Libretto Roads by R A Ruadh

Shaping Life

To show a direction
she points her chin
toward where you should go

To show you a person
she points her chin
toward the person in question

To point your finger
is rude and disrespectful
it is what colonists do

He doesn’t like to stand in line
it’s not about waiting his turn
but a nightmare memory of childhood

He remembers residential school
square rooms and slicing whips
and how they cut your hair across

He follows the elders
dancing into the arbour
an honour not a line

We embroider and bead
traditional curving caressing designs
nature has no straight lines

We dance in a circle
weaving a basket of love
our lives are not lines

In our traditions
there are only three lines
and two points

A sacred pipe is straight
an arrow and a spear as well
only the weapons have points

Peskewikús

I knew it was the Peskewikús moon
when the grass began to grow
deep dark feathers
standing up and reaching for the sky

Four families visit from the fields
father and mother geese let go their old feathers
gifting the grass with memories of flight
while their children grow first new ones for flying

The young ones stretch wings
itchy with new feathers
catching warm breezes
yearning to take flight under the waxing moon

At full time the clouds are layered celestial tides
against a darkness backlit with moonlight
I look up into an ocean
shifting and islanding across the sky

The geese disappear into the waning moontime
young ones inherit the secrets
how to fly ahead of winter storms
joining wingtips in flights of arrows

Casting their flying shadows on the night
they will find their way back to spring
laying eggs nested with melodies
of Frog Croaking Moon


The Mi’kmaq call the July moon Peskewikús, or Birds Shed Feathers.

Cockeyed

Like everything else
about the seasons
winter hesitates
then January thaw

sneaks in before
the turn of the year
disappearing before

February’s blizzards
which arrive halfway through

January

Lá Bealtaine

The time of fire
The time of gold
When aos sí work their magic
In sunlit fields
Wearing new green

Gather the coltsfoot blooms
Floating them on spring water
A flower remedy
To heal the spirit
Of winter’s slumber

Harvest gold dandelions
For summer wine
While the early bees
Find their way
Making mead honey

May moon waxes
Gilding the twilight
Fairy frogs weave the night
Singing their spells
Between the stars

The bonfires blaze
Libations poured
For kin, kine, and crops
Light has come again
Blessing thee and me.


Aos sí is an Irish name for faeries or spirits of the earth and fields. Lá Bealtaine is the Irish for Beltaine. Celebrated on May 1st, between spring equinox and summer solstice, it includes dousing and relighting the hearth fires, blessing the cattle and fields, and other rituals for cleansing and fertility. 

Homecoming

In all the exotic lands of my travels
I have never seen the equal
of Acadia’s forests bursting against a
cobalt autumn sky

In all the cuisines I have tasted
I have yet to savour a better perfection
than an unadorned lobster claw
dripping with butter

In all the world’s scents and sensations
I have missed the salty slimy reek
of tidal flats and clam beds
restless under a summer sun

In all the winds and weathers I have sailed
I have never felt the same welcome as
of a Nor’easter kissing my face with
rough and careless scorn

In all the musics of my journeys
I have heard no melody so sweet as the brazen bullying
of bluejays in counterpoint with crickets
while falling apples thump a baseline

In all my years and continents away
I have ever and always dreamed
of sweet maple smoke drifting out
across the starlit snow

In all the crossroads I have stopped
I have found each road an alluring yet alien soil
until at last I have come home
where even an eagle has roots

August sounds

The cicadas sing me back

I am five years old
following Uncle Boyd
as Friday bounds ahead sniffing at everything
but he cannot find the cicadas
they rise and fall always where we are not

I am six years old
sitting on the front stoop with Uncle Boyd
watching fireflies send secret messages
above us the meteors flash through the Milky Way
and the cicadas sing hidden in the dark

I am seven years old
sitting in the field next to Uncle Boyd
the life around me moves and shakes the grass
crickets creak and a snake slides by
the cicadas surround us with serenity

I am sixty five years old
far and long from the Blue Ridge and Uncle Boyd
I watch his spirit walk the stars above me
tossing meteors like fireflies
crickets and northern frogs move the night around me

And the cicadas sing me back

Calling me

wheeling
screeling
the eagles fly high above
my head in my dreams
calling me
calling me

I follow
wilderness paths dark deep
loam between my toes
the scent of forest rises into my hair
calling me
calling me

sky is long
in looking glass lakes
mountain peaks
caress and nip at my feet
calling me
calling me

soaring
diving
I am one with this place
that binds me and frees me
in my heart space
calling me
calling me

Sonnet for a Forest

Lives falling down like raindrops around me day by day
The famous and the infamous and just humans that I’ve known
Music and memory makers of my growing and the way
They carved my path with signposts so I was not alone

Preceded by my parents I did not yet have to start
To be oldest or an elder with those other elders round
Yet the forest keeps on thinning as ancient ones depart
I’ve grown uncomfortably tall between heaven and the ground

The sky brightens and frightens as it’s making room for me
I practice sheltering understory younglings while I can
Each leaf must teach the lessons of the fruit from every tree
Before I am the last to reach high upon the land

I miss them I am them they nourish me root and limb
For only if I reach the sky will saplings know how to climb

Elixir of equinoxes

From fall turning to spring’s return
my maple paints the seasons
amber

Leaves glow in the dark
holding a lamp of long
summer days

The morning fog is burnished copper
slowly melting from
sky to earth

A rustling carpet of shifting gems
drifts in the sunlit breeze
spreading gold nuggets

Winter storms turn up topaz and ruby
embers torn from branches
kissing snow drifts

Deep garnet buds
are lighthouses for spring tides
of rising sap

With billows of maple flavoured steam
the sugaring shack slowly reveals
sweet secrets

From pale gold to deeper honey
rich smoked mahogany transformed
from crystal liquid

Holding the life of my maple tree
suspended in every drop of
amber

Walking past granddaddy

Year by year
I have dismantled the edifices
Built to protect my child me
From memory’s harm

Coming finally to the place
Where I recalled whole and all
Every sound, touch,  scent
Of terror in those nights

I have no feelings about you
None at all
No hatred or even fear
Just the knowing what you did

All my emotions are for me
So much you never could take away
I locked them in and
Kept them safe

Howling ravenous beasts
Rattling the bars
Gnawing at my insides
All these years

One night the sounds
Scents were repeated
The beasts came loose
At last I was afraid

This time the arms around
Me and breath in my face
Did no harm as I let the beasts
Sing their song out loud

Howling with them I
Pained in keening harmony
Mourning the prey the kill
Snuffing over the bones of me

Fragments knit together now
I stand in the ashes of time
The burnt timbers of who I was
Fires gone cold

The chink of ice and whiskey breath
Are mere dislikes now
Holding no night tearings of flesh
No devourings of safeness in dreamtime

I am afraid of things
And battle demons of the past
But not you any more no
You are finally dead and gone

Perimeter

Off you go
Circling the perimeter
Looking inward and outward
Wondering which tendrils will snake
Around your ankles to trip you up

And what if
I am not a Lilliputian with
Tiny ropes and what if you are
Not Gulliver so easily tied down and
Instead we simply sing our dance

Remember you must
Convince this woman wolf
That you mean it more than fleeting
Hours so touch me your stories wild enough
For mating and hunting

I sing my song
Filling moonlight nights
Yes you growled and took my
Neck in your jaws in fierce love play
Aho it was good

Off you go
Circling the perimeter
Looking outward and inward
Wondering what you must do next
To win me for good

Autumn on the hill

Yesterday the maple tree
was clothed in fire
gold and scarlet
against a cobalt sky

Then came the winds
tearing through the woods
stealing colour and beauty
leaving winter

Sunrise reveals spent embers
scuttling along the ground
observed by black bare branches
lonely and cold

Right relations

I arrive on my land

My feet grow roots
Reaching deep into
Mother womb
My heartbeat rhyming
Time beyond time

I touch my land

Quietly the trees
Notice me there
Breathing me into
Larger universes
Eons ago and hence

I bespeak my land

Singing grows
As my ears become
Long and colourful
Hearing blood stories
Through my hands

I belong in my land

Plummeted and
Dancing into silence
Everything moving
Into the stillness
Which is who I am

I am my land

Shawnee Woman Traveling in Distant Lands

I learned already when I was small
A strong man wants a strong woman
And so in the tradition of the mothers of my family
I became a strong woman
Outspoken
Truthful
Proud
My steps and spirit were firm as I began my journeys

In the manner of my people
I traveled wherever my steps took me
Journeys in my mind, my spirit, my body

And so in the tradition of the mothers of my family
My journeying made me a stronger woman
Outspoken
Truthful
Proud
Learning the traditions of many peoples and holding my own

I bore a daughter and taught her when she was small
The traditions of the mothers of my family
She became a strong woman
Outspoken
Truthful
Proud
Her steps and spirit were firm as she began her journeys

In the beginning of my elder years I came to the lands of the northwest people
I learned that a broken man wants a broken woman
In the tradition of the fathers in his family
He tried to break my spirit into as many pieces as his own

I almost forgot that I was a strong woman
The new traditions from the fathers and mothers of his family taught
It is too dangerous to be
Outspoken
Truthful
Proud
I no longer lived the traditions of the mothers of my family
My traditional granddaughter learned the broken women ways
My steps took me to the edge of the cliff

I heard my granddaughter cry out to him
Stop!
I heard my granddaughter cry out to me
Stop!
And I remembered who I am and what I must do

For my granddaughter I learn again to be a strong woman
I teach her the traditions of her long ago mothers
Outspoken
Truthful
Proud
Only strong men who want strong women can follow our footprints

Living the road

My great uncle taught me that there are
two ways of walking

I can look down
and all I will see is the dirt
on the road by my feet

I will feel as if I am going nowhere
getting nowhere
with no direction

I can look up
at the sky and the clouds
seeing the sun and stars and moon

I will feel as if I am walking the world
the trees and lakes and rivers
discovering new paths

And so I walk looking up
and the road unfolds with every step

Potomac by Andy Palasciano

Potomac

by

Andy Palasciano

a poetic libretto

A man in a coma spoke this, to the shock of the nurse who was in the room with him at the time:

On the stony brooks of the Potomac,

Saying what can’t be said

Doesn’t mean you said anything.

But there you stand,

As water cascades around you

You feel like more,

But you remain, only a man.

And then he awoke:

Many days later, this man was in the neighborhood of his childhood.  He walked along the streets and went in a backyard that was dark in the night.  Even in the shadow of moonlight, by a tree he looked up and saw a tree fort encased in darkness.  He stood and listened to the wind creak the wood of the trees and this wooden tree house.  Several minutes later, police arrived at the house.  They asked him what he was doing there.  He responded, “Rehabilitating squirrels.”

In the cell that night, he imagined a squirrel in the cell with him in the moonlight.  The squirrel was writing with spray paint on the wall, “Park Ruler.”  The squirrel disappeared as fast as he appeared in the cell and he was left to think and dream:

As in Dune, “the sleeper has awoken,”,

but I will not awaken as the Messiah,

one above generations.

I will awaken as a dream,

who can do nothing without the dreamer.

Many days later, it was morning, and he found himself in a wheat field.  He heard the wind rustling in the stalks.  He began to dream.  He was in a meadow of grass.  All the squirrels ran to him like he was Snow White.  He began to sing, and all the squirrels followed him as he walked about the meadow.

He began to sing a song, almost subconsciously, like he had when he was in a coma.  It was a space between dream and reality:

The  White Lion fell in the ground

with the thunderclouds

and rose up with the lightning shower.

He will return in power with a shout

When all the lights go out, go out.

As he came back to reality, he said and laughed,

 “A squirrel can’t give birth to a lion.”

He came to walking through a thick forest at around dusk.  The gnarled branches bent and sounded like they were ready to snap in the swift breeze.   He came upon one tree that seemed to open up before him like wings.  He saw shadow movement at the base of the tree that seemed to scurry around and up the trunk in spirals and his eyes moved toward the top of the tree and remained fixed:

The trees this twilight

were flooded with moth-like birds

that moved like bats.

The fluttering betwixt the moss hives

high in the amber

 was enough to drive you to tears.

Why do the trees stand still?

He found himself with an open newspaper in his hands that seemed to be from a small town.  The main article had a headline that said, “The Gloved Waver.”  And the article read “There was a woman with white gloves driving through town and waving at people out her open driver side window. Who is this gloved waver?” And the smaller article below had a headline that read, “Do we have a squirrel whisperer in our midst?”

He had a distant memory of being a boy on a field trip to a tavern that found itself in the middle of the Revolutionary War.  He remembers the tour guide telling a story of one patron who, when a musket ball struck the staircase next to him, ran all the way to the neighboring town without stopping.  He pondered this and thought:

   War is an outcry for creativity.   

   The action and fervency of war

   is an expression of a desire

   for “pure creativity”.  Muskets and

   cannonballs fired may as well

   be fireworks in the sky.

   So much destruction comes

   from the desire to create 

 

He found himself driving a car with his arm out the front window like the gloved waver.  He had no glove on, but the squirrels on either side of him along the small town road were following his car and there were children running after his car shouting, “It’s him, it’s him!”

He thought about getting ice cream on an evening of crickets in a small town.  He remembered how secure he felt as a man in that moment and no desire to be more.  He thought of this connection and reached out:

A Fillerless Rope,

To deliver a sword

He sent a lamb,

When he could have

Just as easily

Set it across 

The horns of a ram

He arrived at a street in this small town.  There were trees on either side of him, in this suburban sprawl.  The trees hung low and he found, as he walked, acorns began falling from the trees at his feet.  He almost slipped a few times, but gathered himself.  The sun peeked out from behind the trees and he had a daydream:

The white helicopter seeds

Flutter all around.

The summer trees are 

Snowing.  To the right

A tree draped in brown,

Its hair catching sunflakes.

They are at your feet,

God’s Royalty

He found himself in a bright room with lots of people.  He looked behind him and saw a brick fireplace and he noticed he was wearing a flannel shirt.  When he lifted his arm in a chicken wing-type motion, a squirrel jumped on his arm and remained, fanning its tail as he looked at the crowd.  He smiled and cameras went off as the crowd cheered.

He coughed and really woke up this time.  He looked at the nurse and smiled.  The nurse left the room shouting for the doctor and other nurses.  They called his family.  When his wife and child, that he had not met yet, arrived, he looked in their eyes crying and with joy he remembered his name and realized he was no longer a stranger.    

Two new PL compilations!!

 

A new poetic libretto compilation featuring eight poems on the topic of too

A new poetic libretto compilation featuring eight poems on the topic of clouds

Both available by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com

One of Three Sides of One('s) Self by Charles A Perrone

 

One

of

Three

Sides

of

One('s)

Self

 

                Charles A. Perrone

 

           

 

                                                                        I AM

Yeah, I am that guy who thinks

that a peer having been assigned to write

from the prompt " I am " means me too

I am that annoying hanger-on who hears the cue

and immediately and urgently wants to know

if "I am" is supposed to be followed by adjectives or nouns

or both and in which case if these are regulated by any rules

Yes I am the collector of apt and appropriate modifiers

actively alliterated at all angles (to) ameliorate all auditory areas

and I am the aggregator of nominative non- or real entities

baby boy teen adult man middle-aged mess-maker elder and more

citizen resident traveler passport-holder border-wall jumper

I am not the subject of "Yo Soy [I am] Joaquín", though I know him,

nor of Sam-I-Am by one Doctor Seuss, an actual MD if memory serves,

Yet I am sick and tired of having to remember so many things

not to be subjected to criticism harassment ridicule and the like

not to mention two-part descriptors making singles feel inadequate

I am this I am that I am thin I am fat I am prose I am not

I am wrought I am rhymed I am primed to explode metaphorically

or even literally if I can manage to set and ignite this here fuse

that I am confused about or about which I am confused

used abused and disabused of my I-am alternative takes

one to know one I am you are we is we are too

enthralled by this notion of first-person self to be able to admit

that I am writing with a progressive slant can mean

more than one thing I am prepared to admit

is that I am me myself and I may be tautological but still logical

an on-going affirmation of this old being while beginning anew

 

I AM 2. (adjectives)

I am anxious to reply though not angst-ridden

I am almost riddled with inquiries and doubts

I am questionable as a starter on the first team

I am teeming with imported exotic liquids to imbibe

I am exogenous despite not being sure what the word means

I am mildly cruel where lack of congeniality is concerned

I am worried to some extent but not yet consumed

I am subsumed under so many rubrics that I simply ignore

I am rubricated in diverse tongues to compensate for my lapses

I am compensatory in the on-going efforts to make tracks or trades

I am efficacious and efficient if do not say so myself and I do

I am salacious as well just to employ the vocabular item sic transit

I am filled with ploys and plays designed to trick the defense

I am trickle-down conscious as an ad-induced amateur economist

I am loving of things related to distribution of wealth and equity

I am distasteful in the eyes of rich and nasty administrators

I am impecunious to judge by the parameters currently in place

I am paramedically unqualified to emit such opinions now or beforehand

I am opinionated because I know a lot of things a lot indeed

I am knowledgeable about love abundance and reasons why

I am reasonable logical laudable lovable adorable and more

I am modest most welcome mode-weary and more of the same

I am willing to consider proposals that push the agenda forward

I am actually ingenious even if I do not seem to be letting on

I am unseemly if you look at it from the opposite and wrong point of view

I am oppositional by nature and nature-bound by chosen position

I am tied to this view and happily roped into the realm

I am through with this overpass and under-count of betterment.

 

I AM  3. (nouns)

I am a recipient of personal-improvement projects and plans

I am a pure provocation, an excuse for protest, a pest

I am a nun, a sister, a superior mother, or not

I am a monk, a brother, a fellow, a member of the gang, a limb

I am a lame duck, a crippled ally, an injured nobody of sorts

I am a protein, a muscle, an addition, a blind grate

I am a blockage, a swinging gate, a fence, a yard-full

I am your worst nightmare, your X come home to roost

I am a perch, a post, a place kept, plural-plant keeper

I am a radio, an adage, appendage, old age encroaching

I am an excuse to excuse such clearly bad behavior

I am a homophone, a plate of hominy, a homily read on time

I am a sax, a rack of righteous ribs, a shoulder that blocks

I am a joint, a session of congress, a congenial cross

I am an in-between interstitial interpretive cell or call to arms

I am a supporter a  reporter a rapport-free idiot savoir

I am an impostor, a foster parent of a foreign child prodigy savant

I am an expedition an extradition a sort of fancy diction

I am a counter (numbers), a counter (kitchen), a counter (culture)

I am an eye, an ear, a nose, a throat, an acronym

I am a set of letters, an abbreviation, a code for knowing

I am a command, an order, a disposition, an attitude, a pose

I am a pretend corpse,  a phony cadaver, an undefunct functionary

I am an easel, a rough patch, a facility, asperity aspired

I am a cycle, of unexpected rounds squares lines and arrows

I am a near-miss, a misnomer, a roaming beast, unkempt

I am the last refuge of a scoundrel, a drill to make a final well and test

I am the same person who received the delivery and opened the package

 

I AM  4.   prepositions (28 thereof)

 

 

I am above reproach, approach, the fray, all the way

I am across the street, the reef, the riff, refrain, phrase, re-phrase

I am against the raise in principle, principally for no particular reason

I am along the shore, the moor, the poor man's road to burial and such

I am among the most monstrous menaces you may meet Monday next

I am around the edge of the abyss which I might miss as you may as well

I am at wit's end, the end of my rope, the crossroads of Europe and Asia

I am before thee oh most beloved fearless leader, treat me accordingly

I am behind on my payments, you and your sacred mounts, willingly

I am below the floorboards, the median line, the linear markings of will

I am beneath contempt, or any other similar reaction you deem I deserve

I am beside myself with grief, relief, belief in the ever and never lasting

I am between jobs right now, so please bear with me 'til the penultimate line

I am by the bus stop, the top of the ice cream truck, the tip of the nice berg

I am down but not out, of sight, of mind, of mine, of yours, of elder judges

I am from a pleasant little town in the country, hinterland, outback, or closeby

I am in this box, this defined space, this confinement, this jail, this countdown,

I am into the mainstream, the flow, the flux, the rest of the rows and columns,

I am near the agreed drop-off location, so you can deposit items per previous

I am of native extraction, despite what any of you may have heard elsewhere

I am off, off course, off my meds, off the mark, off by a long shot, off the offset

I am on, on course, on my meds, on the mark, on the ball, on the onset plus

I am to, as in going to somewhere, somehow, someday, some way, to stay

I am toward, as in turned toward the ward of well-being, the cell of agreeing

I am under tremendous strain, the weather, -neath cut off lines for assistance

I am upon this specially selected spot, on purpose with resolve and resistance

I am with it, with you, with child, with all those who maintain the good cause

I am within you, within me, within my live rights to demand undying attention.

 

 

 

Cheddar Selfie

 

 

I AM  5.   The ABC of It (28 thereof)

 

 

I am Adam, the first man according to legend, lore, and more

I am Bedlam, wildly trying to make you think if that can even be

I am Cedar, a kind of tree causing you to feel righteous and strong

I am CH, je suis la Confédération Helvétique, je vous en remercie

I am Demetrius, some Biblical or Hellenic hero or sports celebrity

I am English, a language made up of several other tongues et al.

I am Fanny, a funny lady whose job it is to deceive and distract you

I am Grandfather Time, aching to know why Chronos is masculine

I am Hades, resting shaft for dead souls that hades sharply down

I am I, me, myself, first-person singular entity, own individual self

I am January, a month, a river, an image in someone's mind perhaps

I am Karnak, collected decrepit buildings of some ancient civilization

I am Loser, otherwise known as the one who did not end up winning

I am Mervin, a magician, a marvelous maker of mirths and meanings

I am Nefertiti, because my name means the beautiful one has arrived

I am Ñ, N-yay, formerly a letter in the Spanish alphabet and now, n+˜

I am Oppenheimer, academic scientist with coast to coast credentials

I am Peter, upon this rock I built a church and sold it at a huge profit

I am Q, a sharp fictional character totally based on a real-life occupation

I am Roger, whose name radio communicators say to acknowledge rcpt.

I am Superman, a hero, superhero, unholy übermensch in a certain way

I am Tesla, former friend of Edison and current stealer of all currencies

I am U-boat, our quaint version of an aquatic pleasure vehicle to enjoy

I am V, Thomas Pynchon's debut novel when fiction was still soaring

I am W, a double U, whose evolution from Latin has always baffled us

I am X, I mark the spot, a point ahead where things are coming to a head

I am Yiddish, an entertaining idiom once it became a New York dialect

I am Zed, the letter, standing for Zorro, and the termination of the alphabet.

 

                             

 

I AM  6.   The Numbers (1-28)

 

I am one, a single, unique, lone-time happenstance

I am two, a one-on-one, a pair, a trio minus one, deux

I am three, a holy trinity, a triptych, tripartite trepidation

I am four, on the floor, engaging gears to race toward more

I am five, a center dot on a die surrounded by pairs of dots

I am six, points for a score in a game using all body parts

I am seven, the most magical digit, countless applications

I am eight, a ball to be behind in a different human game

I am nine, to which some players aspire to be dressed

I am ten, little Native-Americans complaining with reason

I am eleven, a key glyph and cipher in ludic lacerations

I am twelve, an age at which tenacity makes little sense

I am thirteen, can you say triskaidekaphobia? I clearly can.

I am fourteen, eligible for confirmation in the catholic nation

I am fifteen, the amount people jokingly say when 5 obtains

I am sixteen, sweet, ever so sweet, and if you'd like some proof

I am seventeen, a magazine, a pivotal link in the chain of what?

I am eighteen, so thrilled to be able to be drafted into the army

I am nineteen, I have the distinction of being one short of 10x2

I am twenty, two decades in one chronological entity, how great

I am twenty-one, all the bars can't wait to welcome me, I'm pure

I am twenty-two, in my country this is the age to graduate college

I am twenty-three, I have been officially unemployed for a year

I am twenty-four, I'm sorry I can't stop thinking of Willie Mays

I am twenty-five, again, sorry, that really is the MPH speed limit

I am twenty-six, double up on your triskaidekaphobia •/• 2

I am twenty-seven and already ready to take my place in heaven

I am twenty-eight and the conclusion to all these elaborations.

 

 

 

7.   I AM  (Outro)

I am the same customer who has been drawn in by click bait

I am not the client who was hired by the provider of the product

I am a good provider as family friends have said of my own father

I am farther & further and nee-ther & nigh-ther and equally both

I am only occasionally contrary yet always raring to go to the limit

I am in a constant state of rush hurry and you-only-live-once episodes

I am endeavoring to find a verbal solution to one of these predicaments

I am driven to return to the imperative of negation at least for now

I am not going to give into the temptation to tantalize unsuspecting youth

I am adjectival as often as I am adjunct given current employment prospects

I am egregious gregarious hilarious hellacious anxious and perspicacious

I am patient patented pretentious prehensile and utterly predictable

I am not what you expected nor what you thought you were paying for

I am not prone to prayer nor the rare benediction at a holiday feast

I am however willing to allow you to feast your eyes on this fine repast

I am being ostentatious about but scarcely sharing by any means

I am cruel if by that you mean telling the truth about your investments

I am invested in many things sartorial and several more aerial

I am highly concerned with the level of rust on my sign language

I am signature to too many deals even to count accurately

I am sensing a sense of closure in your refusal

I am prepared to refuse your supposedly final offer

I am finalizing a new definition of finality with fine edges

I am an edge a ledge a ledger a badger a bad boy in tow

I am at the conclusion of this voyage and content

I am happy never again to pay rent or to have spent joy away

I am far and away the most bestial candidate in this menagerie

I am going to be able to manage to break on through to the other side

 

I AM 8.

I am the delivering doctor whose name I discovered six decades later

I am the nice nurse who nixed one nickname in favor of a better one

I am the driver of the car you threw gravel at while laughing at will

I am the photographer who attended to young customers with a pony

I am the neighborhood parent whose daughter somehow contracted polio

I am the stay-at-home-dad who chased hot-rodders off his street

I am the orchard owner who sold out and simply let housing take over

I am the next-door nanny whose bedroom was invaded by an errant car

I am the salesman across the street who literally ran off with his secretary

I am the dentist who worked on candy-fed kids without the benefit of novacaine

I am the new kid on the block who invented a new game each and every month

I am the co-worker with kids who went to play golf and had a heart attack instead

I am the cherry tree guard who thinks shooting teens with buckshot is just fine

I am the admired athlete who hit a foul ball through a nearby garage window

I am the fidgety teacher whose earlier nervous breakdown was found out later

I am the lad who slept in a geodosic dome and hanged himself in that very place

I am the woman who hung all her tie-dye clothes on a chain link fence

I am the person who saved enough to afford gender reassignment surgery

I am the gardener who revoked use of any and all plastics in the yard

I am the good-humor man re-creating childhoods on corner streets

I am the information technology genius who finally figured out his boss was CIA

I am the policeman who gave his badge to a babe and went to revel in raves

I am the trust-fund brat who places fake crocodile jaws in the public pond

I am the retired proctologist who is offering free-of-charge examinations

I am the cousin who left the Catholic Church because it was too liberal

I am the old friend not realizing that to sell life insurance doesn't become him

I am the family practice physician who thinks I should locate a specialist

I am the insistent solicitor who wants me to buy a plot in the cemetery.

 

 I AM 9.

I am a newborn at a hospital of brick and mortar, mortar and brick

I am an unnecessary nuisance in the eyes of my older sister

I am already a danger to passing cars unaware of my slingshot

I am an expert sled man in my oh so futile imagination

I am an annoyance to all associated with the travel industry

I am an unlikely candidate to live albeit briefly in a hotel

I am the guilty party in the pilfering of the neighbor's fruits

I am a bad patient for gastrointestinal specialists who issue orders

I am a bicycle thief on his way to see a double feature in color

I am a budding sportsman capable of making stronger people cry

I am the guy who burst into laughter when the motorcyclist skidded on pavement

I am the eyewitness who thought it would be fun to lie outright

I am the brave observer who told a precociously bearded boy to back up and off

I am the best chemist this side of the Sierras to judge by this experiment

I am actually deathly afraid of those greased-head wielders of chains

I am a born comedian making all sorts of folks chuckle and speculate

I am an actor a pretender a make-believe maven making good

I am a collector of used newsprint unwilling to reveal exactly why

I am the nephew of an engineer who hoards string and twine

I am a prankster with fake ink spots, faux vomit, and assorted tricks

I am an extra-special edition of the ad hoc newsletter

I am a breaking news story unto myself according to reliable sources

I am a draft dodger in my own mind and by due design

I am the only member of the band who does not play an instrument or sing

I am a unique possessor of multiple surnames and near-names

I am the teacher's pet whom none dare to vet judiciously

I am the responsible party in the destruction of the old archive

I am the architect of a novel view of housing and homing.

 

                              Things I have never done:

 

I have never recognized the meaning of "rising to the occasion."

I have never slept through a potentially apocalyptic event.

I have never walked a mile in the shoes of a false prophet.

I have never entered a prize-heavy hot-dog eating competition.

I have never won the inflated jackpot of an institutional lottery.

I have never purchased a ticket for travel to the moon itself.

I have never discovered the remains of an unknown dinosaur.

I have never expressed preference for imperfect over participles.

I have never completed the running of an urban marathon.

I have never ever traveled to any site of nuclear devastation.

I have never joked about the expression "died 'n' gone to heaven."

I have never taken a class proposing to explain the Beaux Arts.

I have never imagined or composed a musical piece à la Mozart.

I have never terminated the elaboration of an actual novella.

I have never reviewed an end-stopped French-language film.

I have never ended a lyric instance with the vocabular item fin.

 

 

 

                                                Street Cred

 

Last night at 12:01:

 

The doctors had prescribed some rather potent sedatives

The thinking being that I might be able to sleep through

the piercing discomfort of this condition

But alas I was awakened by a jarring jolt of midnight pain

though I managed to get myself to the bathroom

planning to douse my countenance with cold cold cold water

Instead I walked through bright beams of moonlight

For the newly installed skylight was perfectly framing a lunar display

of a midnight sky, clear, brisk, starry, curative.

 

 

                          Fruitful Realization

 

 

Song of My

Singular Being

 

Here, I am

at one A.M.

in my unique self

wandering

       and

wondering

if there still might be

someone just like me.