spoke through tears in my eyes,
And a lump in my throat.

And they did not stop me,
I stopped, I breathed, I spoke,
Composed my truth through broken sobs.

I felt the fear course through my heart,
Saw my pulse beat under my t shirt,
And proceeded to show them my hurt.

I expected rejection, repulsion at my weakness,
But I was revered and my bravery applauded,
Reborn through their kindness and acceptance.

Baptised through the fire of my own heavy truth,
The reward a sea of calm waves and white clouds and endless space,
And a lightness I have not companioned in some time.

There were days left over;
this fantastic architecture,
days of a planet too young to be seen,
at man’s eyes.

wanders companioned,
weary youth,
reflects on, with curious eyes path,
feel the last evening’s silent branches breath;
too few:
one step back Adam.
Integrate the least,
                   lest:
                   last tomorrow:

Atlantean ship’s return, dark outland’s call,
in men’s dreams only, to cold steam rising fall,
on green magic’s mist want,
only to find

i love that word, puttering, my adjective
of early morning rambling, world examining,
in the early AM, treading barefooted
from room to room, a list prestablished,
+ tidy up the prior evening’s laziness,
unload with complete silence the
prior nights dishwasher, homework,
prep the couch back to pre~beat~up presentability,

make the first 16.5 .oz of Blue Mountain
Hawaiian coffee, in my art history
McIntosh mug(1),
prepare the first of the day’s bitesized
edibles,
a:k:a, Kashi crunchies, so the coffee all
falls down  to a well~recv’d internal welcoming

the timing is off, the clock has changed,
it is early but not really, I’m constantly
recalculating ‘real time’ until confused,
substituting the internal locked-in clocking that ultimate divination of right and wrong,
the betting app informs us of the
under/over hours really slept line
set by Las Vegas oddsmakers

but as usual, the digression omens come
fast and furious, up in the sky apartment
is an oasis of cloud quietude,
(where the latitude and longitude
inter-sec, where the cleansed sun softly)

ah quietude, an envelopment noun
favored over the pedestrian quiet,
my ears,
fulfilled by music via noiseless earbuds,
fills the soul, it is the milk in the
morning coffee brew of the
crossover silence, tween the skyed division

check on the woman, deep asleep,
(pronouns: she/her/mine)
her arm thrown across my empty pillow, as if holding my place in line,
like besties in second grade, a warning to other potent interlopers,
so
withdraw silent to finish the routine that
is so comforting, the polit~noise chatter has
not yet invaded, all of its associated
malice’s tumult, kept away at bay
with forethought,
and instead, thus, I, write,

in this quilt of solitude, not alone,
write of this companioned morn~born~rituals that
will be one day,
be renamed,
as a

mourning ritual,

when
when life ruefully states in its
arrogant ~ don’t ~ care, no ways,
now that,

When,
one of us, be
sleeping permanent, and the
silence be reformatted, recalculated,
the coffee will taste different, and
the footfalls no longer unsqueaking,
no need, cause the solitude is just
renamed as loneliness, and though
the tears emanate from same tear ducts,
the causal reasoning is reversed,
no longer
celebratory, and with no one to show it off,
to share,
no punch in the arm gasp
of loving recognition,

I perforce new habit,
will read this puttering,
now stuttering poem

someday as a new summary,
a substitutable morn chore,
absent
a chorus of a
singly
singular
beautiful quiet but only
memorized,
silenced applause

CAN’T COUNT FOXES IN THE TREES
Except for the T-shirt with the bull’s-eye in the middle of the chest, she usually didn’t give me gifts, but I digress, Let’s do what’s best as these are  phrases of purpose proving that streams of conscious fail , as  they just get you near, inexact lasers  red dots absent , but the soapbox is sincere

So though short  of certain clever, we should not now or never , abandon or fear it’s true  intent. An exotic condiment , a fresh cut freestyle edge is nourishment To stir our souls , This creative domain must remain
To  dilute cliche’, to strain mundane until the conversational melody is such that we need not explain.

We  could mold sophisticates into words that may somehow rebirth as lyrics. but we’ll go back to that another time, but first, why did I fear it? When I was in the forest that time, when she attempted a simple  rhyme , it did remind of that Spinner’s  song that’s upside down like howdy doody your clowns too , they’re all laughing at you and why were they even there and  didn’t say or stay in the middle of the road? I didn’t have no time to count the foxes hidden in the trees today and she didn’t have no time to be a decent person,  and the random gifts didn’t give me any lift.

That  was just her way of hinting that she was going away, like howdy do,  your clowns too? I don’t want them laughing at you. I don’t care if you’re on the side or in the ditch there’s no middle there’s no road, but  Phillippe  said how could I let you get away,  I had hope she’s going to stay. I’m feeling that if she loves  or leaves I wont even lift a finger, I don’t think I’ll even think or grieve ,  maybe not even linger when  noticing  she wont be sitting next to me at the ball game.  

Smirking now and not wondering how this before never empty seat shouts intimacy subtracted and belated , Yeah, this ends not complicated,  just simple cause and effect, with quick pause to collect , Sharing out loud  a dialect between me and  my companioned voice of mind , because my sanity is going to wake as  them or they or she intakes These  lyrics.  I hope they’re fair, but admitting something anyway ,I’m a little scared to share and the end will be and bring us somewhere.

Put a little jazz riff to it , I’m thinking she oughta put a little musica to it , and I’ll abet and let, so she  can visit if she insists. Will there  be a view that’s crowned most fun to see? Probably she won’t tell me. With or without  her screams and silken sheets, that or not  that , this episode will be complete
BobbyO

I hear you calling my name
Looking back from some other time
I put the phone down and I'm not opening the door
I'm not answering anymore

You think you're a wolf
Stalking the prey
Let me show you something real today
When I release the lioness from her cage

I see them coming across the plains
Dressed in white
Pretending they are messengers of the divine
They are coming for me
Little do they know
I'm not clothed in sin or dressed in white

Hate never stood at the door
But justice came by and spoke to me
Claimed she saw me on the front page
Of a book long escaped
Since she's companioned with me
And now she's asking your name

I hear you calling my name
Looking back from some other time
I put the phone down and I'm not opening the door
I'm not answering anymore

Because if I do you'll be at death's door.

TAKE YOUR MEDICINE.   Phillippe  said how could I let her get away? I did have hope that she was going to stay. I’m feeling that if she loves  or leaves I wont even lift a finger, I don’t think I’ll even think or grieve ,  maybe not even linger when  noticing  she wont be sitting next to me at the ball game.  

Smirking now and not wondering how this before never empty seat shouts intimacy subtracted and belated , Yeah, this ends not complicated,  just simple cause and effect, with quick pause to collect , Sharing out loud  a dialect between me and  my companioned voice of mind , because my sanity is going to wake as  them or they or she intakes These  lyrics.  I hope they’re fair, but admitting something anyway ,I’m a little scared to share and the end will be and bring us somewhere.

Put a little jazz riff to it , I’m thinking she oughta put a little musica to it , and I’ll abet and let, so she  can visit if she insists. Will there  be a view that’s crowned most fun to see? Probably she wouldn’t tell me. With or without  her screams and silken sheets, that or not  that , this episode will be complete
BobbyO

SPINNING CONCLUSION
Phillippe  said how could I let her get away? I did have hope that she was going to stay. I’m feeling that if she loves  or leaves I wont even lift a finger, I don’t think I’ll even think or grieve ,  maybe not even linger when  noticing  she wont be sitting next to me at the ball game.  

Smirking now and not wondering how this before never empty seat shouts intimacy subtracted and belated , Yeah, this ends not complicated,  just simple cause and effect, with quick pause to collect , Sharing out loud  a dialect between me and  my companioned voice of mind , because my sanity is going to wake as  them or they or she intakes These  lyrics.  I hope they’re fair, but admitting something anyway ,I’m a little scared to share and the end will be and bring us somewhere.

Put a little jazz riff to it , I’m thinking she oughta put a little musica to it , and I’ll abet and let, so she  can visit if she insists. Will there  be a view that’s crowned most fun to see? Probably she wouldn’t tell me. With or without  her screams and silken sheets, that or not  that , this episode will be complete
BobbyO