Things I Wanted to Post but Did Not

No __________.

Tell your ___________ to stop ________ you.

A nice way to live because you're going to ___________ .

A lot  __ _____   ___ of ______  _____ because __________ .



*****

Things I wanted to post but I did not.

Poems - like a coward

some poems are too accurate
they tell the truth or reveal the facts
so starkly

with such a shock
i have no intention of exposing
and though they are the best poems

i have ever written i have thrown
many of them away

like a coward


*

Writing - From "Drafts"

I'm sorry if I offended anyone -- but if I did, fuck you. Seriously, fuck off. Because, all that matters in the end, is the work. We all have to do the work. Isn't that hard enough to do the work.

Please don't be mistaken: I like to get on with everybody, even if I don't agree with them. But I' m not posing, and I have no time for distractions.


----

From "Drafts"

Poem - no rose tattoo

boring

no rose tattoo

no tattoos
of anything

every scar
has a simple
explanation

hey -- this one
was when i was
hung over
and destroyed
a motorcycle

boring

know what
venice looks like
on a winter day

venice italy
sorry

smelled
berlin

tripped on
london

cried when
it snowed on
new years day
in paris

understood
just a bit about
love and fate

but no rose
tattoo

Poem - i blame god / for my crashing

riding my bike
the bike lane
disappears

it is dark
and i crash

crashing hurts
but there are no cars
passing when i crash

i decide to get a soda
from the convenience store

i blame god
for my crashing


*

Poem - we can / stay sober at my club

drunken
night customers

strippers
johns and god

fine dining
salvation nearby

just enough
time for rescue

some
friends dying

come to
my sober club

we can
stay sober at my club


---

GG
2014

Poem - some

some

don't discriminate between
fast food take out
or poetry

actually they'd like
the hamburger

rather than a few lines
that could make
them

immortal


*

Poem - PISCES

i am old

older
than history

before you were born
i swam on the lids
of egyptian coffins

before this
they spied me
over ziggurat gardens

and before this
i hovered over deserts
that met oceans

no one knew
where the water ended
and the starry skies began

i felt all the ages
and all mutiple are mine

most fruitful of the triplicate


---

8.19.14

Poem - help someone and save yourself

  the Darwinian excuse for not helping
  the false boost to ego it provides

is a horrifying thing

  it betrays and denies the ones
  who gave to you

  later you will not get
  any help at all

  as you watched
  others struggle

  it will be your turn
  you will struggle and drown

help someone and save yourself

8.13.14

Poem - unconcious

I started forgiving
when I realized your suffering was so intense
it was lobotomizing you

Also making you high in a way
where you had no idea what you were doing

You were unconscious
but you acted like you were aware

But you were not conscious

You dream and I was a dream figure
to you


--

8.13.14

"Sometimes I’ll get a call or email from someone five years after the last contact and I’ll think, oh right, I hated that person. But they would never have known, of course. Let’s see if I still hate them. Very often I find that I don’t. Or that I hated them for a dumb reason. Or that they were having a bad day."

https://medium.com/message/how-to-be-polite-9bf1e69e888c

**


And I realized, reading this, that sometimes you meet someone and they are having a very bad year -- or a string of bad years. They might not know how to stop the bad years. So those kind of people you have to be especially kind to, as they enter and exit though your life. Because we are all visitors.

Poem - learn from poetry

why write poetry
or even try to understand it
they ask

this day
is a poem that started
with the sun rising

if you don't
understand this day
learn from poetry



__

HB
Sunrise
8.12.14

Poem - unavoidable blessings / are scattered throughout

you can look
and find the wrong person
over and over again
blinded by prejudice

because nobody
will change and they don't
trees won't convert
into cotton candy

or gold or that
perfect novel but humans
they don't quit looking
and choosing

unavoidable blessings
are scattered throughout
tripped over cursed
then appreciated



HB
8.11.14

Poem - Looking Back

we were a perfect match
vain stupid and scared

many people are like this
so we were not special

but wasn't it nice to think

the kind of potential damage
to be done to others

through our own self-obsessiveness
this was roomy enough

to build something up out of whimsy

like a country to get lost in
or a dream to go bad

promising all would be well
if it was gotten at any cost

i will remember you

there is a new view out
a new window big and white

some things will never change

barely remember what was
so solid before


()


HB
8.11.14

Poem - even though

our neighbors felt compelled
to welcome us

even though
we were from out of town

but we had bought
the unlucky house in the neighborhood

so it was fine
and they wished us well

there was a lawn party
everyone smiled

when the house
was vacant

i imagine
they smiled again



----

Poem - Oak Park

i would walk past
the house

where hemingway wrote
many of his first short stories

i saw it intimately in every season

and also the house
where he was born

up from the high school
in oak park

some oldster remembered him

even the streets in certain places held
his echoes and even scenes

he wished he could have
annihilated

with the bravado
he encased himself in

because oak park is like this

so trim and prim
with the wide lawns he derided

where anything
drunk or stray didn't belong

god had no hard feelings
when the place was created

oak park has no hard feelings

thus hemingway became the
storyteller and the braggart

the lying hero and the wanderer
drunk and killer of others and self

just to get away from oak park

now ernest is dead
and oak park is just the same

the immortally serene location
where the wisconsin glacier stopped

the shore of ancient lake chicago

crown of the continental divide


___

from recollection
HB SOCAL
2014

Poem - The Invisible Restaurant

i just opened a restaurant
with no waiters
no menu
no food
no physical location

you and i are
in there now

what would you like to order?


*

let us sit here for a second
and enjoy the moment


---

Us
The Invisible Restaurant
8.07.14

Poem - splendid

like flashes of lightening
they go through your life
splendid

now i have a receipt for gas
and a pencil no. 2

there are some who will
unlock the secret of life through
hedonism

i have a pencil no. 2
and a full tank of gas


*

Poem - Another Poem to the Angel of Constantinople

i'll stay off the subject of poetry
or how love saves the world

i think about the angel of constantinople
and of holy duty or vows and purpose

the angel was sent with responsibility
into a world of wiles and faithlessness

but the being was undeterred
because it knew

no matter how the errand turned out
there are 100,000 more at least

that will be showing up
at any time any place

if requested


==

hb
aug 2014

Poem - and deep down

i have nothing to teach you
i am a liar

i lie with my eyes and my heart
with every ounce of my brains
with my spirit
with my whole life

but in me there is something
that cannot lie

cannot be untrue for
even one instant

and often
this halts my lies in progress
and has me sit and meditate

if you watched me
through all my talk

and saw that i was quiet
and was still sometimes

if we found some lasting
happiness with this

and we gave that
to others

a bit of happiness
you and i spread
with nothing
gotten back

just a bit

with my spirit
with my whole life

then i'd be
happy

because
a holy fool

and a liar
become one

as everything
wears out

and becomes
new again

*

Poem - un-upset

i'm a shoe
a tear
a replacement
a battle lost

i'm that tree
that filling station
that leak
that sky

**

un-upset
2014

Poem - practice kindness all day to everybody

practice kindness all day to everybody
and you'll realize you are everybody

---

from Jack Kerouac's

Practice kindness all day to everybody
and you will realize you’re already
in heaven now.

The Patient 9

9

and a note
in my cold uptown flat
where everything

seems varnished by
blue light

i want to 
come back

i crumple it
it crumples
o pride

i am so cold
i have no idea
if i can be warm

*

who needs help more
her me or them
or him

if i love her again
will she leave me
again i ask the wall

over and over again
i ask the wall

a blue wall

The Patient -1

-1

i am nineteen years old
and i meet the girl
who will be my wife
for the first time

i give her a ride
out to the island
where her friends are
for the weekend

she laughs at my
old boat with the
peeling blue paint

later she and i
try to catch fireflies

while her friends
argue and get stoned

+

after this kiss
so lightly

and for so
long on my burning lips

i don't see her
for three years

The Patient - 0

0

before it all began
i felt happy for some reason
and so did my wife

we had been unhappy
for a time with
strange arguments

i think i was happy
because she was happy

for some reason
she would not tell me
exactly why she was happy

we took a walk
in central park

we watched it snow

we held hands like it was
a long time ago