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380 · Jul 2020
them creaky noises
Still Crazy Jul 2020
them creaky noises:

many
years ago wrote of meandering this old house,
in the creaky hours of-should-be-sleeping,
listening to the varietals of noises old houses speaking,
how the floorboards talk among themselves when
no human about to trod them, to elicit their groaning,
solicit their tales of who, when and memorizing the ending,
where.

nowadays
I wander same as before, same house, same wee hours,
no direction home, as I am technically “at home,” but still
directionless, still crazy after all these years, but that’s not
the only still, still left unheard, now new creaks demand a
hearing.

the house
still talks to me in its language peculiar, but now,
my body, of its own free will, in its poetry of groans in bones,
creaking, two dialects of getting old, always being cold,
sleeping with your socks on, your twisty back named Jack,
who hijacked your invincible good health and getting up is a
hysterical funny musical of snap, crackle and pop, coming from
places inside your body, that supposedly don’t posses the skill of
speech
.

nowadays,
kept awake by a united nations assembly of them creaky noises,
whirring motors turning me and things on and off all night, what
a racket, only early dawn calls them to order, to quiet down please,
everybody shush, the old house and it’s content, an old poet, needing
some winks cause soon enough the sun and the fog will arrive to
commandeer his overnight recollections, write them up, & write them
down, still crazy
.



like the one about them creaky-sounds, coming-from god-knows
where?
Still Crazy Jun 2024
it’s just me…funny like that…

~for touka, just because…~

my foibles are little pretty doilies,
all dressed up in preparation for
getting stained, as is their due,
their birthright, for they wait in
service for the slippage and the
crumbly stains of strange lyrics

wait! this poem has. gone astray,
my intention to make confession
about my quirks which are more
than numerous, repetitious, and
a little crazy, which is why my very
few friends delight in homaging me
”still crazy after all these years…”

‘tis truth, for better or worse, I’m
not superstitious but don’t step
on cracks or any lines between
the in between, always retrieve
pennies on the street, cause the
Benny Franklin about a penny
earned makes smile because
he stole it from someone prior,
and it goes with friends in the
tip jar at my corner bodega,
where they save me
a raisin scone,
knowing full well, i may not appear
till quite late, or never on bad days
when the poem urges kick me out
of bed, and inspiration is a 3am
pastry…

make me repetitive cups of java all
de day long, wander around from
zoom
to room doing odd-jobs, thisnthats,
never recalling where my muggle is
sojourning till I hear the call of the
microwave “here,  here ye old man…
where else would I be so lovingly
reheated?”

put my wallet, watch, spectacles &
testicles (an old rhyming) on the nite
stand in prep for the next day, but oh,
the keys have their little own ceramic
cup lest they scratch the ochre stain,
and I catch holy hell, so ipso-facto, I
am more often than not locked out…

we won’t talk about the too many times,
my phone has gone astray (1j many
countries where recovery was hardly
assured, but have never suffered its
loss, or consequential identity theft,
but then again, no one seems to
want to steal my name, till Paul Simon
up and done it, after sitting next to me
on a Redeye flight from LA to NYC.(1j

it drives me nuts when pompous men
pontificate on the obvious but forget
to pull their tie up to mind the gap tween
knot and the top button, making their
words look..how shall I say it…sloppy,
and my shouting out at the television
at the sartorial stupidity of news “anchors”
for naughty

Making to do lists is my artistical métier,
which only grow longer with age and the
wisdom that their purpose is to taunt me,
my failures to face the difficulties that
reverberate in my guilty conscience, so
that when I remember something to do
and actually do it because the deadline
has passed and I fear her wrath of and
disappointment
which is worse than
disapproval
which I can often
dismiss
with a historical, practiced, “easy peasy”

and if said item even doesn’t appear on my
lists (plural), I add it and derive copious pleasure,
when I cross it out with great
red inked celebratory deliberateness…

ok, okay, (you choose) I’ll wrap and rap it
up, as I go on too long as children oft tell
me when I’m being regaling with my stories,
(is there a point to this story?)
well because…it’s

just me…funnily like that


(1) somewhere on HP is the poem/story
151 · Dec 2024
Weathermen are pessimists
Still Crazy Dec 2024
they promise  snow
flurries flake in a
semi-serious way,
blurry haze,
no deposits
sorry, accumulations,
worthy of a ooh! a
blizzard, so reverse
course, back to bed

the lesson relearned
time+time ‘n again
hope for the best,
sacked by safe predicates
sunrise sacked by accumulated greenness, little hope for the sun set to be any better, and I pray to the gods in the vicinity, who congregate when poetry is being written, in order to insert a wordy word word, of their choosing, but I am dizzy with disappointment, lightheaded by the right ugly light, and the only fool I suffer, Is myself, for being the only optimist that the pessimist might actually write a correct forecast
and in conclusion

I proclaim to no one that is nearby,
That weatherman played poker with me
and a deck full of jokers
86 · Dec 2024
Weathermen are pessimists
Still Crazy Dec 2024
they promise  snow
flurries flake in a
semi-serious way,
blurry haze,
no deposits
sorry, accumulations,
worthy of a ooh! a
blizzard, so reverse
course, back to bed

the lesson relearned
time+time ‘n again
hope for the best,
sacked by safe predicates
sunrise sacked by accumulated greenness, little hope for the sun set to be any better, and I pray to the gods in the vicinity, who congregate when poetry is being written, in order to insert a wordy word word, of their choosing, but I am dizzy with disappointment, lightheaded by the right ugly light, and the only fool I suffer, Is myself, for being the only optimist that the pessimist might actually write a correct forecast
and in conclusion

I proclaim to no one that is nearby,
That weatherman played poker with a deck full of jokers
21 · May 29
My Writhing Child
Still Crazy May 29
~for M. G.*~
who discerned in a

witty three words,
my essence, perfumed~

<>
we all have in our own(ed)
personal debtors prison,
a chained inner child
asking always:
Am I there yet ?

sad smiling,
a 'no you are not,'
for to freedom day to arrive,
the child must unlock the chains,
no one else can be
permissioned!

someday he'll, rebelent,
will comprehend that
wishing insufficient,
asking nice,
once, thrice, millions
can’t break
the padlock,
And you have to walk away from the inner child,
Leave it to starve
Leave it to die
Leave it to be free
And just a regular grown-up guy!

So saddened
There will be no return
There will be no funeral
No keepsake memories
For the keeping
No capital letters
Just a path
Large yellow arrow pointing
This a way
Bluntly and without fuss, un accompanied by any special invitation,

You leave behind the writhing child
plodding forward,
Slightly offkilter, slightly off balance,
But no longer writhing,
Just drifting from the course,
Ever so slightly
Which is drama plenty,
But there is no morning mourning for the child left behind
DEC '24

— The End —