Posts for June 17, 2026 (page 6)

Claude Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare (or Interior View of the Gare Saint-Lazare, the Auteuil Line), 1877

Aloft
Prisms at play
Winkle a new beauty
Paint the sparkle of modern life
Vapor

the pattern is changed, somehow
not right, off
from what we’ve grown
to expect

the structure loosens, gaps
appear, uneven
tension that distorts
the shape

we are not unmade, nevertheless
dread the beating
necessary to salvage
the whole cloth

I want to move.

Then I remember
the boxes.
The back pain.

Never mind.

I leave the lamp on, dimmed low
             door half closed, as if you
          were still in the other room.
       I turn my neighboring pillow
     sideways, tucked in beside me—-
          I pretend I see the tv flicker,
   the faint clicks of the controller,
assuring me you’ll find your way.

            I try to drift and fall asleep,
            but I miss your love
            and warm embrace,
            as you call me darling, and
            have a pleasant dream.

    My fear is not from the dark.
               fear is not temporarily
                                         all alone.
                   The fear comes from
                                 your absence.

There is no squeak
on the hinged door,
and the sheets still stay cold,
and I wonder when I get old—
will I miss you as much
                               as I do now.

to the horns and brakes of Union City 
in the shadow of the Big Apple, 
with mother and father striving  
for the modern American life  
their immigrant parents had journeyed to.  
Raised in Brooklyn’s bright lights 
but preferring Omama’s simple 
household in Reading where you remained 
her kleiner Prinz, where you fled when needed.  
And years later you settled in the country,  
trading busy streets for rows of corn, strayed 
from parish ministry towards teaching, 
though father, grandfather and so on 
had spent their lives in pulpits.  

Come to think of it, you lived your mantras: 
“strike while the iron’s hot,” “be flexible” 
and “don’t expect consistency.” 

Highlin chewed up my guitar case.
He freaked out with every thunderstorm.
We were away, buying a new car.
Highlin was looking for me.

He wanted that soothing classical music.
I played for him whenever he begged for comfort.
Lucky for him the guitar was not damaged.
The tolerance limit was reached.

Lex Po Mo
Oh      No
What do I do

It’s 11:59 
No more time

Is my plight
I have no poem
To write
To Night

Thank you for the tal gras
in the lower 40.
We re flattening it owt for you.
Wen r you leaving?

Good luk in your next home.

The Dear

It’s an illusion of the psyche,
which is the emotion
and which is the shadow side.
Some days I have your love tucked carefully away,
           tasked only with shielding it from sporadic pickpockets of doubt
Other times I am marching head-on through foolish delusion
          draped in a rainbow-hued fog of denial.
I’m in either way;
sun or shade
my soul knows
no other light but yours.

6/17/26

I can do all things
in the kitchen except this,
but I am learning.