"offsetting" poems
is like no other early morning, man reborn, in the delivery
room of sky blue, the offsetting water deeper bluish hue,
the trim-all-around of the mixed salad greens of the staff's
scrubs as they usher in unity, with no imp-unity, the risks,
while the supervisory sky, disperses cumulus clouds in
peppercorn patterns of white chains, or big wide solitary
brushstrokes on a a ****** canvas, gettin' the feel in the
palm of the heft of brush, the viscosity of the paint, the day's
palette reflecting available colors in order to create a uni~cued
original of what has been painted an uncountable times before,
and before…
tho short weighted, was the sleep of the prior night's restful,
he awakes to the early morning light, the sounds of early
island rouse him, even, arouse him, for the August chill
foretells of the early onset of memory loss of the peculiarities
of this summered simmering, human warming and baking
and natural braking of the slowing of the heart rate, to better
accommodate, nature's hints and hidden reminiscences
of the true purpose of the summer's intervention upon our
collective and unique bottling, our individualized containers,
un~lidded, uncovered, eager for the fuel of sunrays replenish-
ing the length of our lives by the elixir of the summer
it is a chill 63 Fahrenheit at this time of day as we crossover
to the nigh day, from the cooling air conditions of dark,
the occasional helicopter intrudes upon the morning's calm,
the water placid, the geese honking regarding my watchful
rewarding presence, a slew, a bevy, of female vocalists, to
ease this transitory performance unfolding, and though one
feels the existential of his solitary singularity, as he thinks,
nay believes, he is the only one in attendance at this ritualized
emergence, he takes in the cool of, the heat of, the admixture
of both, the clashing integers of each, and he, fully invigorated,
goes silent, for once more, he has uncovered new combinations of
old words to accept and describe a new day's creation, miracle of miraculous, defying the odds of this ventures's success, his own continuance on this sheltered but open all around island implanted tween two tines of land, as if all the surroundings were created just to protect this, wholly holy place…
7:00am
Silver Beach
Shelter Island
Aug 19 2025
Aug 19, 2025
Aug 19, 2025 at 8:00 AM UTC
Castelfranco Radicchio
wilted slightly
maintaining backbone
Aubergine Du Burkina Faso Eggplant
grilled in olive oil
fresh ground peppercorn
and basil
gently laid onto a delicate bed
bright green and fresh
Cour Di Bue Cabbage
Molokia Purple Sweet Potatoes
julienne and drizzled
La Vecchia Dispensa Balsamic Vinegar
aged 100 years
mingled with the brightest yellow
Amarillo Carrot and thin
rounds of a Jaune Paille Des Vertus Onion
offsetting the purples and yellows
with gleaming white –
art presents itself
as poetry
via recipe
in the fattest nation
Earth has ever known –
Apr 5, 2016
Apr 5, 2016 at 11:47 AM UTC
Clothes, not bluer than your soul.
Soul, as blurry as your eyes.
Fears…
Worries…
About your child…
Son…
As innocent as snow…
In the earliest morrow…
Sighs…
How much did you wipe today
With a big piece of your heart,
Through the challenges of his life…?
How much did you whip today
With long echoes from the past
Your scared back with more remorse…?
How much did you add today
From the pure drops of your love
When you early warmed his meal
Raising him healthy and strong…?
How much did you think last night,
Of the events of his day,
And the games he used to play
Of the quarrels with his friend,
And the absence of his dad...?
What will he do to survive…?
Will he be happy and fine?
Will he smile and learn and thrive?
Know what to do with his life?
Could you worry even more?
How much did you safe today?
How much did you self-deprive?
How much did you sleep at night,
Since you’re working all time?
Is something left for yourself?
How are you dealing with pain?
*Angles of all heavens..
Flowers of all gardens..
Jewels of all shops…
All goodness in all lives…
Don’t come even close to
Offsetting sacrifice
Of Motherhood!*
Apr 24, 2017
Apr 24, 2017 at 1:42 AM UTC
Be my constant
like Desmond
and the Island
When you and me
met between nosebleeds
and seizures of consciousness
We looked to the sky
and watched
electromagnetic
explosions
That held our hearts
pumping out supernovas
In their hands
we were Gods
respectively
blowing
Buddha minds
out of proportion
re-enacting
some center stage production
of how we shift our own reality
Subtly
unspoken
devoid of emotions
lost like a lighter
in a smoke circle
Offsetting
the light and darkness
But You were always my constant
again and again
in
flash-backs
flash-forwards
flash-sideways
We could never escape the timeline
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 7:56 PM UTC
somber song haiku
/|\
*early autumn chill
somber toning frogling bass
stars beam silent truth*
\|/
mid summer hints its end
here too
the night extends in tones
lamenting twilit choke of day--
changeling-hours' ease: a memory
offsetting later dawns
yet deeper chills portend
an autumn's coming tide
of ending-songs
i too am passing
as a haiku's universal scope
of timeless time,
galactic spin within the frogling's utterance,
makes morbid rhythms eyed;
i fear i'm croaking right along this somber bass,
and wonder is it time? so soon?
envisioning the ancient host of haiku masters
brittle, fade
in unison of tears
or tranquil noddings at the season's cutting
partial circles round the sun
i read
i am the aging frog
by virtue of a poem,
and then it lets me leap!
.
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 2:42 PM UTC
A married couple built a home.
They filled it with sustenance, carried trouble from the mist
Shrugged their tired shoulders and said, "the heck with it."
A few months later, they worked diligently
to make ends meet and settled with three.
The first was science;
his eyes black to the depths of feelings
catered by human beings.
He had no ambitions;
Life carried for him, no mission
He settled with a distant universe
Lost to the world, cradled by the stars.
The second was art;
her eyes open to life's imagery,
Frivolous to reality,
Living in fantasy,
Outwardly misplaced in a world confined,
By laws and walls that vex her open mind.
She sees the universe in people;
The color they shine from souls, divine
While the world just comes and goes.
The third was physics;
Always in motion, unable to rest,
Fixed in her thinking, quick to protest
the world's catastrophes offsetting her inertia,
Grounded by gravity bound by rule,
Drugged by ambition avowed to a criteria,
Where everything needs fixing and she is the tool.
In the company of such diversity,
Option created the university.
Send your offspring there.
Tell them to learn what is worth knowing:
That change is infinite and life keeps going,
and love has no limits, it keeps on growing,
as long as there is air to breath and feelings worth showing.
In the end it comes down to chemistry,
But the result always varies;
Creating a creature of beauty
From acceptance and unity
That carries on the legacy,
Of subjective company.
Sometimes, the unexpected can be so lovely.
Oct 9, 2010
Oct 9, 2010 at 11:46 PM UTC
Birds bones
Bent, broken, contorted
Berated into lines
Marrow mulled; mine displaced
For a moment malleable
Too tight a tangible layer
Ticking in time to reciprocate rapid breaths
Offsetting mind and muscle of the chest
Formless fighter
********* frail joints
New skeleton unhinged; presently a puppet
Strung to sing, to smile
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 10:03 PM UTC
I close the door on you once more just like before
When you chose my prose and left me so morose
With a critique so antique it made me feel a freak
And a monster can't foster child with good posture
Even offsetting such upsetting features with writing
Of wonders beyond measure for blunders are forever
In eyes of a god, what surprise at the rise of this fraud,
Automatic to cry, just a gimmick, Sorry and pathetic
These words must be to beautiful birds with fortitude
Enough to crash the gates and smash the plates
Rich hooligans do feast upon fins of beast and fish
In comfortable style I rumble and perspire from fire
Within my soul, trouble staying full, double time this lull-
abye, goodbye peach of my eye who makes my heart awry.
Jun 10, 2013
Jun 10, 2013 at 4:02 AM UTC
when i want
to build a wall.
i take the stone,
formed by,
anger or hurt
from my gullet.
wash it, so it's
dark facets shine.
then place it,
in the footings,
of my insecurity.
find another and repeat
til they form a line.
using as my mortar,
pain, embarassment
and indignation in equal parts.
mixed with tears and bile.
and then, i begin again
buttering bricks and
offsetting, them.
i want, no need,
my wall to be strong.
tho i never build,
my walls too high
three or four courses,
never, no more.
i want to be able to,
step over them
and be free
i have seen those
and watch them still,
thoese who, built a high, formidable wall,
a fortress, it does become,
with them, still locked, imprisoned inside.
so i learnt to build,
walls strong, but squat
so i can,
when ready,
emerge.
righteous and graceful.
but this is my folly,
the flaw, in my scheme.
my walls, they run
***** nilly, everywhere.
and over them i trip
**** over beam..
so now...
i must find a school
to teach me the art
and give me the tools,
of how to deconstruct a wall.
with out the haphazard use
of a wrecking ball.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
One life's learnings distilled into a book,
The offsetting chartreuse cover
Covered with dust of decades
I seem to have forgotten
Due to my life's coming to a close.
I read the last page, hands filthy
Then drown in a final cleansing
And purification of my life.
The pages detach and evaporate;
The cover floats to a new shore
With its new sky blue hue
And human to master it.
Apr 24, 2017
Apr 24, 2017 at 11:16 PM UTC
i see something in you. nameless. esoteric. incomprehensible, even to me. the backshelfcellarthought
itches in my fingers
in my words
in my restrainted interest.
you could be flawless. despite the offsetting qualities others observe
i see it.
a dull shade of the most lovely glow. and i am too proud, or maybe too afraid
tosayoneword.
Mar 17, 2011
Mar 17, 2011 at 1:52 PM UTC
dark clouds blowing in
rolling with ocean's westerly wind
large gradient gray splotches
randomly dispersed by natures asymmetry
sunlight filtering lightly
through a background of confusion
an afternoon's surprise
soft, steady showers
hardly offsetting 40 days and 40 nights
of Winter and Spring drought
but still inspiring happy dances
walks with umbrellas
and ice cream cones
in the fresh scent of sea air
and the mustiness of Summer rain
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 9:01 PM UTC
you have a weird
button nose;
sometimes i want
to punch it,
sometimes i want
it to fight for dominance
with the weird nose
that i have
(i'd let you win)
the way your
bottom and top
teeth line up perfectly
sometimes makes your
bottom lip pertrude.
(which i would nibble
to get your attention)
I normally find that
just a little
offsetting on people.
But with you,
it leaves your face
looking like an
adorable pout.
(which i would memorize
while waiting for
the sun to rise)
May 2, 2017
May 2, 2017 at 1:51 AM UTC
I did it
Just to show you I could
You said that I wouldn't
I promised I would
And now I'm questioning what it was for
See, I don't get to see your smile anymore
You always pick fights I know you will lose
I'd give you the win
But they're not mine to choose
As you place bets
I ready my hands
And somehow it's my fault you're less of a man
You think I could love you a little bit more
You want me to do it by offsetting the score
But truth is my love
I'll never amount
The truth is my love
I've never kept count
And willing the word that beats us in two
There's only so much
That I'm willing to do
The truth is my dearest, it's only the truth
It has nothing to do with me
Or with you
What in opposition
We now share in pride
The conflict in us is you're wrong
And I'm right
If you got off your tiptoes then you could be king
But you quote Hemingway like you know what he means
I don't aim to hurt you
Not ever
At all
I resent that you think me so sad and small
That the quarters and dimes
Are the words we exchange
That the fury and passion
Are part of a game
Is this what love is?
Do you let me win?
And if it's in question
Did it begin?
And if it began
And didn't stay true
What else can we do?
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 12:04 AM UTC
intimate game, aiming of the heart
the target thrumming thirst then a terminating surge
a snare that smites, ignites the muse
nature nursing rage, raising remains
a fine art form earning guts, hanging hares
remnants raining sanguine sienna
fanfare of horrors offsetting reform
moonrise mourning, murmurings of nature
unhinge the earth, anointed assassin
ushering the inhumane, staining the air
a heist that haunts
she, an intent instrument of the forest
heir of grim harmonies, rot is her ornate signature
a tormenting mirage, her transient reign of ruin
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 4:37 PM UTC
Sep 15 10:45am
Silver Beach, Peconic Bay, Shelter Island
it is the day of the twixt and tween,
64°, stolid breeze on a bright sunshiny day,
but no question, we are well ensconced in
**** season, overlooking the shadowy, dry, speckled
blotchy, thirsty grass, and an empty bay, sails put aside
it’s a normal/semi-normal moment,
simultaneously secular and heaven blessed,
the stimuli of the quietude is the outlier,
it’s quantitude is overwhelming, it’s amplitude,
a wave of farewell humbled hushed rumblings of wind and
the drip of dropping leaves that fails to puncture
the total absence of noises, human et. al.
shirt off, chest wet & warmed, a light jacket,
my wrapper from the firm chill,
an undeniable temperate moment,
for this is an interlude day,
a goodbye and hello
shucked/unshucked poem,
the only semi-frisky item on the menu
even the animal kingdom respectful,
recognizing the sorrowful solitude
of this single intruder, so no cawing, honking,
even rabbits quietly chewing, their senses understand
this is a remorseful write on a beauteous 1/365,
an adieu + au revoir script to
this island
but then the sign!
between Silver Beach and Noyac,
three heads a-bobbing,
white throats and white underbellies upright,
too far away to be heard,
but I swear I hear the purposeful porpoises saying:
“Adieu! Adieu!
until we see you and yours
once more,
for many more,
till then,
we await our mutual sheltering together,
in our shared waters”
<>
our summer palace,
where the sum of each newborn morn,
begins a life extending day, offsetting the aging of cells,
and softee smiles of children are botox injections,
directed to the soul’s lining,
an antigen antidote
to the toll time’s antibodies extract,
time units recorded and kept hid in the
the surround sound
of a special silence,
the sounds of rays twinkling
upon the waves,
reminders to everyone
that we are merely
betwixt and between
a plentiful heaven today
and a
plentiful heaven tomorrow
Sep 15, 2022
Sep 15, 2022 at 2:01 PM UTC
Swollen, hanging
on outside corner
of just one eye,
it dangled diamond like.
Offsetting an emerald gaze,
that tear held on
and it was impossible
to know if it
would, could, should
ever fall.
Rays of light from
late afternoon
cracked as if glass,
splintering her
reflections. Her
juicy tear was
holding the whole
story back.
I would not wish
to pull it from her,
dab it away. It was,
forever now,
part of her beauty,
facetted upon her face.
Feb 26, 2016
Feb 26, 2016 at 9:42 AM UTC
it never fails to blow my mind, how two years can change you
it's inevitable, i have come to find, but that doesn't mean that you grew
sometimes change is a negative thing
pushing you backwards, negating progress made
oftentimes even unearthing
aspects of yourself better left decayed
outweighed by the better qualities possessed
in two years, i have become someone of whom i cannot be proud
no matter how desperately i wish to look in the mirror and view myself without self-loathing
circumstances surrounding me and my own brain chemistry result in my being unallowed
to see myself without thinking in terms that are scathing
so i hang a shroud over the mirrors in my house that's not a home
let smoke do the rest of the disguising
and wander through the interior of my mind, a veritable catacomb
looking inward, introspecting, and overall despising
myself on every level for being who and where I am
and somehow the hardest part is recognizing
that i have no one but myself to blame for feeling no one understands
because my demons, they make letting people in agonizing
by constantly reminding me of how well that went for me last time
but if i don't try again and extend that trust
how will i ever know anything but this endless alienation
and i run the risk of letting my emotions rust
so i'll try to lower my walls for you and hope that i don't wind up regretting
this emotional oration
and hopefully the good will wind up offsetting
any consequences of the negative variety
and you won't consider my openness and impropriety
though i know you won't, because you're an expert at expressing
how it is you're feeling and whatever you're thinking
- even if you're not through processing
and i envy
that
about you
Dec 19, 2017
Dec 19, 2017 at 10:37 AM UTC