Thursday, March 20, 2025





WHO THE HELL IS A POET

 

the dog with the pen

and the Harvard penis

may or may not be

a start or halfway to finish

empty telephones are poems

for the blind who relish

smoking pupils see fire

in your beer-stained breath

fathers raving in alcoholic

splendor have danced

on the typewriter making

poems with their toes

if only someone goddamn

knew they wrote witty prose

the dead are poets they

read for the worms the

living are left with

consonants and vowels and

the sickening job of making

sense

battered children cry with

poetry and flowers can’t

give a fuck because they

themselves are the rhyme

the poet nailed to the

wall with the rose in

his teeth only THINKS he’s

a poet who has bled on time

nails pounded by lovers

are weapons

mistaken for poetry

they come dressed in rhyme

biding their time

in rooms hidden by longing

watch when the dust that

begins to speak with disarming

idiots make lists

fathers are storming

the gate of the poet

what the hell is the warning

who the hell is a poet

my father my longing

who the hell is a poet

the man with the warning

 

For Hank who is too dead to argue.

10.21.18

Sunday, March 9, 2025

 



this, this, this, 

loneliness

a holiness

so clever 

and so keen

it makes a bell 

fall silent

a tender cat

get mean

 

this, this, this

loneliness

a hollowness

I never

care to treat

it brings a gift

so dangerous

a junkyard dog

retreats

 

this, this, this

loneliness

a steadiness

betrays that

need to grieve

the space is filled

a languor blessed

a blind deceit

will leave

 

this moment

comes

embrace

move on

 

7.5.12


Photo: Central Park 2.25.25


Thursday, March 6, 2025

 



IN BETWEEN

what happens at
the end of something
you’ve written
a poem a story
a song a myth
it’s left you
with all that you’ve hidden
alive in a messy rebirth
what happens my friend
what happens is this
you are left floating
in your own blue sea
the sky above
burns magnificently
you study the world
around your prison
the door is now open
you can leave indecision
your cell has a poem
a story a song a myth
the jailer discovers
and guides what comes next
10.25.13
nyc
Photo: nyc 3.5.2025 E.97th Street

Monday, February 24, 2025



 COLORS

She wrote on the excess of daffodils.
Her thoughts were equally excessive.
They discussed the situation.
She wrote yellow thoughts
yellow loves
yellow inhibitions
and yellow anger.
The answers flew by in glorious black.

nyc 3.26.76







never cross the moon

it will not work out
praying and bathing and
worship and shit
that won’t get you moon cred
think:
hello moon how are you doing
put your hand out
don’t expect moon to take it
there are no hands
you knew I would say that
never cross the moon
benevolent sod
kneeling and swaying and
chanting out loud
the things that you miss most
think:
hello moon not planet nor star
you rise you fall
to yourself she’s indebted
she has no plan
you knew I would say that
never cross the moon
handsome lunarettes
marching and twirling and
placing small bets
whatever you ghost now
think:
wake up moon I know who you are
she kneads the call
like the dough she’s regretted
she’s lousy with plan
you knew I would say that
never cross the moon
wearing sensible shoes
7.10.21
nyc
Photo: REZ nyc 2.17.2025

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

 




wander

into a pen or a brush 

sweep away all betrayal

you start out small

in your honest repair

one line or two

the masters you learned from

are laughing at you

these strokes

that you dare

this unspoken poetry

is easier than you think

so stop thinking 

be unfinished

for once and forever

dip the brush

draw the chalk

drag the oil through memory

your face is a story

still to be told

your face is the memory

the future unfolds

unfinished is sanctity

unfinished is bold

unfinished is memory

unfinished is gold

 

5.1.17 nyc

PHOTO: Tim Tapling Sundown at Thurstaston Slipway : Wirral : 17:Feb:2025.

Friday, February 14, 2025

 




russian river valley

sonoma county

pinot noir

 

you are here in underdressed stories

crimeless passions of the lone
ly

among a live human choir

you are here to rectify coyness

 

you here for the judged

you here for the mulching

you here to remind him

writing is vengeful reminders of love

writing is something to witness

flown like the wind 

an unharnessed forgiveness of sin

 

you are lacquered with golden reminders

useless rations in the cupboard 

wedged between the writer’s lies

you are here to stamp out forgiveness

you are here to put out the humorless lies

you are here to touch the forgiven

you are here to witness denial

 

tramping across the

russian river valley

sonoma county

pinot noir

 

for your underdressed love of freedom

countries you have never ravaged

he went there for the love

he went there for moments

he lacquered dreams of old glory, impaled

he risked nothing new on the grand scheme of things

 

russian river valley

sonoma county

pinot noir

 

an undermined noise

better than bee stings

 


nyc 9.7.23
photo: Doggo 2.26.202


Wednesday, February 12, 2025

 




NORTHERN LIGHTS 

 

urban cliff dweller am I

with the soul of a hermit

searching the light
in an alien sky
I’ve been warned of the storms
considered regret
I wander in restless
celestial deterrent
sit at my desk
and wonder what’s next

I pound keys into stars

words land uneasily
the rest of my scars

are stories told freely
I wanted to witness
that unearthly glow

cramped as I am here

in darkness below

the cat creeps beside me

his eyes all aglow

what more do I need
what more can I know

evil is written in stone
and in snow

in rivers that rage
deserts I don’t know 

urban cliff dweller am I

with the soul of a hermit

searching the light
in an alien sky
I am home with my light

my river that flows

my witness to self that

continues to grow
my desert that kills

each passing word

I live by the light of
unknown northern night

I wonder what’s next

shall I stay shall I fly

I wonder what’s next in

my northern light

 

3.18.15
nyvc

Photo: 2.12.25
UES Kitchen

Monday, February 10, 2025


PHOTO:


Tim Tapling Reflections : Thurstaston : Wirral : 07:Feb:2025.


when wandering in poetic gloom

me with my penchant for 

comments uncalled for

me with my trek through truth-raking ruin

me with a fathomless distrust of 

small birds in a room

finches have gathered in a field of thistles

little birds fuck in the shadow of eagles

they are lovely no doubt

their feathers of hope

the eagle the hawk the falcon of nope

starlings are chunky in nature she says

invaders more like 

armored wingspread today

for the entitled right to belong to somebody

when rightful wounds mended unsung is okay

a long-term cornering has begun with me

with an abstract bag of poetry

lines unaccounted for as long as it takes

it is me the raker

it is i who rakes

Thursday, January 30, 2025

 













LOSS
loss is gain is earth
is pain and sun is
rain is friendship dying growth is new is ground blue is meant for flying
death is newer fruit
is ripe and won is worth is sisters crying gratitude is found even in the lying
life is data search
is then the sum of panning for the golden new is lost and wound tighter than the runoff
right is wrong again
is still the burn off
on a friendless wind storm sisters soulless found nothing beats a sun roof
storm is calm again
is buried under
decades of intention
right is wronged renowned living neat living sound
living quiet dying loud
For B. For now. 4.22.16 nyc
PHOTO: Tim Tapling Moel Famau across the Marshes : Burton : Wirral : 29:Jan:2025.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025




I think of you
In the low moments
The space between torment.
I think of you
Like a list for the market.
I have that. Don’t need that
I must stock that soon.
I think of you
Eyeing that bloodline of
The red, red wine.
The glass like a broken marker
Of unsaid regret.
Coffee beans in Sambuca
Dark and perfect.
I think of you
I think of you
Fingers crippled into caves
Of unsure revenge
Covering the keyboard
Folded, dilated, saved.
Crossing the Rubicon.
Wearing the wrong shoes
For a miscalculation.
Does it count
When I am up late
Betraying those decisions
I made to choose.
I think of you in revisions.
I think of you
In stories once written.
The page like a nightmare
On its gentler way
Flying down slowly
To save a dark day.
Who makes the incisions
When friendship is torn
You think I’m wrong
I know
I know.
Does it matter
This blue unintentional
This sudden redeemable
This this uneventual
Collision of disregard.
I think of you even now
Conniving inspiring rewiring
Despairing on cue.
Foolish me foolish you
I know
I know
It’s battle fatigue.
Embraced at the airport
Like long lost friends.
You left me no choice but
To choose in the end
The history of one over
Small angers of another.
I thought you were bigger.
I thought you were tougher.
I’ll miss you for now
Never forget your voice.
It’s stuck in our song.
You have no choice.
Make the most of your secrets
skulls piled under lampshades
Rugs pulled from the eaves
of regrettable he-said—she-said
Another conquest will come
In a while.
Be safe little monkey
Think longer and harder.
Beware the pedestal
Reject the martyr.
Beware of the longing.
Remember the embrace.
Love yourself try harder or
You will lose the race.
I think of you often.
That will not be erased.
1.26.19 nyc
Photo: 8.17.2019 nyc



Friday, January 24, 2025


 


SIR SHADOW

Sir shadow, you drunk
Sir Shadow, you mean 
and crazy man
Sir Shadow, you hopeless shoe lacer
you angry defacer
Sir Shadow of mine
you black valentine
swing from the wing with a ghosty divine
Sir Shadow, you hopeless
reminder of loss
comic trickster of heaven
Byzantium’s loss is 
a place where nothing of import
gives into dull hymns
or nudged the sweet need of sorts
Sir Shadow, it’s now

in the cinnamon dark
when I drink to the owl
to the falcon, the lark
and the music still hovers
like a family of sorts
Sir Shadow, the sum of 
my disparate parts
gets childy and needy and
begs for the stars
the way to lace upward
the wayfaring boot
send me on to the place
and dig me my root

11.12.14

Thursday, January 23, 2025

 




LISTS

people come
people go
lists remain
our blind farrago
algorithms
inner cracking sound system
bleed me
bleed my
love or defeat me
I have met that person
I don’t do autographs
but I am up for the duration
people come
people go
lists remain
our blind farrago
patriotism
secret weapon stashed within
free me
free the
horse underneath me
riding wild to reason
to a place unaware
of the knee-buckling seasons we share
people come
people go
lists remain
our blind farrago
somnambulism
eyelids lowered to the scrim
teach me
teach the
heart that belies a
beating past of war cries
in the thin underneath
of the root killing history we know
people come
people go
lists remain
our blind farrago
4.29.17
nyc
Photo: Tim Tapling Flaybrick Cemetery in the mist [2] : Bidston : Birkenhead : Wirral : 27:Dec:2024.