3 X 5 index card poems

3 smallish poems in five minutes
~
reheating

honey can I make you something to eat?

no babe, you know I hate to see you cooking, frying
standing over pots and stirring sauces
trying to brush
wisps of bangs from your eyes
  while wearing kitchen mitts

What I would prefer is something leftover,
reheated served with a smiling grin from my ear
to wayover down under there,
next to you

<•>
old words are better than than new ones

hey, hi! how you doing, old friend?

“yo, out of the hospital feeling so much better;
had some kind of ‘itis’ which they cured with an ‘yisis’!”

glad to hear; impressed by all those new big scientific words;
frankly preferred your old ones,  that were rediscovered and
reoriented in new ways in your poems verses;

me?
never better cause to hear from a man
whose optimism has yet to meet a
match
that he can’t best,

heals all our wounds

<|>

if you told me

that I could spend three successive rainy days in almost all silence, perfectly contented by myself,
i’d said you crazy,

isn’t that true babe?

early risen,
life's au courant
contextual issues
are all bad bus driver dream driven,
visualizations of sonograms
of erred memories,
road forks, unwisely chosen,
incorrect in retrospect,
look back notion thoughts,
and fears of the
good works in process
never finished,
these are all the best ****
too early,
highly reliable,
internal/infernal
alarm clock

waken only to plod the dark,
upon the cool wood floors,
without any slippered coverings,
closet buried unavailable
(no treasure noisy hunting
in the dark permitted,
while the party of the second part,
yet sleeps)

the floored bottom chills
do not succeed
in comforting a mind
instant awakened-enflamed
by a long lived life recalled recapped,
of inaction and interactions,
thrones lost by
choices guided by fear and not
risk,
that in summation,
too many debtors-in-possession
of rose colored
minus signs

so the companions constants,
these well-worry-worn floors,
now refuse me,
no more to repeat,
what all too oft
they have before,
wisely spoken:

too early, man,
too late, fool,
the answers
required/sought
upon our ashen wooden countenance
cannot be elicited nor derived,
go back to bed
there, perhaps,
find what you need,
somewhere,
between the day's rising orb,
the Lady Luck of
a woman's heat,
the grand canyoned
Pachelbel cannon,
the Bach adagios
soulful sweet,
the answers could begin,
the endings,
perhaps can find
you and show
the restart signs positively
new directional

yet obedient to the old nether-wisdom
of these inanimate intimates,
(that are classified now as
sourpusses &  ex-best friends),
off to
back-to-bed,
self-dispatched,
arriving amidst the departing darkness,
being infiltrated by new day
dawning light suffusions,
with coffee armed,
pillows plumped,
all done with
church mouse quietude,
lest I wake the
party of the second part

into bed returns
the prodigal son,

uh-oh,

the poem ***** stiffens

cannot be refused,
it offers me
this challenged relief and a challenged
pleasure:

Subtext

commandeering and commanding:

dispense what you cannot say,
but wish for all to understand,
teach them how to write the literary
subtext
of one man's life

his fantasies *******,
thoughts of world-over trips
upon which his poems trip,
thinking thoughts
of meeting you
first time and fittingly,
reunions of longtime knowing
mutual souls, the lovely perfection
of the guarantee of
better days past
and better yet,
of better days
yet to come,
of first embraces,
longingly overdue,
but happily
familial familiar
even upon initial conception

motioned potions notions
of what he would do
when that lottery ticket
comes true,
seeing hazy
visions of loined, coined children babes naves
as someday adults,
from a future past of
a collection of visions
happily well imagined

now in bed,
dancing (quietly) to a Strauss waltz,
all his sisyphean tasks unmasked,
and peace in his heart,
returning to supreme reign,
re-gifting it all forward,
in a subtext contextually
poem within herein

the coffee now cooled,
the mental dispensary instead,
has issued
a scrip
prescribed and commissioned

write yourself,
one poem,
overly long and rambling,
as always,
(knowingly he smiles at his own critique)
this poem
to be issued
from his ******-brain,
amniotic-bathed,
anointed and by appointment
to her majesties,
The Queen of Hearts
and the
Red Queen,
entitled:


Subtext

the scrip reads:
"take once a day,
life clarity should return
sooner than later,
which is to say
medically and medicinally
eventually,
which is far, far better
than never"

the meds imbibed
the coffee reheated,
and while
waiting for its effects,
the subtext of a man
who drinks drams
of lives of poetry
for all
sees his future dreams
and happily awaits
their completed execution

**** coffee won't stay hot,
**** poetry writing
interrupts and the coffee cools
even in my porcelain cup
of Van Gogh's sunflowers,
too **** fast

thinking wouldn't it be better
if the coffee stayed hot and
you could reheat the drafts
as needed

on the tenth trip to the microwave,
it occurs wth a laughter burst
no changing required
it is poetry that keeps him heated
all night long,
and coffee only fills in the ****
daytime spaces
till the poetry comes
to warm his dreams

the cup bought on a whim
one of those mornings
willing to spend more than five
for what should cost a buck
but the leaves drew me in
the circle broken by lame marketing
often the case in life
how easily we break our own circles

this morning alone i've reheated its contents three times
what used to be a daily purchase i now prepare at home
the cup its carry
i'm probably killing myself with the reheating
the construction recyclable but that means nothing
anymore
reheat inside of that and you'll get cancer
someone says
makes no sense though because the coffee is ******* hot
and the ******* cup holds it every day before it's reheated

i want to be that cup, i think
ready and willing to carry around the contents put upon it
no fuss or bustling
just a vessel
inanimate
thought little of, pushed to the corner of the closet
brought out for utility

how to be a cup?
how to trade the drive and flourish
the passion that keeps pounding away
the flashes of intensity that find their way into tiny timbered moments
silly though, because of course i can't be the cup
no more than i can be the actual coffee

in the morning
we struggle with the bed sheets that
wrap us, bind us

in the afternoon
we crawl to our desks
and burn our faces
with radiation
from our phones, from our laptops
reasoning, pleading, typing, and clicking
away the words and sentences
that could decide our fates

in the evening
the voices sharing laughter and stories are
nowhere
to be found in the dinner table
there is only the hurried clanging
of forks and knives against porcelain
we swallow several morsels of reheated leftovers
and just drown our stomachs with coffee and pills
the breath of our sighs fill the air
and bring us to suffocation

we drag our limbs
to wherever
the answers and solutions may be
with all our might,
we anchor ourselves against the world's spin

our sunken weary eyes
glance at each other from time to time
no words are spoken
but from those fleeting moments
we know the burdens that the other carries
as much as our hearts ache to
we can't help each other
because we're already too lost helping ourselves

~~~

Jan 31, 2014

Victuals Victim


There is a contest this day,
that does not involve my P.S.F.
(Preferred Sport Franchise)

truly, don't give a good ****** who wins,
but that is no excuse to deny me
my victim status,
my Sir Sore Loser demeanor,
so poorly,
in season's long suffering
earned,
so richly,
undeserved.

A triumvirate of
Doctor, G.F. and battery
of medically intrusive tests,
have ruled on the field,
that but once a year,
a conjugal visit permitted,
tween my arteries and chicken wings,
is legally permissive.

there will pigs in blankets
oinking, demanding attention,
sliders and mini right sized,
bite sized potato knishes
(at least in New York City)
cole slaw juices,  
even a
foreign dignitary,
Sayyid Cous-Cous,
all lining up along side
the quarterback  
who will be slinging
'winging' honey and spicy passes
to his favorite receiver,
this couch coach
and today's impartial line judge.

This is my Super Sunday fare,
antithesis of a pre-Day of Atonement fasting meal.
where gluttony
is deemed
less than kosher

If insufficiently highbrow,
for all you poetic aesthetes,
have no fear,
this athlete gastronomic,,
victim of his victuals,
will prepare mentally
to reverse course afterwards,
by hanging out
with King Lear yet once more,
sharing a verbal tasting menu fare,
a recollection of a prior years repast,
this King,
an unrepentant Manchester man-fan,
who knew me too well,
and once condemned me,
after an historic NY Giants Super Bowl celebratory,
sadly,
all too many years ago,
as follows:

"A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats;
a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave;
a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave;
one that wouldst be a bawd,
in way of good service, and art nothing but
the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
and the son and heir of a mongrel *****:
one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining,
if thou deniest
the least syllable of thy addition.”

― William Shakespeare, King Lear

~~~

Feb. 2, 2014

My leash is on,
I am to be walked

ad melius parare hominem,
to better prepare man,
before the coma of wings and a super sized
spectacle
tackles, invades and overtakes,
his nation's soul.


by the East River
will I be perambulated,
following 
each lying-down,
pedestrian drawning of a chalk figure,
directing the course
of a river walk
drawn and quartered
just for me.

chatting to the gulls
re the river's latest delicacies,

comparing my upcoming menu
for overlapping interest,
while praying the bicyclists,
on my body,
have tender mercies.

because I will,
all the walking while
be silently recording poems,

to tribute the international nation
of poets and the
global sport of
poetry,
that knows no leagues,
or geographic
delineations.

~~~

Feb 5, 2014

leftover chicken wings and other love nonsense

the woman disregards
what's best for me,
instead, gives me with the
kindest of disregards,
what's best for me,
for this is the kindness
that hallmark stamps
upon the softened heart,
the long lasting kind
of kind

before your childlike
tap tap attention away-wains,
bring you this,
a treatise,
on leftover chicken wings
and other nonsensical
finger food additions,
purposed
to inspire, to find innovation,
in expressing, reclaiming and newly exclaiming
that miscreant four letter word,
£0V€
that appears in those unsilent majority,
99% of them, other entrants
the Bohème poèmes,
residing in our Mr. Roger's neighborhood

in some poem writ recent,
poet pontificated,
that the most overused words, yes,
those abused three,
(duh, I love you)
degraded by overuse,
lost their poetic juice
thru constant repetition,
almost being nearly boringly indecent,
even when
boldly italicized

the impact upon the reader
lives in the lies in the realm of
"oh yeah, that's nice"

far, far better
to be best in show,
deduce how renewed,
to meaty demonstrate
rather than
insistently remonstrate,
in newer ways,
every day
that grade A choice
sentiment

to say, par example,
that serving day old chicken wings means,
well,
you know what...

Some get tea and oranges,
me, I get cherished
when our repast is
twice recast,
when she feeds me
leftover chicken wings,
both kinds,
spiced and honey
that come all the way
from her heart

so, now do you know why
Silly
has two L's?

Correct.
(answer: lucky in love)

for the luck-river-runs
lie just neath
the silliness currents swirling,
where kissing knuckles unexpectedly,
******* the exhausted,
tucking them in,
going out for emergency ice cream
in the midst of a
polar vortex,
recording the game to wee hour watch later,
so she may hang with the notorious outlaw
"Downtown Abbey Gang,"
watching at the
proper English place and time,
leaving the celebrating of life's  leftovers,
for the morrow sup,
with chicken wings and 0
other things
reheated,
and other heartfelt,
but unhealthy,
warm heartening
food additions

that folks,
is how you write
a poem in deed,
one that will be returned to you
sevenfold
in reads

when you want to explain how,
you can, truly, sigh,
you know,
love another...
employing with decoying,
sinful, leftover chicken  wings
then you too be mastering,
the poetic life
of sonnet and song

~~~

for my Ian

~
Sunday morn in San Fran,
chest, a mish mash
of conflicting
poems

that someday will be written...

the titles I have,
but not yet, not now,
his flesh, unentitled,
to the measuring cup of words
to flesh them
into existence

tho solemn sworn,
hand upon the
bible of his beating chest,
oathed to the gods of his conceit,
these too shall be conceived,
pristine and parfait
avant someday,
when he as well,
be a work closer to
the rounding out of completion

poet's inner flesh is a mixology
of Pacific Ocean tide  pools,
amber *** colored,
sea green chlorophyll
of absinthe

contentment muddled with anguish,
the wonder of children's tender undemanded kisses,
topping the texture,
the latency of life

Oh!
those holy kisses,
wholly unsolicited,
head the list,
conquering freshly reheated
crescents of inextinguishable regrets,
the long listing of life's
never enough, never enough,
never enoughs

day yawns before me,
possibilities are fulsome and many,
what drives me now at
preservation band of forever of this instant of life,
is a dialogue recalled
origin born by the Frisco Bay,
but yesterday

tween my be-loving and be-living and
believing,
five year old rambunctious boy,
and his absentee,
would be,
East Coast version
of an itinerant, twice a year,
grandpa

a conversation
re the possibility of
running away from one's shadow

the bight boy brighter with brimming optimism
viewing the day, and as far as he can see,
all through a prism
"of all things are possible,"
certitude of unblemished youth,
which welcomed as a
body wash for cleansing
an old man's soul

the old man's lungs,
his interior thesaurus,
covered with
ne'er do well shadows,
of hard gained experience,
that are
among his very own uneraseable,,
great unwashed,
misbegotten, missed opportunities,
the impossible dreams unfulfilled

old man knows there is no targeted
radiation or chemotherapy,
can history rewrite,
that proof positive,
can conclude that running hard, running away,
from,
or even running back
to those shadows
that will perforce
travel and travail,
that can e're  prevail,
o'er man-inescapable need
to morose compose upon his
nettled, untitled,
foretold and foreseen,
own decomposition by
the weights of regret,
of those shadows
never to be
caught, erased

but he does not share this knowledge
with the boy*

~~~

two fourteen sixteen
7:53 am
Market Street, San Francisco

a while back.
a colander full of popcorn.
a blue light in my corner of the house.
a dying man more cheerful than I am.
a sofa or a bed, never both full.
everyone wants to be alone.
no distractions, only work to do.
forgotten hot dogs in the crisper - better put them back.
memories of phantom pizza from the last time we were happy - I've reheated these leftovers over and over - the plate burns my fingertips - maybe I won't have an identity - maybe I can start over - maybe i can do it right next time, how I was supposed to do it right this time, the last time, and the time before that.
the refrigerator door seals my fate.
plants of the same seed grow farther apart, reaching for their own sun in the sky.