Once again, the Final Edit begins; a rearrangement...Cut...Copy...Paste...Delete and regretted words are revised, changed...denied. Perhaps, they or I said that but meant the other; new words I just remembered; was it just a joke! Ha! Ha! Did I appear to be laughing? Anyway: a beginning is always the beginning and the ending is never, ever really the ending.
Having neither reference nor degree I’m untethered to roam, to render free, my taste, my smell, my guts in poetry or song: iambs so sweet or sugary rhyme, or esoteric muddle out of time. The choice is mine as is the reward; to grin, to whisper, “Yes! Yes!” at rare sweet morsels of insight, of pithy delight. Too modest-shy to claim the honor “Poet”, I’ll wait for it to be bestowed, or not, and labor quiet, content, secure, alone. If when I’m gone, melted but for bone, a soul, naïve or informed, should say, “He was a poet you know”, I’ll bone clack in my eternal sleep and hiss through dust “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
It’s hard to believe this blog has been around for eleven years. My Anthem was included in my first post and still residues on the About page. It expresses what I felt then, what I still do and hopefully will as long as I can maintain some semblance of cognition. Belated Words has helped me through many tough times like those we all must endure.
Ink 245XL Black tops my list along with Rx at CVS and a succulent mix at Lowes. Also, to visit mother at the nursing home; donning mask, shield, gown and blue gloves. To give her chocolate ice cream and candy. Also, take wild-child Blue for due shots. Writing down doesn't ensure task completion; I may leave in a rush or pissed-off state without the list, without my debit card, without the will to fulfil this humble list. Ink245XL Black was missed on the list! Everything else, more or less, was fulfilled. Mother, a clump of sadness, grinned and grabbed for a hug, wondering, silently, why I am the only one to every come to visit. Blue-eyed Blue enthralled the vet's helper; too bad, I'm not young...cruising for chicks. Back to Ink 245XL Black: I really do need this to finish printing copies of all my stuff stuck in the Cloud; all my poems and a few stories. The Cloud could disappear despite Experts' arguments. Some Experts worship god Chaos. Clouds like stars implode; more like vanish, dissipate, some showering cooling blessings while others are never seen, touched or known. These pages are mine to clutch. Some garnered a few Likes and occasionally, rare praise from a Non-Expert; not their real intended purpose. Oh! to once again caress a Goddess Muse; say Yes! I remember! to what I feel in my memories hands.
Redbird on waxleaf privet branch calls as he has a billion times past; enticing. Cheer--cheer--cheer--pretty--pretty we mimic, but what is he really saying; mere yakking, indoctrination, concert or berating, teasing, making fun of me as I sit in my closed windowed-box feeling belittled for my lack of a song? Swaying leaves, twitching penumbra, cast by light through my window, dance upon my dull blue wall to an ancient choral refrain. Even leaf-light has a song! What is my song? I don't know the words, the rhythm, the rhyme, the point of worth. Was the first song a mere utterance of awe; wonderment in the presence of sunlight. "Ah! Ah!" will be my song! I sing to the leaves and they freeze for just an instant to listen. Then, crackling into brilliant light slivers, they resume their own soft, dancing song.
It was a fear of failing, forced to face the truth so blithely drown by hiding dreams in days and tossing nights that held my place in time, banality, or so, it seemed. Always the thought was there: to write, release the only thing I owned uniquely mine; my take, but excuses would never cease to take their toll; depleting pride and time. But age at last with fingers raised to take a pulse along my neck with icy tips on wrinkled skin did startle me awake; so now, alone for hours with moving lips, I sit composing verse and smile and fret and curse, but never do I feel regret.
Goldfinch ravishing the sunflowers! Too much yellow!
Too loud; his song demanding…screeching: Me! Me!
Entertaining, but not subtle enough for beauty? Maybe.
Though there are truths he does parade; offering for a fee.
Can beauty only be the delicate; truth only glaring?
“The truth is ugly!” “You can’t handle the truth!”
A curve of flesh, real, depicted or imagined can still
Elicit bliss; the intuited joy of the incorruptible line.
Gastrocnemius, Soleus, Iliotbial, Peroneus enfolded;
The legs perfection of muscle, tendon, bone and skin.
Middle-aged crisis guy entranced by a woman’s legs;
Her elongated neck’s porcelain skin, shiver releasing.
Does need dictate the beauty we see…becoming our truths?
Truth might be beauty; perceived beauty our only truths.
Why search purposefully fabricated, lying walls,
That trashy sweet gum, this August depletion;
Listening for the….A…purveyor of truth?
Again, I enact this sweet, silencing ritual
With little nuance; certainly with no perfection.
With paper…neatly creased, and pen gently held
I smile, waiting for Muse to tweak the light.
Muse is our deliverance…or…our false prophet;
Which? “Ignorance is bliss.” Just give me light!
The leaves are gone. Wind rejoices in Their leaving for their dance betrays; Painting hints of body on his shame. Shoulders cringe under iced breath ravaging this frigid, emptying street. Chimes to the right sing winds intent, To flee this memory, falling behind, To allow us to lie in a contrived bliss Like those wreaths on those graves.
The leaves are gone. Wind rejoiced in their leaving for their dance betrayed: painting hints of body on his shame. A witness of this carnage, he whirled in helplessness, sharing horrid chaos with us despite our hands over our ears. Shoulders cringe beneath iced-breath ravaging this frigid, manicured yard. Chimes to the right sing winds intent to flee this memory, fall far away, to lie in a contrived complacency like these plastic wreaths on these graves.
poetic license….
flung to lime pond scum…“There frog!”
Nonrefundable!
Belated Words 