shroud

let the shroud

descend on your body

limp, anticipating

solace, silence

song of birth, life, death

inhale a world of confusion

exhale crystalline clarity

last breath

 

In the Delicatessen of Giants (Dedicated to poets I know and aspire to)

In the delicatessen of giants

I am the processed sliced turkey

The holy baloney of poetry

Chopped liver

 

Let there be potato salad that knows no end

Creamy and chunky at once

Celery, pimentos, chopped egg

Mayo that goes out for the longass long haul pass

Brings back lunch on a shining deli tray

Morsels of wry wit, verbal shenanigans

Accounts of the beauty to which our lives may attain

Anecdotes of events gone hopelessly, hilariously astray

 

My words are merely a sip stolen 

From the wine glasses of literary tzaddikim

Wisdom procured, fire of the gods

I have watched their loving placement of nouns

Their gorgeous adjectives, metaphors so easy

They seem to have slid off a greased skillet

 

Their verbs are potato knishes

Fluffy omelets, kugel, tea biscuits

They put their hearts on the line

To save sorry souls such as mine

With our little paeans to the mundane, the minutiae

Missing the mark completely

 

Someday,

I will nail that big friggin’ Reuben sandwich

That monster corned beef

A poem lean and mad as a manic plotzing yenta 

Thick rye bread, yellow mustard

A fried egg planted smack on top

cafe poem #...well, I've lost count

agony can find no foothold

where birds swim over bare trees

clouds are plush strokes

so many paint brush footprints

 

I can hear people speaking

some of it hurried, some hush

as need desires

as desire needs

 

something pulls these phalanges, muscles

tendons, ligaments, to pen this poem

not razor thin wires fueled by fire

but creaky gears and assemblages

 

from a deep pocket of want

I lack satisfaction, hoping

some answer might come

knocking at my bedroom door

when I am deepest in slumber

mouth open as close to trusting

as it has been

since I let myself slip

into mid-life

aging

the emptiness

of this being

in its tiny processes

actions to please

thoughts to self-assure

words to divert

attention from the dull stare

the ghoulish eyes

all is empty

indeed

but this

a special kind

and now I know

and now I see

it was me who

must solve

the mystery

why such a bright stone

would fall to Earth

gravity dogging it

post-birth

hardwon

the clock ticks

chunks taken out

of time it clicks

clarifying this

aching

some object stands

before my inner eye

steep wall  of heart

waves of sea, sentient foam

brush the knees

of worn statues

in this temple of hardwon, 

crazytender love