Dear Carlos: Poet & One Man Band,

have heard these words so many times,
always bemused, trace~smile appearing,
but this time, it hit me like a Blue Mountain
extra hot, micro~window-waving cup of java Jamaican,
that is me, this was me, always, even before
I knew how to poem to music that I had always
head-heard, before I understood that these,
my songs were soul~pieces escapees, my…legatees

I leave them them in puzzle form, surely a piece,
or three missing, but no matter, each piece an
individual composition, standing alone, but the
big picture no one will ever see, understand but
that is the poet’s audience, his own one man band,
no bandwagon attached, a solitary figure quiet
contented with his disconnected discontentment,
a lifetime spent in refining, defining…refinishing

2 poem themes crisscrossed cross in my head,
interweaving themselves instead of becoming
two cells, one split apart, I call this process ruefully
reverse me~mitosis, blending that coffee with
a quarter cup of white milky, leaving me a caramel
colored confection, perfect in unity of trinity, that
combined cuppa plus my insides warmed, cozied,
the heat combined with the fire inside to write…one more

on the “two-to-write list,” in the “draft”y attic chamber,
were two titles, twins, now conjoined; the first, an
expose of why I choose to write these poems, and
the other, why I have a life of few friends, the few
chosen ones; the inherent conceptualizations differ but
cross the same forests and deserts, hid in my own Northwest Territory, rugged and inhospitable, where to survive, it required 
accepting lonely solitude, with a ragged welcome, & an honest mirror

an unequivocal, no equivocation permit, that telling yourself grand lies was pointless because you were a criminal on trial, prosecutor, defense lawyer, judge  and jury of your, ha ha, peers all rolled into one, there will never be a higher court wanting to grant an appeal, what is…well, is; a sad bliss but after decades of trial and many errors, wonderful and awful partnerships; it was modestly
perfected, dis-satisfyingly…satisfying

this goes on too long, like an intolerable avoidance of
answering, there, a phony confessional declarative; the whys un~provided, so fall back on that all encompassing
defense of temporary insanity that was locked in those
self-same sealed cells, carriers of my tainted DNA,
looking like bagels~donuts with holes, no, voids,
a central, air pocket of emptiness, with no surface to fill full,
or to adhere to, a drifter, an observer, never, a full participant

these empty holes, were just fried dough, sugar coated,
a fleeting life~lies of no substance, that I’ve spent
a lifetime trying to fill with worth, and I’ve written a few
moments of kindness, unqualified unreserved loving, but
too few to justify my existence to myself! That’s what
happens when you judge yourself, no defense strategy
can succeed, the fight is fixed, but I write on vaingloriously
hoping that there is yet, a flawless poem waiting within,
that a one man band, can both play and enjoy…

fav poets: Whitman, Hafez, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Pradip and so many countless others on this site…

I’m a sucka for long eyelashes,
wishful sighs punctuating long
skyward gazes, endlessly searching
for answers to questions as of yet,
unasked,
thus is my manly melancholy primary
tasked,
or rather,
my hurry up need fix for tender loving
by a man who writes me poems that are  this fem’s,
as in feminine, as in all mine, even down
to the unwrit, declarative dedication that, is powerful
whispered, avec a-graze~touch
upon my cheek,
“I wrote this for you,”

oh gawd, I even love him despite
his horrible pink sneakers…
ugly to almost ning cute…

BC

0 followers?

Dear New Poet:

Then I'm your man,
your very own
Northern star
one of a
3 legged stool,
upon which all,
we enthroned poets,
the world-over,
do rule

the honor you
bequeath me  
to be,
a first follower,
your very own
first responder,
cannot be
disdained
nor
diminished

this case,
this birth,
novice revival,
heart transplant,
makes it
the greatest
to be the first,
the quencher
of your thirst
so long in the parching,
the throat burnt by a
desert sojourn
of a now ended,
forty years

so come to me!

message me
a message,
find me a find,
your poem so fine,
I here now vow,
our embrace will
ne’er be broken

give me this
honorific,
let us together
be terrific,
raise our glasses,
arms entwined
toasting you  
all that mind and 
breast of yours,
bursting full of 
future~contains,
the full release of, 
bringing longer life
to us both

I am a father.
I am a grandfather.
I am a First Follower.
I am a First Responder,
for all who need a leg up,
so step upon my heart,
the first step upon a ladder
with no top, no end ensighted

my legs are as old as time, but,
measure me not by the rings and 
the metered scales of gray hair aging,
shock of white, a cain mark, wizard-wizened

but by the muscles
of my deep affection,
the solemnity of this,
my irrevocable promise

this,
the blessing
we both earn and make
when you write,
while we wait
in quiet attendance -
for all your good works,
your kept promises

Blessed are You Lord our God,  Ruler of the Universe
who has given us life, sustained us until now, allowing
the reader and the writer, to reach, meet, embrace and
greet this day, this new born poem, with hallelujahs,
                                         together!

mine own psalm musings

living between two broad, sea-emptying rivers,
a Majesty’s sentries to mark the differentiation~
division tween divine and a moderate human’s
moderating steps, as his stride shortens as the y/tears
lengthen, and it is accepted as an inevitable musky must,
no matter how the sweet spring day refreshes, the newly
planted trumpeting shards of bright yellows daffodils
pinch his yellowing eyes, few notice the tiny tears of
discrepancies of an annualized emboldening, a grand
heavenly rebirth and a slow man’s body self~editing,
shedding of a life’s~ending~of~story psalm musings

the man looks for the terrible swift sword, but its
failure to grace us with an appearance, is but a
modest disappointment, for a deferred delay is but
a causation to eke out a few mordant, pungent, caustic
reminders of all that is yet to be, to be accomplished,
though the smirking lips of the necessity of yet, one
more unloved poem extant, tilting the Earth’s axis
benevolently toward the open palms of his beneficiaries who,

you,

are among them numbered, is but, a green shoot in a city’s
hopeful earth planted, by summer, will shed seeds to come
thy way, as an evocation, a good consternation, a joyous
provocation, an asking kingly~gentle, a royal polite inquiry,
would you care to add a a verse to this eternal verse?
before time shreds it too into a yellowed crumpling,
and to the earth it is returned, for the mine of this
psalms is only generic, genetic,  and what is mine is well,

and truly yours too.


nml
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March 31, 2024
NYC
9:16am
Sunday Mourning Service