THIS DECEMBER DAWN

When this December dawn
gave off nostalgia's shadows
by the wood stove
the cat is in heat
I'm putting a Japanese film on
called "Dodes' ka-den"
by Akira Kurosawa
based on his dreams,
as a jazz poet trembles
at the white clouds seen
from his wet windowpane
with Northwest winds
covering the soft Bay breeze
as signals from the ocean
from the light house reveals
a pardon of the sands
in a sudden cooling commotion
it starts to rain
upon Autumn's yellow leaves
from the towering
Aspen poplar tree
covering the spacious lawn
as birch branches
expand near the rock garden
of once flowering juniper.

BENJAMIN HOLLANDER'S WAY
(1952-2016)

You are missed
in lieu of eulogies
or eloquent elegies
of a near missed departure
at San Francisco's cafes
with a memoir years away from
your parent's German memory
but it's still better
to be here here to fulfill
in a cosmopolitan city
near your army of fans
of your skilled letter poetry
reciting narratives
to friends over benches
when you in reality composing
your cultural correspondences
as you captured nuanced riffs
in vocal chances of success
from a brief life span
in the world more than
in a local vicinity's call
from your beautifully accented
emanations of French verse
or the complex German
of your favorite Paul Celan
you are now not really gone
from our own knotted memory
in an often cursed and shuttered
blind shadow covering
over shades of a window
as you are spotted
outside a club disclosing
and uttering translated phrases
from our Moses- stuttered words
as an eye opened
injured black swan
is heard with broken wings
to engage us
with a bird chorus
still clinging to waves
over the Bay area sea
with wishes to acknowledge
your last surprised gesture
in a profoundly met poetry
here in the late dawn
on an age's contemporary bridge
reading your poetry
over any summarily sentenced
barrier in the secreted
star language
of Ben Hollander,
you are now set free.

MAX RITVO'S PASSING

Not only here at the door
in Boston's bean town
will we miss your reflected
poetry but the scope
you gave us,
secure in your young hope
of twenty five years
in fearful courtyards
of a seasoned poetry
studying under your nearby
red blackbird companions
feeding on croissants
near the Fenway river beds
you watch their weaving
over amber skies
turning a gorgeous red
and yellowish in a colorful
Autumnal kaleidoscope
you still nod
on the Charles River
to back up clouds
giving birth to new words
and deliver powerful phrases
from your earthy shroud
by your wait and see hearing
to clear clairvoyant voices
of bodily fused sounds
near reading crowds
of your fans and friends
on the Common underground
who marvel to remember
your wondrous epiphanies
and a more than few
forbidden ecstasies
for we realize
no poet dies alone
but offer us a surprise
even if the Fall rain
grieves us
yet we believe
you were more
than your  chorus
of notes and bones
hidden from view,
we now ask you, Max
as we take a lesson
from your quatrains
knowing your memory
will not wane
in your context
but as a matter of fact
the lyrical controversies
waxes more precious
in your musical
syntax's refrain
for as we leave a stone
on your grave
a new succeeding generation
will offer
a needy veneration
news worthy
to rest in a gracious elegy
amid forests of restless leaves
scattered everywhere
on this Autumn of days
by vermilion
and full copper sun
still we cannot pull away
near your memorial
over a spacious lawn
in shadows and shade
covering this dawn
under the Evergreen trees
you are teaching us
in your own clever language
like we're reading of Jesus
on a religious editorial page
to refresh
and fulfill us to be brave.

PIRANESI'S HOUR

Art did us a favor
with Piranesi's hour
as master engraver
in his problematic era
along with Blake
and Goya
as these precursors flower
into a nineteenth century
of dramatic Romanticism
with its interior decoration
at a prismatic poetic creativity
amid charismatic emblems
from the ready altar
at art's edgy border covering
parts of an empty
shroud of gentility
as he accepts his star invitation
with the Order of Malta.

FAIRFIELD PORTER'S WAY

As a life long supporter
at the turning ambivalence
between realism's rule
and an abstract expressionism
on Fairfield Porter's way
to shields of fame
knowing his connection
to the helms of Red Grooms
Ashbery, O'Hara
in James Schuyler's day
yet as an adolescent
at the museum I'm embracing
the painting "Under the Elms"
from your many scented
domestic interior rooms
as favored domestic critics
Clement Greenberg
and Harold Rosenberg
are waiting on your name
at a forum I attend
as the New York school rises
to American scenes
from old European motifs
near old Roman catacomb tombs
of Porter's bas reliefs.

JOHN CAGE'S ETCHING

Cage's etching,
"Seventeen drawings
by Thoreau"
always blows us away
at the Solway gallery
in which bright leaves
alight on snatching feathers
by ice cracking scenes
at nature's netting of trivia
in culture's matching sketches
you are vetting on copperplate
of a drawing randomness
yet the critics await
eyeing Cage's collection
hearing a musical score
with it its A tonal moving
in an ear of poetic connection
a surreal yet language free
objet d'arte selection
wanting to view
and hear more.

WHO IS EILSHEMIUS?

A bard who paints gorgeous
landscapes of the avant -garde
who escapes any definition
but colors without a canvas
exclusively on cardboard,
yet moves in waterfalls
upon curves from colors
all on glossy surfaces
for Louis to inspire
he had to have
a higher purpose
in part, Eilshemius
for us to believe
in a desire for the miraculous
yet naive in art.