.          Seized by the moment,
          the gravity of a memory
           lay closed the window
             to the outside world

               Eyelids surrender
            in the breath of a sigh,
         the silent pacing footsteps
unable to walk beyond their shadow
       nor their footprints left behind,

      never needing to turn around
               to look back to feel
      the weight of every laden step
         across the old Arch Bridge
        spanning the river far below

             The cold wet sidewalk
         rumbles like the throbbing
              heartbeat still echoes ,..
                     resoundingly,
           through the muted voices
          of a past buried away alive

                 Halted footsteps
           become a blacker silence
                  at the precipice
     of the Arch Bridge railing ties;
   revisited deeply with eyes closed,
         wide open so many times
                 before  and  after
  that  long abhorred day since past

   Reliving an old noir silent movie,
       tarnished time and the river
              coursing through it,
    remaining unable to wash away
    the stains of that watermark tide

                 Standing   frozen
      as a weatherworn bridge tower,
  high above raging waters far below
feeling a cold chill, empty as a pocket,
            perpetual teardrops flow
  filling an empty thimbleful with love

           A thimble seems so small;
               just a pitted silver cup
       to shield from a piercing pang,
              and yet  a welling  love
             uncommonly  overflows ―
        tossed over the bridge railing
             toward the river below
       to see if hope really does float

            Seized by the moment,
          a random act of kindness
            and a thimbleful of love,..
                    lay open again
            a pensive soul's window
                to the outside world ...


                 rivers ... 11/06/2017

Thimbleful  honey came home to find her pantry  bare ,
her bread was sold for half a crown ,
but she didn’t seem to care .

Now her husband was a jolly soul ,
he spent her money on gin ,
and so mr thimbleful came home one day ,
and. never got-up again .

Yet her pantry  needed filling ,
a piece of soap to wash the cat ,
Mrs Thimbleful went a begging ,
and wasn’t afraid of that .

But the men she saw were easy ,
for a tuppence for a time ,
one by one she saw them ,
by night ,
now wasn’t that a crime ?

Just to buy a loaf of bread ,
which was just enough to eat ,
so no wolf or desperate strangers should come a knocking at   her door ,
or pass her in the street .

yet  Mr thimbleful said nothing ,
he just drunk and slept all day ,
but at least she had a Lader full ,
and a smile to greet the day

my misery
  doesn't particularly like company
but sometimes it likes tequila

tequila makes me sleepy
  at least then i can take a break
from thinking

what i want
  no one will give me

i need someone else to acknowledge
the reality and horror of this construction

i found a cure
  for unrelenting
and unreturned
desire
and friendship

it is misery and hopelessness.

i used to be self-righteous and holy
until i knew better
i listened and heard silence
i'm on my own

where i was hesitant
   i want to be bold
self-conscious
   i want to be free

but i'm hot
  my ankle is chained
    i'm rejected
      i'm miserable

and i just want to lay on the floor
for a year or two
with a thimbleful of tequila
and straighten things out.

Tipsy

I was tipsy last night,
Quite enjoyed it.
Drinking just a thimbleful one time a year,
And there was I, a stumblebum, but clear
In head,
Dutifully fulfilling all that needed
To be done.  
A charming, wonderful sensation – fun.
And yet, I thought about my liver.
Will I ever, no, I’ll never
Be a drinker,
I’m too much a thinker
And a Jew.
And if you didn’t know
We Jews are not great drinkers,
Just great thinkers,
Contrite sinners on Yom Kippur
Nobel winners,
Alcohol not in our tribe.
And so, it is not likely I’ll imbibe
Too many jiggers wine or *****;
Too many calories
And I don’t want to lose
My liver’s life too soon –
Or looks, or senses or the boon
Of brain and knowing
Who I am
And who I’m born
To be.

Tipsy 7.1.2017
Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

Captured at last. My quiverful
did shake your ransom loose—vain price
of novel circumstance, rebounding
up the mudhills of the past,
up mires that swallow shoes and grief
us for a thimbleful of how
it really felt. You dealt your doings'
deal, wound up a scattered reel
of torments: roses on the vine
that fell on thorny wrists to leech
the somedays from your spreading wings.
Bare respite in the hands of kings
who deign to manage what good things
go wrong: one laughed and out went song.
Two stood and shook out lies. Three spoke
and gouged out others' views of yours
as empty summer eyes. Recapped
in major ways to generally fawn,
yet flip a nonsense-script
to hammer bad words home and sire
a signal-damning tome to scratch
ancestors' heads (as we would do
if we could meet them)—Mysteries
to greet them, burdens on the sleeve
of he who dared dig mud: I linger.  
What I free will sting or sear
or singe, but noise is what one makes
when stranded on the fringe.

We could wait
and do things without each other,
a while to tumble,
thumbs down, thimbleful
or fall,
if at all.
But by pause in
claws in;
retracted to be free,
please.

And you have to pretend that this is the first time and it'll be different from the last time, because really you know, that this is just another time that you're pretending,

someone said the end is in sight
someone said that night follows day
someone always says something which means nothing, how can it?
how can we believe anything when we're told everything which means nothing?

I'm washing my hands again,
wash after going to the bathroom
and
wash after being on the keyboard,
I see the circular and will it ever stop?

it's just a punctuation,
someone else said that
or it might have been me
pretending it was someone else

I think we're all someone else now
Superman
Cooperman
or the tin man looking for a heart.

at least the movies move me
mostly from the chair
sometimes out of myself
to tap dance through this
mal de mer
to pretend that it's not me
at sea,
sitting there
brooding.

WAS SLAYING DRAGONS
HENCE MALAISE A THIMBLEFUL
AID URCHIN ANY
U.S. TENDER ACCEPTED
HELPING HOUSELESS WAIF PRICELSS!

—⋅ < DEUS EX MACHINA > ⋅—
I. Within
progeny of The Stars,
don’t promise me callow
because don’t you know?
in childhood, we know more
love than we’ll ever receive
in adulthood, don’t you know?
and we are all the more wise for it.

enough of mirrors and vignettes
of shadows and smoke
promise incandescent and
give me inflorescence,
give me conflagration,
give me molten,
give me ember-baptized,
because your soul knew these
epithets long before you were
given your name.

we dwell in singularity most beautiful,
where the secret cosmos was whispered
from creator to created
matter is no longer matter here
silence, no longer silence

cosmic cold
permanent light
permanent darkness
these eclipses come and go
similarly, simultaneously

out of the ether,
out of the nothingness
compounded within nothingness,
exploded forth energy, time, space

inertia guaranteed deformation
and so was physics,
the story of our makeshift universe
came to be

II. Coalescent
with physics came energy,
and with energy, entropy—
there was a fundamental need
to form and exist as a whole

from the broiling chaos
coalesced a semblance of order

a thimbleful of electrons
the first firebrand subjects of time
pooling and burbling in
cosmic void, eloping from
regal, seething bordellos
clothed in holy light
abstracted and reified
in its sinewy grasp

and so was chemistry,
the story of atoms and
the quantum waltz

III. Altered
ionize the corona
life in those days was
frail as infant’s breath

and yet an idle walk
of six billion years
to our present

life-forms emerged,
alive as the sprawling acanthus
springing forth from the grave:
the second firebrand subjects of time

furiously clawing at the barren, fruitless earth
we suckled the heaving ***** of mother nature,
greedily drinking her life-giving milk;
fragments of her being embroidered into cristae
generation after generation:
the genealogy of the prodigal, thieving race

ever-changing,
we evolved

and so was biology,
the story of these life-forms
and how they kept

IV. Value and Definition
there are no deals to be brokered with the universe:
darling, you must accept what you are made of,
you must accept that you and i and all of us are stardust

in our toil to stake our claim and live our lives,
we are at a perpetual threshold; where our child-souls
are waylaid by darkness, ice-branded by malevolence:
these trials and tribulations are our birthright…
are you brave enough? do you dare?

if not, simply lay down your bruised body
kneel on your scraped knees
and in lieu of bargaining, pray, pray in earnest:
you’re not inhuman if you have strayed,
if your soul has been played by pain

nothing is absolute: not a poem
neither a castle, riches, human power
the oceans, the skies, nor the twilight
in the smallest of intervals~
we are golden urns pouring out of the sun
momentary specters decaying
naked as we came, in short-lived grandeur

the perfect constellation of the universe:
deus ex machina et machina ex deus

and so was history,
the ongoing story of us
and our cultures

V. Acknowledge
neither absolute nor relative
it simply is, as is, as has been, as will be
god doesn't need to be proven
because he, she, they, xe?
is the quiet recognition that my dogs
will pass before our i do,
is the remembrance of apricity
in the cold, northern lands,
is antimatter coffee and park benches
and calligraphy nibs and gilmore girls
and my favorite song,
is you and i and every life
that we have yet to live, darling

just tell yourself this is just physics
tell yourself that chemistry, biology, history
could even begin to broach infinity

suspiria de profundis
iridescent harmony of the spheres
in the quiet black, hear those arias of nirvana

Basking in a supine position
with eyes wide shut
while the space heater churns out
fast moving molecules of heat
solitudinarian drowsy thinker fêted
by miniature fantasy
of tropical island paradise
accompanying and populating slumber
courtesy flickering, mesmerizing,
undulating barenaked native nymphs

tricked out as miniscule floaters
drifting across field of vision
striking atavistic memories,
where yours truly revels
within toasty warm bedroom
succumbing into deep sleep
resurrecting dormant primal hallucinations
redolent of Neanderthal forebears,
who huddled around the hearth
lo and behold discovery

evident after eldest sister of Harris tribe,
videre licet raw bits of genetic material
submitted saliva specimen
to 23andMe
since shut down by the FDA
because of the said
company's aggressive marketing
and refusal to resolve
outstanding data issues.

Impossible mission to stay awake
and fend off feeling sleepy
analogous to being drugged
not even long enough
to attend a yawning festival,
thus once upon a time
approximately half life
of Matthew Harris ago
indefatigable body of mine
weathered blistering fatigue
with endurance to dance the night away,
where lively contra dance music
played onstage and participants
tirelessly whooped up with energetic glee
experienced the equivalent headiness
linkedin with physical *******.

Now as a sexagenarian to boot,
who recently underwent a makeover
former trademark characteristic
of baby boomer no longer sports
talking head being hirsute
subsequently analogous to Samson
powerfulness of body,
no greater than a newt
while I lay me down to sleep
cerebral cogs and wheels troubleshoot
envisioning yours truly (me)
reincarnated donning myself

wearing a broad-shouldered drape jacket,
balloon-leg trousers,
and, sometimes, a flamboyant hat
decked out sporting,
what came to be recognized as zoot suit
generally worn by the following:
white Americans, police officers,
and U.S. Soldiers, the suits
became a symbol of excess,
anti-patriotism, and
anti-American sentiment,
as well as gang affiliation.

I get tired of being tired
hence ask the missus to make high test coffee,
which jolt of caffeine finds me wired
but back in the day
I acquired a gold card
patronizing General Nutrition Center
and bought one product in particular,
which affected me with outcome I desired.

And thus I crafted sub verse,
whereby yours truly conceives
poem titled Guarana Mo by Jeeves.

Most of the following (fictitious)
quintessential balderdash
ranks as sorry excuse for originality, writ
nevertheless mishmash qualifies
according to humble opinion of mine
reasonable rhyme for mediocrity,
benignly, essentially, and honestly to wit
to test skill at heart felt fabrication like me,
thus exempting bing considered, judged,

and labeled tubby unfit
wall henna burst of
playful tulles toy warren peace,
bawling contrived sketched
piddling potchking pusillanimous
Monty Python's Flying Circus twit,
this once upon a time pablum child,
aye practically spit
out (from inxs of carrot juice),

now dost daringly be hove
brave reeder to comprehend
as great literary endeavor
by this hare reed rabbit,
head, (non adult tryst) pit,
nor posthumous fame, worm ma obit
chew wary verbosely probably re:nouns,
abominable attempt as Unitarian
worthy reading material

so great English lit,
and moost unlikely tuff hind,
nor e'en garner this hare reed
ole Union Jack of a one hit
wonder poetic laureate,
nonetheless this (o'
waa hare did me bunny go),
perhaps to Britain endeavoring merely
to join United Kingdom.

Now let yours truly whoop
focus to address main intent,
(sans for quick pick me up)
and nary drop of coffee,
nope not even one molecule
to fill thimbleful sized cup
I reach for bottle of Guarana,
(one serving of
coffee per capsule)

fo' this aging pup,
who attests that caffeine
(liquid and/or
encapsulated), the sole vice
(except for barbiturates, *******,
"FAKE" opioid, et cetera),
which overdose nearly found me
nearly a grateful dead – thrice
occasions, where circumstances

of mouse self
(Stuart Little reincarnate -
with an insatiable craving for cheese
laced with Guarana, Paullinia cupana,
a climbing plant in the maple family),
which bean sized seeds
affordable at an acceptable price
many times larger than puffed rice.