AN UNWRITTEN LIFE

An written life
seems dismantled

until our dream verse
is complete

as a stop watch on a runner

is suddenly smitten
by the marathon heat,

when we are on the defensive

in our syllables star of shame

to gamble, forget and forgive
our lost,secret,or rattled
for which we must tame
just to take the matters
of meters in our rhythmic cause
to adjust our musical hands
from scattered thoughts
for the panegyric laws remain,
on our beautiful table
we ate in a repast of grammar

our language's delicious fruit
yet sometimes wish at our plate
to be as shellfish now mute,
as a pastoral poet with a story
we run a victory lap
at the marathon
hearing the claps for a laureate
yet hammer our roots
from any self made quarrel
we continue on
finding in our thesaurus' mind
the right rap in any dispute,
like a heavenly songbird

with its own sunflower dish
remembering where he once swam
off the Blue Hills lake
where under the August rays
we salmon fish,
masked by small gulls
a few sparrows call to sing
entering at my geranium window
awakening the neighborhood
outlasting shadows

on floral bushes to be heard,

remembering after the war
the poor Russian urchins
and orphans who took bread
with all their gall and nerve,
breaking it above the cupboard
to serve us at the cookie jar,
we ask for a sugary connection
for just that pronoun or verb
in our bakery's confection,
for it's not an easy game

to write poetry into perfection
not unlike pitching pennies
near the curb,
wishing for a lexicon's right word

to give us satisfaction

like a green tea, confection or herb

without a gaff's partisan reaction
to the dictionary's adjective

wanting a perfect paragraph
not willing to lose any expression
from any colorful photograph

or lost telegram's reflection

in a daily lively T.V. scam

or to leave us alone to believe
only in the garden's primrose
or like Adam's promise at Eve

wish to find the right trajectory

to parachute and seek pardon
over every Eden's word

with an anagram's own history
to scramble, land and disclose;
for poetry is a creative mystery,

being as rambling herald or Beat

or like Dizzy Gillespie
Judy Garland or Ella Fitzgerald
working riffs at dancing feet

knowing at downtown crossing

someone is walking by the street
recalling his own quotes,
another is in a red sports car
disclosing her business notes
in a relaxed  new summer outfit
or a guy at the music bar

as a sax or trumpet player thirsts
with his critic's notes,

a starry eyed beggar is in trouble
offering a gentle curse

when life stops at the traffic lights

at Mondrian orange or red 

another pedestrian goes crazy
and manic in a tiff,

someone sees his double instead

another is in a panic to wed,

a brother drops his vegetables
by chance
on the farmer's market table
Esau forsaking his own
anger and defiance

wanting assurances like Abel
for an Almighty blessing
or like David, a poet and shepherd

as a small child had a staff
for his reliance to lean on
we hear his ominous laugh or cry
as we read of the psalms
in a glorious epitaph's goodbye.