On The Ninth Day

Today being the 9^th

Day of the month

And very windy too

While walking

On the Hi-Line

A strong gust coming

From off the river

Blew a scrap of paper

Out of my notebook

And down

Onto the street

below

Was it I wondered

A thought lost forever

Or perhaps more emphatic

Like a dream recurring

Some day destined

To return in the guise

Of an entirely different poem

To the Floating World -- III

Now that I'm picking up momentum with this writing-a-poem-every-day, why not put a poem or two in the bank, just for some rainy or otherwise busy day? There really is only limited danger when writing a poem of getting ahead of yourself, although there is usually considerable risk of getting detached from the rest of the herd.

To the Floating World -- III

Many years ago

I wrote a short story

Of indeterminate worth

About my attempt to kidnap

The personage of Philip Roth

Having traveled to his splendid home

In the Berkshires where I found

Him in the company of his friend

And live-in companion

Nathan Zuckerman

I mean

That story now lost and

Never having been published

Though politely rejected

By Zoetrope

Shows promise

Is what they said

Or some other such crap

I’ll be damned if

I either know or care

But please indulge me now

In the poetic retelling

Of this otherwise forgettable tale

Which ended with the image

Of Philip Roth taking flight

From a Berkshire cliffside

He rose thirty feet or so

And then my own unnamed

Doppelganger and kidnap

Co-conspirator attempted

A similar feat

Only to leap and crash

Through the underbrush

In ignominious shame

But the point of the story

Being that at least

My very own

Doppelganger

Though unknown

And unnamed

Had ventured

Off firm ground

In a manner

Similar to Zuckerman

If not just the very same

Eight Poems in Eight Days

It's poetry month don't you know. Now this gets me caught up, being my eighth poem in as many days and this being the eighth of April not May....

An Ode to Lan Hua

One of the many extended benefits

Of using one or more pseudonyms

Is that it keeps those living

In the fiefdom of identify-theft

On their toes and uncertain

As to the potential benefits

That may reside behind

The use of any one

Of my various names

My identity having already

Been duplicated by somebody else

Namely myself

Henceforth he who steals my name

Must very much beware

It’s already been tampered with

And is likely to explode

A Poem for those About to Float

In the Floating World
Let this be our slogan:

Everything
I need
I have
Right here
Right now

Success is not assured
But neither is failure
Either then or now
I must keep trying
To align myself rightly
Though slightly cock-eyed
Whether on the page
The bed or floor

Not letting crosswinds
Bother me
For now
My friend
Is the time to soar

Thinking About the Birch Trees

This is the message
I took away from
Our short walk today
Passed the birch trees
On the Hi-Line

Every plant has its own
Moment for the enactment
Of great heroics
Each in its turn

From the very tip of the green shoots
As they prepare to leap
Off the leading edge
Back through the blanket of blossoms
That thoroughly cover the lower reaches
Of each and every branch

We'll be ready
No matter what
In the face of
Mild or inclement weather
It's all the same to us

Thus heroism is an attribute common
To both animal and plant life

Gan Yu - XXXVI

Welcome to the floating world
For all those of indeterminate means
Whether living high on the hog
Or hand to mouth
It matters not all that much

Life resembles the miraculous
From whence comes
These continuous blessings

But if the answer is
From some kind of trust fund
Then your story will very likely
Prove much less interesting to me
Really who cares about the
Countless scions of the ruling class
And their endless attempts
At self-pleasuring by courting
Self-ruin through further turns
Of the roulette wheel

I'm much more interested
In the wily antics of the hard working
And self-made homeless man
Take for example Richard Musto
Who must go to such enormous
Lengths to keep himself amused
Panhandling up and down 28th street
In order to make ends meet
All the while saving up
For his next trip
To Atlantic City

At the staid old Hilton or gaudy new Revel
Or wherever he next manages
To cadge his way to another
Free meal from the casinos

As if he has it all figured out
How to eke out a living for himself
Like a pilot fish adjacent a shark
Accumulating points
In exchange for squandering
His insubstantial means

Just Like Water Torture

It’s just like

Chinese Water Torture

And yet it’s not

Although either way

It remains pretty hard

To say when may fall

The next drop

Everything we think

We know about

Any given subject

Turns out to be pure

Poppycock

We don’t know

We don’t known

And then quite suddenly

Some shit happens and

Enlightenment comes

To the accompaniment

Of a certain amount of pain

I mean how strange is that

That when we finally begin

To figure shit out

The trap door opens

And another body falls away

And whether it’s news to you or not

A visit from any one goon squad

Whether duly licensed or not

Turns out to be

Just as good as another

Although I’m sorry to say

It's Ossining not Shanghai

Where they perfected the art