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.

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.

 When someone is mean to me

I hate myself and do subtly self-sabotaging things three

Or four or more.

Tree ring folly not necessarily for Molly, Alice or Mark.

The Twain shall never meet.

Or greet a kindred soul

from whence I came afore I was old.

****

Clowns make me sick.

Others feel this trick.

Of fate of late I’m sure Al Gore had more to say but gave it up as a bad job

humanity is too much of a slob to have appreciated what he offered so he to be frank

took his brilliance to the bank, got rich without a pitch or a penny for remorse of course I don’t really know but

the fact is he moved on, doing well.

He tried to be swell.

Wasn’t quite what the populace wanted.

Should have fought the Supreme Court’s outrageous hanging chad decision.

That omission in this emission recalls my earlier attempts at erudition.

On the condition my humor keeps me sane I

refrain from more pain, now seeking sleep.

A deep rest and recovery is what I need best.

These days I read so little.

Yes I study daily but whittle my core depleting the store of freshness more, abhorring my stasis seeking a mirage, a beautiful desert oasis in my hi-rise garage. 

****

A good day. Checked all the boxes on my OCD. Now I’m free?

Get drunk?

Is that the plan?

Dinner with Mike not uncle Stan who’s dead anyway dad and he were rivals or worse. Who went first? Dad I think. Elaine wore minks so did mom not to her prom Elaine had the Midas touch. Such is my never ending envy and comparing. If I felt better about myself I would be daring to be more caring... Now... Not continually rehashing past humiliations. Frustrations outweighs elations in my cognitive distortion I give myself the short portion.

my eternal

Beth, often sweet is

Sometimes neat.

Meet me early for dinner?

You make me feel like a winter winner.

In other seasons do you tweet in hallways?

Flute players like Galway are not relatives like Risa. Rose 🌹 my grandmother, danced on her toes, a shoe 👠 model

Beth rose to new heights without coddling

Not as flighty, one third less flutey,

None are my like my Beth my eternal spiritual beauty!

without a fight.

An ostrich doth blanche.

Creativity only at night?

My fright is naught which I ought to have caught I thought.

Let it go without a fight.

*****

My life is in better balance.

The near panic recreated by starting dance

Gives new opportunities

These chance importune prances

Look not askance

An ostrich doth blanche.

my affliction

made me mad

Hungry for a fix

Get kicks in healthier ways

These days

Read that book on addiction

Just might help my affliction

*********

My diction was poor sometimes according to students

Couldn’t do anything right

Not quite said the boss

Not everything was bad

Even that made me mad.

Rotten mood much of the day.

I’m grateful for exercises anyway.

Got rid of back pain.

So, I can explain:

Grateful for resilience, taking responsibility for physical discomfort.

Lots of anger still

Guilt, if you will for anger

Anger and feeling like a semi competent prisoner in a broken, buried airplane hanger.

Hang on!

Untoward, unexpected an inconvenient

I’ll  choose to be more self-lenient.

That’s how I often treat myself.

Anger that I show my emotions.

Anger for my feeling entitled to sex.

AA- antiphonal anger with kids. Rage that I stayed in that job because I felt there were no other options for me. Anger that I could not learn to teach better, that I ignored good advice and took a lot of questionable input. Anger that I let my voice me muted since I was 15 or so. Well not completely.

No not ok.  Beth is annoyed because I’m not hungry. She thinks it the salmon she bought but it’s that my stomach is bubbling probably from my emotional dispepsia.

Greed lust anger guilt do I have any positive emotions now?

Eligible ineligible illegible illegitimate illegal Waldron aliens from Mars and the short stories he wrote in his science fiction writing youth.

Resourceful creative return to gratitude.

Over eating

Self indulgence

So I’m looking forward to going to Jesse’s  AA meeting, even though he’s not speaking.

Enough envy. He has better friends than I. They go on road trips, play music, etc.

Little do I often accept though I know it in my head, that my bad moods are bad for Danny and Beth.

Focus on breathing.

Ignominious wasting my selfish life.

Negativity

Delusional

Upset that I’m not a musician or anything else. Can I accept that I’m a student and that is probably all I will ever be. The purpose of being a student and if meditating is to be a better person, to learn wisdom to help others. So start now.

Little baby steps- self compassion - I was a jerk with Alex Markov. Andre helped, but it was mostly me.

Good? What good does it do me to endlessly ruminate?

Enough

Now go do something else

Can I do something different?

Extremely uncreative now.

I don’t feel love.

Shove others aside what do I expect?

Ira Hecht to apologize? Give me refund?

Get real. He did me no wrong. I sang the wrong song, the wrong time.

I’m feeling anger, lots of other negative stuff.

Hufflepuff wearing a muff doesn’t

Warm the cockles of a limp dictionary missing words about birds from above love I feel not. Hot and bothered.

Time to stop with current Ira?

A couple of bad sessions don’t outweigh the progress I’m making. There for the taking. Not faking

Warm cookies and milk, a chick in satin and silk can I love without objectifying women? Why am I depressed? My life is so good? Never be a boy from the hood. Especially not a fair haired boy for girls to use as a toy. Easily abused. Asking to be confused. I lose. You win. That’s a laugh. No one is happy well maybe a giraffe. Megafauna got cooked out of existence in  the human onslaught wasn’t no sauna. Those fauna were gonna go head to toe with humanity pushing others out of our way back in the day and today as well. Could be a spell of decency coming up to balance the recent past. You asked... Too easy too fácil that rhyme is slime with a twist of lime. Offline sublime

I’m selfish not taking selfies Ellie’s bellies better than Kelly’s fat little horse’s ass now I’m getting crass. Her belly eating carbs failing life manipulating her mom and teachers she was a little bit of poison with a sugar coating. Floating gloating probably not. Her mom putting me down two years in a row at the faculty party. Hearty laugh had andre at my expense. E tú Brute. Glad you have a cutie. Now you’re married. Join the club. Had enough of your snubs. Couldn’t join your club. We  worked at different hubs. Sense you make of pence and three pence whence if so many people dislike me I am probably right to hide. Bonafide bonah fiday today is Friday up up and awash in the car cab-ash. Nice oboe sound driving myself into the ducking ground. Duck hunting football punting nice tune playing in the bar audio   Lots of feeling. Reeling: Do I have any? Just negative crap. What a sap? My life was too easy. I’m sleazy. Breath is wheezy

Feeling sorry for myself not helpful.

What do I want?

Love, sex, connection to people.

Direction

Passion.

A personal myth

I thought I was alone.

I reached out to friends

I push them away and say poor friendless me. I’m free of illusions and self contusions and contortions mental and emotions abortions. This writing is therapeutic to boot camp on it I’ll put my stamp as I vamp to a trampy woman girl I’ll find trouble more than it’s worth. I think I worthy of a whore because I sell myself so cheap at any old store not because I’m poor or don’t know what’s in store a lazy rhyme this time. If I give up the notion that I’m unworthy and every path leads to rejection with minimal resurrection I’ll continue to go in circular directions.

So to my own better self be true if I can find it easier to do when remembering that the exercises are more powerful than the negative stream of words. Stop repeating the poison ivy. Chives and chivvy

My self deprecation bends me in two

Too true. I thought I was done with writing

Citing infinite criticisms angry caustic enough hating witticisms this trash is better far better than bottling it up inside I cried too few tears when I was very young a hung jury flavored with all the wrong kinds of curry favor with an Indian chick or  some other schtick like two licking young ladies sticking to each other’s women is no crime. Acting on it is adultery. Have a sultry fantasy instead get a head. Have her give me head in the head. The Grateful Dead bled for my generation across this once great trumped up national football league didn’t help Sheryl Tieg. Blitzkrieg a lightning strike coming down the pike. Gid sent me a couple of helicopters

What allow me to start writing again?

The booze?

A general loosing up from yoga? Sensory awareness. Progress with piano, singing, languages? The truth the reality is I’m making progress despite my habitual negativity. Moving towards more time out of the house and with people.

A vision to believe in

Can I help anyone?

but don’t text.

A good day, lots of play.

Jessica is right:

Find, reconnect with the joy.

Not a ploy, not fake meant to placate.

Can I listen without interrupting?

What do I really want to learn?

Putting envy aside, I can no longer abuse my mediocrity and hypoallergenic hypocrisy. 

Chrissy wouldn’t dis me.

Did she want to kiss me?

It should piss me off that I keep missing the mark, the opportunity

eludes me as I focus on negativity instead of the night rumination

Find something to learn which will set me glowing not throwing away my life In self-indulgent pity, no matter how pithy.

I do learn a little In yoga, in languages, in singing.

Maybe even a little in therapy.

One of the goals of yoga is to hold positions so that when difficult situations arise you can exercise self control.

Ok. Now I notice I crave sugar and sex.

Check my blood glucose but don’t text.

A false gnome

Can I be a better role model?

*****

Dad is dead

Get ahead

Get out the lead.

Instead I want to sleep

Not with Little Bo Beep

Certainly not with sheep

Dip is far from hip though dumpfian

Dumpfs in dumpsters hump.

Hemp used by Jack Kemp lent a learned

Lesson from those who mock me. I invite abuse and disgrace... instead pay ladies in lace.

Some poem.

Yet there are lesson from false gnomes.

*****

Leave my failures behind

Don’t mind if I do

True enough those ruminati go incognati

Feeling not sorry for myself but stuck in muck delivered by my own truck.

Duck!

Just my luck.

Here comes another load of yuck.

*****

No desire

Not much for hire

Mired by Myer, Mayer the naysayer

My internal slaver.

Writing

Better than sleeping

In keeping with my goal to improve

Just have some fun

Put away the proverbial self-aimed gun.

*****

Am I manic depressive?

Less of memories of people disliking me.

Keep a low profile.

While hiding in my own style.

*****

Less people dislike me now that I am retired

Am I less vile or just filed

more away than in days past

Still mired in annoyance of people with my lack of self-control, distraction, self-absorption dance

Cognitive distortion and simple, plain old exhaustion.

*****

Life and lice and lice-like men and mice make mincemeat of a milliner’s heated hats

Treat her teats with a touch soft and gentle keeping us both from going mental.

****

Three for two, right, center or left?

A sale that’s new

Heidi and Tom, Eli and Laura, Jamie and Andre, parents and kids, colleagues... I messed up if not continuously than often.

And now?

Is there anything left?

*****

Not much rhyme that time.

Not one of my better poems.

Many people write.

Delighting ourselves

There’s no need to compete

Cheat not

Can one get off the couch?

Walk around in a kangaroo pouch.

Ashamed stop it.

I’m no worse than most.

So drop the pretension and denial

felling life is an endless trial.

Got better, this.

Hissing steam of self flagellation

Turing into organizing recreation.

****

A date,

a fig, a figment of the last gig...

wait!

*****

A spate of interest in things I do best.

A smile, a connection

Goes the long mile.

****

Give up

Can’t compete

Oh what a treat

Had I been a decent athlete!

*****

Give up

Give in

Give this lout a

Drink of the damned gin

‘For it run out.

*****

This one I bored.

That one I ignored.

One snorted. The other snored loudly.

Proudly,

This one wants to give feedback unrequested.

My skin crawls with wounds festered.

That offer detested falls flatly on fairly sensitized ears

Tell the jerk off to keep away. I have enough tears.

Ask angrily why the fuck would I want your feedback?

Do I need another panic attack?

Better not to share my work.

There are endless well-meaning jerks.

Naught to be gained.

I refrained this long.

If ever I think a song clever,

I’ll shelve it then go play ping pong.

a little bit grown

I was disconnected from his needing to be on his phone.

Prone to not noticing others’ needs to be alone

A track record which hampers rain or when the sun shone.

When shown and accepted my ego is disciplined and honed

I have a little bit grown.

a stable genius

Dopey dumpf says he’s a stable genius

He has a keenness

for creating world problems.

Neither economic prosperity or allies friendly nor environmental health when whims

To his simple, greedy mind find their way to improvement delays in ways hims

Slim pickings for all but his wealthy cronies, hangers on and those he fooled stims

That’s a stimulus to buy by votes from his beloved base of otherwise unhappy farmers and other starving slim jims.

It’s March. Soon to be May!

Yay!

And then again hooray.

This rough day parched

is framed by insecurity, nervousness and fear of being attacked.

Attacked?

That’s going a little far.

At least I can’t be sacked. Though I did languages and a little exercise mostly I cry inside but would prefer to hide not die. Death will come soon enough.

Don’t call it’s bluff.

Darker and darker these poems get.

I fret yoga and all the good are in vain

Because of my addiction to pain.

Giving power as I do

So true so what?

Get up.  Shave

Behave like an an adult decent not a reckless, defeated knave.

****

Everyone suffers

The successful buffer pain

To maintain confidence 

I did enough success to have been confident except for the dent did, done by dad. I had had a glad time in an earlier day not perfect but sufficient to play ok. Most of my life I’ve given in to strife. Wife is good. I understood I could be better? A man of letters, to some extent finance. The real question is: can I learn to dance?

The polyglot on Mott having roamed near and wide brushed aside all

Dark thoughts of dark chocolate malts

A malty and hoppy brew or two at Broome street bar dusted off his brushy broom, hushing those malty, happy, hoppy, poppy malt thoughts brushed aside his many, many faults.

****

With my now semi-conscious passive aggressive self-thwarting and endlessly annoying behavior,

I’m less successful than Tom, Jeremiah or Xavier.

****

Oh Beth, oh Beth.

Till death do we part.

Which part of this party

Is not hearty enough for this friend of Alex, the smarty?

****

A mild case of death.

Neither crystal meth nor maths

Studied in the bath hath taken hold of

the bold med which was not popular with Ned.

A kiss comes naturally.

But naturally, since it’s been so long since we danced this song, I wonder now

If like a bike I’ve forgotten how.

Too much attached

to wondrous simplicity hatched.

What’s in Beth’s mind

for our upcoming little trip.

I’m being flip:

My hips stiff from lack of use, emotional abuse

Obtuse no longer, by the day I grow stronger.

It’s been five years- did I wrong her?

When push comes to shove,

since we made love.

The day after miserable,

Said I was nuts.

Let her make me feel like a crazy, insane klutz.

Some of both?

Who knows?

It shows:

I bore her. She bores me.

Not all the time.

Do better.

These no crimes:

Repair.

Touch gently her hair.

Dare respect process of life together growing old.

Be bold, I’ve been told: 

I fear this nightly resolve will not absolve haughty, bought thoughts mechanical,

while world advances at ever increasing speed aeronautical,

Fear and lack of love, of passion and dire desire to retire to bed.

Better than to hire a maid.

Fade, give up pretense from whence

Enjoy all the same.

Hoard no

Mainframe, mini, cloud, desktop, laptop, tablet or smartboard

Angry and tense...

Go to sleep; take less offense.

I am broken, shrill.

Still dull my will, a pencil overused.

A ruse, a rant of “I can’t, I can’t.”

Plant another seed more happy and positive

Feed it well. It will grow sweet and swell. Tell this message to one and call “we have a choice in our internal flower bed. Choose the living not the desiccated, wedded, dedicted head of things past. Up the mast.

Fly the sail.

Into a new possibility.

A path not taken

Forsaken no longer.

Embrace what is good and meant to be.”

Resurrect my young vibrant self from under that poison tree elf

Be now free

Now

Be now

Be. 

Not broken nor shrill my will, a pencil’s led refilled.

Russian bots and bands give way

Planting other seeds in these happier lands this day

The spring in May

Fed well growing sweet and swell.

The positive rises to the light. The negative can go to...

Tell this to the mountain: a fountain of hope still bubbling

My heart lightening, gradually un-troubling.

Broken no longer, finally stronger.

Stranger things have occurred.

The speed of change is blurred.

I wish all well with the yogis I concurred.

The spring in May

Is here this fine day.

borrowed bootstraps

Better today because I do not want to present like a hopeless mess.

Jess and Jesse know best.

Pull yourself up by borrowed bootstraps.

Run laps.

Avoids schnapps.

Occasionally perhaps.

No poems in a long time.

I’m not feeling creative

More worried about Danny.

Really? Or my ego or my guilt at enabling him.

I believe Danny will be ok.

*****

Beth has heartburn

She has earned a vacation and retirement

Spent a good career

Steer clear of advice

Spice is one cause of heartburn

Heartache is from too many mistakes.

****

Something silly and distracting

Attracting my mind away from

Days and days of being a bum fish out of water sort of kids hating me, my hard work wasted often. Soften the pain by donating care

Dare to create, elate when you can

Be a new and better man.

*****

Cresting bigger, bigger and bigger nested mess I confess I couldn’t learn to earn their respect. I deflect the pain in the main, refraining from harming myself more.

What’s in store is education of my core .

Too many things I was trying to catch up on: mon piano, violin, pedagogy, psychology, social and job-place skills-other ills. What strengths I had became without pills under stress sometimes bad. I’m glad I’m gone from that place where I couldn’t save face. Even Kari two years in a row made fun of me. I bent over backwards for her daughter’s grade. I made similar mistakes with other aids, parents, students and more than one colleague. My fatigue is still not nil said Bill I changed - meaning for the worse. He said it’s like I don’t want to be there. Why at that time didn’t I say yes and leave? Simply because I had no other gig up my sleeve. I could forgive myself if I were a better person now- wait! I wanted to do good but couldn’t. I shouldn’t blame myself too much, I did the best I could now what keeps me from being better? Stop staring at women. Be respectful to all. Be diligent or don’t do it at all. Forestall a call to a higher power. Now or never be a bit clever. Prepare the taxes; don’t practice saxes!

****

It’s lighter that last line or three.

Still not silly enough for me.

To get away from my obsessive pain

Explain the refrain to Aunt Jayne.

Though she’s dead, I’ve still got to go to bed.

Who gas?

Whoever gives a shiitake mushroom

Would miss the bloom in the back room of my mind.

Kind of like love but not as blind.

I find I don’t really mind this kind of self-referential fun.

Better puns than NRA dumpfian guns.

Feared this, feared that

I’m weird.

In wrong directions I’ve allowed myself to be steered.

Feared this, feared that

Never was a cool cat

On the yoga mat to my internal truth I’ve returned

Unlearned all that was false and superimposed

Supposed I could have done better if I had trained to be on Art Link-letter

What are all the links?

Who knows? Who cares. I flare up with finks less and tolerate better distress when in a minor mess. I digress. Less is more to be surefooted is good it is, in and out of this Byzantine biz.

I may be stiff and most of the time weird but I hide less behind multiple beards resulting in an occasional exulting in the acceptance of who I am

as opposed to trying on lying versions learned through cultural spam.

^***

Yes I’m stiff

Using it as fodder is better than jumping off a cliff.

Hangers, bangers and mash, cash in on Johnny’s gift. It bubbles:

No wonder Danny has troubles...

I was so adrift.

He also has my gifts.

Yes biology but my ecology was to blame.

He’ll get better all the same.

****

At a fair when he was young I was wrapped in my own pain.

He didn’t complain but the harm was plain to see these many years later.

A spate earnestly overrated mental bait is what causes much of the self-directed hate.

knows more and score!

The body knows more

Stop keeping score.

Compulsive showing off, get off this train.

Gets me more pain. Refrain

Unlike Cain who couldn’t unless you are able who god didn’t favor

He murdered his younger brother. Smothered with god’s love the younger still couldn’t survive Cane’s envious evil. Envy and human enmity outdid the deity’s favor. Lots of help. Very inspiring. Tiring of this myth even with its herewith pith.

****

bothered by others getting more or better. That if we allow ourselves to be offended and feel put down and rejected then act out our bad feelings hurting another not only do we lose our dearest brother we spawn evil and karma malfeasant which besides messing up our lineage is just not decent. Recent events bear this out as much as those from the archeological dig. Do you care a flying fig?
makes me mad.

March makes me mad.

I’m glad I’m retired. Was I fired?

Just glad I’m not “there” being had.

Filled with a sense of stuckness, not exactly failure though there’s been plenty of that.

I see I have learned so little.

Not nothing but I’m not even as functional as I was as a young teenager. In some ways.

This rumination is pointless.

Silly

Live willy-nilly

Hillbillies have problems too

Few or many probably we all have about the same.

The frame varies depending on what we want to achieve

Got any tricks up your sleeve?

Joy

April

May

A roll in the hay?

Is it play I seek?

I’d prefer to be with wife.

Yet stifled and studied, our

History has become muddied.

Is Beth Blue?

She is a little sick true.

Not as blue as when she has to answer emails all the night through

The manager (journal entry

Off the cliff with Biff and bam

Pam was the hang-glider more than Sam.

One parachute is a hoot. Hurry

Say it to Sam, Murray, Pam, Audrey, Cliff and Cam then take the tram to the damn spa.

Nah, blah, blah, blah.

This is not my last hurrah.

****

Do micro bits munch on micro chips?

Byte size?

White lies,

Little things are cute because they are not threatening... generally

Though perennially there are nano-bits and nano-bots not to mention microbes in mouth not

earlobes making your teeth rot.

*****

Playful is good.

Playful is understood

If Jennifer and Jackie took off their hood would they be less tacky?

With a track record like that what’s out of whack?

Have a snack and two beers. Who cares if it’s not the way it’s done.

Having more fun than in years past when I tried to do everything right, was often wrong.

Now I sing a more satisfying song.

****

Girls in green Saint Patrick’s Day short shorts

Drinking from bar to bar with their cohorts

Did they snort a line too?

No just corned beef and a brew.

Old lechers like me

get a look for free.

*****

A schnook and a maven

Discussed Poe’s Raven.

Said Maven to the schnook named Marvin: “I’m not harming Carmen, so I’ll continue farming. Less alarming, charming.

I know a good deal, that’s why I’ve the seal of a maven.

Staving off starving is a crowning feat.

Using scarecrows is neat-beats Buster Buckley’s erroneous tweets.” ‘Sweet’ said his student, Pete.

Was it prudent to quote Poe?

How would I know?

I grow corn and soybeans.

Working the field keeps me lean. 

Better to be well-read than overly well fed, nasty or mean.

Would that be a haven for crooks named Ned and Winifred?

Get out the lead.

Get to bed!

*****

Perfect! Great.

See you in the late morn.

Torn between admiring your brilliance, compassion, wisdom and eating blue corn.

Sentient?

I have this sixth sense:

If chocolate is anywhere in my apartment,

Whether bought at a department or corner store,

I find and devour it more after midnight

Light or dark, with nuts or raisins, a glass of oat milk made by Silk

Oh to what a sugary curse I’m addicted!

Being a diabetic, it doesn’t help to be so afflicted.

a lid on my id

Where is my creativity?

My proclivity

Ego vulnerable

Vulcan’s vaginal vacations

varying his matrimonial libations above and below his belt and his wife’s stations

Nations at war could use a lesson  

on turning spears into practice gear.

I fear driving

lament not being a regular guy

try as I might

what a fright ruminating

on trauma past...

says doc, “Oh, it won’t last.”

He’s a blast.

Addicted to drama, I stayed because I thought I had no choice waiting for others to abuse me.

My voice found no appropriate words, my painfully mediocre career for the

Turds

shit by bit by I fit others’ wit

Bit the poison pill, the thrill of their not so great disgust must now find my original mind.

Letting everyone have power over me,

it was safer to be alone.

Prone till now as I experiment with what I meant at the yoga studio a little too vulnerable but not too far from where I need to be with insufficient reserve yet a little glee,

my sense of humiliation with Jessica relatively mild again a child getting a second chance learning to… dance?

Italian, language from France, Spanish- need to take a second seat to learning German till sunset on Sunday. Then on Monday resume the focus on French as getting off my lonely little bench finding a wench, everywhere I go I know it’s me who keeps freedom at bay.

Play is my savior, so I seek a more balanced way.

Noticing self-hatred letting it melt gently into sadness.

Compassion my ration for happiness can grow as I let myself know I am resilient, healing, feeling a new appropriate sense of power and agency a mini tower of strengthening.

As if for the first time the possibility of simplicity being the most sublime.

Spoil my appetite no more with sugars or horcruxe deluxe.
one third less needy.

Speedy

Confident.

Ok with being more greedy?

Not inspired. 

Tired 😴

still wired.

My son, whom I sired is cooking 🥘 dinner.

One of his many artistic and intellectual talents.

He will be a winner.

****

Where are all the good ideas?

I’ve meditated and studied, occasionally with heartfelt grin.

Decades of patience wearing thin.

Pass the gin and bourbon hon.

****

Not true that everyone outdistances me.

It feels like I’m not moving

Others see me as grooving.

Not important what they think of me or their successes and wealth

What I need to focus on is simply good health.

Jew’s Blues

Fake news?

Historically hated

Forced to do the job Christians weren’t allowed because they’d be berated by church slash state.

Rate of interest didn’t matter for when they owed too much

Everyone knew

They would kill the Jew

Locking him into his compound

Burning him to the ground.

Put on a good face.

Nowadays

Jews write plays,

build towers, have lots more ways. Some are cops.

Some trade options. Some are in special ops.

Still detested.

Even if we bested others, maybe especially so.

Going toe to toe, their druthers would be to have none of us.

They’d hate someone else, cacophonously crying lies, justifying.

Give what I can to the universal kingdom.

Jew’s Blues, old news:

Berated by church, state

Fate, hate

The last straw.

The rule of immoral law.

Hooray!

I’m so tired though still up and fired  

I’ve earned enough for today.

Go away

a quiet place to stay…

Hooray!

Could it be?

Happy?

Could it be?

Me?

I’m not achieving (super things)

Yet on dulcet gossamer winglets

I’m having the best time

socializing after yoga in prime

or off peak; who wouldn’t.?

Couldn’t feel safer, more loved, accepted, maybe even desirable,

Leisurely not lecherously.

Teachers and students are quite

Wonderful in day classes and night.

If I were single, I’d be uptight.

In a huff,

On a bluff without bluffing about that

almost perfect MCAT

In a huff, I gruffly ignore fond futures, poring over past sadness styled in pain of inner wounded child whose chance at thriving repeatedly denied, defiled in repetition compulsion.

Revulsion replacing revelation borne of sickeningly synced Stockholm Syndrome, a palindrome: my ending, new beginning, now with hair thinning. 

After a huff approach all my parts, my Self leading, emerging from inner dusty shelf, with kinder, gentler, less intellectually mentalist replacement of internalized hate:

meditate on compassion.

Do it early.

Do it late.

Do it daily, gayly and straight, thankfully, with positive visualization.

Imagine a peaceful, working-together nation. 

Post after hugs and a huff: What is expected is that you do a little worse than those around. Not a perfect MCAT nor penniless helplessness making others feel obligated or guilty.

Who gives a whit?

Be strong, get fit.

Keep my mouth shut, empathize without huffing or puffing up or down.

not just for Thamara

Samsara is not just for Thamara, Lynn drinking gin or Gina balancing Tina while dancing with Reina, queen of ballroom gets me out of my gloom!

Samsara is not just for today

For yesterday or tamarra’!

Am I fit enough for Sanskrit?

A bit, but I flit from twitter to twit.

Avoid at all cost getting lost in internal dialogs, blogs hogging attention showing off not to mention my desire:

Be more than just alive.

I want to thrive.

Take the deep breath, take a dive

I’ve stayed the course of course on the Borse getting off my white horse onto a steed whose newsfeed is exactly what I need.

Not greed but it has elements found in smoking weed.

Freed from dependence whence I came

Let go of shame.

Do no harm.

Sound fewer alarms.

Be truthful

See reality

Act with compassion.

Simplicity

the charm.

DBT and me

Glee!!!

not really.

Not healing.

My reaction to our meeting though not fleeting was beating

Myself up for a week or more

contemplating what her group had in store

I passed the first hurdle:

keeping my pyscho stuff with Ira in an unfurled girdle.

With my therapist, as Cynthia suggested was best.

Even distressed, mess while riled

I learned something, remembering

It takes a village to raise a child.

An adult has more rough rot to un-rot and undo

Rue the law about teachers lighting up features.

Get a lamp.

No more of her lip!

Get a grip.

But she can’t see and might trip!

Get a lamp.

Beth needs to see in cold, wet, dark and damp.

Get a lamp!

What the hell!

She’s coming out of her shell becoming stronger, dare I wait longer?

It’s really, really terrific and great!

That’s why we meditate.

Got a lamp.

For Amy

Women and their carriages

Are not necessarily proud of their marriages.

*****

Fear I hold too dear

If I stay clear of ego stuff

There’d be less compulsion to walk off, hands restraint in a white iron muff.

****

A hug, a snuggle and two down comforters please.

“What!?” Asked the clerk as she blew a big sneeze.

How are my dear sister’s knee(s)?

*****

Fixated

Doesn’t seem to help… at last,

At least I can see an alternative:

Earn a chive, a tomato and a plumb

These are ways to be less glum.

In sum, go for Chinese dim sum with wine plum

sauce too sweet in moderation a treat for sense denied

I replied: offenses many and moderately small

what should I have done is not have taught at all.

Not my calling

falling and failing is not so bad,

if you can get up each time more glad.

What should I do now?

Take my tried and true advice:

Suffice to get into each of my interests just a little deeper.

Some will fall away. Others will be a keeper.

depressed.

I was. Now it’s lesser and less.

Truly I’m blessed with friends like Ray!

This is best. Keep it at bay. What the hey!

Roll in the hay is fun and play. Perhaps when I was a younger man, I’d have studied Freud. With my career or lack there of, I’d be less annoyed. Boy oh boy!

Would have been a goy?

That ploy was the plan hatched in the minivan. Can Hoffman do that Can-Can dance? Did Offenbach often take the wrong tack? Did he take his move back? Alas and alack, he was no hack on the black-market street. He probably ate well at many a feast. He being human was no stranger to suffering ego blooming then smashed. Dashed were some of his dreams but still outrageously successful.

A beautiful day outside.

Inside that’s another matter.

My brain’s a-scatter.

Not depressed.

I’m partially decompressed.

Repressed, digressed I regressed into a void annoyed in a nest of pests.

Now it’s later and lesser and besser to keep at bay.

Say hey kid, did Willie or Wonka think of Tonga, the last Polynesian monarchy to be. One hundred seventy or more islands in the South Pacific.

If you want to be specific, that’s terrific.

Lesser and less.

Loessor and Loewe.

What did Lerner learn his father the Loessor senior?

Was he the lesser of two evils? Or greeter of two geniuses or both?

Recognize my faults in all their

Gestalt.

Heavy lifting: heave!

Oh, just you wait.

You’ll see the tricks I’ve got up my sleeve.

Give depression a reprieve.

positives even then.

I discovered strengths when talents were

Sixty shekels in a Mina.

Sixty minas in a talent.

The weight of a woman.

In Ancient Greece and Babylonia

Here, better than in Estonia.

In a mini funk...

Feeling a little, tiny bit like junk.

Sunk from standards unrelenting good work ethic- éthique

Attitude, heart attacks and post event chic.

this or that?

Cool 1957 west side cacophony brings to mind envy, feelings of inferiority, worthlessness.

Ah the pull of cognitively distorted poisonous past!

At last, a soul burning bright as a spark-flamed coal.

Heat turns icy cold. 

Boldness needed.

Be good at this or that, whatever.

A cool clever clerk in a Seven/Eleven served the old guy visiting from 1957

Did you get a perverse kick out of Soviet Sputnik?

Men in Black wait for the attack while nine-lived cats recover from late night feats with frats, a tall order on the Mexican border.

dumpf is a hoarder of lies his base buys into wholesale, line and stinker. (sic, sick…)

Bicker with truth nor justice have no place in the face of enabling republican whores, faceless mob of a base, guns in hand.

Strike up the faux patriotic band.

Gather speed.

Downhill greed

easier to destroy than undo damage to environment.

Toadies, enablers, fixers and whores:

Their term will be up only when a person of decency, most of all clarity of mind and speech

with charisma on sidewalk and beach

teach our sinking state: honor and courage can be recovered afore it’s too late.

A cool golden green garden

a marble political machine

take a shine off the sheen

dine on shining truths gleaming with gentle good humor

broom sweep, broom swept

polish the bloom of ancient humors:

Earth, fire, wind, muck and mire.

Systems crumble

humbled by calling for more than I know.

strive to be useful and good to our neighbors.

Good neighbors all.

Start with the simple.

Smile with a dimple.

dance with ferocity

If the natural state is love, kindness, curiosity and abundance,

My dance with ferocity needs clarity not blindness.

I want to give in to self-indulgence, sleep and spam.

Spam?

Not worthy of a damn for Hoover.

In the groove, The WPA more than ok

waiting for

before the weight of death o’er takes this poor little boy of a man

who could still be free of my self-generated ban.

dumpfster

What gets thrown into the dumpfster

Is insufficient to be a nutrient for the removal of the humpster

at the behovely behest

of what this country needs best.

Alliterative Alliance

Assonance without written rhyme

illiterate alliteration with modest filtration:

Write for an open mic?

the closed faces of people past

no longer aghast.

A fig and a prune go marching toward the moon.

No sooner do they arrive when a hive of honey hovering honestly from hovercraft handily hands its riches into craters and ditches. Dishes exotic, macrobiotic, probiotic and quixotic await the hungry duo figuring to prune the extra for extraterrestrial travel a snack or a few would be needed before curfew. Cashews marched along with doc fig along the lunar surface to his archeological dig. Big findings found fig using a sprig of sprightly super pruning spheres. Here’s where it gets tough cause the surface is rough. They keep up their work, busy and fast like a twerk of Herculean proportions: pots of primitively proportioned potions propitious and meals quite delicious.  Fig and prune princely prance proudly pioneering predominantly on this little lonely yet loveliest of moons there is no better gig.

Mooning for whimsy

not necessarily flimsy.

sufficiently rich

Do happiness seekers

need better sneakers?

I’ll have some ruminating thoughts of past and present

Some futuristic heuristics to make me go ballistic

like a looney pheasant

Fantastic fantasies of dreams unfulfilling

January till

December’s holiday lights Jill and Jaqueline have a snack in

excessive holiday glut for

Happiness seekers

Seek instead: the bedrock of being.

Freed from greed

Not coveting what you don’t need.

out loud?

Of my brilliant son I am so proud.

Dare I say this out loud?

How’d it sound?

Like beating my chest bleating, bragging my puppy-tail wagging

Neighbors gagging.

My unnecessary input flagging.

Oh grow up. My Cup Runneth o’er.

Growing up my pup!

Take your own time

as you always do.

Remember this and

You’ll be fine.

on my path wending

In finance, fitness, fine arts and friendly letters

I’m coming into my own when others are retiring.

Aspiring to first begin the next leg up on the suddenly sunny sidewalk sidestepping pep talks balking at chalk drawings under auspicious awnings fawning flagrantly floating emoting under demure coating happily befriending all on my path wending

on the suddenly sunny sidewalk, all good things pending.

 fingers and toes.

Alarming

Not very

Making merry of my petty self-imposed woes

Count them on fingers and toes.

Cohen said “Reach for the heavens just so you can surrender.”

enjoy rest, just be ok.

peace, seeking, seems he found

On this earthly ground.

Good man. Genius

Humble and wise

In the guise of

Multilingual singer, composer, instrumentalist, poet, novelist, traveler, father, rooted in Judaism

He saw a world in near cataclysm.

His expansive knowledge of English poetry and Lorca too

Grew increasingly confident in his own voice.

The velvet foghorn

Shorn of porn,

His choice of profession, initially not out of great skill

Still with winning personality it was successful.

Connecting with people.

Church, folk rock and Blues, Yiddish Buddhism

It was community, world stages,

his teenage band, synagogue friends, a grounding immigrant family warmth

The crucial spark:

frank advice

On how to live “dum, dee dee, dum,”

Let’s go out and hum

Drinking four bottles of wine.

Less if you’re so inclined.

Be better for his sobering gifts

he lifts us all

He gave freely

His calling to everyone including to Beth and me.

out of his little lake.

I am nothing,

Sing of failure, I’m a fake.

Hated by a few

A Jew abhorred, ignored

I roared of their dislike and discord.

A tiny fish out of his little lake.

That’s my take when I’m in a cognitively distorting Norwegian wood in mood rake fish, bake?

Brood no more.

Set a higher basement floor.

Trying to be what I’m not

got caught up in a million false starts.

Be the vessel of the greater good and its art.

Feel like a chat?

Personally I have never felt like a chat, maybe a chien, said Ben to Kafka.

At the time, eating babka?

The sun god Ra had a three-part soul as did many Egyptians: ka and ba.

Akh only bestowed on special persons possessing that maat kheru, unkown in Peru.

Ready for a cat nap from this erudite, tersely-written verse?

Theses on Reses’ Pieces?

A taxing grip on mental trips might have quipped Tipp O’Neil playing himself-cameo in President for a Day, needing a way to find our way back to Catholic tracts from wordy cataracts...

Need a catechism?

How ‘bout that quick little cat nap?

Before I get into a flap and write a rap

Go to sleep, read the good book, let this poor, bored cat off the hook, line and sinker.

‘Think, think and rethink,’ said Hemingway with a laconic wink.

Tinker with your prose God knows it needs a fix and an edit... ‘get away from my short little verse. That style is mine.’

“Fine,” was my reply line.

Why did such a heroic hedonist guy give up after trying mightily?

Vitally important for many an artistic soul this. 

Twists taken from ancient Egyptians with ka and a good healthy helping of ba basking in the light of sunny sun god Ra. Was he in fact a cheerful god?

I now feel like a chat, a French cat so that

Woody’s whore of Mensa doesn’t fly too well in these days of #@meetoo tell.

Selling that like a chat of this and a chat of that still if you will?

It’s plain as day:

If I had left that job sooner,

I could have been a crooner or cool

Cat for a day.

Cat’s got your tongue?

Among the Jung and Freudians’ Tongue in cheek

Check the cellar for the stock of Malbec.

Trek, careful of cat, dog and goatherd wares.

There’s a surprise,

On a bed of grasses warm

With nymphs and muses in the best of form, bread, olives, tomatoes and wine

Dined ancient ancestors mine.

Anoint a New Road

What suddenly ended my depression?

A confession?

A tipping point?

Smoking a joint, I may not need this encore for

Depressed no more.

Maybe I’ll compose a score.

The fifty first word.

That’s when she cried “uncle.” That’s what he heard.

I am Sam.

Sam I am but being a kosher vegetarian, I don’t eat ham.

No, not even lamb cooked in a style Greek.

Speak of tuba tutorial and embouchure exercises, tout les jours,

I’m sure I’d abjure many a formal religion,

instead I’ll adopt a pose pigeon.

Cover Letter

To Whom it May Concern:

Why would a recently retired high school music teacher (theory, orchestra) want to go back into the classroom?

It could inspire me to deepen my compositional art.

It could inspire me to understand music at a more profound level.

It could energize me by working with gifted young musicians.

It could be fun connecting with colleagues.

I’ve taught theory from basics and modes

to Bartok and Stravinsky (but not Sapphic Odes).

After all those years teaching middle school then high, as an Adjunt prof. by and bye,

Nigh comes by a day when

counterpoint wasn’t on my mind.

Counterpoint whoa? Yes you’ll find that

What did you know! Front, center and behind the podium

I’ve been known to sing and hum

I’m a Juilliard grad with a fellowship to show

Who had taught everything musical from orchestra to band to chorus

Using Lavoris after practicing trombone

I went home to piano and little fiddle

To unlock riddles of

Mozart’s Requiem, my favorite to conduct but

Beginner String Orchestra was

As rewarding as Symphony from the New World or Tchaik Five

As jive as commissioning former students. True then when

Composing arrangements galore and

Symphonies four, chamber, vocal and theater works at this point in my life if I work again it’s got to be someplace where they want a teacher who thinks outside the Bachs.

Respectfully,

Kenneth D. Lieberson

Mike sees clearly through Chupa.

Mark goes through a hoop a day to put away the obvious grief she causes our family.

Had Stanley known, he would have shown some indignation

for the ration of rot that she feeds our poor petty lot.

She’s having a dandy time on our dime with her partner Randy.

Prisoner in a park

If you’re a card shark.

Are there gates?

Ask Bill.

A gate-less goddess gladly goads gonads glaring, gonorrhea girl

Hurl

Foam rubber bands in my land of woes

bind my toes in thoughts of defeat

Stop this cold and neat

Get up to eat.

Of son and self

As I write, I write a rant because I can’t plant green.

What I mean is the apple green, my son, acting like a teen, seen as weaned in-between the mean tween wife who’s a wifely dean and my unfocused, infinitely curious, insufficiently skilled, generative -in some ways who-knows-what can still blossom and bloom hey! There’s still room... I’m still a post traumatic teen.

But back from my funny to the sunny of my son!

It’s great to see him coming into his own.

With new power and strengths of all kinds

He finds ever more internal resources.

Of course, curiosity coursing through his brains

Soon enough, with his solid foundation, he’ll be fully growing and sufficiently grown.

All along, this I’ve known.

little burning pains

In chains.

That’s my brains.

Also little low sacro-illiac pains

Back to for what am I yearning?

An easier way to be learning?

Engage the struggle.

Be a good little muggle.

It’s as if I can’t move

It would behoove me to get up and out

Instead of licking my wounds and pout with downturned snout

Did the Red Sea turn blue?

Did you read that online too?

My love for Beth is blue, green, red and white:

all the colors: the spectrum of visible and infrared light in the brightness of brightest days and the dark of nighttime dreams.

It seems the Blue Sea,

The sea, the source of life and love, often blue too, few and afar, farther from bassoon and

Spanish guitar on the Mediterranean Costa del Sol…

Old Man of the Sea of Blues

The Blues of Beth

Blew north then south with an ounce of strength.

It began and grew.

Sweet Beth, a sea of deep feeling, healing.

Professional permafrost built at personal cost

Has not frozen love

Her deep feelings are not lost.

(because lost

rhymes with permafrost.)

Her pelting pain of back, arm,

sleep and digestive harm

Will melt

Turn first to soft gentle snow

Warming above then down below, down under the cover Australian and New Zealand zealots will be jealous!

Soon a new phase of her life will be starting

Afore parting from the last

Good at bridging, holding fast the past, fasting once a year

The things we hold dear while Casting breezily easing into a more pleasing view.

I show my hurt too readily, that’s true.

Her comments though benign often leave me... um? What color rhymes with black and blue?

Oh, yeah that’s true enough to call our bluff... does it take two to stuff a mango? More likely it takes two to tumble... could we learn to fandango?

When Beth I met, she was as pretty a princess as you could get.

She grew not into a queen but a business school dean with

Sweet, deep feeling, now healing.

It is not too late: Hark!

To rekindle in our living fate the spark

As Beth joins me in retirement park.

I offended Lance.

Often, I’m filled with can’ts.

Can’t read my friend.

Can’t be flexible

Can’t know when to bend.

Upend those can’ts. A new cant to end my unremitting rant.

Plant my feet one at a time on the ground at least

Ray would agree

Rumi would’ve had something to say.

I’ll be a better friend in some way.

Don’t recant.

****

(This writing allowed me to reconnect with Lance.

 When the time is right, I want to write similar poems about my school colleagues.)

When Beth smiles, I’m a happy pup

Yup. It’s that simple. No need

to achieve any great deed.

downtown’s frowns

Self-indulgent

Angry at myself

Tired

Low

Slowdown

Pick myself up from downtown’s frowns

Clowns are we all but

When Danny’s really down he pulls himself up no longer down and shut.

I’m lucky too.

To Mexico’s Cancun she may retire soon

or at least on long deserved vacation, a well-deserved boon.

her home away from home station.

A reader of books copious

Psychological, functional and humorous

And I’m lucky

to have a sister like you.

less drab.

I failed and flailed,

Hailed a cab,

Got some sleep

In the light of the new day

I’ll find a way

To take another stab at a career less drab.

The market’s up.

The market’s down.

I smile a maniacal frown.

Bought some Lyft.

It didn’t lift my spirts or my purse:

Worse:

Went down instead of up.

Yup! I was a sucker, bought some more

Thinking it had reached its floor.

Ha, fool that I am.

then BAM!

Wham, a comic book of stock, socked me in the can!

Escalating commitment to a decision.

Will I share this anecdote to invite derision?

Laugh at myself

suffer no more invectives.

Gain perspective:

The market’s up, market down.

Messing with my head is dead wrong

Let strengths be what pulls me along.

Maybe I’ll even get a lift out of this little song.

 German class

Not sure I want or need German class fluff.

Would’ve be useful to work through my group stuff, a lack and alas.

Try it out in French...

Start over from a fresh bench.

I let myself down again

Then when I didn’t return

it was another bridge I burned.

a refresher.

I’m lazy, depressed, have no vision am distant from Beth.

What did Monica say to jean?

Is there something I should know?

The Ken show is no place to go for feeling better

A shtetl would seem like a refresher.

A walk in the park

I’m retired.

Everything still sparks traumatic rumination.

A vacation:

Pacing back and forth frothing at the lip is a new, hipper version to which fewer will have aversion- especially me. Enjoy carpe diem. It’ll free ‘em. That is, I can return to where I left off decades ago before I knew immobilizing fear. Hear no longer those stronger voices, those Neas and Enas will no longer be laughing hennaed hyenas. Reina is a Columbian Coffee queen who means to help me find my footing on the dance floor before I take my act on the road, I’ll discover what I want to share with an audience of one. Stun and delight my ears alone and then if I’m so inclined I’ll share the spare bedroom with whomever needs kindness awakening from blindness I see and feel my cousin Froggy beckoning not to the foggy bottom or the Washington Monument but to self-respecting creativity pleasantly, appropriately alert and alerting me. He was in The Central Park Sheiks. Talented, gifted ,he still speaks.

Oh brother

Here he comes….

The guard couldn’t stand my practice.

Can’t blame him.

Trim my sails, move out of the song of whales.

A failure at teaching

I was hated but survived to get out half alive.

I strive and strove to do better to do things to the letter.

“Better get out you albatross who this school bears as a cross.”

My boss thought, but was too polite and polished to say:

 “You’d be good when in the mood to be excellent shark food.”

But I’m not wanting anymore to rot.

He is a good person, so were many of my haters.

Good people on both sides?

Ha and a ha.

A bad reputation compounded confounded me at every turn.

Earned through almost constant fear.

Beer wasn’t enough to allay,

nor was endless planning, conferences and therapy or meditation.

Never caught up to where I left myself behind so was always in one bind, or another.

Oh brother.

the wrong path.

Often depression says I’m on the wrong path.

Oh poor, poor Sylvia. In her aftermath

Yoga is ok. So is language play.

Other hobbies: Piano, sing, exercise, write, read, paint?

I’m so tired

Out!

Get out of the house with any luck with rucksack

Generate some pluck!

‘Twas a tiny bit better rhyme afore I fancied I’d fix it.

Now, should I nix it?

Danny is better today but it is a rollercoaster.

Beth is more affectionate but a kiss or a hug is as far as we’ll get.

So I want love and meaningful work.

be not irate

No book need state

What I know

Here’s where to start

Here’s where I go.

 
When Beth smiles, I’m a happy pup

Yup. It’s that simple. No need

to achieve any great deed.

A snack for a schnook

snack for a schnook

At the awards ceremony in middle school where I was valedictorian and won about ten awards, my father said, “Do they have to keep calling you up there.”

Did he have any idea that this was where my troubles infiltrated every cell becoming more than a care?

I did not invite my parents to my high school awards ceremony where I was also valedictorian and won a similar number of awards.

So hung my Damocles sword.

Dad did rain on my parade at HS graduation none-the-less when he didn’t want to include my girlfriend at our celebratory lunch. Did he have a hunch this was not his brunch?

Though in some ways I got by ok, I became a messed-up, decreasingly competent mediocrity. Yes, I take responsibility for all my mistakes. And yes, I still love and appreciate my dad for all he did for me. He was in his own way a giving tree.

Oh, I hated that book.

Does that make me a schnook?

Yes that’s my food.

For a burger burned and two salads I’m in the mood.

At Kenn’s Broome Street Bar

I’m a regular, maybe a star.

Starting to drink it’s not that hard to stop

Sopping salad dressing on sesame crackers like a hungry cop,

I can do with less booze

That is, unless I want to snooze.

Beth, oh Beth do we move apart?

I didn’t love you then, but now you are my true heart.

In the day I needed you.

Now not so much.

I want us to have a gentle loving touch.

I’ve let you down.

You don’t like the way I sigh, snore or frown.

Still I strive to be better for this current Beth.

Till death do us part.

You are always that lovely youthful lady in your many-colored wedding gown.

This chapter begins with

Clapping raptors happening to trip the light fantastic to

Trap music blaring.

Caring not about neighbors’ rot

daring to run laps flapping wings and other things which brings to mind a kind of pot

post therapy self-hosting no, touring the world playing with children and dogs, cats animals in general fear me less and I no longer fear them, ahem.

Being young for the first time instead of napping thereby capping what potent patient doth remain in New York not in Maine refrain from self-disdain.

The answer quite plain to see:

Be, let live.

Give a helping hand first to what lies within.

Snap the self -imposed flop, flipping trippingly while flapping wings sound the knell of what befell the boring snoring dinosaur hell.

 Ode to a Summer Road

With the proper running shoes

(The On-Ramp)

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Time is slipping away.

Make haste, in good taste

Move fast

Have a blast

Mindful be.

Not speedy

slowly or not moving at all

Would it help to have been tall?

in the thicket of trolls.

Stroll, hop a long

Do not waste this chance

Enhance what I have, share the wealth

stealth, shame inviting humiliation ever more

I’m afraid of what’s in store.

I am a Jew.

Those words are hard to hear yet are true.

Seeing myself through oppressors’ eyes.

Knowing this buys

Time which ever more slips away.

Today what did Poe’s raven say?

Do not waste it.

Taste it all the fruits of life.

Enjoy myself alone and with my wife.

A new stage I enter so smoothly it’s as if the life I left behind was a mere annoying dream. Though it made me want to scream.

No longer delay. Enter the human fray. Seek not to be perfect before I begin

For that will leave me not rich or healthy but deathly thin.

Do not waste today. Do not any longer delay.

Join the human race or walk but don’t coast.

Move mindfully so my life isn’t burned out toast.

Synergy, syncopated a century late

At this rate, just in case

I’m left behind, burning bridges

Destruction leaving empty ridges of lost art at various cost

Relationships decimated by my selftorturing stop and start perfectionistic

Hedonistic, solipsistic often masochistic

Come now: now, now be realistic.

Often I’m actually ok

The more I read, study, practice, meditate and learn, exercise to burn off excessive energy,

The more possible it becomes not only to earn a living

But perhaps more importantly to be self-forgiving

In my wake is not only destruction and regret but

Good things too, yes even though I be a Jew, not just in my little hut

But the few people I have been fortunate enough to have helped along the way.

This is good for any day.

Away, away. It is not a fluke

I am not always a flake

Not a salmon, swordfish or monster of the deep, though often a creep...

Not a tuna sandwich not a tuned fish

My wish: to simply not waste the pun about fish and fluke

Hookah bars are not my thing.

That’s so bad it stings. Better if I sing Don’t add strings.

Not a salmon, not a fluke

Not angry enough to be a North Korean nuke. Trump that! The choice is yours, so said ancient wisemen and modern political whores.

Not an accident, not a fish or a satellite dish

Just a wish to be steady as can be

Hee hee - this is a silly, stupid-angry poem rage rockets to the surface

How easily my trap door opens

Offends me, more so the people I bore to the rotten core.

I tried to give my all

They were appalled, called me names. I got out in time to live a life more creative. Still I would have liked to have been appreciated.

Of course it is late to join the human race.

I don’t even have the proper running shoes.

Apace, give me space, of compassion is there a trace?

In time-space a continuum

I’m no bum, not a crook said Nixon

He seems in retrospect a prince

The president known formerly as Tricky Dick,

Look at what we have now: what a prick.

Be glad:

On the spectrum hey he’s not so bad.

We’re not in concentration camps iron clad.

On the podium and off

Oft making haste with nowhere to go

Grow up, I know, Dad said and was humiliated by me: “Don’t be slow!”

He didn’t yell or scream, didn’t need to. The message was loud and clear- have fear yet

Be a star; don’t go too far

Far enough for me to be proud

Then let’s all retire to our shroud.

He was at times such a happy joyous, man.

What happened?

What was god’s plan?

I know, I know. But what do I really know of love, of life? Of candy, cookies and flan?   Man oh man... nice tan... sure didn’t get it driving a van.

Do I know the right kinds of self control?

The whole enchilada is not a

Lot a food for thought

Really too much to digest in one sitting

Maybe I should take up knitting.

Homophobia lurks, along with other quirks

Know the spectrum- on guitar without a plectrum.

Pick out a tune, by ear.

Get into the act low pressure off, off, off

Broadway how about somewhere near New Jersey

Where’s my enchilada?

The food is too salada, salty

Baltimore as in John did not fix my horn on

Monday, Tuesday or Thursday

I keep losing my focus

Need some good old hocus-pocus.

Back to the enchilada muy salada:

Salty, even when I’m trying to be sweet.

At least I don’t tweet like that charismatic, double talking monster on Center Stage.

Raging delighting blaming others for his heinous crimes not the least of which is putting kids in cages.

Rages, rants, like a column of steady, deadly red ants, can’t we come up with a plan to outflank the propaganda machine?

Come clean. We all have flaws but to make others suffer just so he can have more? Score!

Come on be a decent human being for once don’t be a dunce playing the world for a fool.

Could someone get him to play by the rules?

Cruel bullies don’t always win.

They cause damage before they are replaced by a more caring and subtly daring political bin.

It may be a very long time, much to my chagrin.

What if it’s too late ?

With all the hate-mongering

The damage set in

unstoppable motion,

Then we’ll have one doomsday commotion.

For this day to be better

I don’t need a sweater.

Too hot thanks to global warming

Greed, maniac anti Robin-hood, kleptomaniac, anti brainiac, I’m a hack

Not in a cab, not a union scab, my prose is drab who gives a friggin’ dab?

Back to focus, my point of greatest locus:

For today to be better

Don’t need to write a letter

Just do something

One tiny little thing

Don’t try to be a prince or a king

Connect to the human race

Something that connects me

Protects me, joins me apace to humans face to face.

Ere long we’ll all be dead, not necessarily Red though the way districts have been redrawn by the thugs immoral

Chant in unison their evil choral

Boral Aurora borealis Sally don’t dally in the saddle kit in the ka-doodle

Ponies and poodles Twinkies and hot dogs

Ice cream is not today’s theme, stay on task.

Stop sipping from the flask

Sitting on logs with lotus leaf frogs

The ancient ocean’s depth, the unconscious Sigmund Freud would have enjoyed

Connecting me apace to the human race

Helping me find my place in time and space.

Away, away I’m not a car or a bus or even a train

at noon leaving from Gilmore and Main... despite my love of language and lack of knowledge of geography and political hagiography, I know that’s not in Spain.

Does it make a good refrain?

Plainly pontificating away

Away, away please, please let me stop and start my day.

I know, I know. But what do I really know of love, of life?

I sure know strife.

I’m getting writers cramp.

Would have been better if I had gone

to sleep-away camp.

I can’t get onto the highway of life, need to get onto it right in front of my face.

I need to do it apace... too late for summer camp, too late for fall camp, just get onto the blessedly boring here it is, make the right turn, put on my flashers, stop delaying with infinite perfectionist playing...

Here I come.

Here I go

I know that now’s the time, seatbelt is fine, secure and whoah!

Time is slipping away.

For this and another day.

I’m making haste, moving fast, having a blast

Not summer camp, but it looks like I’ve finally, finally, at long last, made it to the very first step: here’s it now... a new road approaches, despite my fear which I hold ever, ever so dear, I’m one step away from, The Field of Dreams, Heaven in a cornfield, chop wood, carry water- my life flashes before mine eyes- I’m afraid to death maybe it’s no big deal... most people don’t have the luxury to not play or deal.

Got to start. It’s now or never. Stop being clever; get on with it. Get on the road, the road to summer camp begins with an inconspicuous barely noticeable, half-hidden access road. I’ve taken the long route. To boot, not all that scenic,

But to that far far off off off off Broadway here I go. I’m going, I’m going to Teaneck Not in the snow, after all it’s July, a summer show. I know it’s time to go to summer camp...

I can only get there if I muster my courage, say

Hello to my fear not let it have its sway. Get to camp, go there now but how? It’s simple.

It’s easy really

Most people do it without getting queasy.

Ok so to camp I go.

Camp is...

All I need to know, camp, camp, will someone please me show? Lead the way, to camp, camp summer camp just for today:

Now... I myself... see the way:

Aha!

To camp, camp, camp

tramp onward to camp and beyond.

get to glorious summer camp grounds

no hounds

within bounds

to make it towards camp

Get onto life’s on-ramp.

Cream cheese, too much on that bagel!

So said Bob to his boss, David, the Talmudic scholar!

Essentially he was in the mindset of a delicatessen. Bob, Boss, David, Tal bagel all on first avenue.

I tried to reach her

My wife, but I wasn’t a good teacher.

Are the two related?

My appetite for being masochistic and berated left me underrated.

Failure that I was can I finally learn?

Burn no more bridges or bagels for that matter. Turn over a new batch of batter.

Refresh my batteries.

Flatter not these owners of Boss and Bobs

Else they might turn into bagel making snobs.

Regina was sunny, often funny as well

But you could tell there was a sadness under her gladness

Her depression might have started

When he parents found religion from them she parted.

True they helped her buy a studio

Not for yoga though that would have helped. She knew inside or did she?

With her grin wide, her glee hiding

repetition compulsion alienating, getting people to hate her, biting hands that fed- One of the reasons she never wed.

Her long years in the DOE got her some friends to whom she must have made amends. Then of course there was her Tier One pension

which she did mention.

Did she contribute the max? If so there’ll be an estate tax. It would be lax and remiss to not mention

the comradely, cousinly bliss she gave Beth when she was a younger one.

Cousins and all relatives were important to Genie though she was an occasional and unpredictable meanie.

Even into late

life she was the life of the party, a smarty who placed personal ads before they were fads so she could date men.

When they got too close that was the end.

Friends she had and warm memories abound for all those around including her army of aids (who god knows how she paid.)

We’ll miss Genie keenly.

Unbeknownst till now was how maternal and loving she was to her aids.

The way they bade her farewell with boundless gratitude was food forcefully finding a good soul in Regina. Perhaps she was equally loving as a guidance counselor.

In the world of Ken,

Often the other men

have power, riches, women, power. Twice power?

It must be powerful Women too and every young Cat

 Had his day, his successful day and nights on Sat

 Especially. Also Friday, Monday

 A little bit once in a while on Thursday.

Play and flow go to everyone but me.

Hee, hee, I know this is not only not true but see in Meditative

Formative moments in that hypnogogic state (New Jersey?) that fate can be helped, aided.

Improve my chances through sounder sleep in keeping with greater physical and mental agility during the day, more stamina building helps me play in the game of life with strife abounding, wife resounding, am calmer each moment yet far from napping

In structured morn, I set the foundation for joy, presence, elation and why not throw in a little porn?

No longer a pasty patsy or a sap Soon

     Past

     Noon

I create my own tune

Not on oboe

Not on bassoon

But with fingers clicking keys other than ivory

I’m a bee-hivery, felicitous no longer solicitous, a barrel of laughing monkies, a hyena

Wishing I were free of painful memories of Ena.

Sunny, oh so sunny… there were good moments too. There always are few if not a ton…

Don’t be a glum glutton hungry for mutton, Justin Bieber probably has problems, a ton

So be satisfied with how my life is fun, fun, fun.

This is not a very good poem.

It’s more of a list- a woefully incomplete one.

I love when you connect to me.

I love when you show me your work.

I love your brilliance.

I love your creativity.

I love your resilience.

I love the way you decided to build yourself up.

I love your cooking, your spreadsheets, your writing, acting, dancing, piano playing, your unbelievable ability to learn quickly, ability to deal with people on the phone, to solve problems...

I am astounded by how efficiently you learn.

I love your curiosity

I love you, Danny.

Other people love you too.

More people will love you if you get out more. 

Paranoia

Was that what afflicted Goya?

Did he work for beans?

It seems most artists did.

No wonder Beethoven often blew his lid.

studying egrets

Of my many regrets,

studying egrets was not one until for fun

I tried to differentiate a heron from a crane and both from a pelican.

Sure should be easy to do.

“True,” said a biologist I knew, adding

“unless you haven’t studied ornithology, then like hell you can.“

Calling All Bassoons

What if my calling was bassoon?

Probably

What if it is now silly poetry?

Go we to Tremonisha or to a geisha go?

The heaving meditator is as annoying as a hissing radiator.

(Does he think he’s a hero of the new age, a gladiator of self made a triumphant show off like that lump off the White House green. He couldn’t possibly be as mean. No one could be as heartless a lying jerk – well ok there are plenty at work.)

Is he with his incessant wheezing trying to show off his deep breathing?

It’s more irritating than sneezing and ten percent less pleasing.

Maybe he didn’t realize this till the others moved away and with him refused to have a retreat for a day.

 My sadness now why?

I try to parse my greed, loneliness...

a free Spanish lesson from the next table.

I’ll listen and if able

Learn a word or two

Few days are perfect, but this released something in my posture holding down.

I found my sounding

A little less self-hounding leading to less problematic compounding

And more interest compounded it’s clear and I’m less confounded.

Cliché Number Three

Is right for me

The key on the overstuffed keyring I have found quite sound

Quite suddenly

Anger abounds from my mother past.

Not father this time.

Not being aghast.  At last I

Stop my ruminative pain, being in the moment.

No fantasy of Hungary or Spain or delicious dessert nor tropical rain is needed.

But heeded?

So easily said.

So difficult to implement.

Fomenting acts are gently held back then disappear into clear sky waters crystal blue.

Sew and ye shall so reap. I’ve sown poorly in many ways. Yet with the death of Regina, an exemplar of good and not so good I understood it was her kindnesses and great help to many which were her lasting legacy.

So many times I’ve heard these words

from people, maybe even plants, dogs and birds.

Yet somehow it is new. This old, ancient truth is for me, getting long in the tooth, like a little, easy on-switch which pulls me instantly out of my previously self perpetuating ditch.

These words occurred, were inspired by a mediation tape abut noticing the garbage internal parked in my subterranean garage

Not dodging

not seeking to end or engage the prison cage

 just noticing, parsing.

Then part by piece each ceased to ache, the little tensions which in aggregate used to make me crave an escape frigate were tolerable.

They were less.

I functioned more simply, naturally. The mess

was now a clearing in the jungle no longer was I feeling everything bungled.

No need to be a tiger or giraffe.

The gaffes are fewer and those that are still elephantine no longer instigate a fit or even a little bit of pining for wine, women and song. I long to be with Beth only and in ways more profound. Sounds trite, yet as Beth’s morning kiss gave hope of more bliss, my posture thanks to yoga and PT lift my spirit, my old soul so old without needing to be excessively bold life is better not ungiving and cold in cold and warm weather with a different bird of a dithering tether no need to feather; fly just pleasantly warm, walk quieting the internal talking storm, birds urged St. Francis, inspiration is present everywhere even in thin air if you care to tune in and listen no longer compare just notice the path of the breath leading in untiring nightingale nurturing and out into every cell of the body this trick not shoddy brings relief in the shade as no commands are given but the eternal within is obeyed. 

dashing to dance

Anger and sadness.

Sad that there are many things I can’t learn

Why burn my hard-earned cash on things like dashing to dance on Monday?

It’s a chore.

If I practiced more it might be fun not an uncomfortable, making my feet sore bore.

Anger is not so much,

fa la la…

Ha!

What planet am I on?

Is my brain missing? Am I in touch?

Pizza and beer.

If old king Lear

Had those goodies

He’d have become stronger, lived longer controlled his fear mongering offspring

Would have taken wing in a different wing of this, that or another castle thing

If he took himself on an artist’s date

Wait!

I can

That’s my plan.

Here I am on the Bowery. It’s now er-well- hurry.

Danny and I are depressed we’re both in a mess but not really.

He heals me and visa versa. We both have shrinks.

We both like our drinks.

His lows are darker and more painful than mine.

We both have healthful tools to get us back to schools of life at least. Comfort foods like pizza with yeast

Are appealing now.

And how!

Donald ducking

From Puerto Rico to Colombia’s Medellin

I’m fascinated by a culture so close to my own, yet our great leader keeps deathly thin.

His twin, El Diablo or that chap you know:

El Chapo would be another of his heroes.

Like little rocket man and the don’s manly Putin throws his weight and the Donald ducks responsibility on his pilfering journeys stealing the big bucks.

Truck loads leaving the poor at hell’s doorway to stay out in the cold rain while his rein not of terror quite for most is plenty painful for the kids he keeps in cages while he’s on the golf course trying to undermine the Fed.

Instead his folk hero status puts him above if not the law than at least a load of moral decency not only recently but since his birth, said Stormy Daniels that’s how we know she offered a photo to show. We said no thanks.

Enough of that rabel-rousing narcissist’s smilingly evil-tweety pranks.

Meet and greet this amazingly small-minded mini monster.

What a guy!

He tries to destroy our country so he can get a little more cunt free... With a platinum spoon in his grubby, greedy little dick. Yes Donald ducks stealing the big bucks.

Donald is sure to be ducking responsibility

Ducking and clucking that he’s been maligned, whine, whine, then dine on cheeseburgers for a winning team.

That’s how he builds up steam.

Donald is a weak strongman with an artificial tan who bans Muslims on caprice, he lusted after his teen daughter, not his niece.

His brain bland, sales pitch hitched his political horses like whores for more selfish lying green greed as long as the lies he tells bind his base in a race to the bottom to destroy our great nation is the purpose of Putin for don the reverse robin hood he’s a rootin.

Be sure than when he’s not ducking duty or pocketing booty, the ducking don is illegally sucking the life out of our once glorious nation, a notion his hero Putin is happily scrutinizing letting his plaything the ducking Donald have his riches removing hitches to a unitary presidency so we are vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, online… oh to that traitorous dumpf its all fine.

When not ducking truth, he’s still uncouth, he not making love to his wife but fucking our nation’s life.