~for patty m.,
                                                My WO-man
                                                   My friend~
This is how we "live"
from momentary to momentary,
from under coverlet to coverup
putting ✅'s  next to a litany
of little tasks, diurnal scheduled
and their completion is proof
you really made to that minute
of each day, a survivor,  for only
you can schedule, only you can
check it off, only you can rationalize
and hide the private shame of the
conscious deletion of the unfulfilled
                                                               untruths
                    
from illusion to illusion,
like wearing the right clothes
for the occasion, and/or going naked,
hoping no one calls you emperor,
you are chilled - put on an illusion
to keep you warmer and only you
know you're dressed for winter,
scarf gloves heavy overcoat for
SPF 100 protection from the glaring
of July's humidity's sunny suffocation's
                                                                      ill disposition

this is how we navigate our
basic training until habits engraved
on your skin are the wardrobe we hide
within, some even change our name,
our defining characteristics so others
can admire the unreal you
create, all dressed up in couture
illusory, smiling graciously to
imaginary fawning admirers and
you shed real tears for real emotions
conjured by dreaming lightly the fantastical
                                                                ­            delusionary

you cover yourself in metaphors,
eating adjectives like sugar and
nouns like satisfying carbohydrates
so you feel full for a minute and then
run to the mirror for more pretending
pre-tense verbal alcoholic snacks
                                                         getting fat on self~deception

your watering eyes make writing
so difficult even though the tearing.
words easy come and easy go out
                                                           but here, you persevere

you pretend you can change your name,
adopt and adapt to a new persona, thinking
how pretty I look in this new dress,
how thin (!) we appear in a fresh slim 8
thin fit suit, tie perfectly tie knotted, etc.,
                                                           ­        at our personal funhouse mirror

but she (who?) encapsulated it perfectly
in the Sixties, "it's life illusions I recall,
I really don't know life at all"
when/if I make it to  a century mark,
that lyrical rhyme,  I'll still be humming,
and making ✅'s on a calendar that
doesn't matter,, reassuring that ancient
nonsensical notion of I exist, therefore, I am...

12:55am,
refreshed after a nap and ready
to embrace the white light of an
empty shell of a clean unwritten sheet
of many individual minutes of the night
till it dawns once more, and the illusions
need checking off again; oh yeah, hi!
Please,
                                         DO NOT FORGET

                                               ✅ *write a poem

"With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow@With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about
today until tomorrow"

lyric, Mr Tambourine Man,
Bob Dylan
<>

Rebel troubadour, always resrless, asking the obvious,
with answers readily apparent,
yet no one knows them out loud

Here we are,
two old Jews,
crossing paths at our shared six point star,
we aware, we know, that the
questions will likely be there tomorrow,'for they
have always there come the morn,

so we do not raise our voices anymore,
indeed,
the questions grow up best when asked softly softly,
and the answers,
blowing in the wind,
are clearest, sharpest obvious when
whispered,

So,
~forget about today till tomorrow,
until tomorrow comes no more~

And is this an only love poem?
To be sure,
Be sure.

For only love is the bridge between yesterday,
Today, and Tomorrow,
No matter what!

prayer of hope, for young and old, who suffer from the slings and arrows sadness and the loss of love; I offer up this prayer of hope and offer you my hand around your shoulders until you no longer require it

more than once,
for lengthy periods,
by events, other people,
my self was eradicated
and limping from day
to night, and J faced
absolutes, choices choking,
alternating alternatives that
offered zero, or even less
than zero, and the inkwell
wasn't refillable, and I could
point to nothing yet encouraging a mystifying purposed existence

then came a woman

who asked nor proffered
conditionals
pre, prior post or otherwise
and
offered up the miraculous
drink, human kindly notice,
snd it
drained the bitters,
began fluid replacement,
and slow resuscitation

and then
poems rebirthed me,
 liberated the angry sacred
gory sadness words devoid of glory,
with a reworded score, and
the eyes could write without
a patina filter of jaundiced hatred,
and whispered private internally
many times a beloving
hallelujah

and when ever the remembrance of
the near misses are crackly occasionally appearing, the surge dissipates intact quick
into a netherworld for suppressing
and bid "away with you," and a
thin lipped smile part sneer
for having survived
even
prospered when
                    then came a woman

and the self, the my self,
returned
after an absence of destructed
decades...deadening decades

and I smile when
the grandchildren tell me
knock knock jokes
and gently knock me on the head,
to make sure I'm alert,
then came woman
who had already~all ready
knocked me on the
heart

it ain't easy, when you relate, restrict and delegate,
when you draw a narrow lane on a highway that says
only left footed
poets need apply
<>
it does not say
slow cars stay to the right,
only trucks,
or oddly even,
no trucks


I love seasonality,
without thickly thinking
you take a break
from the poetry writing

one day I'll figure out a way
to monetize my love poems,
publish them as Shakespeare's couple(t)s,
"new edition plus
a couple of
newfound poems!"

maybe some fools will buy some thinking Shakespeare has been, resurrected!

love grows goes hot all over and
grow slower older
and grow colder,
in between those fine
ticklish teasing moments

when the miracle of resurrection repeats itself

something is said
a gesture is made
a finger strokes the cheek,
unexpected
and it all comes
rushing back again,
overfilling
that coffee cup mug she bought
just(ice)
for you

ain't gonna check how long it's been
since last I declaimed, disclaimed,
inflamed,
these pages with an only love poem

but I do know this:
it is something I think about,
It is something I know about,
it is something I feel about
daily
even on the nothing days,
when routine takes over
I know you couldn't remember of its passage,
is the waking up and the lying down to sleep

but the poets eyes are always open his emotive secret senses,
always alert,
what's that thing they always say,

his heart just wasn't in it!
(🥴if they only knew the truth😘)