quite recently, I received an extraordinary complimentary message to one of my poems, from a comrade in arms, dare I call him friend, that cored, scored me.  I post it below.  Not from braggadocio, or vanity, venal poetry sins.  But, it could not stand orphaned,
unrequited and unreciprocated,
for that would be a sin of even greater magnitude,

ingratitude

<>

this poem begins unique,
am struggling with a problem previously
unknown, never before even
close encountered

how do I commence?

poet wonders repeatedly,
a tune on the not-so-natty brain,
set on the machine's "repeat"setting,
this problematical for de minimus - 25 hour day,
this scribbler, this constant nibbler
on the Graham crackers life bestows,
befuddled muddled
for

this is never an issue,
it's the windup, the shutdown,
knowing when enough is enough,
that is the sorest point of his
elongated, can't shut up skill set

it cannot stand, it cannot just hang,
it needs a rabbinical wise,
responsible responsum,
a simple
thank you
holy, holy, holy
insufficient

these words, an almost wet smackdown,
catch me exposed, crossing Sixth Avenue,
against oncoming traffic (naturally),
while on cell phone bad boy,
doing his three R's,#
reading, writing & errrrr, deleting,
(yeah, yeah, I know, I know)
amidst my multiplicity of incoming artillery shells of
automobiles and messages,
this one,
seizing me up, me like a screeching,
near dying engine, broke from being oil-less,
nearly dropping my two large
20 oz. McDonald's coffees which easy
could flood this four lane
thoroughfare

you want to write like this,
are you mad, man?

all I ever es-say is what I see,
throwing in a rhyme or two,
a pinch of a fancy word to impress the
hoi polloi, and plenty salty sweet
to provocate a sensory ah ha
confusion

sir, why write like me,
when you pen this?

"yet all of this could
just as easily be,
the sum of two,
grateful hearts in equal parts,
the beat of two in rhythm thrum,
march in time upon one drum"^

which pretty much says
what needs saying
all in one perfect stanza humming

but this note, is so far,
way deficient,
a mockery of what the situation requires and is deserving,
so multiple lovely muses redirect me
back to my email,
where I find this waiting,
in repose, this prose,
perfect

A compliment is a complement—
this I know, just as the clock
will always strike midnight
and history repeats. This is how
I can wake up the next morning
and love the world again.^^

blossoming notion, this is but a complement,
where the line dotted allows free passage
from reader to poet, from poet to poet,
permitting the peaking reciprocity of completion,
and this complement
I accept, unashamedly, profoundly
for this is my 1/1,
for to make a whole, we still require
numerator, denominator,
of equal value

on this basis,
and this basis alone,
I accept your words

when prowling scowling late at night,
or early sun rising, old bones enthroned
in my Adirondack dis-comforter,
will come a-sneaking, a-peaking,
nobody-around-real quiet like,
for another look-see at this kookery,
in my solitary poet's by-the-bay nookery,

the thought comes,
maybe it's time to lay that pen down,
the Israelites have crossed that Red Sea,
dry and on their way to a land of promises,
when sure enough my coffee mug
spills onto an ant hill hard by the beach,
and oops, soiling the soil,
the Lesser Antillean inhabitants making an unholy ruckus,
and oops, ther goes another rubber plant, high hopes, poem aborning,^^^

but sir, be advised,
your excess foolishness is warming,
but we cannot without each other,
march to one drum,
our steps surely mismatched,
it is the reciprocity of
complementary numerical worthies that unites the fractions of us
into a singletary winter pea,
a whole of us,
in order to
"let us love the world again"

In My Salad Days



Salad Days

Wikipedia:
Modern use, especially in the United States, refers to a person's heyday when somebody was at the peak of his/her abilities, not necessarily in that person's youth.
                        ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Salad

Hints of tints of golden
pear skins,
combine with
ruby'd cranberries
each a face, the cheeks of alcoholic old men,
each wrinkle,
a life's recording.

All are mates for the
marcona almonds
nestling, playing hide n' go seeking
tween silk sheeted leaves of
butter lettuce.

All dressed to the nines,
underneath a top hatted, cravatted, Fred Astaire
marinade.

Coated, bathed, loved,
protected by a vinegar of balsams,
aged grape must, pressed,
a lovely, desirable color,
a brown and bronzed rust,
pressed, then left,
to easy rest for
oh so many years,
like I do, easy resting,
when  you feed me in
My Salad Days.

The Days

Though it was a life,  decades destructed
Millenniums of de minimus,
Forty plus Seders of exile, of hell,
Marked by promises, whispers, horseradish tears of
Next Year and Jerusalem,
Time steeped in a tradition of patient waiting.

Each year, recorded by a spot of red wine
Purposely Spilled,
By my father on unbleached Passover tablecloth,
To example, to symbolize that
Messiness in life,
Is O.K.

The Salad Days

Salad served with irony generous,
When beard greyed and scraggly,
White speckled, wisps of sea salt,
All my youthful greenery, long wilted.

Yet the words herein writ are my
Afikomen, my just dessert,
My victory song of Hallelujah
Just before we eat, celebrating
My Feast of Ascension, marking a
Delayed Arrival, yet right-on time of
My Salad Days.

It was only when
I was resurrected as two bodies,
A pair of cuffed links coupled,
In My Salad Days,
With the taste of freedom,
A first-born infant survivor,
Was I rebirthed, and to the fore, risen.
When words fell from smiling lips, and
Rain and tears flew upwards, and
Each and every breath was an
Amen.

"A Tribute To Nat Lipstadt"

Found myself leafing through
A luscious garden of poems,
Found some  lines worth dwelling on...
Read of a man
Who writes effortlessly
Who gives himself away, too often,
Too obvious, sometimes...
While he teaches us to write
About daily motions, daily commotions...
We learn these wise words from this man:
I quote...
"write about what we know best...
"we, all feel
we, all believe in
the primacy,
the rightness of I.
but then, one must begin to observe others..."

This man writes about simplicity...
Simple thoughts. simple truths...
"No complexity nor trickery employed..."

He reads all about sadness, tragedy,
All kinds of pain, depression,
Every emotion captured in his mind...
And so he tells us---
"Let's write of joy,
celebrate reunification, singularity,
of our place,
our happy collision,
our universal location.
For where you are,
I exist,
no where else."

When we run out of things to write,
He is always around to remind us- - -

"I lifted up my eyes to the mountains—
From where will my poetry come from?

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

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

"Let the diet begin,
no more food for thought,
no more dreams

wrought and recorded,
permit the ambient calm
of the still of the night
that engulfs,
to harmonize with the flatline
dreamless sleep that the
mind monitor machine
etchingly, quietly records..."


He appeases our restlessness,
Through these golden thoughts from him- - -

"Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.
nobody knows the silences
kept in my treasure
box."


We can find ourselves in his poems,
If only we read on and on,
Let us find the time
To skim through his words,
And read between the lines:

"Some never find true love.
Some never experience
reckless abandon.
Some of us are
recklessly abandoned,
and never forget,
and never forgive."

"Most of us remain
unpublished, undiscovered,
unremarked, blanketed,
cloaked in bills to pay;

Living a triumvirate of
heart ache, loneliness, worry,
our normal table fare
consists
of hand to hand
into the mouth
combat MRE's,
we engage,
to survive,
just stay alive."

And, he tells us further, for our own sake:

"Be forever young n
humble;
Feel ancient and royal;
Ride tall in the saddle;
Do something nifty;
Take someone's hand unexpectedly.
Drive home in the slow lane;
Do the minimus;
Do the maximus;
Leave a book on a park bench;
Use pen n paper, write a letter;
Take a chance, make people laugh;
Barrel into contention;
Show mercy to the confused,
Show anger to the
abusers.
Bless a child with both hands;
Grasp your soul, thrown it down,
And raise a child to the sky
Straight up,
A continuum, you and they,
A ladder to heaven..."


To this great man, we would
like to say:

"You sir, are an electrician
of words, a verbal technocrat,
Plumber of the depths where
Few fear to tread, explorer of the head,
Restorer of human paintings unmatched,
Without your ilk,
this world would be unbearable,
Your heart's warming silk
Comforts bodies and souls,
Speaking from experience personal."

He has his eyes, his ears open,
Ever-compassionate,
Ready to help,
When we are like a river run dry,
When there is not a strand of hope
Left in our bodies...
Let us read his poetry,
It is a kind of music that...

"arrests and rests me,
miracle each time
I walk on its waters..."

So, let us go on and on,
Never get tired of
Picking up bits and pieces
Of these
Precious  poem crumbs
We gather all times
From his garden so green...
We bask in its paths
Brimming with pearls of wisdom,
Of unheard truths, from him,
We learned first times,
R-e-v-e-r-b-e-r-a-t-e-s
Loudly, in our ears,
In our hearts,
In our minds,
These golden Nat-ty poem crumbs.

(January 29, 2014  5:02 PM)

~~~~~

Sally

Copyright 2014
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

that the trending tags,
for but a single day,
banished the perennials,
all celebrated the occasion
with a rousing wake and
an indecent burial

out **** spots,
sad, pain, heartbreak and depression,
in the closet, once a year, annual,
as for death,
it's ugly head,
cutoff, spiked and disliked,
in the tower displayed

for twenty four, de minimus,
on a day mutual selected,
we compose only
of the beauty, and the kindness
in each and all of us

happened upon an extravaganza of spring’s hallmark,
the cherry blossoms outing their munificence of color,
I happened to position myself direct below a tree,
the thicket
of blossoms so, well, thick, that sky was obliterated ‘cept
for pointillistic spots of blue sun, yellow sky that poked
through the
few de minimus interstitial spaces permitted, and was
struck silent, by-for-before shimmering eyes that uttered the
requisite oohs and ahhs,

and

words came to me weeks later,
when the memory, now fully decanted,
reappears
courtesy of a giant tech company’s code tinkering,
merging and splurging the combined images in the
photographic memory
of my devices,
as if to say:
your life is
points of light and color and scent
as you write now
amidst the hubbub of jackhammers, raucous horns a blaring,
the homeless screaming on the street at god,
the fatalistic headlines of hate and
the pallor of a low level haze of perp~gray
between you and your true elfin self,
and you are not surprised,
but sadly, but not entirely,
bemused
that the photo’s true utility was to
remind weeks later
that all that my eyes utter
is not just
woe, double trouble and toil, toil,
but to Hey Jude and George,
step out and see the park on a Sunday
in its entirety and to glory in
your being
by being
a point in that tapestry spectacular
of ingestion, digestion and final comprehension and
a happy
exhalation

my congenital heart defect


~for C.E.H.~

’tis true, my heart long damaged by repeated resuscitations,
the endless revivals invasive + new favorite hits, now so enlarged,
the doctors say, no más, no más, mr. boss, don’t let your guard down

too small to accept more standbys, ones needy most, the beseechers,
the ones who only know a single equation, love = pain, are witnesses,
no theorem proofs required, the ****** expressions unholy sufficient

a few invitees rush the red velvet ropes, inside, they hunker down,
finding a cozy artistic artery hangout, filtering my blood-streaming,
eyes for new artists, new poems, new strangers to take in, shelter...

much caring for the living, strains existence, a heart has limitations,
every human has capacity constraints for loving, but they bring their
friends, coequals in pain/heartaches/false positives, no rinse cycle

it is like calcium layering on you bones, additive, addictive, andieting
is a precursor to exhilarating dying, when love and pain passes
the point of no return, once, then, there is no expiation, no forgiveness

for the trail of your damaged acts requires admittance, recompense,
3 in 1 motor oil de minimus, you want to love equally, but impossible
task, yo, won’t last, but stretch flex skin to squeeze one more in, SMH

the puzzled doctors find my weakness DNA genetic, my lexicon has
no word in any language for barricade, fence, restraints, keep out, the hearts, smelling my blood, open cells, pile in, no blame attached

lender of first resort, giving my organs, what an exceptional way
to hasten my inevitable and total fulfillment, stretching my limits