Thursday, March 31, 2022

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

 


Friday, March 25, 2022

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

Thursday, March 24, 2022

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

Saturday, March 19, 2022

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

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

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