Negotiations

Love,
as an action,
is unilateral;
a velocity moving
outward
in a specific direction.

Loving relationships
are always
bilateral negotiations;
at worse,
unwilling compromises,
at best,
complementary
sanctuaries.

In The Temple Between My Temples

I always start
in the produce section,
and soon I am lost
in the beauty
the splendor
of it all:

inside my head
Elvis Costello is still writing the book
and pumping it up
and the New York Dolls
are dancing like monkeys
in spandex

and Dusty Springfield
tells me it’s a sign of the times
as I compare prices
on frozen pizzas

down the snack aisle
Curtis warns me about
the Pusherman
and I look to see
if he’s watching me
from his funkyfine heaven

and I try to remember
if we need milk
and Prince bumps up next
to the Carpenters
next to Public Enemy
next to Bob Dylan
next to Julie London

and I’m no longer
just grocery shopping:

I’m having a divine
religious experience

in the temple
between my temples.

Caveat Emptor, Prospective Believers

The deal looks simple:

just say you believe,
take a dip in the baptistery
and come up a new person.

So many agents sell it as
After Life insurance,
trying to earn their share
of that great
Great Commission.

Caveat emptor,
prospective believers,
before you sign:

remember
taking on the Christ
means losing yourself
and all your pretty things
for the sake
of Jesus.

If words like
obedience and discipline
scare and intimidate you,

they should.

To follow
is the hardest thing
and the days when
the cool water soothed
my aching, burning soul
are rare indeed.

It’s not as simple
as saying
“I believe, I believe.”

It is in denying yourself
the delicious pleasure
of self-righteous hatred and anger.

It’s in feeding your neighbor
with the last piece
from your pantry.

It’s in the very Un-American idea
that says
“I am not self-reliant,
I am weak,
and I need someone
to show me
right from wrong.”

It’s humbling,
but far easier than being hung
naked on a cross
to show your devotion to God
and nowhere near as
humiliating.

It’s not about being “saved”
from the Hell of the future,
it’s about living through
the hell of the present.

So, before you say yes
think it through,

and if you still can’t
rationalize it
or explain it

but you still want it,
really gotta have it,

then
you’re ready.

Slowly

To resist the temptation
to jump to the end of
the paragraph

to make the meal last
almost until it is too cold

to make love with fiery passion
and intensity
and to do it slowly.

Is it that the world
moves too quickly

or is it that I am blessed
by so many treasures
that I zip from one
flower to another

speeding like a hummingbird
with a two-minute warning?

I decide
I haven’t the time to ponder this
as I wrap this poem up

and speed home.

Why There is No Poem Today

This is not
a difficult question:

should I sit at the keyboard
bending thought and word
weighing simile and metaphor,
vainly trying to scratch out
a hitherto unheard phrase
on the off chance
that some anonymous reader
might comment positively
and feed my voracious appetite
for approbation and
self-aggrandizement,

or

watch another episode
of “Curb your Enthusiasm”
sitting next to
the most beautiful woman
I’ve ever seen
and feel the
comforting glow
that only comes
from finally knowing
true love?

I’ll be right there,
babydoll.

No One Wants Another Poem

No one wants another poem,
obviously it’s way too easy to grow ‘em.

Writers with insight are numerically few,
true artists are rare (the sure sign that they’re true).

Too many claim a literary profession,
thinking that art is merely confession.

Mistaking the insular as a merit unique,
they fill MA programs with empty technique.

With words they dig a verbal excavation,
but many of us think it’s just masturbation.

I’ve gone on too long, for now I just realize,
I’ve done the same thing that I came here to criticize.

Weedpuller

As a kid
I was instructed
to pull the weeds,
like it was
instinctual.

I didn’t know
what a weed was,
so I tried to surmise
meaning from context:

“I hate those
God-damned weeds.”

“Those weeds
are choking out
the grass.”

I thought
weeds were bad, ugly,
mean-looking,
so I set about
my task.

After an hour
of pulling,
I’d acquired quite
a mound of
dead vegetation,
and when I proudly
showed my mom,
she blasted:

‘WHAT THE HELL
ARE YOU DOING?
THOSE ARE MY
GOOD PLANTS!
YOU LEFT
ALL THE WEEDS
IN THE GROUND!”

I didn’t know.

They all looked ugly,
bad and mean
to me.

To this day,
I can’t easily predict
how others will judge
the cursed from the desired,
the worthless from the proper.

It’s been that way
with
plants,
music,
art,
and people,

and it taught me
to respect my choices,
especially
in who I would become.

[Written for Real Toads challenge.]

Keep Your "Carpe Diem"

When you’re a kid,
birthdays seem like
they’re forever
faraway.

The calendar pages
turn at a glacial pace,
adulthood,
still a mirage.

Then,
somewhere in your 50s
without noticing,
the days begin sailing by,
like dead leaves in a river,
moving too quick
to appreciate
all their detail,

and when you
want to stop them
and really study
their delicate veins,
their cracked
and weathered skins,
they slip away from
fingers
that were once
nimble enough
to catch them.

So,
I don’t wait anymore
for my birthday
to celebrate,
I do it today.

You can keep your
“carpe diem”
with its implicit specter
of Death.

I prefer “Happy Birthday”
with all its
boundless potential,
optimism,
and cake.

[Written for Poets United, Birthday Prompt ]

Not a Great Mystery

As philosophies
dry up and wither away
in untouched bookcases,
remember,
it’s not a great mystery:

breathe in,
breathe out,
and help someone else along the way.

The world is an equation
but rarely is it
an equality.

Sometimes a “greater than,”
sometimes it’s a “less than,”

and if you need
to boil it down
further,
it’s this:

others first,
then you.

Anything else is
merely
narcissism.

The Dusky Pink Rose

The dusky pink rose
promises divinity,
simplicity,
humility.

Unaware of her
fate,
she represents
all that is
beautiful and perfect
in this world.

If you
cannot see her,
breathe in
her soft perfume.

To swim in her
velvet petals,
is to be
forever changed.

Why Do I Love Christmas Music So Much?

My earliest memories
are in bittersweet sepia tones,

in a family of depressives,
sadness and low expectations
came with the deal.

Until I was old enough to
decode a calendar,
“A Charlie Brown Christmas”
heralded the start of
the season of tract homes
transformed by red and green lights,
it was like being sent to Oz.

Somehow, magically,
the world became prettier
and teeming rich with exciting,
beautiful possibilities.

My father would finally
sit on the couch enjoying
Christmas music in front
of his tree,
and my mother would
let me help her bake cookies.

It was the happiest time
I had all year.

More than anything else,
the music took me
far away,

to places where families were happy,
where the snow hid all the misery,
where people were in love.

Then, as mysteriously as it came,
it was gone on Christmas Night.

I remember playing the records
too far into the next January
when my parents would
pack them up with
the whole holiday season
and stash it away
until the next year.

And life went back to
its mundane necessity,
like Dorothy returning
to Kansas.

With every year
as I play them,
the memories
of my youth sweeten.

I play them
for my children now
in the hopes that

one of them
will carry on
this tradition
and remember
their Christmases
spent with me
and smile.

Onward (for Cookie)

The white-haired burst
of firecracker laughter
named Stella
finally went silent
this morning.

Cookie sits
at the kitchen table
surrounded by
pill regiments
insurance papers
and her reassuring family.

“What am I going to do?”

I have nothing profound
to offer.

When the center
of your world
has been taken,
ruthlessly, stealthily
like a cyclone
in a silent movie,

when the directions
on your compass
have been smeared away
by grief

in what direction
does one proceed?

Slowly
step by step

onward.

To-Do Stack, 9 a.m.

Proof and send out
that schmuck’s report

this bill is “past due”

there’s a penalty for
late registration

your anniversary
is the 29th

I need to update
the website

did you check Sarah’s
homework?

make sure you sign
the vacation requests

you’re three weeks behind
in your Bible reading

what do I have
coming in next
from Amazon?

call and make sure
the doctor renewed
your blood pressure
prescription

think of some clever
remarks that will appear
off the cuff when making
that presentation
to the faculty

check on Ma
and let her know
Danny and Elise
got to Germany
safely

re-check the poetry site
and try to remember
what the hell was
the prompt for today.

Settlement

Out here in
this frozen,
virgin terrain,

I stand shivering
with a canvas bag
filled with food
I never saw before.

I can’t remember how I got here,
or when I acquired
this throbbing bump
on the crown of my head.

I don’t even have a map
to show me where
my settlement ends
and the next one begins.

Why Must I Say "I Believe"?

Before taking the plunge
I asked,

“Why must I say
I believe in Jesus’?

Why can’t I just do
what He said
and try my best
not to sin?”

The chorus
bleated back:

“You can only be justified
by faith alone –
there is no amount of works
you can do to earn it.”

I counter:

“Right,
but isn’t
deciding
to follow Jesus
an act in itself,
a work on its own?

So, then,
will I receive
the free gift
of God's salvation
only when
I do something,
like believe?"

A long, presumably thoughtful pause:
“No, believing’s not a work.”

I remain unconvinced.

If the omnipotent,
omniscient,
Om-everything
Lord and Master of all
will save me if,
and only if,
I acquiesce
and give a confession
of my faith,
then,
where the hell
is the grace
in that?

No,
children,
here’s the Good News:

God loves you
no matter what,
and wants to be
re-unified with you,
and God can wait
longer than anyone
on this miserable and finite
planet can fathom
to celebrate your return.

So,
rather than
give pious rehearsed speeches
about the necessity of
professing one’s faith,

remind them
that God loves them,
and that any
good work you’re doing
is to honor Him,
and to not
to earn Heaven,

and then,
by God,

be Christ-like
and do the good works
already.

I Am Not Writing to the Prompt

Robert says
he plans these prompts
a month in advance.

He’s kidding, right?

I thought he just
made them up on the spot,

just like he expects all of us
to jump and write to the prompt
just because he says:

“Today’s prompt is
‘write a poem about water ’
or ‘being in the middle’
or ‘write a goodbye to your childhood poem.’”

I’m sick and tired of acting
like a programmed monkey
every time
the prompt comes out,

and I’m also sick of
checking the website to see
if anyone commented on
what I wrote
and finding
I'm still invisible.

Fine,

but I’ve had enough of this
“creating art
with a gun to my head”
ethos.

So,
I am not writing to the
prompt.

Is that clear enough?

Next Steps (for Anita, circa 2010)

I can’t even remember
what brought it on,
except that we were both dying
in other relationships
and it all seemed so futile
and so overwhelming.

Then I leaned in
and kissed her,
took her hand
and placed it on
her heart and said
“This is to remind you
that you’re still alive.”

Ostensibly,
I was saying that
to her.

The next steps were
long and often
torturous,
but we finally came through
together

and now,
after I cap off this poem
we’ll celebrate the
eighth anniversary
of our wedding.

This Task Should Get Easier (Video Included)

Every year
the task should
get easier –
one less
Father’s Day card
to buy.

Years ago,
I stopped torturing
myself by reading
all the cards
I’d never get
to send.

Time has softened
the sting
of his departure,
leaving a hollow,
dull thud.

These days,
I play his part,
on this darkened stage
after midnight,
when everyone
is sleeping,
and I check all
of the doors
and the windows,
just like he did,

and I talk to him,
still trying
to earn his favor,
still trying
to make him laugh.

Every year
the task
should
get easier,

but it doesn’t.

Pop Moskowitz, offering marriage advice, February 1994. Yes, he was that adorable.

Baby, I'm a Star! Plus Rare Moskowitz Pix!

I've been featured at Poets United this week!  If you are curious about el Mosk (that's me), go to

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2016/06/blog-of-week-update-with-buddah.html

As an added bonus, I included some pictures from my life. Ooh.

Thanks, Sherry!

Poetry Template

First,
start with the title:
it must be
directly related
to the content
of the Poem -
or not.

Then begin the Poem
with a phrase
of tempting ambiguity,
a detail so compelling
that the reader
will follow you
as you pull back
to reveal its unexpected
milieu.

Continue by making
an arcane allusion
to a 17th century English essayist
or by adding a sly reference
to one of the
lesser known Beats
(nothing from Ginsberg,
Kerouac, Burroughs or
Bukowski, please) -
this will establish
your lit cred
among the cognoscenti.

Include densely worded
passages, overstuffed with
arbitrary and completely insular
imagery
to buttress your emerging status
as a solitary, enigmatic genius.

Bring it on home
with an unexpected punchline
that either disorients
or brings a cynical smirk
to the morally ambiguous,
postmodern reader.

Send it out to the same
twelve friends
who always read your work
and always love it.

Repeat as necessary.