For Al, who left us, Nov. 22, 2014

With each passing poem,
The degree of difficulty of diving ever higher,
Bar incrementally niched, inched, raised,
Domain, the association of words, ever lesser,
Repetition verboten, crime against pride.

Al,
You ask me when the words come:

With each passing year,
In the wee hours of
Ever diminishing time snatches,
The hours between midnight and rising,

Shrinkage, once six, now four hours,
Meant for body restoration,
Transpositional for poetic creation,
Only one body notes the new mark,
The digital, numerical clock of
Trillion hour sleep deficit, most taxing.

Al, you ask me from where do the words come:

Each of the five senses compete,
Pick me, Pick me, they shout,

The eyes see the tall grasses
Framing the ferry's to and fro life.
Waving bye bye to the
End of day harbor activities,
Putting your babies to sleep.

The ears hear the boat horns
Deep voiced, demanding pay attention,
I am now docking, I am important,
The sound lingers, long after
They are no longer important.

The tongue tastes the cooling
Italian prosecco merging victoriously
With its ally, the modestly warming rays
Of a September setting sun,
finally declaring, without stuttering,
Peace on Earth.

The odoriferous bay breezes,
A new for that second only smell,
But yet, very old bartender's recipe,
Salt, cooking oil, barbecue sauce, gasoline
And the winning new ingredient, freshly minted,
Stacked in ascending circumference order, onion rings.

These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger, by force majeure,
Declares, here, 
poem aborning!
Contract with this moment,
now satisfied!

Al,  what you did not ask was this:
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.
__________
(this poem more than most,
for its birth celebrates
my loss, your loss,
which cannot be exonerated 8/7/18)


__________
written at 4:38 AM
September 8th, 2012

Greenport Harbor, N.Y.

Awaking blithe each morning,
with eyes upon the World,
I wonder, are we mourning
with ebon flags unfurled –
or are they but a warning,
some draped like snakes and curled,
stray stars and stripes adorning,
sent from the netherworld.

I wander through the garden
with nothing on my mind
and say 'I beg your pardon'
alarmed at what I find
as winds begin to harden
and fate begins to grind.

Confused, I watch my neighbours,
they're wide-eyed, unafraid
to halt all useful labours
and join the death brigade;
the ritters rattle sabres,
the frail and fragile fade,
morticians tap on tabors,
the potentates parade.

The military blesses
(in tunics somewhat browned)
its crimson-stained successes,
hell bent and heaven bound.
Such scenes no more distress us:
a ****** battleground,
dissevered heads with tresses
and arms and legs abound;
the fourth estate suppresses
the heaps of bodies  found
(collateral excesses
discarded in a mound).

Society regresses,
now living by the sword,
with torture and its stresses
upon a waterboard;
a captive kid confesses,
his innocence ignored -
fallacious facts and guesses,
the guts of justice gored!

With canting vindication
a big brass bully brags
(with pearls of perspiration
and swollen tongue that gags)
of third world  subjugation
for gelt and oily swags,
of human rights' castration,
and on and on it drags.

The manifold migration
of refugees in rags
while searching for salvation
soon finds compassion lags;
uprooted populations
are fleeing from their flags
else dying of starvation
as naked hunger nags.

With trump cards politicking,
two little hands (all thumbs)
may send the Mad Dog siccing.
Insane! All sense succumbs.

Atomic timepiece ticking
until the Reaper comes
as Geiger counters clicking
drown out the droning drums.

Cast out for not conforming,
I wander day by day
to find the earth deforming
as nature wastes away,
with bees no longer swarming
(expunged with garden spray)
and ocean depths transforming
(neath plastic overlay).

With CO2 performing
the climate's led astray,
the atmosphere's been warming,
the grasses ashen gray,
eternal tempest storming
while permafrosts decay,
and ozone holes are forming
in deadly disarray.

The people profiteering
descend a slip'ry *****
destroying, never fearing        
of running out of rope;
instead they sit back sneering
“our wealth’s your only hope”.

Yes, Armageddon's nearing,
it's doubtful that we'll cope,
for Evolution's jeering,
she's scanned our horoscope:
we'll soon be disappearing
with whale and antelope.


           Epitaph

The multitudes were jumbled,
some milling ’round the mall,
while politicians bumbled
when bracing for the brawl.

The World around us rumbled,
our backs against the wall,
as bombs were tossed and tumbled
across our broken ball.

My kneecaps creaked and crumbled
but I, too proud to crawl,
took but a step and stumbled  
yet found no place to fall.

And no one heard me grumble
although I tried to call,
or maybe I just mumbled,
as strength began to pall.

Well now the World’s been humbled
I seek an urban sprawl,
but since the feuds were fumbled
there’s nothing left at all.

Mashup

Part I (and there is a Part II & III)

I mashup me, myself, and perhaps thee too.


Excerpts from my poems about poets, poetry and the process of compositions. In chronological order, earliest to latest.
---------------------------------------------------------­------------------

With words we paint,
With syllables we embrace,
Tasked and ennobled,
We are forever fully employed,
Missionaries to all,
You too, are one as well,
Your fate can't be renounced,

when the rusted unborn poem notion is almost done,
but remains unpublished,
for no beginning, no title, can be found,

Then I recall the cornucopia days,
when poems spilled forth like
there would never be a when they wouldn't,

I revisit my old friends, couplets, twins and triplets,
seeded inside every tear, happy or sad,
sweetly and freely,

my old friends, reread,
words rearranged in new combinations,
old poems, plants bearing new fruits,
re-titled all of them, one name,
a collection entitled,
My Solace.

My eyes, my eyes, see only the
Totality of this moment.
When mastery of multi-tasking
Is the single best poem this man ever
Penned with his entirety,
Of which not word survived
For its unspoken silence was its glory.

My compact with you is to
remind us all, through
music, dance, words (poetry) and love,
This is the only compact
with the power of human law.

Color me flesh ****,
Color me blue bottled,
Red ripped asunder,
The sweetness ascribed to my love poetry,
A subtraction of the bitterness of a failed life.
Colorist of my seams, my woven words,
I am white now, my canvas completed,
Waiting for another poet to write over it,
And chaining new words to what was prior writ.

Al,  what you did not ask was this:
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.

You ask me how I find the time,
(To write)
But time is not the issue,
For they, are all prepared, needing only recognition,
For they, are all in readiness, needing only composition.

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
tastes his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
and becomes one who was, yet is,
because of you, in poetry.

Awful poetry, some good, you will write.
But write and write till your heart be calmed,
For even ancient kings felt the anguish  of the soul,
And we profit even today by King David's psalms.

This wizened fool has his hands full,
Mouths to feed, bread to earn and bake,
As midnight is almost nigh,
He rests prone and adds a verse to this old poem
He long ago scribbled down, grimace-smiles now,
Realizing there is little difference tween him and the
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland.

For poetry salves his wounds still, even now,
Unashamedly, he thinks, hallelujah!

The poem is the afterbirth,
A conflicts resolution, an outcome,
Battlefield debris, the residue of
An exacting vision, a sentiment surging,
And your army of words, inadequate to the task,
Fighting to capture that insight flashed,
Each word a soldier, disheveled,
Crying, let me live, let me be saved,
Let me make a poem,
Let it be inscribed upon my victorious flag.

The poem is the sweat left upon the brow,
Having exercised the five senses,
The salt of struggle and debate,
It's completion, each word,
Both a victory and a defeat.

To write but a single line,
That uplifts the heart,
Eases pain, gives delight to strangers,
And makes you laugh out loud
With shivery pleasure,
That usurps a whole day and night,
That is a poet's true measure.

Mastery of the poetic,
Measured not in quantity,
But in tears of satisfaction
When others love the taste
Of newly born stanzas
Upon their lips,
couplets born and transcribed
In the wee hours of the morn.

You can have my love, my soul,
But leave to me the labor of poetry.
Loving you with words is my domain,
The speciality of my terrain,
So no more hasta la pasta if you please,
And by the bye, I would love some
Tonight, say around eight,
At a restaurant where the moon is
The only light illuminating our faces.

Until you have bent your ear to Shakespeare's sonnets,
Till you have laughed with Ogden Nash,
Wept with Frost, visited Byron's ghost,
Read the songs of King Solomon,
And once you
Despair of being their equal,
Shed your winter coat of worry,
***** your courage to the sticking point,
Begin to write then with reckless courage,
Unfettered abandon, make a fool of yourself!

Scout the competition.
Weep, for you and I will never surpass
The giants who preceeded us, and yet,
Laugh, cause they thought the same thing as well...

All I can say is
En Garde!
I will be coming back soon enough.
because you are my best poem,
and the there will always be another stanza needed...

I am no Houdini, it's quite simple,
After 5 years, I read her like a book,
A book of my poems that she has inspired,
Entitled the Mysteries of True Love.

Each letter, a morsel in your mouth,
Each phrase, a fork full of pleasure,
Each stanza, a full fledged member in a tasting menu,
Perfect only in conjunction with the preceding flavor,
and the one that follows,  and the one that follows.

Taste each poem upon thy tongue and then pass it on,
you know how....

Each word, whether chewed thoroughly,
or lightly placed upon a bud for flavor,
needs the careful consideration of your mouth.

When I hear Shakespeare
My own voice is stilled, it's poverty exposed,
I am ashamed of every word I ever wrote.
Hush me not, for t'is true,
Yet I write on for an audience of one, on but one subject,
A subject, a life, mine,
yet, still unmastered, even after decades of trying.

My poverty exposed, unmasked
for what it is worth, or not.

Lest you think this is paean to men
Another grand male boast,
Be advised this ditty be writty
By a man who, while no longer gritty,
Just put jelly on his scrambled eggs
And ketchup on his toast!

Mmmmmmm there might be a poem
Lurking in that too...

So baby,
shut it down,
turn me on,
make me warm for real,
glide your now practiced fingertips on my grizzled cheek,
whisper a phony "ugh,"
cause I know, you will read
this iPad love poem
and cherish us for evermore.

Soul of brevity, poetically,
I'll never be, this insightful critique,
("Your poems are too long")
I've received in multiplicity, from sources internationally,
perhaps, lucky me, you've read this far?

Surely still a chance that an angel will touch my lips,
my internal parts sign a final treaty, inside an armistice,
night sweats sighs a thing fully forgot,
poetry writing can now be dispatched,
maybe that will be my Act III,
if I can stay awake for it.

Walk a Single Word.
To write a poem, a single word select,
embrace it with a fullness that lovers, family and friends
and the *** who cut you off in the middle lane
do daily provide

Grasp said word, walk it onto a yellow, blue lined, legal pad,
touch said word with the whisper of a single tear, a single curse,
like a pebble in a pond,
said word will miracle expand
hugging you with concentric circles of lines of poetry,
visionary words and stanzas that almost complete themselves
and you

The rhymes you will require, the meter you will select,
no need to struggle, hug your child and as Abraham told Isaac,
God and Google will provide

The simple trickster, a wordsmiths, even your average poet laureate,
got nothing on you that you don't already possess, to offer them
Plenty stiff competition.

Therefore,
My life is mine to take,
Should I wish to choose the
Place, date, the time
To let the poetry cease,
I will announce it mostly gladly
with a blessing of
Shehecheyanu* and a
Smiling "by your leave."

Sometimes the pen, unnecessary.
The poem, fully formed, in his mouth, born.

Silent back labor, unbeknownst the existence
Of such a thing, yet knowing now
His contractions, coming fast and furious,
Eyes many centimeters dilated,
The sac's fluid breaks upon the poet's tongue,
He pronounces in a single breath his
Immaculate Completion

When his hand to mouth, goes,
Like Moses, when he touched the burning coals,
The words are signaled, freedom!
The words announce:
We are now created, conceived and
This new oxgenated atmosphere is now our
final resting place.

This child, the poem, this exhalation,
Once freed, is lost to him,
It's been renamed, retitled,
by hundreds of newly adopted parents as
Ours.

Words needed to create another love poem for my beloved,
Nose and toes, ******* and eyes all regularly poetically,
Cherished,
Now I have knuckled under
And competed a full poetic body scan
And have paid tribute to each n'every part of you,
Even your knuckles...which I am busy kissing
While writing this poem in my distracted mind.

The next time it be for the morning meal,
I will eat it in bed,
far from their kitchen hiding places,
And celebrate my heroics with original
Frosted Flakes and milk,
And extra sugar just for spite!
The bedroom fairies, living under the pillow,
Emerge to beg in iambic pentameter,
Won't get nary a bite,
Until they they return the poems they stole
From my midnight dreams.

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.


On and on thru the night,
Riffing, rapping, rambling, and spitting,
Ditties and darts, couplets and barbs,
Single words and elegies,
Free verse and a lot of fking curse words,
It was a moment, a time
that deserved
to be preserved,
and so this poem got writ

You may think this story apocryphal
Which is another way of saying untrue,
But I got his boarding pass and it is signed,
To this crazy poetry dude, long may you rasp,
And it is signed by Mr. P. Simon, a big fan,
And it has never since that day,
Left my grasp

Some poems never end,
Nor meant too.
Alliterative phrases, invitations,
Add a verse, a word, even a sound,
An exclamation of delight,
A stanza in its own right.

Unfinished work, forever additive, collaborative.
Modify mine, pass it on.

Read somewhere some poems never end,
Now I understand that better,
Cause there are no bandages, stitches that can close,
Cause there are no pills, switches that can shut off,
The ripping sound, the cutting noise, the raging inside
Heard blocks away, almost reaching a house where you live,
And dying in the same **** place that
Poems come from after midnight.

And even if I am stranger now,
I'll prove useful to have around,
Giving you poetry precisely couture designed by command,
So I fully expect to be hugging you happy
Soon enough.
You'll see.

No matter combo or organized, a good nights sleep
Elusive
So poetry is my default rest position,
My screen savior.

**So when I warn,
All my poems are copywrighted,
My meaning simple, words crystal,
They belong to us, but mostly to you
Who are reading these words

THE PROLOGUE.

THE Cook of London, while the Reeve thus spake,
For joy he laugh'd and clapp'd him on the back:
"Aha!" quoth he, "for Christes passion,
This Miller had a sharp conclusion,
Upon this argument of herbergage.                              lodging
Well saide Solomon in his language,
Bring thou not every man into thine house,
For harbouring by night is perilous.
Well ought a man avised for to be        a man should take good heed
Whom that he brought into his privity.
I pray to God to give me sorrow and care
If ever, since I highte* Hodge of Ware,                      was called
Heard I a miller better *set a-work;                           handled
He had a jape of malice in the derk.                             trick
But God forbid that we should stinte here,                        stop
And therefore if ye will vouchsafe to hear
A tale of me, that am a poore man,
I will you tell as well as e'er I can
A little jape that fell in our city."

Our Host answer'd and said; "I grant it thee.
Roger, tell on; and look that it be good,
For many a pasty hast thou letten blood,
And many a Jack of Dover hast thou sold,
That had been twice hot and twice cold.
Of many a pilgrim hast thou Christe's curse,
For of thy parsley yet fare they the worse.
That they have eaten in thy stubble goose:
For in thy shop doth many a fly go loose.
Now tell on, gentle Roger, by thy name,
But yet I pray thee be not *wroth for game;     angry with my jesting
A man may say full sooth in game and play."
"Thou sayst full sooth," quoth Roger, "by my fay;
But sooth play quad play, as the Fleming saith,
And therefore, Harry Bailly, by thy faith,
Be thou not wroth, else we departe* here,                  part company
Though that my tale be of an hostelere.                      innkeeper
But natheless, I will not tell it yet,
But ere we part, y-wis thou shalt be quit."               assuredly
And therewithal he laugh'd and made cheer,
And told his tale, as ye shall after hear.

Notes to the Prologue to the Cook's Tale

1. Jack of Dover:  an article of cookery. (Transcriber's note:
suggested by some commentators to be a kind of pie, and by
others to be a fish)

2. Sooth play quad play: true jest is no jest.

3. It may be remembered that each pilgrim was bound to tell
two stories; one on the way to Canterbury, the other returning.

4. Made cheer: French, "fit bonne mine;" put on a pleasant
countenance.


THE TALE.

A prentice whilom dwelt in our city,
And of a craft of victuallers was he:
Galliard he was, as goldfinch in the shaw*,            lively *grove
Brown as a berry, a proper short fellaw:
With lockes black, combed full fetisly.                       daintily
And dance he could so well and jollily,
That he was called Perkin Revellour.
He was as full of love and paramour,
As is the honeycomb of honey sweet;
Well was the wenche that with him might meet.
At every bridal would he sing and hop;
He better lov'd the tavern than the shop.
For when there any riding was in Cheap,
Out of the shoppe thither would he leap,
And, till that he had all the sight y-seen,
And danced well, he would not come again;
And gather'd him a meinie of his sort,              company of fellows
To hop and sing, and make such disport:
And there they *sette steven for to meet             made appointment
To playen at the dice in such a street.
For in the towne was there no prentice
That fairer coulde cast a pair of dice
Than Perkin could; and thereto he was free    he spent money liberally
Of his dispence, in place of privity.       where he would not be seen
That found his master well in his chaffare,                merchandise
For oftentime he found his box full bare.
For, soothely, a prentice revellour,
That haunteth dice, riot, and paramour,
His master shall it in his shop abie,                       *suffer for
All have he no part of the minstrelsy.                        although
For theft and riot they be convertible,
All can they play on *gitern or ribible.             guitar or rebeck
Revel and truth, as in a low degree,
They be full wroth* all day, as men may see.                at variance

This jolly prentice with his master bode,
Till he was nigh out of his prenticehood,
All were he snubbed both early and late,                       rebuked
And sometimes led with revel to Newgate.
But at the last his master him bethought,
Upon a day when he his paper sought,
Of a proverb, that saith this same word;
Better is rotten apple out of hoard,
Than that it should rot all the remenant:
So fares it by a riotous servant;
It is well lesse harm to let him pace,                        pass, go
Than he shend all the servants in the place.                   corrupt
Therefore his master gave him a quittance,
And bade him go, with sorrow and mischance.
And thus this jolly prentice had his leve:                      desire
Now let him riot all the night, or leave.                      refrain
And, for there is no thief without a louke,
That helpeth him to wasten and to souk                           spend
Of that he bribe can, or borrow may,                             steal
Anon he sent his bed and his array
Unto a compere of his owen sort,                               comrade
That loved dice, and riot, and disport;
And had a wife, that held *for countenance            for appearances
A shop, and swived* for her sustenance.             *prostituted herself
       .       .       .       .       .       .       .

Notes to the Cook's Tale

1. Cheapside, where jousts were sometimes held, and which
was the great scene of city revels and processions.

2. His paper: his certificate of completion of his apprenticeship.

3. Louke:  The precise meaning of the word is unknown, but it
is doubtless included in the cant term "pal".

4. The Cook's Tale is unfinished in all the manuscripts; but in
some, of minor authority, the Cook is made to break off his
tale, because "it is so foul," and to tell the story of Gamelyn, on
which Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is founded. The story is
not Chaucer's, and is different in metre, and inferior in
composition to the Tales. It is supposed that Chaucer expunged
the Cook's Tale for the same reason that made him on his death-
bed lament that he had written so much "ribaldry."

Nota: his soil is man's intelligence.
That's better. That's worth crossing seas to find.
Crispin in one laconic phrase laid bare
His cloudy drift and planned a colony.
Exit the mental moonlight, exit lex,
Rex and principium, exit the whole
Shebang. Exeunt omnes. Here was prose
More exquisite than any tumbling verse:
A still new continent in which to dwell.
What was the purpose of his pilgrimage,
Whatever shape it took in Crispin's mind,
If not, when all is said, to drive away
The shadow of his fellows from the skies,
And, from their stale intelligence released,
To make a new intelligence prevail?
Hence the reverberations in the words
Of his first central hymns, the celebrants
Of rankest trivia, tests of the strength
Of his aesthetic, his philosophy,
The more invidious, the more desired.
The florist asking aid from cabbages,
The rich man going bare, the paladin
Afraid, the blind man as astronomer,
The appointed power unwielded from disdain.
His western voyage ended and began.
The torment of fastidious thought grew slack,
Another, still more bellicose, came on.
He, therefore, wrote his prolegomena,
And, being full of the caprice, inscribed
Commingled souvenirs and prophecies.
He made a singular collation. Thus:
The natives of the rain are rainy men.
Although they paint effulgent, azure lakes,
And April hillsides wooded white and pink,
Their azure has a cloudy edge, their white
And pink, the water bright that dogwood bears.
And in their music showering sounds intone.
On what strange froth does the gross Indian dote,
What Eden sapling gum, what honeyed gore,
What pulpy dram distilled of innocence,
That streaking gold should speak in him
Or bask within his images and words?
If these rude instances impeach themselves
By force of rudeness, let the principle
Be plain. For application Crispin strove,
Abhorring Turk as Esquimau, the lute
As the marimba, the magnolia as rose.

Upon these premises propounding, he
Projected a colony that should extend
To the dusk of a whistling south below the south.
A comprehensive island hemisphere.
The man in Georgia waking among pines
Should be pine-spokesman. The responsive man,
Planting his pristine cores in Florida,
Should ***** thereof, not on the psaltery,
But on the banjo's categorical gut,
Tuck tuck, while the flamingos flapped his bays.
Sepulchral senors, bibbing pale mescal,
Oblivious to the Aztec almanacs,
Should make the intricate Sierra scan.
And dark Brazilians in their cafes,
Musing immaculate, pampean dits,
Should scrawl a vigilant anthology,
To be their latest, lucent paramour.
These are the broadest instances. Crispin,
Progenitor of such extensive scope,
Was not indifferent to smart detail.
The melon should have apposite ritual,
Performed in verd apparel, and the peach,
When its black branches came to bud, belle day,
Should have an incantation. And again,
When piled on salvers its aroma steeped
The summer, it should have a sacrament
And celebration. Shrewd novitiates
Should be the clerks of our experience.

These bland excursions into time to come,
Related in romance to backward flights,
However prodigal, however proud,
Contained in their afflatus the reproach
That first drove Crispin to his wandering.
He could not be content with counterfeit,
With masquerade of thought, with hapless words
That must belie the racking masquerade,
With fictive flourishes that preordained
His passion's permit, hang of coat, degree
Of buttons, measure of his salt. Such trash
Might help the blind, not him, serenely sly.
It irked beyond his patience. Hence it was,
Preferring text to gloss, he humbly served
Grotesque apprenticeship to chance event,
A clown, perhaps, but an aspiring clown.
There is a monotonous babbling in our dreams
That makes them our dependent heirs, the heirs
Of dreamers buried in our sleep, and not
The oncoming fantasies of better birth.
The apprentice knew these dreamers. If he dreamed
Their dreams, he did it in a gingerly way.
All dreams are vexing. Let them be expunged.
But let the rabbit run, the **** declaim.

Trinket pasticcio, flaunting skyey sheets,
With Crispin as the tiptoe cozener?
No, no: veracious page on page, exact.

The Gift Of Conscious Creation


The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or, more correctly, being loved in spite of yourself.

-Victor Hugo


Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 1:37 AM


Divine greetings beloved way showers! We are the Spiritual Hierarchy present with you to offer insight about your next steps on the journey into oneness.
Long ago there was a call in your heart to awaken to your divine splendor as a radiant being of light. Virtuously, you answered the call to keep your head above the swells and torrents of the rising frequencies on this planet, your beloved earth.

What lies before you now is a new set of rules, new challenges to overcome, but challenges in the name of unity, connectivity and with unprecedented levels of love that surround each of you.

What we would like to discuss with you this day is your special part in the grand scheme of planetary changes. First we would like to assure you that you are well on your way to what we call the path of active service, though service really does no justice to the name for what we call service is really the souls expression of pure joy.

Your deepest joy, as a beloved child of God, is a joy that is expressed through you in divine covenant as a benevolent force of good on this planet and for the resurrection of peace, cohabitation and divine love.

As servants of God’s will, your joy is unmatched in rivalry; it is this flow of divine grace that runs through you as a clear conduit uplifting all in its path. It is the flow of God’s grace that nurtures your every whim and answers your every call as the universe aligns and dances with your light as you become a conscious co creator of divine will.

Beloved servants of God, we call to you in remembrance of your holy plan and to remind you that your plan as a way shower of pure potential begins and ends with you!

What is important for you to now deeply realize is that you are the creator of all that you experience within & without.

Because of this, your inner dwelling must become the purified temple of Christ consciousness to be contained within, that which enables the continual flow of higher dimensional love to support the life that you see clearly in your minds eye, and feel deeply within your heart-space.

The moment in your life when you made the choice, the choice to live to your full potential and to radiate the full splendor of Christ’s love, was also the moment that you willingly walked forth into the line of fire.

We say this so that you will realize that the path you have chosen, the path to freedom and to your heart’s desires, is indeed the path of full human potential, but that whatever is blocking you from your highest intentions to co create a life of peace, passion and joy must be expunged. To co create with the divine and heavenly bodies of light that surround you, you must be free from all lower thought forms delivered from evil, so to speak.

In this, the realization that you already have all that you desire within you, is not just a cliché or a mark of happenstance it is a deeply laden truth that you must come to see and to embrace fully in the light of All.

For your light shines ever so brightly! It is only the darkness of outworn beliefs and illusions that limit you, that temporarily dampen your shine. To shine again, you must do nothing other than let go of all those beliefs that no longer serve you and to do this; to really do this effectively, you must first come to the level of knowing that this is indeed true.

Once you have achieved the state of knowing that you are beyond powerful, beyond capable to rise above the heaviness of any darkness that surrounds you, you are already 90 percent there.

Do you see this? Do you see that there is nothing to do per say, but to unload all heaviness?

For yes, this is the simplest truth dear ones this is the truth that you may search for in many external ways, yet we share with you that it can only be found within.

The inner strength that you posses to rise up and rise up against the weight of your past-conditioned beliefs is already deeply there. You must only strive for and crave the freedom even more! More than your past conditioning will have you to believe.

Divine passion is God’s fuel the fuel of freedom that will continually lift you above all strife.  Passion is the fuel that will keep you continually upward bound. Yet we also share that passion alone will not serve to clear the way to your truest desires.

Passion will create the impetus necessary to catapult you to higher levels of living. Passion will lift your sights beyond the mundane to where miracles can serve you, but it will be for your daily discipline to sustain and free you.

What we mean is this to rise above the mental planes of discord and strife so prevalent in your world today, you must have a mechanism, a tool within you that you can turn to each time a thought arises that you are less than, that you are incapable of achieving your dreams.

For certainly there will be those times when your dreams seem far out of reach, but we assure you that these times are the times when you are needed to rise above those beliefs most ardently.

In doing so, you free yourself...each day, each hour, each minute that you choose to believe in the higher voice...in the knowing that these times will come to pass.

Freedom comes by your daily will to concede to a higher plan.

How you ask?

And we will share, that to align to your higher plan daily means nothing more or less than staying connected to your dreams, feeding your passions, honoring what feels good and accessing the power behind those intentions.. and to never waver in and out of the thoughts that will have you believe that you are capable of less... for surely those thoughts also create.

Healing begins with the mind, for when the mind is not aligned with your higher will, it creates energetic disturbances and discordance in your electromagnetic field that keep you bound. Therefore, we remind you how imperative it is to your well being and to your forward momentum to keep your mind solely focused on only what it is that you desire each and every moment that you are captured by thought.

Each time you waver, each time you honor a thought that is less than what your intended outcome will be, you run the risk of plummeting your dreams in a downward spiral, a direction less suited for true freedom.

And each time you align with the voice within that reminds you that you are creating, in every moment, the reality that you experience, you align with the power of what is and therefore the pure potential of what can be.

Beloved wonders, you are empowered and sovereign beings of light here to concrete the physical, emotional, mental, & spiritual realities that you feel deeply within your heart. This is the creation of your life, the greatest creation of all, and it is an ever-unfolding path of greater divine love & feelings of bliss.

Did you know that the love you experience in your life is an exact reflection of the love you that you allow yourself to feel?

It is true! To increase the reflections of love in all you do, in those you meet, you must increase the love quotient within yourself. Love yourself daily by reminding yourself that you are made of pure love and that you are the empowered creator behind all you choose.

Choose consciously, in each moment that presents itself to you, choose with love, and your choices will begin to reveal themselves immediately in how you are feeling.

Are you feeling loved? Then your recent choice was aligned with your highest good. Are you feeling unloved? Then your recent choice was aligned with less than your potential.

When you feel like the radiant being of light who you truly are, you will experience life as you envision it to be. If not, you must simply choose again. And again. And again until you have achieved the external reality that matches your heartfelt desires.

These choices come to you in every now moment the choice to believe in the reality that you see with your physical eyes, or the reality that knows that everything can be exactly as you en-vision.

Remember dear souls, real-reality becomes real when you enliven it with attention and be-lie-f; when you choose to feed it with the power of your focus.

The gift in conscious creation is that the choice is always yours!

So dig deep within yourself to remember your power to have it all and to love yourself so fully that you change the very vibration of the very earth you live on. This is how you will lead as way showers of the new earth paradigm by your radiant example of what IS possible.

Become all of who you wish to BE and you will rapidly birth the life you wish to see.

We are the Spiritual Hierarchy with you today to remind you that only you can lift yourself above the ordinary to achieve the extraordinary. Only you can Become who you deeply know yourself to be.

You are loved and supported beyond measure. This is the link for this if you want to send it onward to lighten the path for many.   Lifetechnology@yahoogroups.com sent by ormusalchemy@aol.com  many blessings and much love and light to all  shekhinah.

Zuo Fen meets Jia Li and her child Hui Ying. The temporary guardian of the palace speaks with the help of one of the pack-horse men who understands something of the dialect this young woman owns. Zuo Fen would rather envelope Jia Li with her eyes than communicate in three-way speech. And so when Jia Li begins haltingly to tell the same tale told to Meng Ning the previous night Zuo Fen halts her translator with a gesture until the story – and this is what it appears to be – is told.

(Here Zuo Fen assumes the persona of Jia Li as part of her rhapsody titled The Sorcerer of Eryi-lou)

Alone in this crumbling palace
I guard my father’s charge,
He has been ill since late Spring
And I have disgraced my family
With a child whose father stayed
but a week trading horses.
Hui Ying was born here
And here we hope to stay.

I have now come to recognize
Many spirits of the past.
Mostly invisible I take them by surprise
In their mortal form; meeting a lady
And her maid on the hall terrace;
Seeing two men bent over
A game of go in a lesser chamber.
Music and the sound of poetry float
Variously through the many rooms.
The aroma of food comes and goes.
The burning of incense is ever present.

For many seasons my village supported
Palace life during the Emperor’s summer visits.
We provisioned and provided animals
For food and transport. Our young men,
Our women too were propositioned
For the more elaborate practices of the court.
Twenty summers long the palace secured for us
a livelihood beyond expectation.

Over time the events of the Emperor’s
Last sojourn in the palace became
For us the stuff of legend, though we do not
Embroider its story and have remained silent
Out of respect for the Emperor’s memory.
We know his son has rarely ventured here.

Let me only tell what has come from
my father’s lips, what he as a young man
Witnessed and through his guardianship
Has protected and honoured. He was chosen
By officials of the Emperor as a trusted servant,
A man who would oversee what had been precious,
What had been valued here, and is still deemed to be.

My father has spoken to me of the disappearance
Of the Emperor’s second wife with the sorcerer Yang Mo,
A disappearance witnessed by the whole company of visitors,
By the Emperor himself, and his son. I am charged to tell
Of this only to those bearing Emperor Wu’s seal.  Know I speak
With all truth and honesty in lieu of my father’s presence.

Amongst the many guests honoured by the Emperor
The sorcerer Yang Mo arrived by invitation
To spend part of the third season at Eryi-lou.
Already well-known to the court he had come
At the express wish of second wife Xie Jiu.
It is said that he created many remarkable illusions.
Unusual objects and rare animals were summoned to appear,
Rain fell and winds blew inside the Emperor’s hall,
There were piercings of flesh and limbs seemingly severed.
One morning it is said Yang Mo caused a boat
To appear on the lake, thereby at odds with the legend
That no vessel should ever touch its surface. Forthwith,
The Emperor decreed that such sorcery should
cease. But he was discouraged by second wife Xie Jiu
Who wished to visit the boat and sail on the lake.
Yang Mo offered to escort her across the waters
And led the assembled company to a small beach where
A path of red slate had been laid.  This appeared from
within a cave in the hillside. From thence it travelled
to the water’s edge and beyond, under the water
in the direction of the magical boat. Yang Mo is said
to have brought wind and fire and smoke
To play upon the company, finally inviting Xie Jiu to step
On the Red Slate Path and accompany him across the waters.
The couple walked slowly down the path into the lake
Gradually divesting themselves of their garments
As the waters consumed them. Then, before their very eyes
The Emperor’s guests and entourage saw the boat
Enveloped in a pall of smoke and disappear from view.
Yang Mo and Xie Jui were never seen again.

The Emperor was enraged, realizing suddenly
he had been tricked and made to look a cuckold
in front of his own court. In such a remote region
He had the slenderest of means available
to search for the missing couple. He resolved
to leave Eryi-lou immediately. Neither He or
His son nor his court has ever returned.

Allowing Jia Li to tell this tale without interruption had proved a right and wise decision. No sooner had the young woman realized her story had grasped the undivided attention of this celebrated courtesan than her words of description seemed to take on a rough poetry. Zuo Fen felt herself summoning unbidden images of the sorcerer’s illusions, moments of secret and forbidden congress between Yang Mo and Xie Jiu, the appearance of the sailing vessel from the early morning mists, the lovers slowly processing down the Red Slate Path, the disbelief and then fury of the Emperor.
      When Jia Li had taken leave to comfort her infant child Zuo Fen called Mei Lim to summon Meng Ning. She was clearly troubled by how her autumn visions from the west had brought her to this place and its unforeseen legacy of magic and deceit. The illusion of the sailing vessel and the walk into the lake on the Red Slate Path, both were elaborate and well-contrived artifices. They required skilled assistants and collaborators and the most careful planning. Sitting in silence opposite one another the courtesan and the chamberlain set their minds to consider the possible and elaborate trickery that might have been brought to bear on the complicit theft of the Emperor’s second wife. It seemed clear that all official record of what had passed had been expunged, and the Emperor had decided to abandon not only his summer sojourn but also his palace - immediately and forever.
        Zuo Fen wondered at the fate of the lovers. There could be no future for them within the known territories of the Empire. Their lives would have to begin again far distant. The province of Yunnan perhaps? But she laid that thought aside.

(to be continued)

Which Is Greater?

I break a vow.
A serious vow.

In a place, in this site,
Where the fluid pain
Is the water of the world,
The element that is crux,
The amniotic liquor of creative flux,
The morning juice,
The afternoon caffe,
The first beer of the day,
The liquid that we rinse and spit out our every day,

I will write about pain,
Arrogantly, as if there is any unused combination of
Letters, vowels and consonants left unspoken, *****,
Having sworn not to, for pain is cumulative.

Asking myself,
Which is greater?

The pain of creation, inception, origination and birth,
The pain of  wreck and ruin, destruction and death.

Homework Self-Assignment: Compare and Contrast

Suddenly, I am expert.

Creating a poem a day is very painful.
A poem that is the sum of
Reflection, research, and purging.

Once I wrote:

The poem is the afterbirth,
A conflicts resolution, an outcome,
Battlefield debris, the residue of
An exacting vision, a sentiment surging,
And your army of words, inadequate to the task,
Fighting to capture that insight flashed,
Each word a soldier, disheveled,
Crying, let me live, let me be saved,
Let me make a poem,
Let it be inscribed upon my victorious flag.

The poem is the sweat left upon the brow,
Having exercised the five senses,
The salt of struggle and debate,
It's completion, each word,
Both a victory and a defeat.

Suddenly, I am  expert.

My mother is dying.
It is a process. Days pass,
She neither eats or drinks,
Yet she lives on.

I watch each labored exhalation,
A subtraction, a countdown,
It is as if she was returning each singular day,
Every word e're spoke, every dream dreamt,
she ever possessed to the atmosphere,
One breath at a time.

Is that painful?
It is for me.

Now you complain. They're different, not to be compared, et cetera.

Pain is pain,
Whether it is in the service of creation, or
Creative destruction.

Once I wrote:

With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poem's birth diminishes me.

So, one and the same?

Nope. Yes. But. Cannot one be the greater?
Yes, one is greater.
When I lay on my deathbed,
I will exhale the answer
Into the atmosphere
For your retrieval.

Exposition
Exploration
Examination
Experimentation
Exhibition
Exp­erience
Exercise
Excelsior
Explosion
Exposure
Expansion
Exceeding­
Excitement
Excellence

except

Excessive
Expectations
Excuses
Ex­clamation
Excommunication
Excluded
Excreted
Exorcised
Expunged
Ex­acerbation
Exhale
Exit
Exeunt
Extinct

Ex-Star

There was a big boom once

Population dynamics are intrin-
sic functions of gumption
and big booms echo in eternity.

I look at the industrial revolution
through infrared filters
to parameterize the haze of our lives using

a kaleidoscope landmarking
technique andor technology
where the function of plutocracy

(and it is taking shape)

while it resonates on post-reformations
and pre-modernisms
How do you like them schizms?

Living the religion of
capital ~ ism
and paying homage on prayer mats of

blood ~ sweat ~ and 1, 2 many beers
through our blue collar dollars and
masonry jars and crossroads guitars

(and between the bars)

of our own creation.
Now moving toward remediation
and un-plebiation.

I cried vermouth and reconciliation while
they expunged truth and trylobytes.
The inevitability always bubbles up.

And in the trailer park of our lord: 2017
Ricky and Julian and Bubbles
pay homage to a great poet lost: Mr. Lahey.

(within the mystery of our own creation)

Thus we toast to: The Theatre of Life

a nacreous tossing around at
the sides, a dappled silver
sunlight if looked one way, an

apocalyptic gloam if another,
exhaled from a seeming
mouth, feeding on what has

already eviscerated an unfelt
*****, a predator certainly its
own prey, a heat certainly

poison-breath on a cheek
falling when a meretricious
lover spouts that spurious

hypocorism, and also just a
wavering, iridescent puddle—
cornered, soft as a liquid steel

echo of a futile struggle
rolling around, bouncing off  
a wine glass, and a porcelain  

table edge, while a listening
head shakes, looks down
despondently, gloom glowing

out the hair, a voice jaded
since birth saying some
thing about differences, or a

helpless slender strap of hope
hanging itself on the way two
other eyes look at it across

checkered watered wings, two
swirling god whorls, two
effulgent galaxies the color of

melting pine bole circling
around in living umber striae,
pulling its gaze, raising it, as if

they, they were blazing truth
cased behind lithophane, and it,
only an aporetic puddle now

of tepid ocher, a mild earth
stone placed in a hand, asked
what is thought of it and the

response: yes, yes of course,
before foreign distance splutters
its face, and it retreats from

its meaning imparted to every
thing (with the vulnerable
precision of a swaying finger

tip) to the baby lanugo of a
delicate floating, through
human rills, of what is horizon

docked, dead, not merely
deciduous—forever jilted with
breath bulging as when beating

a flopping eyeless fish to
half-dead, head tilted up a
throat trying to pry itself

free, trying to live by
streaming snagless, airful,
without spirant sound of going

lost straight from the hands—
then a short chop of fullness
finally expunged and sputtering

like an escaped tuft of
shackled wonder soaring up
the sky in a puff and soul ring.

life is our poetic reality,
you are the best ever
metaphor,
the one poets
keep stealing from
each other,
at the intersection
of our eyes crossing

your disruptive crying poetry,
bring to me in NYC,
and I'll take you to
poetry slams,
tango parties, a real Chinatown,
blow smoke up your nose,
Waltz step on your toes,
drink with you
in Central Park at five am,
visit half a dozen museums,
take you to the ballet,
and then you can maybe,
cross a few to-do's
off of our mutual
intersections

care taken,
if you want hide deep,
but to late for thee and our world,
your name on the roster
of poets by night,
tinkers, soldiers,
and some who tailor
poems bespoke
for the ones who
dare not reveal their true (s)elves
in the words they write.

1431
poems in ye old inbox,
genteel knocking,
whispering thru stolid front door
love me a little lot,
little lot, love me?

these are the holy-of-the-holies
attention-me-crystal-cries,
prayers, wry observations, nature collations,
me and thee adorations,
heart rendering
screams of need,
these are the moments in your life
raw-roughened gifted
or threaded smooth cursed,
but tendered unto my caring

am old man.
my poetic voice is just
memories that are
repetitive lies and lines.

speak in simple sentences declarative.
this is nature's way.

darkness approaching is indeed my
au courant poem, mon actuellement.

I have seen betterdays

ain't young enough to be afraid no more
write what pleases me.

this day leases me
what pleases me
and this is as close as I can come
to being human
and writing my flawless poem.

Anything I can do to keep you,
happy and poetry-free
from midnight
till the **** crows
and slumber trumps
the restless words
that will wait
till mo(u)rning born,
and the kingdom of poetry,
awoken,
comes alive

These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger,
by force majeure,
Declares, here,  poem aborning,
Contract with this moment,
now satisfied.

Al,  what you did not ask was this:
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

long have I searched for my
flawless poem,
knowing it my be
my next one,
each a doorway to the next

this one, and the
one before,
never good enough,
keep the essay going
in fourth gear

I taste skin,
like a good poem,
the cheek, the shoulder bare,
the in between spaces,
the minty hint of décolleté,
the ankle chain,
turning my breath heated,
tips of red noses,
I take and
I keep
and no,
no refunds, no returns

nowadays,
grandpa's tools
outdated, shelved,
in their final
resting place,
blades dulled,
the technology
of his verbiage,
rusted by old age

the reads diminishing,
his touch, antiquated,
his best days, resting on top of
the ocean internet waves
his summertime buddies,
sand sun grass and
sea air perfumes,
singing,
"awe, we got ya,
cosy and comforted,
awaiting you in your chair,
overlooking our truest
sheltered applause"

so I write for me,
write for her,
for with her,
in love's sight,
life is
easy like Sunday morning,
and
that's why I'm easy,
like Sunday morning

wake up unscrubbed,
sleep still in the eyes,
dream crusted,
probably unaware, child,
that you are a poem
sleeping

when a little girl,
reverting, designing
real from dreams,
processing, reforming,
the dreams lusting
to be poems
to go awandering

don't
let the sin memories
of ancient words,
black gold bubble up
with the first striking of the blade

Delve
(excavate your soul deep)
Not

I did not come this poem to write
I did not come to repeat
Solomon's poem,
nothing new under the sun

don't,
daunting
wish to delve into my delusions,
my original sin
the deceit
the conceit
I am unique
I am original

*Experience anew,
Each time,
Say:
This is my first time,
This is my first work

I do not need your validation.
I validate myself
and in doing so,
who else
comes along
for the ride
on our tide?

create with no shame
create with no measuring stick
only this:
everything that is done well
                           is good art

Be Fertile and Radiate

With each passing poem,
The degree of difficulty of diving ever higher,
Bar incrementally niched, inched, raised,
Domain, the association of words, ever lesser,
Repetition verboten, crime against pride.

Al,
You ask me when the words come:

With each passing year,
In the wee hours of
Ever diminishing time snatches,
The hours between midnight and rising,

Shrinkage, once six, now four hours,
Meant for for restoration,
Transpositional for creation,
Only one body notes the new mark,
The digital, numerical clock of
Trillion hour sleep deficit, most taxing.

Al, you ask me from where do the words come:

Each of the five senses compete,
Pick me, Pick me, they shout,

The eyes see the tall grasses
Framing the ferry's to and fro life.
Waving bye bye to the
End of day harbor activities,
Putting your babies to sleep.

The ears hear the boat horns
Deep voiced, demanding pay attention,
I am now docking, I am important,
The sound lingers, long after
They are no longer important.

The tongue tastes the cooling
Italian prosecco merging victoriously
With its ally, the modestly warming rays
Of a September setting sun,
finally declaring, without stuttering,
Peace on Earth.

The odoriferous bay breezes,
A new for that second only smell,
But yet, very old bartender's recipe,
Salt, cooking oil, barbecue sauce, gasoline
And the winning new ingredient, freshly minted,
Stacked in ascending circumference order, onion rings.

These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger, by force majeure,
Declares, here,  poem aborning,
Contract with this moment, now satisfied.

Al,  what you did not ask was this:
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.
___

4:38 AM
September 8th, 2012

Greenport Harbor, N.Y.

War; absolute
This will be my macadam into re-assemblage
For if I'm not on edge, I'm taking up too much precious space
What wickedness lies beneath the surface of the skin?
I should know this place better than anyone
But my landscape has become mercurial
Ever changing, impossible to map
I am forced to navigate its pitfalls in ever complicating ways
It has become a desolate place
I alone should rule here, my sovereignty unquestioned
Yet I've become content to be complacent, and have allowed a sickly intruder to slip past my walls
They infect, demoralize: turn my skin to stone
They must be expunged; cut out, snipped from the healthy flesh like a cancer
As one removes a gangrenous foot to save the leg
Though my tools at the moment are blunt, I sharpen them daily with the whetstone afforded to me
They will not continue to expel bile into the bloodstream for long
My strength returns by the hour
They know this, and they tremble
I am the goddess to whom this altar is devoted
I am righteous fury, come to cleanse this blight with holy fire and flood
The war drums sound as the gate is lifted

The iron bell tolls -- judgement day cometh

Dream sequences
Made up of random patterns
So many faces
The rhythm of many heartbeats
So many minds
So many thoughts- conscious or sub-conscious
What is their origin?
Only source from within us?
Maybe thoughts are planted
While we are asleep
Played to us like a dream film
Some we remember
Others we forget
Yet, they may be residing somewhere
Where do lost dreams go?
Or, maybe it’s not meant for us
Expunged from our subconscious
Our every move has a meaning
We may not know the origins
For all we know
Or actions are mirrored

the death
of self, exhaled, borne upon
wafts of
air, and
I, with my self-conscious
prose and pretensions
of intellectualism,
and I, dreaded I -
there is a beauty in
ideology; even wastrelism,
being the muck of the earth and
much reviled by Proper Gentlemen,
has its allure and adherents
those disciples of Dionysus,
bacchanalia becoming banal by
sheer repetition:
*****, *****, *****, shotgunned beers, and then-
TEQUIIIILA!!
crowed at the top of their lungs,
memory expunged by
hepatic-processed organic compounds.
of course, these mannerisms are simply
beneath you, disdainfully
catalogued by keen eyes:
no, your form of forgettance
is much more forceful, much less
fanciful and romanticized:
your amnesia is
absolute,
it required nothing less than
total dedication, mortification,
death of self as you
expatiated lusts, loves,
aught but ambitions remain,
and now, you have triumphed:
you stand solitary, skyscrapers
shining for your personal
pleasure, yet you can find,
none.

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.

i sometimes think
that i've defeated the reaper
that lives in my finger tips.
the reaper that commandeered my hands
and made them weapons of
self destruction.

he lies dormant
long enough to convince me
that he's found another home.  
but he takes me hostage
every now and again
to remind me he's here.

i forgot the thoughts
of an early death
and lived like i was planning
for next year.
i've been expecting a future
that i'm not sure exists.

but the reaper has made me
recall the consideration
that i may not be fit to live
a life as long as i would like.

as of right now
i have no plans to interrupt this life
with eternal sleep.
but i cannot promise
that in some time
the reaper will not convince me.

so while he sleeps
while i still have time
theres so much
i need to do before i die.

i need to feel love
without the fear
of that love being expunged.
i need to find my God
whether he be the one
i've been shown or not.

i want so badly
to look at myself
the same way
i look at a flower.
i want so badly to see
what others say they see in me.

i've always wanted
to be something good.
a good daughter,
lover,
friend.

and i have this desire
to help where i can
and not need any myself.
i want to matter
in a life besides my own
and hold value above my worth.

i don't want to
be a burden anymore.
i don't want to be
a pressing responsibility on anybody.
i don't want the few i love
to feel obligated to pick me out of
my own disasters.

i worry i won't fulfill
these aspirations in time.
the reaper will wake
and take control again
this time with the force
of ten thousand men.

ten thousand men
wielding my hands
instead of swords.
they turn my hands against me
as they had been turned before.

this time i will not survive.
such an incredible might
will devour and destroy
this fragile self i defend.

but what does it matter
what i want?
theres so much more
things that are so much bigger
than the desires of a deranged
little girl

Al is dead.
Saturday early ringtones
a warning signal,
an unexpected call,
harbinger of no good at all

Al has passed,
felled in the lobby
of a movie theater,
by sudden heart attack

did we want to come, he asked,
but I demurred
on our behalf,
having been out
every night this week

so now I have to think about that...
shoulda woulda coulda
but didn't

she sobs on my neck.
he was a good friend
to my woman,
for many years,
years of loss and discomfort

she pauses her weeping,
to punch me in the arm,
as is her wont,
warning me to lose that weight,
or else she'll **** me

more likely
says I,
to die
from repeated blows
to the right arm,
than from
my accumulated excesses,
thinking all the while,
I'm a **** good liar

so now she laughs and sobs
intermittently which is why
someone invented the word
blubbering

tears of diminishment,
a lessening in the world,
part of me expunged twice,
now that Al is gone,
in part predicted,
in part foretold

you didn't know Al?

Oh yes you did!

"Al,  what you did not ask was this:
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."

4:38 AM
September 8th, 2012

http://hellopoetry.com/search/poems/?q=With+each+passing+poem

This year I'm set free
as far too long
I've delayed the inevitable
to move forward
Bearing witness
to my ability to prosper
I claim back myself
New fruits blossom
and life continually cycles
I can breathe with
the piano lifted away
I can see with
my focus readjusted
I can love
as I am able to live.

Godzilla went walking in the woods
And wondered where Bambi had gone
He wanted to spend more time with her
He found her a lovely fun fawn

He didn't see that last time they met
When he thought they were having such fun
His oversized feet weren't that discrete
And Bambi has now been expunged.

A pocketful of doom is flourishing
ceiling to wall in my cranium,

and though I tend to the tantrum of it
with fatherly, nurturing discipline

it acts as a nebulous cumulonimbus
fog seething with diffusion of void,
breaking through every window of warm

out to the inside I tend to become

an accidental abuser, flailing teeth
into over-ripened words, knocking
unripened fruit from the bough between us.

With nerves like coiled snakes in an apple,
prismatic minds are dulled to a fractal
of their former spectral rainbow
when expunged into the shadow.

Thorough rage—event horizon
clawing sides of deep depressions,
cusping manic at the fervor—

when the cliff becomes the shackle
of the neurosis-fed darkness jackal

open demise toward the mouth of the sun
and perhaps tongue at infinite light.

From Grassy Fields to Azure Blue  


Albuquerque a special time soulful sojourners came to release aloft what others find easy to scoff oh
Thy heavenly breeze from earthen habitation all sounds are found in thee laughter and tears the
Sobbing Goes to throbbing depths clouds pewter gray they show your needs and how hard you pray
Some are blessedly light others are weighed and bowed there are streams of air but the spirit too has
The lift and fall some is shear others are tender they hold all that is dear love hopes and dreams in them
You see the atmosphere as if you were sky riding at fiesta time strings of silver red golden black ribbon
They represent light hearted feelings the gust of joy that blows across many a yard and home from this
Dispositions of those that live there are discerned and carried outward and upward into playful days
Bathed in sunlight recharged with all the embodied love that continues through mankind dark shadows
Also are known their gloom are forever fixed with heartbroken tomb but just from earth the higher it
Rises its burning tears begins to fall as tender rain that mixes with tears and it not to be explained
But from this mixture golden memories derive their uncommon essence the loss is then to celebrate
Tendrils that drift across the sky when they briefly touch the ground though it be tearful a smile is
Left and in it the loved one is blessed honored and assured the swirling wind holds so many promises
Of happy tomorrows where the word separation has been expunged it no longer is a part of reality
You crossed the night train trestle your voice was the mournful whistle that announced the dear passing
Of love that went higher you were given a gift wrapped in pain but within it explained far greater truth
Than the limitation of earth’s love alone you are now aboard these sky ships as you rise your burdens
Grow Lighter your vision is enabled to see grandeur and great vistas the pulsating earth winks from
Homes far below you appear as bubbles on the wind in the moonlight glow in it is you’re refreshing
Enjoy the ride

With each passing poem,
The degree of difficulty of diving ever higher,
Bar incrementally niched, inched, raised,
Domain, the association of words, ever lesser,
Repetition verboten, crime against pride.

Al,
You ask me when the words come:

With each passing year,
In the wee hours of
Ever diminishing time snatches,
The hours between midnight and rising,

Shrinkage, once six, now four hours,
Meant for for restoration,
Transpositional for creation,
Only one body notes the new mark,
The digital, numerical clock of
Trillion hour sleep deficit, most taxing.

Al, you ask me from where do the words come:

Each of the five senses compete,
Pick me, Pick me, they shout,

The eyes see the tall grasses
Framing the ferry's to and fro life.
Waving bye bye to the
End of day harbor activities,
Putting your babies to sleep.

The ears hear the boat horns
Deep voiced, demanding pay attention,
I am now docking, I am important,
The sound lingers, long after
They are no longer important.

The tongue tastes the cooling
Italian prosecco merging victoriously
With its ally, the modestly warming rays
Of a September setting sun,
finally declaring, without stuttering,
Peace on Earth.

The odoriferous bay breezes,
A new for that second only smell,
But yet, very old bartender's recipe,
Salt, cooking oil, barbecue sauce, gasoline
And the winning new ingredient, freshly minted,
Stacked in ascending circumference order, onion rings.

These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger, by force majeure,
Declares, here,  poem aborning,
Contract with this moment, now satisfied.

Al,  what you did not ask was this:
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.
___________

4:38 AM
September 8th, 2012

Greenport Harbor, N.Y.

I wake up in a haze,
Dazed, wondering through a fog of
People, faces, voices
Breath, laughter
Clusters of long forgotten memories

Opening up those scars
That have twice healed over
Exposing them once again
Bleeding, dark droplets
And the dream deepens

As the essence flows
Through a stained body
A stained existence
Yearning for self redemption
I know not pity

To Caress me down
Sweet silk decadence
A flower known as a child
The petals buried deep
Into the earth

Awakened again
When the nostalgia ceases
When poison desires are expunged
The candle lit
When I am free

From myself
The laughter excavated
From the hollows of my soul
Memories of a willow,
Willow, willow

Widowed
Though I know not
Of a bond of gold
And silver, it is love
That I know of



And it was taken
And poisoned
With sweet elixirs
And gentle caresses
Laid to rest

Beautiful eyes
Beautiful lips
Memorized in their extravagance
But never known the same
As when she closed them

Forever lost
With distorted memories
In a world
That I cannot touch
With my crumbling hands

Left to wonder
If those eyes can be seen again,
Sweet deity of Venus
Golden locks that soothed
My troubles

I’ll fall asleep
Hoping to wake up
From this nightmare
Of this nothingness

And I
Will
Remember

What
Love

Was

Gently painted on the evening sky
By a Hand, infinitely Divine.
The orange orb rests assuredly--
And of its supports to be seen, no vine.

Its reddish-yellow mixes sublimely with sky-blue--
Now it flickers clean-white, now golden-black--
A truly-- deeply fascinating view;
An arrow drawn to never miss its mark

I think it scrapes the epitome of beauty
Since it encompasses a beholder's eye
With a tolerable show of bubbling fury--
The sun-- setting behind the evening sky

In it I see-- a requiem for brighter days,
a regret written but well expunged;
a solemn oath for darker years,
and a replying breath before it is plunged
(In a sea of darkness)

there was a time when i had actual attainments; healthy ones,
when i desired to be smart and successful.

but currently, those goals have expunged,
now my wants are no more to be loved or wanted.

ive always wanted to be happy but right now happiness is way out of reach,
i try and try and want and want but im never good enough.

when things **** me over, i keep emotions inside,
store them in a place called my ****** up head.

but theres a point where that head of mine,
cant handle those annoying emotions and feelings.

i let them go through physically; i breathe in, exhale,
and or that moment it feels better. but in time it gets worse.

The ice
Beneath our feet
Is very thin
Our hearts
Are covered
By skin
We assume
The facade
Will hold
But the water
Below the ice
Is very cold
And the distance
Between life and death
Is very slight
The net
Beneath our lives
Is for black, brown and white
Life
Below the net
Is death
We walk
Watching the cracks
Measuring each step
We fly
Assuming the net
Is there
We fall
Much too fast
Into despair
Paycheck
To paycheck
A wing and a prayer
We smile
And laugh
As long as it’s there
Too small
And powerless
For a bail-out
The poor
Suffer through
A trickle-down drought
But I
Who has much
But not enough
Seemingly secure
With a full plate
Life’s not too tough
Yet fear
Lurks beneath
The surface
The thin line
Wraps my mind
Like a graceless necklace
Choking my emotions
As I look down
And see
The reality
While my children
Still believe
In me
The membrane
Between life and death
Unknowing my fears
In myself
And life’s short breath
As each day
I exist
For them
For their future
As adults
So they can begin
The cycle all over
And walk
The ice
As I did
Hoping they remember
My advice
To avoid the cracks
And not look down
And let fear
Rule their minds
Or their hearts
Instead drawing near
Strength
From whatever source
To live graciously
Towards those
Who fell
Unmercifully
Through the ice
Beneath their feet
And plunged
Into the dark
Cold
Expunged
From society’s
Conscience
And memory
Losers
With no redeeming
Quality
Except for in the minds
Of those
Who were taught
To love
To care
In every thought
Because
Their father's fears
Brought forth
A simple message
For a simple life
And what was worth
The worries
Or the pride
Or the mistrust
In life
In our leaders
And the unjust
Yes
They will peer
Through the ice
And feel the beating heart
Through the membrane
And will hold no vice
Against life
Or themselves
Or another
Knowing the cracks
Beneath their feet
Are not solely reserved for their brother

we're starched,
ironed, tailored
and hemmed,
expunged of
the extraneous.
cut down to size,
sprayed through
a stencil, and
molded to fit.
stamped and
cookie-cut,
branded
and broken.
no place for a square
in a city of circles.
no, no place at all.

There's smoke in the air
It's everywhere

There's smoke in my lungs
My breath it expunged

There's smoke in my eyes
Making me cry

There's smoke in my life
Cutting like a knife


I sit and watch the fire
Burning up all I desire
I watch the wind blow
The memories that flow
Unable to stop the burn
Even with all I've learned
On all my life experiences I choke
Only in darkness is my name spoke
Nothing now but a whiff of smoke

Lips zipped, silent chants eloped my soul  
Into midnight divine dreams
Took me into His light of heavenly delight
With Him along I was so proud n’ privileged
One to one in close touch, so curious was I to know
As to why He imposed unwanted death in life
He smelled a rat and smiled at me funny guy
Flew me across mysterious Milky Way
Along lifeless stars glittering in His light
Cracked a divine truth that once upon a time  
Some planets were blessed of berth of only births
Of endless life as wished
Density of piled up life for ages
Grew by leaps n’ bounds
Life inundated the planets
In course of time, of course
Planets lost their ground n’ gravity
Air evacuated, Oceans evaporated
Life screeched alarming in vain paralysed
Unable to hold n’ uphold weight n’ volume
Planets failed to host and expunged life for ever
Behold my son, He said so kind,
Planetary cemetery here n there so dry
Holding testimony to catastrophic journey
Forcing cycle of birth n’ death to put in motion
To bestow everlasting breath to life
On planet earth one at its best
So saying angel tabbed me to wake up
I am a bit puzzled whether to construe:
Dream a theme or theme a dream