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Baby Naming When riding with my pop Pryde Remember that dignity he will not be denied Advice to those about to name their kin Adjectival baskets can do them in I had an uncle name Justus Couldn’t spell it like the rest of us My aunt worked hard till undone To keep Justus and his three wives flush in funds My aunt’s new man is named Smart He takes smarmy to an elevated art While better than Justus to say the least He may have a wife and kids back east Smart has a twin brother named Jolly His sour moods are a folly By taking moodiness to the highest level yet Sometimes the opposite is what you get Delicious It was delicious to find you in cyberspaces A few words typed like whispers of thought Impatient to revisit your sweetest of places To think that today there are still the slight traces Of passion for someone blessedly haughty Impatient to revisit your sweetest of places In the past I have been amenable to graces Of feminine tendrils within I was caught It was delicious to find you in cyberspaces Passively accepting their upturned faces Not fighting to be with the women I sought Impatient to revisit your sweetest of places But you are the boat to my unsettled oasis The feelings of loneliness temporarily fought It was delicious to find you in cyberspaces Since the day we met I yearn for your embraces To keep your scent with me pheromones taught It was delicious to find you in cyberspaces Impatient to revisit your sweetest of places Eulogy For Thanksgiving 2007 They told me by what they didn’t say Breathing tubes attached to no machine His penchant for running swept him away It was early when moans like a wolf would bay My father’s pain but sense could I glean They told me by what they didn’t say When my brother was young any price he would pay To sneak out of house his escapes made clean His penchant for running swept him away “Call 911!” dad cried invoking the day Sluggishly dialed EMTs to the scene They told me by what they didn’t say My brother was born X chromosome frayed Retardation’s the surface symptoms deep and unseen His penchant for running swept him away Chris I love you though you’ve gone away Your gifts unmeasured by our world that demeans They told me by what they didn’t say His penchant for running swept him away Fathers
I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread As a father myself I’m somewhere in between I have another father who thinks success is filling your head
He left his country for love and found war instead With Africa behind him, wealth he perceives I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread
The other one is different, his learning has led To the burnishing of his armor, imbuing a Rabbinic sheen I have another father who thinks success is filling your head
His father was a preacher who gave him a name that read More into his personality than descriptions can knead I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread
He married late in life isolated and bred By a scholarly patriarch recalled as a fiend I have another father who thinks success is filling your head
After the army he settled down with children and sped To find a way to support them and keep the grass green I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread
They say being a religious figure one must shed The frailties that make us evil if left to seed I have another father who thinks success is filling up your head
While searching for work he may have spied overhead A sign offering millions not for coffee but for cream I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread
Job after job across the East Coast they tread Family in tow, for his attention they scream I have another father who thinks success is filling your head He changed jobs often as well, how his ego bled The big one around the corner, a drink from Loman’s stream I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread
Settling down in Cleveland, but the voices filled with lead Won’t quiet from the slanders of his parents preening I have another father who thinks success is filling your head
Now mom brings home the bacon, quite a spread But father’s thinks that keeps him one step from the deal I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread
The habit of cruelty is a line thicker than a thread Ironically humbled by hateful words careening I have another father who thinks success is filling your head
Marred by feelings of inequity, why not Pryde instead? After all, that is your name thoughts of failure competing I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread
You speak of family as if you pulled them on a sled But you were never there to see the first glimpses of meaning I have another father who thinks success is filling your head
Your raised two handicapped children others would have fled You lost your little girl to cancer’s grip obscene I have a father who thinks success is filling your head
Now your children are grown and look at how you’ve led Unaware the pains endured became the axe you cleave I have another father who thinks success is filling your head
Pryde has things to be proud of after superficial skins are shed Not knowing great things have been accomplished without making the green I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread
How can you still hurt people after years with therapists? Maybe they’ve misread Old dogs licking wounds never touching racist deeds unseen I have another father who thinks success is filling your head
I have a father who sees success as making lots of bread You would have been better off a baker if you wanted to fulfill your dream I have another father who thinks success is filling your head But yours is only filled with hurt, how unconscious of it you seem
For Anabel
The day my little girl was born I never thought the day would come Each night I pray she’ll see the morn
Chromosomes popping, like kernels of corn Great changes are coming yet I feel so glum The day my little girl was born
I worried, fighting feelings of scorn Inherited traits have the roots begun Each night I pray she’ll see the morn
Inside I thought my double helix was torn Like broken guitar strings that cannot strum The day my little girl was born
My sister, she died so broken and worn Cancer consumed her like a drunkard to rum The day my little girl was born
New life, such chutzpah you cannot ignore Her little mind beats on the world like a drum The day my little girl was born Each night I pray she’ll see the morn
Getting a Nut
I remember once a squirrel doing this dance In the middle of the street while the sun was mild To woo this season’s lover though he never had a chance
Waiting tables, you can’t help but glance At the trappings that paint you as if a child I remember once a squirrel doing this dance
But what if 25 and by way of circumstance Haven’t figured out your life feigning a smile? To woo this season’s lover though he never had a chance
People ask, “What do you do? This work can’t entrance” Hyperbolizing talents oh please be beguiled I remember once a squirrel doing this dance
Friends and parents repeat these societal chants Impress them with fairy tales why feel reviled? To woo this season’s lover though he never had a chance
They fall for it or do they? Tension enhanced They want you to exhibit these skills compiled I remember once a squirrel doing this dance
They seem forgiving at the latest mischance Yet are secretly pleased at this failure stockpiled To woo this season’s lover though he never had a chance
Giving up on art to please society’s glance The cosmic shame of trying you silly child I remember once a squirrel doing this dance
But they often take privilege while raising the lance Ripped to pieces for your effort like a red head stepchild To woo this season’s lover though he never had a chance
Saying, “Oh it must be nice,” oozing from smarmy expanse Sniggers and giggles never heard but filed I remember once a squirrel doing this dance
You give up and find a cubicle storing nuts in a trance Pleasing them as long as your passions don’t rile To woo this season’s lover though he never had a chance
I remember once a squirrel doing this dance Run down in the road a tire trodden pile Art or the rat race what makes life worthwhile? To woo this season’s lover though he never had a chance
Marriage Underground I could not envision the turn my life has been lead On the corner of delusion and passive regret Severing parts of me convulsing in hell Pouring snifters of salve with no results yet Scratching at the sides of the mud hole With every inch that seems like progress the walls quickly recede
Walls and my hairline aren’t all to recede Each day I get older and fatter, my shoes caked with lead Losing faith in my purchase feeling anything but whole Marriage like promises can be filled with regret All I should’ve said or not said to stem the tide yet Another year instead I self fulfilled the prophecy of hell
Let a cup of clean water sit and it all goes to hell The purest of beginnings that tend to recede To the waves of contaminants that hide in the cup yet Marriage like clean water some of us lead Most of us follow feign joy and harbor regret We keep repeating toxic patterns hedging bets and digging holes
Am I a perpetrator to aid and abet boon-doggling the hole? That turns good intentions into the 5 th circle of hell The one reserved for liars, politicians, and those ruled by regret Of the choices made with eyes wide open and a will to recede How can I ever follow or for that matter lead Anyone when the road to recovery is obscured and yet
In the turmoil of doubting everything as of yet My dad thinks faith will get me out of this hole He states there’s something bigger than us so just let it lead The bonus he says is a trip out of hell Like the water G-d can clear your mind and just watch pain recede But I laid on this shit I’ll shovel my own regret
I’ve heard people say though divorce they regret It was worth the angst since they haven’t died yet And when the veil of self pity recedes And you look back on the life you have lead We somehow grow wisdom to stay out of the hole But we just find someone else and repeat all the hell
I have yet to learn lessons from things I regret Instead I blame her for being lead into a hole But the hell is inside me that’s what needs to recede
Moving
To use an old cliché, a house is not a home It’s an empty thing, a shell, a shelter from the storm A house does not offer warmth if you are alone I know your family moved and roamed From place to place this left you torn To use an old cliché a house is not a home Finally it happened, the time indeed had come You even helped your parents to pick the salt box form A house does not offer warmth if you are alone Then along I came into your loam In that house we were forlorn To use an old cliché, a house is not a home And then we also had to comb The county for a place to own A house does not offer warmth if you are alone Anabel was born, G-d added her to our poem Three of us, no seven, are one; together we are strong To use an old cliché a house is not a home A house does not offer warmth if you are alone
Sestina for the Tibetan Monks
As I sit here watching you rhythmically tapping sand I can’t help but think of all of the ways we utilize time For as odd as this seems, time isn’t actually real An invention of humans to keep track of wealth Reality to me is how knowledge is passed From teachers to students from the old to the young
Just think of the ocean and how it too once was young Living coral and sea glass gradually beaten to sand Manna from the sea devoured and through creatures passed Coprolite turned to granules in a matter of time For there were no people to view that great wealth Could all of the measures we’re taught not be real?
Like, how do we know that the dinosaurs were real? Carbon-14 dating the bleached bones of the young Bones more like stones when you think of the wealth Atoms so small cast in molds of time How can we know how much of it has passed?
Here are these monks some say the present has passed Methodically tapping concentration surreal To complete a thought with no concept of time As children they began to transform the wealth Of knowledge to make this mandala of sand
I think while this wood floor I sand If I know something whose teachings were passed Unconsciously by means of genetic wealth Things intrinsic their foundations ethereal To foster and strengthen until G-d says it’s time And then as I die bequeath to my young
Since time is invention it’s advent so young An oracular history in hourglasses of sand Each granule a second representing that time You were late to work or school a whole half past And your gut wrenches as if it were real We turn time into stress chasing happiness and wealth
The monks may be those whom modern days have passed But their wealth of self makes mandalas real We see sand as time killing ourselves and our young
Sista Thou I twenty five and she only four Enemies were we part of the blame mine Life has left LaCharee wanting for more Memories are moment’s contiguous stores Fractals of reality poured in the sieve of a mind Thou I twenty-five and she only four The folks adopted not knowing the score Of the damage inflicted by foster’s unkind Life has left LaCharee wanting for more Their decision was made to increase the corps Of an ill-fated family’s gradual decline Thou I twenty-five and she only four They, I, and she see with hindsight that’s poor The 3 sides of events: the truth, theirs, and mine Life has left LaCharee wanting for more Now she’s twenty-five and with children a chore Repeating a lifestyle embedded in time Thou I twenty-five and she only four Life has left LaCharee wanting for more
The Crossroads There’s a place where one may trade their soul For fame and fortune that cannot be matched The caveat death ‘fore bell 29 tolls The first I recall the greatest by poll Robert Johnson’s gold ring no one could catch There’s a place where one may trade their soul The second, a woman whose range was whole Janis Joplin valued like pearls in a satchel The caveat death ‘fore bell 29 tolls His turbulent hands like waves on a shoal Hendrix crashed doors society latched There’s a place where one may trade their soul Mr. Mojo Risin dancing ‘round a hole Fell into the void with potential unhatched The caveat death ‘fore bell 29 tolls Least hardly last Mr. Ledger a foal Upon Brokeback Mountain the pills did he snatch? There’s a place where one may trade their soul The caveat death ‘fore bell 29 tolls
The Hegemony
Apotheosis Bush crucifies democracy Everyone following George hastens injustice Jostling kaffiyeh, lunatics maddeningly nabbing oil Pantagruel’s quaint revenge Satisfying tycoon’s usance Validating wanton xenophobic yearnings Zealots
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