SHALLY A.

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world except possibly for the Polish Rider oc

I think it was Robert Frost who said, “ A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness .” And then I would like to believe that after awhile it transforms, changes, molds you, together with the words, until there is nothing left but your hands, holding “ emptiness, wholeness; a cave, a cathedral .” (B.H. Fairchild) Yes!  my heart is driving along the roads of poetry Not because of insane love or lovesickness It consoles the depths of my soul Finds me and makes me a little whole It’s keeping my mute brain alive Am learning to thrive Despite the aches and strive My soul is damningly religiously dancing with fire Crafting simple words lets the pouring down my spirit demands The illusion of my future  Doesn’t seem so hard Its beauty expresses my strangest emotions And let’s me believe Frank O’Hara  Is cajoling me to Have a coke with him (link poem here. ) And mesmerized with power  As Alicia keys