Something like 62 or 63 summers now, the same for Septembers, have yielded a few thoughts. Verses without birthdays, here snooping around since the beginning, looking for a heart and perhaps they’re found? Who knows?
apologies?
why at least can god not say he’s sorry?
people think they know authenticity
laughing tears of rain at the cemetery
we see how deep He dug, we cry
there might have been a tingle? is that electricity?
strikes us down, and lights forever’s sky
steals our words we give our proxy blindly
hoping He can forgive, me mostly?
But for what? It’s unclear if there is anything else He would have had me do? I tried the things my heart told me, but there are other hearts and He knew that from the beginning. There we go with the beginning all over again.
creature delights
slept with Chopin chewing chocolates in my cheeks
folded money meant for me and sizzling marbled meats
stealing stolen confidence from worthless smiling schmucks
admiring a screaming Munch unblinded eyes behold the cucks
brutal brushstrokes breaking through the brittle varnish
flooding over top of life we drown in coffins stuffed with carnage
balance finds primeval competition drinking blood disguised as water
swimming with the current in a trance designed by grayish mater
our breathing’s borrowed chemistry on loan from the EPA
how much makeup will it take to smile this stench away
replaced by musical fantasies, nocturnes He did play
awakening us at the dawn to sunrise in the east?
Oh! is there another delight to crave could be so sweet?
Reminds me of the apple orchard on the hill in the meadow, somehow immune to the frost, which might have had something to do with our discovery that summer not so long ago?
Véra
I can see our hill from here
What people said to scare us off
Putting a word in, like this my dear?
Life can be so Nabokov
Laughed her name, Véra had me from the very first
Smelled like cherries, it would be our only summer
To meet secretly in the meadow of our great thirst
Only to make fun with me l doubt she will remember
Smiling thru octagons of horned rim glass
The sixties seemed consumed by sweater knits
Conspiring bulges did the boys embarrass
Years and years ago, I’m still helpless with her tits
Imagining our hill can see us from here
Daydreaming up top that she had tagged along
Instead our fantasy split in two futures cleaved by fear
Haunted by worries we had chosen wrong
Sight’s gifts are taken for granted no longer
So many surprises linger still the memories strong
And sticky as a honey drizzle sweet and slow to smother
Lights her schmata one more time, is that a thong?
Exit into the river before the fire explodes seemingly without a thought, not any I can remember now as it’s all blurred by misbegotten desires and unbidden temptation, but mostly it’s the tears that have left the stains, the colors running all melted into one and there’s nothing we can do?



Red Red
Between the blues beneath the honey locust
Eager for the new half moon to pour, picture us
Orange leaf turns out maybe not, warms his wings in ours
Lets us finish our beer enjoy its warmish sours
Dragonflies of love flood monsoons secret cargo
Flashing in the rain the finches tease our eyes with gold
Fecund is a word that clings according to our want
The mind has its own already thank you, August you’re redundant
Take a hint and take a hike, you did learn how to swim?
God indulges fates’ erratic, strokes her favorite cherubim
Thunder at dusk announces their desire, we are staying
Tonight’s special a honey Meade, never forget who is paying.
How could we? Though we always do, it’s the way of the mind remembering what is easy, forgetting what is hard, and this goes equally for sorrow as it does for calculus? Because most of us are found wanting, it’s a bug in our design.
clowns
birth
exploding life
nature’s cruel
disbelieving what we see
blinded by her cry
squeeze love
hug her tight
again
birth
honor
cultures clash
remember peace
you were young
blood spills
not yours
just guilt
so cold
honor
seppuku
days collapse
choirs hint of restoration
of what, to whom?
hear your friends?
be kind
let them go
time is done
seppuku
gunpowder
did the Chinese
history of war
no one reads
soft targets
explosions
hold the salt, peter
gunpowder
crazy
president
quiet fears
take us where?
great is lost
found a microphone
buzzing in our ears
we the people
crazy
Hardly a discovery, so say the Swedes on that committee, something about a speech and a wad of cash to recognize accomplishment in the past century, which would be funny if we were alive to laugh? How can we forget this inflection point in our collective consciousness deciding now who is legal? It blows the mind, the heart it left long ago.
Alttitude
from the top you can savor the filth as far as the eye can see
at the bottom forced to taste it and breathe it, blinded though you be
in the precarious middle, balanced on the slippery slope
snapping teeth below, blood drained from hate confused with hope
days gone by with endless promise stolen quiet
silence such as this is hard to bear, your heart demands to riot
who can speak for you against the dread hitching on your back
who can see through lies and promises disguising their attack
born into the bondage of Mammon’s filthy straitjacket
indispensable their monopoly strangles with its racket
are we sliding down the hill or crawling grimly higher, just a little?
judgement paralyzed parlous we pray for our acquittal.
And then the mirror gives you a start, others have been too kind, and your pastiness is manifest in the furnace of your soul divining if you will make it one more time around the sun or be found quietly dreaming by yourself?
Death
parts of me are old and falling apart
others I never knew are newly revealed
you read Death of a Hired Man as a child,
then one day in the mirror Silas his self gives you a start.
that old man in the hay asleep in the barn
she opens the door just a crack with her man in the back
holding the dogs, his shotgun at slack
‘Silas you can’t stay here no more’ is her warn
‘You must go it was a long time ago, is your mind lost?’
he leans on his legs to see if they stand his feathery weight
enough it would seem to escort him out to the night
he pushes the gate and replaces the latch with a catch
trudging into the hill that held back the wind
now its chill free to invade his bones with a pall
until he came to the top, and the upend of his haul
pushed him down, down, down with a snort so unkind
he lay there in a bundle of death’s premonition
told him to carry his self and what he could worry
back down the hill to the gate and the catch of his sorry
where his coat managed to snag, his will, even his mission
she found him in mourning a picture of frozen hell
there was no fire, no wind in the dawn, just a shadow
of love long forgot, Silas is home and his death ours is now
buried outback with a stone to remind us, remember him well.
All the contradictions teasing without cease, you find a crack in one to squeeze in a prayer for whom you do not know, yet you’re certain someone somewhere hears?
Prayerdox
Thank you god for one more day
I complain and still you let me stay?
Admit it, you’re an easy target
Not just because you are the largest
Creating peoples all who claim they are your chosen
Kinda makes entitled seem like kindergarten
So it’s on you no matter what the preachers say
With no layaway, they’re on the hook today
So we keep coming back and dozing through the middle part
Seems loyalty over anything will keep us in your heart
We kneel and maybe genuflect according to the abbe
Inside we smile and thank ourselves each time we pray
Admit it, talk yourself into it if you must,
You alone are his chosen one, the only one He can trust?
Of course your heart will always be there for you, remember that. It’s ok to have another helping!
Crush
Crush me, I’m easy
Flat as an old 33
And a third of my mind
With the stylus just so inclined
To fall, plays my heart
In love with paradise’ dessert cart
Irresistible sweets for my eyes, and yours
Together we’re served as candies and schmoors
Stirred up sugars and caramels sticky
Undressed and sprinkled, even the picky
Surrender, delighted to flirt
Giving up to the skirt
Send the kids out to play
Taste your favorite today
Feast my eyes again
Heavy, your lips touch my skin.
~End~