test song

This is a test song.

Doesn’t have to be long.

Like Gershwin, like Porter.

In that case, shorter.

I can write a verse

What about a catchy, natty little chorus?

Don’t bore us, Boris.

Make it good enough...

No worse

Be terse.

Need a fascinating rhythm

With precision

A rhyme in cut time

Back beat would be neat

Tap your feet.

In the heat of the day

Play on sweet muse

Don’t blow a fuse excusing my excess

Do my ideas coalesce?

Did I pass the test?

Ask Ira.

He knows best.

Send it to Queen

To thine own creative self be true blue not green

Don’t write like a machine

Dean Martin decades earlier

Sing it myself but burlier.

maybe even vote

He who had had a bad time on the ladder with our leader’s proofreader’s bird feeder was the lad Brad, braying about decaying delineated in demonic FEMA memos on hell-fire freezing Fresno.

Our great leader pretends he’s self-made: SELF MADE

Made it with a maid in the shade over by the glade...

He speaks of lovingly of WikiLeaks, in tirades, emulating sheiks, craving military parades

Getting accolades from his caddy

Bragging about being a sugar Daddy.

Excused by women he abused. Excused with some cash and threats.

The “good people on both sides guy who doesn’t know enough about the white supremacist alt right will claim other are racist. Truth does not exist his toady toads insist.

Where’s Giuliani? Did he wear out his welcome on the theme of lust?

Don’t trust what you see, hear or read, not the fires, the floods, the melting polar ice caps. Global warming is pleasant for Russians. Are you blushin’? Not so much for our folks. Global warming is a hoax, the joke’s on us.

Pruitt did the evil work he could till his time was up replaced by another sickening

suck up just our luck anything for those reverse Robin-hoods to steal another buck.

By truck after

They grew it in the back yard

Feeding it to the people, wasn’t hard.

Took ‘em off guard.

For them- even for his wife he has no feeling- too self-dealing.

What a cad!

Is he a fad?

A unitary rad in a random radian right angle move our country to the right tonight, our world does he mess-up? Yup.

Just a tad

radical his style

A tad glad?

Better than being mad over being had said the lad who’d climbed the ladder serving his mad hatter Dad.

Don’t feel mad.

Choose a different selection… stop their gloating

by voting in the coming elections!

dormant

Erupting no longer

Stronger than self-torment.

quieted, calmed, cooled,

Schooled in meditated arts

Equal parts tranquility,

Abilities.

Heel Too Hot

or

What’s Not on the Cot

Trotskyites fight for the right of the left at the behest of Hoover who knew her maneuver true said that done while dining in the hot hall

Come one, come all

Tall order to defend

My men mend dinner dishes with all of three wishes. hardly malicious

go in the cave

a slave to habit, emerge a free man not a rabbit

Can fighters for socialist writers on the left find

Peace of mind, mending

A better ending?

Down dog down, don a better gown

Heel to toe

Toe the line

That’s fine

Standing or supine just not

Heel Too Hot

Tchaikovsky Leads the Band

Dance of the sugar plum fairies from Bell Fabs.

Tchaikovsky leads the band.

Give a hand to Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin (not Ayn Rand) maybe Cole Porter.

Logic is out of order.

Have some fun.

Help your neighbor

Of course, this is farce.

Parse the meaning you are gleaning

While children you are weaning.

Not Sunday

Not Sondheim

Not Sunday

Not in the Park on Monday with Saint Bernard or George.

Gorging ghosts of Christmas Vlast power past at last blasting

Off from slough chained, pained hiding in a self-made prison-cave.

Slave to mind, my kind I find thoughts I cannot leave behind.

Plot a thick brew, three witches too in this

Mid summer’s nighttime nightmarish meme: our prolog, our theme.

Poor neighbors next door...

the gale tormenting Jonah’s whale versus our baleful tale.

An apolitical mess

Not by Herman Hesse.

Not Sondheim

Not Sunday

Not in the Park on Monday with Saint Bernard or George.

Not Sondheim, Florsheim, McGeorge Bundy or Solomon Grundy not Dr. Seuss, Edna Malloy, Ogden Nash or a higher paid rapper named Moose.

Welcome all from Iowa to Zanzibar, to ancient Troy

In the hope you will here, find a little joy.

Needed

Grasping

Holding on

Trying too hard

Insisting that I know

Working against gravity against nature

Not listening, saying words unnecessary

Listen more openly; let go

The compulsion to comment

Everyone wants an audience

Be more quiet

That way I

Can hear

Can feel

What is

Needed.

Quiet.

Soft

Safe

Settle

Safe

Ripples

A bird silently joins its flock

Quiet

listen

 I’d know better

Keep alive the memory of

Edna Malloy at 85

She was loved in Troy.

What were the dreams she tried?

For what did she strive?

Children and grandchildren were at some point teens.

A mother and wife,

What was the rest of her life?

(Edna St. Vincent Millay was ok

I’d know better

if I’d read her.)

enough said

An angry little verse about what happens in a hearse

Rehearse or extemporize.

Win a prize

tell no lies

He tries to come clean zipping from one innuendo to the next crescendo

a recapitulation of half-truths, out of the blue:

Envy is my poison 

Stay in town.

Mind the store

Crescendo in my core

A rectangular prism, a lengthy catechism

Mend the schism which has arisen in my mental prison.

Arise, no longer despise…

… What a pleasing surprise.

Monterrey Moment

It was a sunny day.

Thinking of my stay in Monterrey,

on the way into sleep quiet

on this international flight as I fly it.

Dreaming of a tan and red brick alley

an infrequently travelled quarter where I wondered if there had been a rally.

Did Madrid show shadows of an earlier time when men labored in galleys?

De Chirico, had he been a little more cheerful, used warmer colors and met Dr. Seuss, this would have been a scene for Sally.

the bucket

There was a musician

Her husband a violinist not a mortician

A jig she wrote to be played at their next gig

Very big gig, very big,

Lots of money hubby told his honey

To be In Nantucket so don’t kick the bucket.

Waiting for Ray

Stay don’t go.

It is better not to know said Charlotte.

In a car lot or in a workshop she sensed what was real.

What was true has the most appeal.

Charles was her friend and companion.

They guided scores through the canyons of life’s disillusions

Confusing confusions of mind

Other kinds as well.

When clarity is lost

The social cost is high

An understatement you’ll sigh.

Try to reach the sky in your imagination

In a vision Ray you share your gifts and the wisdom of Rumi

Sensing makes my mind roomier

Gloomier attitudes brood no more

Lying on the floor while touring

Our place in eternal space.

Race not. Slow down and feel it through.

This much is true:

It was a wonderful day, Ray- Olé.

Not a Spanish delight

Nor an international bull fight.

What has come to light is the blight on the world is sadly sorrowful

But hopeful I be to help candidly to make tomorrow

A bit less of sorrow

While waiting for my dear friend Ray who sends greetings to my wife

Here I write and play on my phone

Waiting for Ray

You give me the gift.

I’m using it to thank you

True not alone for

Another not a clone

A composer of tune and line is

Working away on another poem which will be fine

For Ray, today may I say: whose who’s and Hooray!

Cats got paws.

Playing with my Flaws

Cats got paws.

Milk too?

Not Santa or Mrs. Claus.

Not such a Grand Pause from in-laws,

carved in stone, into my aching bones

Off high throne was thrown a Stygian crone

Sarcastic?

Be instead, plastic.

A deep fjord, Oh Lord

No longer bored,

cut the umbilical cord.

return from the void sufficiently buoyed,

defanging cloths whole overhanging

Hail Mary, Mariology, my own personal mythology: psychology says sing the twenty third psalm calmly kinder

ladies and germs come to terms

get ahead in a glade

No longer waylaid

Be remade

Getting out from habitual

ritual ditch usual.

Good nightingale Florence not a Florentina even when a teen

A  cat has seen paws, pausing before the mouse.

in a house on a hill owned by cousins Bill and Lill having few thrills in Sky-kill downs a horse race place first, not quenching thirst on coke for a coal stack heart attack, black lung disease.

Let my unease put you at ease, please.

Life is a tease.

Roll with it. Roll with the punches

Enjoy long lunches

dinners too

Some sinners sin with kin

Call to do better without a wall.

Flaws, cats’ paws and all.

The False God of Perfectionism

Dad gave me gifts:

Some give me a lift.

No longer miffed,

Perfectionism in proportion

Contortion eased

Pleased, I choose to make a pleasantly pleasant correction.

In the world of Ken

Other men have power, riches, women, power.

Twice power?

Must be powerful.

Women too and every young Cat

Had his day, his successful day and nights on Sat

Also Friday, Monday and

A little bit once in a while on Thursday.

Play and flow

Now I know

     Past

     Noon

Create my own tune.

In the world of Ken

It’ll be ok soon.

 Bnb not GMT

Not the IRT

The DMZ?

Tweet about what to eat

Or drink

What do you think?

Homicidal rage

Rage!

Rage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A rage I haven’t felt in a damn dog’s age.

Oh for goodness sake:

Turn the page!

Rage Part TOO

Rage?

My sage countered

From screaming red to calming beige  

Quaking puss in boots?

What’s up, Toots!

A little light humor

What a hoot?

Rage Part Three

Not good to die so young… who me?

Not so young- not to die, take a self-loathing kiss

piss off the odd neighbor in a chamber

pot, if it were legal, I’d smoke a toke in time with Stanley Turrentine

slurred speech

been told I’m a leech.

Remember beige?

Well at this stage it’s reddening redder.

Alexander Kline, minor league star,

In some ways he went far…

Not a relative of Melanie’s.

Good breast at my behest

Do well to digest a plan made best.

divest the rest

room to fly away on Harry’s broom.

Gloom is no solution, been shown, proven four-footed hooves groovin’ in Groton

Even minor league wannabe stars still have plenty of room to go as far as a  Seussian goose on the loose with three thousand purple moose.

What do I know?

After lightening my own suffering, I can see your pain.

The next refrain a transition to a position mourning Mark mourning the many so gifted, so sensitive!

I wish you could have been saved. In your moment of need, I was scared by you and did not reach out. Did anyone?

Your deaths were such a loss to the world, your kids, your students, families, generations of suffering souls. Your agony was too much to bear. What do I know of your great suffering?

Boo hoo- who chooses of whose Bradley’s badly sadly sorrowful shamefully lusting wander-lusting wunderkinds?  didn’t cross my mind.

I find my heart’s blind as I left the world behind.

No theory of mind?

Yes…

I do mind.

Who cares?

The beaten piano bled

Dalíesque melted keys fed to the fire of the Independent Fed.

Warped brown wood played by Death black under hood

Would if I could have the skill myself tried but nearly died- it did kill many a

Bill; Hillary could have done a rare one! Instead we got a king, a crass, vulgar kleptomaniac thing-would be dictator, mass hater, rabble baiter

On the other hand, we’re a band of idealists getting in each other’s way no coalition nor contrition letting the evil win

A gun is not only for protection it’s for resurrection of the white supremacist election

As the dumpf shows:

Guns for all!

Hark and heed the call to set us up for Russian tanks… oh I meant “thanks.”

It’s not my lot.

Who cares as long as someone else’s kids get shot.

better love

Crumbling towers

Twittering flowers

Zeffirelli cowers

Eisenhower’s speeches

Beseeches tolerance, humanity

At least one was good

Boys in the brotherhood

Of Islam

Son of Sam

Glam

Damn fools

Conspiracy theorists

Beat poets

Know it’s not tumbling rumble of

Latin cookies who not necessarily humble,

Handle humility equally with gentility

Not a gentile seeking to

Beguile, flatter into early senility

In style go to trial?

I’d rather not

Polyglot sot or whatnot.

Pot or booze: you choose to mediate

The country prelate sans hate: meditate

Hate not Nate son of Kate from Haight-Ashbury Park

Blonde beer, I prefer brunettes…

right or left could I better love Beth?

Four Pillars of the Apostles Chores

Appropriate self-assertion, no more.

Compassion’s allure

Hey that isn’t four.

Can’t I count?

Wouldn’t amount to much anyway

Say hey!

Says who?

Says whose to choose

News of the day:

Lightening of négativité.

Start again.

Mend again.

melted keys

The Dalíesque melted keys

The melted pedals

Heat warped beaten brown splintered wood

Down on his knees

Practicing ridiculously long hours-years

Tears form on keys where using Chekov’s gun

No joy engaging remains

Only pain past pain so far past

This last juncture

This last rite obsessive-compulsive disease

denial

wrong taking far too long

The piano itself almost junk

Worthless lifelessness not quite a bite of an apple still fills the rank air

sounds of despair.

The Dalíesque melted keys

Played in threes

Triads inspired by Naiads

Nymphs guarding fountains, brooks and streams

No one screams

Asking ‘what is self-worth?’

Does my birth

Sense mirth here on the gods’ green earth?

A dearth of okay-ness play, playing and playfulness

May resume a life lost at the womb from whom it could still bloom

not too late as long a breath doth come

The melted pedals

The heat warped beaten

The Dalíesque melted keys

Played in threes

Denial, Anger and more anger Jeez

That’s not three

Barking up another tree, Mr. MVP?

extra dressing on the side

Nervous paranoid

Alkaloid

homonym hominid hardly handsome Henderson fletcher catch her in the rye why cry for me Argentina

word salad with extra dressing on the side.

Let it slide.

Guy in subway: I tried to help.

Did he want a reservation on Yelp?

Function better?

About as much chance as my turning into an Jungian go-getter.

Not always this nervous and less lately

Was I unaware of strutting?

Composing inflated, just super, hyper-engaged?

Why so enraged, then into a raw vulnerable feel?

Meditation: not always sufficient to return me to an even keel.

ouch

Cry me not a river, not a quivering steam not a bucket of old dreams

Not even a tear

Be clear have a less fear

start again when all is clear or at least enough to call my fears’ bluff

nuff said

I get it in my head

now to heart

still thrill,

a slouch on the couch

criticism alchemized into witicism

just say “ouch.”

It is said

To get a head

Feed not hatred

Not the revolting dead red band of the land

And destruction,

maddening obstruction,

infinite delays play sadistic scatter plots on nights too hot

to sleep in a fetal position for

Fatal manipulation at the core is what it has in store

no matter

Insanely seductive satyr and political white or blue color whore

Have the illusion of freedom while greed emphatic

Slights-of-hand change of heart

Of

red bands of the land

heart

have one

not

heart attacks

failing decency

recently in polls and right-wing media

hysteria

it would be hysterical, funny

if it were a cartoon with Bugs Bunny.

Sonny Jr. and Eric and Ivanka and Jared

Have their payday effective Elective election

chortling while democracy abortion.

Egyptology

Did the Pharos ever tell a joke?

So queried folks from Roanoke. 

Stoke my steam engine full of coke damn the air who cares?

Stoke my mental fire on the environmental pyre.

Word by word for hire, but what the Dickens,

My pulse quickens doing taxes on software cursing it like malware pulling out the rest of my eyes red, receding hair.

So there!

Who cares?

I do! Ouch on the coach said my analyst: give it another try.

Were you always serious?

To write this, I must be delirious.

Who pokes fun at Pharos?

Steve Martin and kids in kindergarten.

Happy to Not be the Walrus or a Beatle

A simple song in the style of me

Could not be to climb another composer’s tree.

Sam Barber didn’t harbor

thoughts of style going the extra mile:

He didn’t coddle an extraneous model!

He sought originality.

A simple song sang Lenny

Kenny Rogers, Hammerstein’s words

Bernstein- did he play for Kurds? Byrd and Bird, Copland or Gershwin

Not twins those three.

Admiring Bartok, writing around Chuck Berry’s clock rolling over for Beethoven and Bach for years

Tears resulted, emulating Brahms my song bombs

Dash to the trash comparisons catapulted cacophonous choruses sounding like a flock of flailing walruses.

A simple song in the style of me

In three part harmony

Ternary better binary, bimodal, bitingly bitonal in verse which is free

Illustrated by Paul Klee.

What audience will pay for me to have my say in this day with my simple song going on too long?

The answer, my friend, is not blowin’ in the wind band or orchestra plot, it’s not hot jazz or a Hittite Foxtrot.

When you wend your way

I send clues:

It’s not blues.

A simple song in the style of me can be One thing and one thing only, as Charlie said! Now put this lyric to bed:

A simple song in the style of me

can only be composed, you supposed I’m sure having fun galore

In the state and style of me

Springs from playful insanity

The style of me is furthermore therefore, evermore, (in Singapore?), a song in the style of me is simply the gift of spontaneity!

Little Kenchen

wrote with a penchant for pen over pencil

though easier to stencil a Hähnchen

Preferring verdura to carne or souffle,

His friend Ray

smiles at his wordplay styles

Whilst Rumi-nating on matters weighty

(perhaps he should visit Haiti.)

“You’re in for a shock,” said Baby Doc)

Kenchen’s good humor distracting from his not so little tumor.

We’re short on time so seek not the most sublime rhyme.

Short not only on time!

Je suis petit! In other words:

bajo said the diminutive bajonista to the barista ordering a decaf latte for Lent giving it up or not rethinking Rumi

Kenchen tries to be a mensch and prattles not with cattle from Seattle nor Kathleen Battle the thought of professional music him doth rattle, said Simon, un chef d’orchestre, of course your oboes and bassoons play out of tune. T

hey haven’t practiced, they’re too relaxed ya’

Know it rarely snows „Die Globale Erwärmung verändert das Wetter in vielen Teilen der Welt.“ “What the hell” tell climate change deniers with their internet flyers.

“Guten Morgen, ist die Welt so flink. Schön und flink.“

If I correctly quote Mahler, the tone-painter knew more than I ever will perhaps until I learn to trust my gut in a hut in Haiti with Beth, my main lady.

Ray is to Kenchen as Theo was to Vincent.

Bis bald

Too tired for a poem.

Mired thinking of Rome

In Roman times many were there crimes

Nickel and dimes mostly

Some more ghostly, ghastly, vastly alike

The heinous stuff coming down the pike

In Morticia Adams’ home a gnome or two

Grew to unusual lengths on the strengths of their eerie humor

Sooner said than excised the exorcism delayed then denied when the exorcist tried tootling down the turnpike turned up mysteriously in the good humor truck driving along Jefferson, Madison, near Adams mortified by elocutions of exacting election officials posing as modest Moldavian morticians displacing Grecian electricians replacing bulbs in hubs of Patricians reported in editions of social rules from schools of etiquette be damned while eating cans of spam videoed for social media followers posted they preferred toasted toast with a lazy pun on a rice dumpling bun spiked with picked pike their tykes are ravenous after hikes hurling huge stockpiles of stockings stocked with Turkey stuffing giving thanks for Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria considered a criminal by many and a hero to those who profited, Christopher Columbus was one among us, a hero of ancient Heinous stuff composed off the cuff blind man’s bluff was enough to vastly change the continent’s incontinent  contentiously clamoring ghosts haunting it today, some nickel and diming others chiming in on the timing of things recent and recently past, a more larcenous scale.

A tale to tell those for whom the death-knell befell belfry ringing rang from the roof of a domed Roman cathedral the story of Salōmē at play.

Herod’s birthday.

She unveiled her mother’s vengeance in a form intoxicating to her father twisting his evil soul further with his hell-inspiring offspring that’s the thing that caused Jehovah’s Witnesses to abhor Birthday celebrations mired mostly not in Rome,

in the holy land roamed and ravaged by human savage salvaging what could

be this much is somewhat understood.

Good and done?

No and none

it still runs Republican power grubbing elites eat off the backs and feet of common woman and man  

In Roman times and our there were crimes.

Alex, eyeing time off

Not sloth

recover from data mining

pinning for a rest

too many tests to grade he bade goodbye to chairmanship

Slip out the back undetected, uninfected by ray or vector antivirus malware.

Dares to be his own man; can he give up the rat race to live at a slower pace?

He said Shahana doesn’t believe in global warming.

Quite alarming because it impacts farming, harming food production

Twitter storms form a background of bad news daily worse but first a commercial break while we intake a breath of fresh air.

Shahana traveling that’s the thing to bring Ken to water the plants.

Ananda, a gentle Dental professor not from Uganda rather from Sri Lanka

His wife, Usha an entrepreneur owner of daycare centers loves children, sings, does many other things plays piano and doth dance

On floor 17 she’ll prance to the words of her husband’s writing

Alighting on Spotify,

drinking vodka neat with neighbors nearby.

Jeff paints like dad.

He’s the writer of screenplays and more than one ad.

Colleen Larson off to lead leadership Master’s students at NYU Italy not Parsons.

Colleen’s writing a gazillion projects she projects… Cool

like Wisconsin winter hinterland cooler than Seoul.

Japanese students she comforted not Korean bein’ a good person

Ann Arbor, Michigan: dream of fishing with her dad

Wishing for world peace.

Smiled Alex, relaxed Jeff, then Ken, Ananda and Usha and Colleen when Shahana served the chocolate cream with wine and cheese please pass me another, brother before I go home so far away down the hall. Good night my friends, one and all till soon we meet to greet, drink make merry and eat treats. We’re in the clear. Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas, happy New Year. Next time I’ll bring the beer.

G R

Hope, gratitude, responsibility G R

Ordinary self reliance  R E

P  A S

E T P

    I O

   T N

   U S

   D I

   E B

      I

     L

     I

     T

     Y

kids gone right?

Prometheus unbound

avoids hungry hounds thougH

Over hill and dale sunlight pales in OslO

Empowering, flower powering pomP

Meritorious examples of kids gone right, yet I invited them to abuse mE
From Teeth to Poems

Ananda’s poems and dentures, a dental and mental adventure:

Open wide “Say ah,” the X-ray slide.

Do Presidents use Pepsi-dent?

Braces?

Keeping in our good graces, dental disease is easier to prevent then cure:

Brush, floss, use micro-brushes and more.

Where oh where is Dr. Seuss?

Eating mouse and candy

with Mother Goose painted by dandy Toulouse-Lautrec trekking to trick or treat

teeth do rot from cake which is hot

Is there other dental lore?

Take the tour de force of course.

a shade lighter after zoom delight her

Desflurane, Forane and Halothane are chemicals from which I refrain.

Novocain is sufficient so

Patients don’t complain

Does Ananda listen to a band awhile he stands fixing the teeth of Amanda?

Does he tweet about teeth?

Does he write about an overbite or something plainer?

Rainer Maria Rilke would have said it more lyrically intense with considerably more suspense.

From Teeth to Poems and biting little limericks with mouthfuls of metaphoric mini-tricks

Implanting ecstatic dramatics during

days of plays on words fill mental cavities and require one third less drilling and filling:

dentistry lite.

Be grateful for a good dentist and friendly friends!

I hope I’ve made you smile a little

Sufficient to grant me acquittal.

If my poem has caused offense

I hope you can forgive my pretense

In this mid-winter’s night dream

On this poem I’ll brush some polishing cream.

Puke

St. Luke dreamed of horrors but not of nukes.

Start with such a revolting word

I’ve heard the wisdom of the day is to greet each difficulty

Be mindful, calm.

Do no harm to whom is in

each room.

Put people at ease

Help them be pleased.

Today is the day to call my friend Ray!

Ok.

That may be true or not.

With my procrastination I could fill a pot, a lot more- an entire nation of over-thinkers.

Over-think, o’er thunk, to move forward do I need to be drunk?

That’s bunk, mind running amok as if in a luckless pickup truck.

Stop being a schmuck. (German jewels, fools and fool that I am, wishing for the wisdom of Sam- one of the first words I learned about the time I bridges burned.)

Didn’t learn German from Herman Hesse “The Glass Bead Game” was a book given me by Tanya wild not tame of Russian fame that early love years back at the Yard where I lost connection to my inner bard. Hard to deal with those memories: past pain comes flying fast.

Hieronymus Bosch didn’t botch it.

I did as a kid till having my fill of negativity a new nativity.

Now somehow find a little of myself as Rumi suggests in a mirror, at my door I welcome what I had before.

Sure that’s the coll; that’s the end of rot.

Whatnot keeps the pot boiling.

Toiling I get behind, finding all sorts of nonsense on my mind.

Fine and dandy, don’t ask Randy or Mandy. 

Simply stop the addictive mental candy.

Smoothly remove all the extra- just ask him how it goes his way with his work, his family, his readings, study, exercise, his health, wealth, music and play.

That would behoove my friendship with my good friend Ray.

ditties for my spouse.

Nothing to say despite a full day

Almost full. No practicing or piano play.

Away from that keyboard instead at the mouse

Inking ditties for my spouse.

****

Here’s another short:

Might bore my cohort.

Don’t share on the air

Or on the Net.

A safer bet this will cause no fret

Not even on air guitar

Need less time at the local bar.

*****

If I have nothing to say and have no technique to speak of

What keeps me writing and composing? Is it love?

Of self, vanity: hobbies and such? There’s joy in the making, in the touch?

Free for the taking, baking the cake of my own design.

Design? From whence came that oddly written rhyme?

*****

They were glad to see me go.

How do I know?

The gleeful look of the girl who undid my teaching career.

My fault? Open to debate… Don’t want to stay up that late.

She and her self-righteous teacher-mom:

Did either have a date for the prom?

She could not learn from me in that job

Made me feel like a worthless slob.

I tried six ways to Sunday then on Monday had another idea.

None saved my tearful career.

Feel pressure to rise above milk to top cream?

Egotism, grandiosity, slammed on humility made me scream.

Can I know glee?

I can learn to know it as well as thee.

fits of worthless bits of nitpicking snits

Inadequate aquatic aqueducts wash in, wash out

adequately adequate Aqueducts awash in horseshoe

Crew?

Row, row, row your bottom

Bet your bottom dollar holler for Hillary

Round your previous collar hilariously liable

Thumping a dumping dumpfed bible

Reliable every time

Politics is a popularity contest

Not about who is best.

Test this theory.

Test this idea.

Test that device meant more for men than rice eating mice

This story is old. This list is lost to licorice, dead and cold.

Bad memory sleeps, seeps singed from being tinged with envy and avarice, into every crevice and literary device.

Fits of pique.

Pits and leeks.

Leaking treacle hits me in null kits:

Full of pits, this and that’

This and fits of worthless bits of nitpicking snits.

Eli booms the band

ego and baton in hand...

dumpf triumphant

trumpeting the final trumpet

pine for thy brothers

hills like young rams.  Damn!

Forget the biblical reference

Hard-pressed to impress Kiera or Maggie O’Leara.

What I crave and what I do not.

What I fear is intimately dear

Be a peer, seek no seer.

Unlike dumpf, the dead fish never lied.

What?

You need an explanation?

Gruntled

Pleased, satisfied, contented

You thought this you invented?

Went to bed, awoke instead a head pounding around the upcoming deadline ahead of a Sherpa’s interpretation of Sheba.

She queried Solomon, that wise king, did he do the right thing?

Answered all her questions, accepted her gifts and gold.

All told he gifted her too.

Was she Ethiopian?

A utopian?

Oshkosh, Kankakee, Ho-Ho-Kus, Rancho Cucamonga, and Kalamazoo too grew the few in remaking Putin’s remote: A good quote for this cool catastrophizing cacophonous Cato.

While our leader is no Plato, Cato was immune to bribes and corruption while our president is capsizing our country realizing naught except that he might get caught being bought by Russian hacks whose attacks smack of his treasonous treason. The reason clear they promised not to smear and to get him more money as if he didn’t have enough to line his pockets or pack the dockets with phony cronies.

They slept together, not little Rocket man and the dumpf but

She returning to her land with unborn child.

In hand, a gift from the great wise Solomon.

We can suppose Hansel und Gretel were gruntled after gaining freedom from the witchy witch which wagged her broom from room to room sans groom.

She led a lonely life never having had the pleasures of a wife – perhaps she was gay as of today no one knew except the one girl from her frat alma-mater. Hotter than hell on wheels when she wore lingerie, high heels; it feels we’ve gotten away from Hansel and Gretel who after all were gruntled as they bundled tobogganing toward town turning in time from the witchy witch now thinner as she lost her dinner of Hansel and gruntled Gretel. equanimity

“abundant calm mind, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility, without ill-will'.

equanimity, fleeting at best.

Abundant, full, plentiful, copious, prolific… did I say: ‘abundant?’

redundant

Calm

On an island or under a potted palm?

my mind never lets me rest.

surprised to find

The rind has its own sort of sweetness

exalted: more than drinking a chocolate malted.

Immeasurable: whenever

I measure I’m decidedly less clever

without hostility

goal to extol

without ill-will

the pond, warm summer breeze, clouds color the sky silent and still

Not of service

Money, gold

I’m getting old

The alternative worse

chauffeured in a hearse

rehearse living

Giving awareness to the bareness

Barely noticing a ghostly baroness, a grey lady far from her heyday

mayhem Monday madness

enjoy Sunday’s gladness

badness not essential nature though it often engulfed all I did and said which led to a miserable time though no major crimes from time to time I felt like slime

I’m fine after yoga and mediation.

composing is making me sick

what a perverse trick

in the thick of selfish plot

Not of service in Manhattan or port Jervis.

tiny troubling thoughts

greed!!!

Others are in need.

Play games as long as none are harmed

Alarmed I help others so little.

Brittle, my emotions

No soothing lotions remake a china bowl

Do not abuse what remains of grains, fields, sun and sky.

Enough with climate deniers who lie.

the snow in Guatemala

Waiting

Waiting is pointless

Whether for Godot or the snow in sun-drenched fields of Guatemala

Holler for a new dog collar why

Cry out for more pain

Train a different refrain

Now is a good time for this dance to move

I tense.

So does she.

This flirtation has gone too far.

Marred, married

Go home to my pointless life

Fearing everything including my family and wife.

Waiting is pointless

Why buy into perpetual pain?

The same old refrain.

A salad of words for birds Italian, French and German

Did not make Herman more likable.

As he prattled on about his dream of the bicycle.

Did he in youth try

popsicles and pumpernickel rye?

At intervals, from Interlochen, laboriously he tried to resuscitate his loss:

long lost love of lyrically luscious tones, bemoaned

Doomed to failure?

Didn’t think so, thought Mahalia.

Speedy, Productive, Compulsive

On a break

Sitting

Unknitting brow

Thinking of a Frau or three

Knee deep in distractions

Attractions are strong

play piano, sing along

Unwind my uptight behind the scenes

„Was ist das für ein böser Gäste.“

I’ll check the quote later.

Not from Ruth Bader

Ginsberg or Eugene Fader.

To music, ego attached.

A latchkey kid did do and re

Play with nixing ego

fixing efficient hours

Sours and whiskery drinking whisky

Do, react, say less, be less frisky

Do it briskly.

Raking over the goals

Stuck in the muck of my own making

Raking over old goals

Folding socks, trading stocks, practicing pointless hours clocked,

More boredom in the room claustrophobic

Xenophobic?

The heart of my inner tomb

Self-appointed gloom.

poems of affirmation

People will think I’m from a different nation.

I’m wonderful and terrific.

You could even say beatific.

****

Still there’s a hint of anger and rage.

Who let this beast out of the cage?

Was that sage?

Get over my fear.

Get on the stage.

At my age?

****

These don’t sound happy and upbeat

More like I’m still in retreat.

****

Angry and defeated.

Others can win. 

I’ll go drink another gin.

****

Ok try harder.

Get the goods down from the larder.

****

I’m full of hate.

That’s what I get for staying up late.

****

Those angry little bitches.

All tears and cries.

Lies, lies and more French fries.

****

Get over my bile.

Throw it on the pile.

Leave it goodbye.

Then I’ll smile.

****

Another day of compulsive activity.

That’s my proclivity.

****

Go to London.

Get a pound.

Hound someone else for a change.

I’ve had enough of the locals calling me strange.

****

When will it stop?

When I’m dead

Instead try yoga

Then go to bed.

 Here I go, folks.

I’ll poke fun afore the sun arises.

With a few clever words and surprises.

I’m smart.

A good start.

I’m bright and strong

I like this new song.

I’m good with people, they like me and smile

Done with trials, tribulations and

Confabulations.

Pleasant with one and all

I’m a nice guy, even-tempered, smooth, confident and tall.

***

Yes, I’m the cat’s meow

Girls check me out and how!

****

I’m rich and calm

Needing no balm

I’m a natural, learn quickly

Earn easily, win often

I soften my gaze

Say hey, I’m as good as Willie Mays.

I’m generous to a fault

Understand psychology Gestalt,

I’m considerate and kind

People find me

Compassionate too

Animals like me even in the zoo

I’m interesting, sought after and strong.

I play and sing like a pro

With all my excellent education I should know.

Success easily won,

Fun, love, athletic prowess, I share my innumerable gifts

driving red sportscars I offer beautiful women lifts.

My innumerable TEDS

help millions as they go to their beds.

I’m youthful, I’m a hunk. a maven of

Classic rock, funk and Thelonious Monk.

I’m all things to all people all the time without effort, without spending a dime.

****

I’m healthy, safe and wealthy

I live life with ease

I’m happy as you please.

****

My son loves his great job

He’s brilliant, happy and likes corn on the cob.

He’s done with being a slob.

Through courage and daring

he’s above overly caring and still

pleases even snobs.

He’s well-balanced and gentle

Always in a good state mental.

He’s strong, he’s tall and good looking

Brilliant, funny and kind

He’s always got something good cooking on his mind.

His curiosity, passion and dedication

Are better than any medication.

****

I have everything I need,

No greed, envy or untoward emotions.

I’ve got friends galore

Hot, happy times in store.

Good things come to the fore.

****

My attitude is positive

My reputation secure

In knowledge of the classical and the folklore.

****

I solve all problems with calm, patient reflection

Life is its own confection.

****

I prioritize well

A spell of good luck

Is my trade and truck.

****

Brilliant and nice

Energetic as old spice

Girls find me fascinating

***

Rhythm while dancing

Enhancing my reputation resurrected

Totally accepted by self and others

Initial hesitation yields to wisdom I’ve gained through meditation.

Younger and more youthful each day

My work is joyous as play.

****

I’m great, I’m grand

I’m the leader of the fucking band.

***

thinner, richer, taller, younger, stronger

If I were thinner, richer, taller, younger, stronger,

More moral,

ethical,

confident,

compassionate…

… this list could go on a lot longer!

A drunk

needs a drink

as much

As I need to think.

****

Death is nigh

No matter how hard I try.

****

Others get ahead

I’m stuck in a bed

Of roses with thorns born of depression days.

In ways prolific yet of trash

Get my bassoon fixed at Sam Ash.

****

Was a bassoonist all I could have been?

My reed too thin

Didn’t have the talent

Couldn’t learn the skills

To conduct, compose, teach or play piano or sing

Kills me I’ve wasted my life on this or that other thing.

A familiar ring has this rant.

A rant has a ring.

continue longer?

yoga and PT make me stronger.

****

Why complain?

Train

Celebrate what’s alive.

Try that new dive bar

It isn’t far.

****

Self-pity, stop!

Cop a plea bargain with jargon witty

Dig into the nitty gritty

In this city, in this town

Frown no-more

Have joy galore.

****

Sometimes they laugh, seeming to enjoy my poems and stories.

Being coy,

Being Tories polite,

They say good night…

good thing I’m a whiz and

don’t need to make a cent from any of this hobby shit.

(Oops, I mean biz!)

*****

I make people uncomfortable, angry but

What if I keep my mouth shut?

Hide in the crowd.

Say nothing out loud?

****

Am I really a worthless shit?

A two-bit nitwit?

Unfit for job

Too much of a slob

Too angry, too mean.

Yet I married a dean.

*****

Do I have anything to offer?

Look deep in my coffer?

*****

 Having fun with self-deprecation

Eases the pain even if it doesn’t yield euphoric elation!

how I train

Old age is not the gauge

All the rage is in the main

a matter of how I train

Beth

more to hug her:

That is

if I get out of her way and

don’t bug her.

St. Luke and the like

All saints paint different.

Hike up the sacred mountain to a

Fountain of youth.

Use Bluetooth.

Old St. Luke by the lake near St. Martin in the Fields favored

Fa, a good note.

Float it on the most Mozartian moat.

“Master!” intoned the bastard in lost, latent, lurid, proto-Urdu

Learning from St. Luke’s service, sacrifice and strength is not unlearnable lukewarm Lou’s voodoo.

*****

A small mini poem, not

A haiku

could be merrily more

My own form and thought

What is painful ought to be naught

Others’ opinions: don’t ask… keep it light and thin.

Grin, I’m retired at last.

Fast forward to go word shopping for sentence stop timing

A writer of words, overly serious musical notes

For whom do I write?

It’s for myself at night, in the day.

Wordsmithing craft saves me like Liszt’s raft.

Can I do better?

Am I daft?

Get some rest

Regulate my food, blood sugar.

Do it fast!

****

Cheerio dust:

In my house, a veritable must.

The mustiness of dustless Cheerios was tabled which enabled the aforementioned discussion to be spared being cussed for being a spartan

sparsely packed carton

in the gust of wind they cussed and recalled that at a small breakfast stall they had coffee, juice and a bowl of Cheerios sans dust.

A downpour

An uproar

In store for if evermore

I connect to my core there would be a lot of ideas borrowed from Al Gore.

 ****

Margheritas and Rosie’s rosé beat her to the Finnish gurus gulping grape vodka

girls from Sweden

paint a veritable garden of Eden.

Do I detect a pattern here?

Bitter

Acrimonious

Hostile

Harsh

Unfriendly

discordant

Spiteful

Rancorous

Malicious

Resentful

Vengeful- not really?

Acrimonious

I may not have much skill at writing

But it sure takes the biting sting

Out of my acrimonious self-hating thing.

Ok, so it’s a riddle!

What's the difference between a party 🎈 and group therapy?

At party you have boilermakers, a couple of litters and a long line for the punch.

In group therapy you have a lot of boiling anger, one leader and feel like you’re the butt of a joke with no punchline.

Statuary

Marble

Who were the unfortunates to work those quarries?

I am eternally sorry for what we do to each other for greed, out of envy.

Some ancients did take heed.

Stone faced.

About face?

Leave no trace?

To drink and dine alone

Antisocial prone…

Probe the probity of poisonous, paltry, pusillanimous, pussyfooting partying post-therapy.

Wine alone, bread alone earned.

Learned from masters of the age

Get out of the statutory cage.

a nice day

What are you staring at, you old shit.

Haven’t you ever seen a beautiful, hot, young blonde woman smile briefly at you then realize what a creep you are?

Haven’t you heard of visual rape?

I should scream.

No better yet: I’ll post your craven, leering mug on social media.

Someone will recognize and humiliate you.

And a nice day to you as well.

Beth likes blue

Beth likes blue, violet too and purple

Have you seen a purple turtle?

Myrtle from Dr. Seuss painted a moose as well.

Swell color I think... or was it pink?

Myrtle sounds like a girl’s name that book of considerable fame came to mind after I held painful, humiliating memories the kind inviting head banging despair while instead I relaxed my body.

Not a shoddy trick for a jerky prick.

Where’s compassion?

Out of fashion?

Rosie and Jean

Nice not mean

Though Jean has an edge out of class

Keeps her boundaries fast.

unhelpful baggage

Self-control

On the whole:

Candy or the fruit of the vineyard at the night owl inn.

don’t want sleep yet

A quick drive in the red corvette

Learn to be free of unhelpful baggage?

Create my own relevant, helpful adage.

more from life

lust

pointlessness

be robust.

Regressed less

guessed I must confess

want more from my life with Beth.

more than Bill.

Long Past Midnight, Danny needs to get some air.

Do I care?

Dare say I do but who am I to try to fix his problems?

I’m sleepless after his text all the more perplexed.

I forgive too easily yet

still harbor ill will

against the students who played me more than Bill.

Can I find desire?

Doubtful in work for hire.

A familiar ring

Disgust for who I am.

Yet many who are worse are lauded by public fans and are Teflon pans

I should have practiced.

I should have done this, that or the other thing.

A familiar ring this hack penned thing.

in a knot.

My face, twisted in a knot,

A hot, overheated not a comfortable mood I’ve got.

be a compassionate person not a robot.

Go the extra mile... even smile.

Eat less, exercise more

I’m exhausted by the very thought of this chore!

Happy 😊Valentines ❤️Day my sweet Beth 💕

A text not a tweet for my dear loving (but not addicting like crystal meth)

Perplexed, vexed but no longer hexed alas and alack

I could have faxed.

Snack on this instead of bread or cake

My loving sentiments are true, not fake. 👪To Danny you are a good mother.

He’s lucky 🍀 to have you and no other

Beth is suffering

Beth is nice.

Yes, to the first.

with Jesse

Low all of a sudden. Again.

My friend helps me realize

It’s the simple prize… family, friends, the arts many,

With thanks to Sharon!

Forgive myself my infinite sins.

Thin skinned ruminating doesn’t win big and juicy.

Oh, go have tea with Lucy.

 Beth, bath and Beyoncé.

healing, understanding, connection, and recovery. Yoga

Danny in a bathrobe toga

Beth showers, not bath and not Beyoncé

But better   since she was my fiancée .

❤

Not Valentines Day

But hey!

Just wanted to say

My love for you makes me play on words

Good enough for Sheldon and other nerds!

****

Birds sing blue

Louie’s trumpet and

Cuban tubas too!

But my caring for Beth grows each moment, month and day...

(Probably even in May.)

Definitely today

My love for you is deeper now

Somehow than when we met

You bet it’s not true?

Truer than Louis’ trumpet

Bluer than AOC’s caucus

Raucous laughter greets your smiles

I’ll be glad for your embrace

A trace of charm you’ve taught

I ought to look at it this way:

Play after worked stopped

I copped a cup of truth serum

In your lovely eyes I find eternal joyous delirium! 

****

Thought I couldn’t change?

Wouldn’t it be strange

Not for viola did I exchange my violin or bassoon a totally different tune sing I

After all these years of therapy a tipping point positive has been achieved

Believed it not possible

See me be the happy fool dabbling and babbling on the dubious dance floor

I’m sure you’d not recognize your dour

Sour depressed hubby has a new side: clubby!

from yoga it did elide

I tried with Sima and Eric and Ira and journals, meditations and more finally reaching the hope of good shore

Not Alex, Matthew, Louis or Jonathan, perhaps a drop of Barbara’s wisdom:

It’s Beth’s love of late I’m getting to see

What all along you inspire me to be!

*****

Tea in two tea pots

I got the hots for you

It’s true

Don’t leave me blue, orange or tangerine

I mean if I can change at least sometimes

Then anything is possible irascible you too!

the best defense.

Ride a bike

Drive a car

Wheel before the cart?

Heart of pain

For Danny and Beth are sad, stressed, tense

Movements of love, best defense.

Beth is smart... Beth is tough.

A good start but is it enough?

She loses her cool

Though no fool.

Would be cool if she were more gruff, in

Ways which help her win.

My cup runneth over

Except for Beth’s stress and back pain and

Danny’s stress, anxiety, depression.

Climate change

Racism

Geopolitical instabilities

Income inequality

So the goal is to do something to help someone.

Symphony No. 5 (Scherzo for psychos )

For narrator

actors

Chorus

Dancers

Symphony Orchestra

I

Destruction of our planet’s environment through shortsighted, selfish greed

II

Starving our poor, income inequality for sure a poor metaphor for building on the backs of average Jacquelins and Jacks. Hacks who whipped them, mean, heartless, cowards building great pyramids

through to our present day, wealth without lids

III

Scherzo for psychos

Pressure, pressures, hurry up do it now. No not that. Stop do this then that. Stop you’re not doing it right. Do more things, compete, if you don’t win your a son of sin. You’ll never be good enough. Keep trying. Work harder. Take a med. Get out of bed... with fried brain, suicide he cried is not the answer. It’s a cancer on our nation, our civilization destroying all in creation.

IV

Set in our ways.

Destroyed from within

Swayed by propaganda

We become like a weakened panda.

Yet there is hope.

Creativity is the gift of life.

Creative optimism can end world strife.

Peace, harmony working in tandem

Dance of the parallel play pigeons.

It is not necessary to be glorious

Perhaps better to be simpler

Inglorious.

 Am I bad?

I’ve done much that made people uncomfortable, sad and often very mad.

Worse because I could not explain how I was trying to be helpful.

Too relaxed at the wrong time.

Too hurried to do my best.

Sloppy, obsessive, compulsive

My anger, my pain, my self-absorbed refrain. I disdain from the right kinds of help yelping for the wrong, losing interest in song.

Am I bad and worthless?

I’m glad when I stop measuring my Dickensian verse

Could be worse.

Could be like Shakespeare’s Leer.

Get rid of the mirror facing rear.

Shed no tear. 

Once reviewed, the past is no help

Spelt misery, barely bran... spelled kelp and seaweed

Stop thinking; that’s the deed!

Indeed take heed

Drink mead with Martha

King Arthur at night reconciled Christian values with warring attitudes of conquest

Lest he look into his past realizing the unreconcilable trials of cruelty.

And you think I’m bad?

 My heart aches.

It’s not an attack.

More like a skirmish

I wish for self-control around food

A universal good, easily understood.

****

Not in a good place.

Trace the improvement to the fact that I write

At night I come alive

A mental beehive.

Strive to do less.

I confess it’s still striving

At what am I driving?

Conniving to be more than simply surviving?

*****

Am I capable of more and better?

Can I stop seeking dad’s approval to mimic him to the letter?

It would behoove me to see this clearly unfettered.

Removal of self seeking approval from ogres and others. Seek no approval just do what is right day in, night out.

That’s more and better what it’s about.

How to be better is just to be aware, there and there and especially caring here in this moment with seeing clearly

what people hold dearly.

*****

Beth’s kiss is on my list.

Not Liszt, Chopin or Brahms or Shostakovich

Which brings to mind when we got hitched

We ditched the singles life for the married

Though occasionally harried better to be with Beth than Deborah Harry

Or Mariah Carrie or Madame Curie. Free of radiation

Beth radiates her light with insightful might right around the clock

Chuck Berry took stock in flights of fancy maybe someday Beth will join me in dance play or yoga wearing a toga.

Whatever comes, Beth is best for me.

It’s plain to see.

Drunk in Donuts, a new brand for pre-AA a little too late a little too little not only for vets whose bets on life landed them neither job nor wife.

Rife with shame,

feel their pain

excessive booze makes me snooze.

I lose less than I gain in the main

yet feel so empty, weak and tired you’d think in a coal mine I’m mired.

When I dine later, I’ll regroup.

Danny may shoot hoops.

Why lust after Kate?

Beth of late has been more loving.

Her kiss was more sensual just now than I ever remember.

Though my anger presents likened to the dike end of a doll’s cat call I fall, flail, failing to see the safety railing.

Bailing boisterously, my self-sabotage stalling poor me.

Pour me a Stella

Adler and maybe I’ll learn to act.

What change again?

Expand my brain?

Play on a play on a stage.

Play pen for the den of iniquity be free of craving a fix for my Dixieland

Bix Beiderbick knew a few tricks

His riffs and quick licks on the horn, did they save his ass?

Too crass? Too much heat?

Well life’s no party for corporados nor migrants though some

bands give ‘em a hand from the grandstand I’m so luck to land a lovely lot of life with son and wife.

me own damn booster.

Get off of my ass.

Smoke some fucking grass.

Weed, mon!

Rasta.

Rise with the rooster

Be me own damn booster.

my internal garbage heap.

Cities, bejeweled hi rise down below a sewer

Truer word ne’er said afore bed, homestead to

Get ahead in the morn refrain from the frequent sojourn into fantasy

Can’t I see it’s a waste of good taste in haste keeping me pleasantly numb, acting dumb. It’s never too late to end the wait bait myself no longer, not long now, a song still sings somewhere buried deep in my life golden wrapping around my internal garbage heap.

anyone’s biz!

He’s home.

No longer to roam.

Though Rome he did like.

Mike and Mel. Let’s not all go to Hell’s vault.

We’re all at fault.

Just move forward, toward being better than an Irish Setter.

We’re a good team

Blowing off steam

Cream of crop we’re not.  So what?

Who is?

None of anyone’s biz!

daily ration

Forty years I’ve wasted

A few beers I’ve tasted.

Not wasted by any means

Cleans my mind

Beans for brains, rice for a life of perennial poverty?

This diet is food for thought.

My mental palette have a salad

Find my own balance a little less guilt, a little more confidence

compassion will be my daily ration.

That’s how!

Howl not!

Foul be far and no longer fair!

A flair to learn

Burn midnight candle sticks

A healthier fix yet why couldn’t I learn all I needed to do a better job?

Was I really a selfish slob?

So many things I did wrong they multiplied like a recurring song

Long in the past are most of my errors

So why the continual terrors?

Let go of the past

Fast do better now

That’s how!

You can too.

Not technologist

Philologist or psychologist

A list endless of what I’m not.

Oh, what rot this envy thing!

Bling does not have a

Trevor Noah ring

Sing an optimistic song

For long night’s reading

My lusty leaning.

Be thankful for learning

Be grateful the goodness I’ve got.

Imagine the growing good as if already accomplished

Wished, planned, relegated not more to the back burner

For this lifelong learner.

Did Ted Turner turn his vision into reality that way?

No matter, you say: some did. Some do.

You can too.

receptive tonight

Danny was receptive tonight

My listening was a far sight

Better not trying to do my fathering to the letter

I was able to go farther

Being a different sort of father

My guess:

can I do this for myself?

Yes

Around supportive ground

seductive.

Go to sleep.

Soon. It’s been a long, great day even sans bassoon.

A tune I sang could be more flowing, more essentially the me who never yet bloomed.

Entombed I made myself. Through repetition compulsion hoping it would come out differently inherently flawed was that logic my pedagogic skills weren’t nil even if not as good as Bill’s or Bula’s- did she do the hula?

Cruel of you to mention that at this late date, at the eleventh hour as more turn less sour the world can still flower. My power is less inhibited by self sabotage, increasingly getting out of my garage. Dodge City in the Wild West best showed a model for where I’ve been. Now to a more civilized place I grace the walls, the entire space, all the halls call for a face not new but hidden for many a year with beer, therapies and a productive tear or two I’ve turned my life around feeling the solid, supportive ground.

new easels

A poem of roughness,

Toughness, tightness or increasing temporary lightness?

Stop getting in the way my own homegrown inherited internalized anti Semitism, a schism, not necessary, have my say

Everyday connected to natural abilities. Be the vessel. Wrestle with myself: it’s for now over. No need to take cover. Be the man not a child, wimp or weasel. Paint on vibrant new easels.

perhaps tonight.

Yuck my yum

Bacon grease scum

From under the hood I am dumb

Perhaps also so just at times overcompensating

Relating to none which rhymes.

Few do look at what I’ve put Beth through

True but it is a dance. I have tried for decades to work on bettering our romance having missed the point as others anoint, I should have smoked a joint. The point: Self indulgent ego dulled yet bulging effulgent firecrackers snacked on snickers quicker to get the liquor while candle’s wicker baskets a casket of my gifts lift from the graven image mortuary morn torn up in angst... Dull and arrogant pranks pull withheld and fearful rarely fearful yet sad, depressed over-confessed even faults not my own what little tiny throne I had I threw away failing to see the light of my own day. Some believe we all have a spark of divinity, wisdom, light, kindness, joy, inspiration- something to say. Hooray! At the yoga studio I suspend disbelief, have a good deal of heart warming relief. I don’t want to risk losing that for a momentary pleasure which anyway I fear complications. I want to touch Rachel and Kate it is too late to have so many so I have none. Jean is too much for me. Beth is just right if I could ever become a full person... perhaps tonight.

go buy the wine

Tired, unmotivated

Berated, stopped, chained self absorbed dulled hardly elated 

Bored barely horny corny angry

Self limiting loathing itching twitching

Lifeless afraid

Raid the pantry eat till I get sick

Drink till I’m drunk

Rub out the boredom from gum to gum

Envy of what exactly am I envious?

Come, come: what do I want?

Specifically. It’s a good start to chart my distant star far though it be it’s still somewhere in me.

Where is my creativity, my internal leadership? You give a dog a bad name then you hang him. A common theme.

Stuck undone my lifeless life’s meme.

A wife who loves conditionally

Am I any better?

I regret her harshness but benefit from its non-coddling reality. She’s my wife not my mother for chist’s sake get up out of bed it’s past time to be awake. I’m a fraud and a foul fake. Take two doses of self hate, three of love. Come up with a vision internal not from above.

Flirting and leering constantly not out of pain is it out of my main frame?

I disdain from sex, fearing impotence and complication.

Massage women were a compromise. I’d advise it to stop.

Go hop on a mattress of my own not in a flop house crop.

Drop the pretense.

Yes I was hated and ignored, I scored poor on the important people metrics

I couldn’t learn. I still can’t dance.

I still stare at women and girls

Where is my self control?

Out eating candy bars washing it down with boozes in pairs of floozies’ shoes. Whose game is this anyway? I’d say mine ok fine then go buy the wine, then with family and friends dine.

I feel the booze so much later.

hell bent it went

Couldn’t the waiter have warned me?

Hee... hee... eat, drink, be merry at your own risk. Kissed goodbye innocence and incense, intense for Lent sense if you’re hell bent it went the other way.

a green mountain Jeep

Yes

Not maybe

Notice my racism, sexism, fear

Inappropriateness

Putting myself ahead of others

Let it go now

Enough.

Be not crude or gruff

Tough love comes in a variety of flavors

Savor my own sense of being my own savior

This is going to take some work

It will make me less a jerk.

The perks are good

To be understood

I do well when I follow my own bell

Not when things are objectively up or down in Hell but when my mindfulness is at rest in hovering attention.

I mention it now to ease myself to sleep affectionately

with Beth,

not with little bo peep in a green mountain Jeep

Slow down, speed up

Smile, frown

I turned into a pathetic, detested clown.

I was a joke.

Why couldn’t I learn?

A bloke stoked my fire on a pyre of confusion; why was I hired? Worried about none but me, the opposite of free.

Breath, breathe, easy, easily ease into myself, me, my Garden of Eden. Yes heathen that I am. Did I learn this through spam worth a damn?

Why didn’t I take a hint, a hike and hide?

I tried. I did. Better to have... what? Lied? None denied... what? What again? That I played in the wrong playpen? Then again what?

But I’m not sure. Lusting after young girls. Good I left before I took advantage and wound up in jail. Rather than a hail of self invectives, move forward. Look forward to the next dance party, smarty. Start me today with pop and funk. Don’t deny my junk. Bunk? No... I’m a hunk, a little maybe but enjoying being slightly drunk....Post vittles, a little acquittal will sit, will start my next phase, my next crave. Simplify my life, especially with my wife.

O’Henry wrote in a bar not far from here. Was he queer?

Oh dear what a smear!

I’ve been to Pete’s Tavern. I prefer the cavern at the back seat at Kenn’s Broome Street Bar. Shares my name, has its own idiosyncratic fame. It’s a shame to put down lame puns meant for fun. Some girls my wife included were trained in some odd way to play men, putting them down, never let them win. On thin ice. Think twice. Spice girls can flirt. Burt took notice. As did Fred, Allan and James all the guys need control. Always be on inner patrol. That’s the goal.

What if I no longer get angry? Stop playing into the game, the other’s hand. Am I man enough to call her bluff?

Rather, respect my own dignity.

A pig, a glutton of sensual sex-seeking porn surfing freaking. Affinities for future fireworks: feel compassion freely for friends and foes foisted fabulously as jerks. Hercules was played too. Grew great myths from pain and suffering. These things mean to teach and do, sometimes beseech. Why does Kate come to mind? I don’t find her imperfections, see her flaws. I’m all gegaws putting her on pedestals with her beauty, youth, intelligence, charm, social skills, courage and accomplishments...who wouldn’t lust after this lovely lady in my heyday I missed boat... you old goat give it a rest at the behest of my better self, I understand my hunger, my starvation... yet with Beth on this eve there is possibility of elation. Stop the mental predation and how. And now surrounding myself with less isolation. Less strife...

May you live in health, harmony; may you be happy, free from suffering buffering the world’s pain and confusion not with collusion but a hut filled to the brim with whims of fancy. Dance me to the next breath, being of the moment with mind clear, my goal in therapy, declared, well- stated. Insufficiently elated. Now, now and again, pen and pencil my ground I found and feared then cleared ill-fated negativity with better, more appropriate sort of personal nativity.

Done... accomplished and put to bed.

Better in older age than dead.

Notice: some women dig me. Maybe even my wife with a little less strife. Strife and wife show up together so often in my mental coffin can I soften the blows?

Who knows?

Hold my own.  Beth is the best bet for me because she challenges in all the ways I need. God speed: my creed indeed. Beknonwnst to Old English and me at this vantage of less than a year out, it seems I did the best possible at time and place without sufficient mental space to erase the pace of increasing pain internal mace amplified by kids who lied or stretched the truth to target my weaknesses, couldn’t have run the Preakness or any other competition. My original edition was nearly lost at cost of life and limb. Limits expanded by Lil’ Kim. Not the North Korean. I’ll be seein my own internal deacons of pain. On the main I did not only maintain but improved some things and still got out on healthy enough wings to start my next phase of things in a calmer state than my years’ long craze.

Less dazed, I’ve started anew. With a different crew.

Probably they welcome me because I’ve come back to a more central Ken. Not just that I escaped the invalidating penitentiary with brush and pen. Then there’s

Beth’s bottom line is improving.

It’s fine.

She had a spectacular figure.

Go figure how I did not sufficiently appreciate her.

It’s a blur.

Concur?

Klar?

Vale?

Maybe it wasn’t all my fault but I’ve done the unilateral thing of working my part

Good start, has the right ring this thing:

Sing

Painful memories evaporate

On a date with Beth.

Stop lusting after Kate and Jean, Ann and Olga and Irena.

No different than any other hyena.

Less meaner than formerly.

Be self-controlled.

Old men like me frequently look at beautiful young women

Olga has fallen by the wayside

Yet if I were going to have an affair

With the fewest cares it would be with someone too busy and too inappropriate for a longterm serious entanglement

I’m hell bent on saving my marriage

No matter what it costs

I’m at a loss to see a better alternative

save a few wayward fantasies

Celebrate that it’s Friday.

Tomorrow will be different, not my usual boring Saturday. I’ll go play with words Spanish in a museum hardly a coliseum

A dream unearthed will be a first step in my reconnecting to the girth of self worth and language as a tool for connection to others on this tiny planet earth.

Poor, sad, angry, put-upon Beth.

She wants no pity.

She wants me to know what she needs.

Indeed, I should know after all these years:

She wants genuine feelings, love, devotion, independence but just the right amount, clear, appropriate communication, presents that she likes, an open ear, compassion, stay out of her way except when she wants to be close, tell her a little about what I do but not too much. She wants me to get a job.

criticism form a schism

Stopped.

I let that criticism form a schism tween my reading and study what a buddy wouldn’t do to form the glue needed for a

Proper bond over the pond to fair London Town would Beth wear a lovely gown? Perhaps a bejeweled crown given by the Queen’s brigade or at least some tart little bit of lemonade making her frown

There’s no free lunch or cheese appetizer except

In the mousetraps of the KGB Trump has no clue, unaware or doesn’t care that he’s destroying our country one department at a time. If I were a lawyer I’d helped prosecute his crimes. More

To the point,

Can I learn?

I am learning something from the exceptional teachers I’ve

Found. I’m a hound with a nose handsome thanks to lady GaGa I’ve

Started to greet

My rugged profile

Rather than dial

Wishfully into a

Ridiculous fantasy of plasticity surgically altering what is good enough.

I can like myself from all angles and still want to improve the areas where I’m entangled.

Rather than continue to look for approval

A removal of guilt and shame

Lame excuses to the hilt of

The same mainly prevent progress

Jean asked the barista what he really wants.

What do I really want?

The love of Beth, her happiness and health. Danny’s health and happiness, Amy’s too, world peace, universal health care, a more fair distribution of wealth and resources, attention to priorities such as cleaning up our planet.

For me? The ability to make money, the ability to think clearly, be persuasive

Take care of myself and be aware of others as well as myself. 

Interesting that Jessica included that today. Off now onto the rest of my day.

I’m a hypocrite. How so?

Oh... you know:

Entitled... subtitled too.

Give it a rest

A rat and a ratatouille

Chop Suey is gooey who he ate out at the restaurant

On to diners serving no beer to minors.

Or Major Tom

Don’t mess with that copyright, not tonight at any penthouse height.

The fright of hypocrisy:

Is he?

Or is he me set free to roam on a silver saddle

Brain half addled but that’s half the battle.

Cattle call cat.

A tall order for a ridiculously riddled ratatouille rat.

*****

It’s been a while since I was silly.

Go to Philly?

Billie Holiday may have said “come to bed, get out the lead,

Instead sing a long song, make it up as you go. There are plenty of folks

who can write it down but not many can have an authentic sound.”

Probably didn’t say exactly that.

Have a spat with the guy who said she did.

Take the lid off my own charm and originality sure to have less banality than barking barnacles beatifically basking at Robin’s ice cream theme at the kid’s party. Why so much fear and anxiety? Didn’t learn to play in the sandbox with Chuck and his sister Goldie Locks. Instead I had to have clean socks and a suit not frocks which unlocks childhood constrictions leading to later

Addictions.

away from wind and snow

No creativity no sleep.

Been a creep.

In pile deep, a heap.

Reap what you sow. I know.

Give it a rest and go.

Would be best.

Go… go! Get to sleep in a warm blanket away from wind and snow.

Away from wind and snow

Where did my creativity go?

Beats me if I know.

Show up for work

Stop being a ruminative jerk.

Even the twerk would be better

For any down or up dog. Even an Irish Setter.

****

I feel empty and depressed.

It’s not as bad as if ice around my heart coalesced.

Death will come soon enough.

Don’t call it’s bluff.

There’s much I still enjoy:

Mounds and Almond Joy.

Ahoy my sense of humor hasn’t  been affected by my tumor.

*****

Darker than usual.

A perusal of my thoughts reveals

Navy seals doing awful things

It brings to mind pain of different kinds.  

Am I addicted to pain?

It’s plain to see I’ve got to get on a healthier track. Less addictive more predictive of success with Beth, Dan and myself as a self-respecting man.