I’d like to write you a poem
a cuddly, fluffy warm poem
one letter at a time
one word at a time
every line carefully crafted

I’d like to write you a poem
a sweet aroma syrupy poem
a verse a day
a stanza a day
in a book of scented whims

I’d like to write you a poem
a happy hearty poem
every line a smile
every line a laugh
a chuckle for lingering sigh

I’d like to write you a poem
a long-lasting poem
with memories of our trips
with the marks of our lips
a smug on the glowing brow…

I am not an easy poet.
I know
If I were,
I would be
A poet my boot.
If I don’t speak in tongues,
If I don’t talk in my sleep,
If I sleep without nightmares —
A dead body
Supine and stiff,
My bed wouldn’t need
Every morning
A redressing.

If you have a hard time
Dissecting my verse,
I understand.
I died writing it,
If you died reading it,
That would be fair game.
I wouldn’t ask for more

I am not who you think I am;
I am not these accessories
and accoutrements. I am not
the coverings and conveyances.
I am not the display pictures
on my media walls or videos
and photos of my appearances.

When you lose poems, you get to know why
the shepherd will leave the flock of 99
and go in search of one skinny lamb,
trapped in the bushes and brabbles.

You ransack the brain for poems that ran away
the ones you wrote in your head waking up
from a dream too tired to lift a finger

and they drained away, a jackpot won
and cashed before you turned over
to mourn how real the dream appeared —

the poems you forgot in notebooks,
the ones you wrote on scraps folded and
tucked neatly into the pocket, remembered
when the…

There’s a question that echoes
at the thresholds
of that our monumental journeys.

Do you believe in God,
the Creator of Heaven and Earth?
If you do, then heed that prime charge
to love your neighbor as yourself.

Your neighbor is a homeless orphan,
the one displaced by war and tornadoes
many oceans away from where you are.
Your neighbor is the sick and dying man

the one whose skin color looks different
the one who transgendered whose spouse
is of the same gender, leaving you to wonder
the one with strange philosophical views.

There’s a question that blazes forth
forcefully
as…

Lucky are your eyes indeed privileged
if they don't cry daily
at the mess in the world.
But how can they really not?

You blink away and wipe them up
to see where and how and when to help.
You've got a duty not to darken things up
where you can do nothing else about it.

That’s what I tell myself daily,
and that’s some creed I live by.
Lord, please help me, I pray,
in the search for some meaning
away from the sickeningness of the news —

to escape from the boiler room of existence,
the nagging urgency…

the sower does not sow
and walk away
the farmer’s work
never ever ends
planting seasons stroll past grooming,
into harvesting seasons;
the gardener ponders and pauses
not to always power on —
sips some juice or takes a nap,
then trudges on

into the garden of plants
of families of familiar trees
and unfamiliar flowers
of species and genres growing
in patches and portions —
in the sun and the shades
in rich humus or sandy, stony soil,
thirsty for lots of or limited water
attracting pollinators and pests,
birds, bees, and bugs, or briars

to the different stages…

“A poet warrior realizes both the brutality and the beauty in life, and apprehends that the suffering we tragically endure is partly what makes us human. What also makes us human is the ability to love, the ability to stand in nature’s presence, and to nurture this earthly paradise to tend to our family’s needs.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“If you were not a poet, what will you be?”
She asked, locking her bright clear eyes
to his cloudy and dreamy ones.

“What I have always been — a poem!” …