"let us write cleaner, simpler,"
says my heart to my mind,

the mind replies,
(nay, whines)
wistfully professes,

"now, now,
all that's within, accumulated wisdom of nearly a century,
for want, for waste, let us
privy you a taste of elixir
of combinatory emotional
potions of our vast vascular vocabulary,
rambled scrambled
wandering among the
envisionings, insertions,
criss crossed propositions,
lay before you simplistic
complimentary complications,
take the adventurous down
a warren of rabbit holes,
let them happily be lost,
deep delve, into mysterious
confusions
let not the joy of
the unraveling journey
be sacrificed on an altar
of absolutism of
clean brevity
never ever
use but one word,
when
a tapestry
can be summoned!"

so we conclaved
and agreed to disagree,

and we each wrote home

the worldly swirling reverberating, whirlpool whirling, the To Do list,
issuing senior commands, and the poetry dieting and exercise regime
is muffled, though notes and promises atomizing, ideas and excitations, on the cardboard backs of yellow pads jotted, on menus for Chinese and Indian incantations,
assembled in their own corner reservoir,

nonetheless and all the more,

no births recorded, no spawn of the dawn, product of mid of night
illegal ramblings by the
East River

none
achieve a hallelujah *******,
and the pile of drafts messy are assorted and distorted in their own corner of the white writing desk,

stillborn lay, or more accurately they cry out pained:

"no, no, still to be born!"
"not yet dead!"
"permanent gestation is not a destination"
and other survivor slogans,
and mind and body bloated with
need to ex and to in
hale
them,
to let the healing compounding components of
new compositions see a
glorious Mayday morn of a steady streaming of
howling babies, and all agree,
look at you, look at me, look at this
5 minutes sassy essay on your lassoed status,
now force the door ajar and let the nightlight lead you to dawn,
deliver us, satisfy out our cravings,
make us wholesome and then,
with a sacred finishing
wand waving of blessed
Hallelujah
Amen!
Selah!

now get to work,
*** of coffee witches brew,
knock off the stalling,
Sondheim humming,
crying out a
****** recognition,

"send in the clown,
no more; maybe next year,
too late,
I'm here..."

4:07 ~ 4:25am
May One
2025

She said—
thank you.

I said—
for what.

She said
no reason—
only the way sky
doesn't suddenly fall
the way small fires
undo the lonely cold—
all that
and everything else.