Monday, February 28, 2011

oh you wicked fools

you have no idea how much you contribute

to the grief of the world

and you wonder why I stand back

when I've so much to atone for

in my own sad denouncements



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I will relieve you of nothing

you've had your chance to repent

now you can sit amid your collapsed plans

and wonder where your aspiration went...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
so many loves have let me down

well I may be somewhat to blame

but woe to the one who brings the trouble

they've enough sin on their names

but I am just the one to let you go

as you warble on your song

sing to your heart's content

but I will still be gone



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

you will see the light

only when there is no night

how easy that stunt

how smug that faith

and how forlorn when deeper dark

will cover your eyes will

memory of your day


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
oh how sorry you will be

when blessings you've coveted from you flee

oh how defeated in your unending tests

when your broken faith tosses what God would have blessed




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
start? yet again?

how much more do you oh Lord of All

oh Thing of All Things

('thing' as ridiculous a choice of words as any

to describe the Indescribable)

want me to cry before every whit of vengeance

is satisfied?


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Friday, February 25, 2011

you who waited with me

for the Great Change

wait with me still

with all we love gone

now we wait to see

how we will pass

when the Great Change settles

into a new era's 'business as usual'...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
the New Age has given me amnesia

I cannot remember all that I had believed

everything I thought was right and important

is old business to those coming up

who have no inkling of the world from where I came

who think I grew up in some world of meaningless illusions

that cannot avail against the unliving mechanical clanking

of the material realm in which the remains of their souls

will devolve

good-bye good-bye good-bye

like animals your eyes will close

your living will end and you'll never know what you're missing

such is the New Age that has built a wall

between the soul and the body

or rather those of this New Age who have no idea of its true meaning

and can only be gathered like falling nuts and bolts

into a mesh net to be hung on that very wall

unbothered by memory identity or being...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

if I had an opinion I certainly wouldn't share it--

I can't say good morning or good night

without being challenged by some chatterbox

some chowder head some egregious extension

of an imbecile's pride who needs a notch and thinks

I'm giving them out--

there's a reason solitude is blessed

(and it's not because it's isolation--if it's ease you want

volunteer and let someone else do your thinking)

no--it's blessed because it is the haven where we re-center ourselves--

and if that's an opinion--I withdraw it--find your own--

find your own--


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


I will exact no more than my due

why can't one be honest?

this much and no more is fine

if all you have is plenty enough




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
why do we long for ingrates?

is this our sick idea of subservience as a virtue?

excusing our weakness on these matters

as facing karma and in ingratitude drift into isolation?




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I give you enormous blessings

from the source of love

whether you want them or not

they are in the world



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
you can start right here

right this very spot

it's as good as any other spot on earth

and from here also all fates and flowings commence



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I rant I rave I misbehave

all to your wondrous annoyance

I'm jumping out of my skin as they say

plunging to the depths of my depths as it's been suggested

swinging on a tire on a branch of the Tree of Life

or whatever other cliche does it for you

but I know you're pissed

I know you'd like a crease my skull with a rolling pin

vignettes of the early 20th century

while we wait for spring and other atrocities

to plague the selfish solitude of

some ersatz anchorite

but if I must endure your cutting attachment

know that I'll give top dollar suffering wise

you'll be getting a karmic handful

the One who have it no other way

and your will will wilt

before that steadfastness

I mean truly no quarter shown

life is to the death

and even if you're annoyed or exasperated

I rant I rave I inch past this particular grave

I'd rather check out elsewhere in this earth

where you'd be a little more loose about nonsense

and I'd be less inclined to act the ass in the name

of some crap-talking boast

from an aging specimen recovering precisely

from such rants what raves

the warrenty expired and the parts costly

I breath I moan I'm cut to the bone

much to your satisfaction

are you better now?

do you still disdain the living proof

of your misjudgment? your ill pick?

but handling it so much better than previously?

see how solicitous I can be? I care I care see I care!

damn it!

you look blankly out a window while

I stare I mutter I try to become the snow

whirling outside the window

so this is what I've become? so this is it!

silent silent silent

while you look silent silent




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.



going insane in the quiet--

I need noise--I need distraction--

I need a reprieve from facing Reality

straight up

I always do it--and may I have a short vacation?

a recharge of batteries--a renewal of spirit--a cleansing of what butt hole--

whatever cliche to which you would cling--

to express this inexpressible thing--

I need the cooz and the medium well steak--

I need to go to a mountaintop and master myself

so I can come down to another orgy--another identity--another clean slate

to be sullied soon enough--

and after all the god-damned venting

to all the powers-that-be unrelenting

I'm still afraid to try again--

so weak I be to change--to remake--to amend--

I will miss the fun I used to have--(I already do)

but let others anoint their fingers with glistening jizz

and call it a spiritual exercise--

I who hated life and the world

now want to live--now want to live--now want to live



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

it doesn't always work--

sometimes you have to lie a little

to soften the blow

and other times the brutal truth

will be truly brutal--

but generally speaking

honesty will keep you alive and intact--

unless you're consorting with criminals

and since that covers almost all of us--

silence might be better--honestly--though

it doesn't always work either--

shit!--don't talk to anyone and lie low--

(and not in the road either)



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
what vanity made me think you'd hear me?

the same vanity that made me think I had something worth saying--

or that admitting this would bring forth the validation I craved--

hardly matters now--no one knows what he's saying--

and no one hears clearly in any case--but now with lessons

in humility done--at least vanity has been tamed



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
love a fool--

and you surely will--




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
heaven is constructed of number and relations

and best built when you most lightly hold

the tool of your destined quest--pen--driving wheel--

hammer--serving tray--stray thought--purpose--



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I knew things were bad--but I didn't realize how bad--
all our freedoms gone--
all that is left is embracing the tomb
of someone else's ambitions--

no blessings to the ersatz masters of the universe--
they want praise let them die for it
and then praise will surely flow--that is the new ritual--
the new social cohesion--official version--gossip



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

you were staunch in your denials

you lied as easy as any spiteful child

pocketing the toy store loot--

and you've grown up thinking

this is the way the world always is--

which is true for the unenlightened

and a profound sadness for the rest--

may you be remembered for more than a month

after you've become a fading bit of anecdote

in your circle's gossip



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
you will believe nothing

until the consequence is upon you

and you'll spend your last living moments

cursing the intractability of process

instead of forgiving yourself your vanity



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

the wisdom is spent

that sustained me a couple of weeks

now it's back to the usual

in spades

and nothing turns in my hand as if my hand

were some ghostly outline

of no utility



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
aimless day--

a return to winter after a foretaste

of spring--

with all previous settled in daily business

still not resolved

and nothing to happen timely enough to change

any possibility

to a probability of survival



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
the future is the same yawning gap

it's always been-

I stare into it and see nowhere I can

find a crevice

to clutch with straining fingers

to pull myself forward

into the perpetual dark giving way to

gradual light



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
mockeries from the missus

a strict routine timeless as lust and chance

(though some of us know better than to think 'chance')

the queen of the nest belittling the asshole king

out there hunting for the ingrate--

so nice to know after a lifetime of suffering

I'd settle down to being one-half

of a 21th century version of the Bickersons....



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Friday, February 18, 2011

what child playing with matches

ignited today's hell on earth?


the shaking match?

the jumpy flame?


what child has stopped the future

with his own petulant yearning?


this utility of arrogance?

this consumed misadventure?


rather than look afield

for yards toward acceptance

it's better waiting than not

he will reveal himself again and again

until he'll combust on power

leaving his own ashes as his lasting purpose on earth




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


Thursday, February 17, 2011

sorry before the thing done

and all we will go on to do

I've no excuse

but timely decision

in the relentless pressure

of the passing moment


what touch of intent

will redirect the entire quest

send you closer to the mark

or drive you wider

and how you'll howl in glee or despair

depending on that outcome


so a choice made is a way taken with no backward slide

and all I have to make of it in time for the next choice




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
retrieval is not possible--

what nature loses

nature will re-imagine




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

I fired my cap gun

and the turtle race began--



we throwing away m&ms

on starved also-rans



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
cretins abound

disabusing wizards

undoing the sky

with ignorant shrugs



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
heavenly mist of an oppressive night--

draw me beyond the water mat of atmosphere

let me rise in vapors like the figures

who disappear when I awaken



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
of everything I know I am subconsciously aware

it gives a resonance to the plain night empty

but for a blurred cloud-strafed moon lifting over

the buildings across the street

the moment any moment in my life

when the time and the weather were like this

late winter mildness

of everything that is this moment I am aware


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


over the ancient bones of the ancestors

an apartment complex sockets components

of current living tangle in the pulsing

channels of surging blood and electric juices

flushing the nervous center of cognition

from a declining infrastructure

to get up such profundity of utterance as

"Oh God--not tonight?!"--

chatter of this historical moment

while a permanent buzz trembles the ground--



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
last critical degree full moon

off my south node

know I think my destiny a fraud

and all the past a haunted snare

where ghosts of hares and marmots

watch the newly to die dash to their doom

and welcome them

last critical moon

do your worst

maybe a life's reward will finally come

or better yet nothing bad will happen at all--

I'll find out in the waning light



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
why is your love for me

such a secret to no one

don't you know I'm taken

don't you know a broken heart

will mistake autumn for spring...





Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
ah he's in a randy mischievous mood

putrid puns and groaning gradations of ground beef wisdom

will emit their fumes in plumes from his booms

ah children run down the street in happy squealing terror

their parents look at each other forgetting their own childhoods

and the average passerby tells his acquaintance how wonderful

it is to live in the city even if it is expensive--

the young moochers taking their shot at life come here and claim

a majority if they outlast the grinding gears and themselves--

while all the while he is in his mood

making fools of all of them by frightening them with their own mouths

and walking by sprouting gibberish

(his eye clear steady and subtle--probing under its costume glaze)

because none of it means shit to him


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
loose nerves

earthquakes

bronchitis

diminishment

good morning

good night

good day

good grief

wipe that will ya please?


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
saudade

drenches the day

settles the night

the sweet sorrow

that thickens every joy

to its fullness

and makes the melancholy

smile softly at the fading twilight

of every human happening



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
we were all waiting for you to give up your airs

but you flaunted them more vigorously than you should've--

you forgot to modulate and fine-tune the routine

taking breathers to pace yourself--

you thought you'd just ram it down our throats

and we'd chokingly assent--afraid not this time--

our waiting on your corrections passed more quickly

than your ability to correct--rest your mouth--heal--your tongue--




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
the new communicator

has nothing to communicate

he can't find a microphone

he mutters to himself

the scene changes around him

while he's ready with what was good

two phases ago

the abstracted communicator



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

what life delivers next

who the hell can give a crap

my peer group

know what's coming

can't match what's past

and never will

and though amazed we're still

up next...



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I see a photo of you

from 40 years ago

and vertigo tilts me

in my chair


my stomach knots

and I shiver

still the boy

and you the girl



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
how quickly the hours slip by--

I worked and paused and worked and rested

and now lengthening shadows

punctuate the roof tiles across the street--

winter mid-afternoon

and more work to do...





Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito
you flittered into my mind

two-faced liar

footloose goose of a entitled upbringing

so fatally attractive

in her own mind

then flittered out again

a mere smudge in passing



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
the day will find me wherever I am

I'll feign nervous stress

I'll stare out the window picking my lip

but the eye scans will reveal deceptions

I'll bite my lip as I'm put back on the line

a lesson not to try to fool the precise technology

as the day that found me wherever I was

leaves me there clocked



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I alone

remembered

to forget--


the others

insist on

reminding me


that their

memory will

be my downfall


my name

a definition of

what others think

I am--


we anything

but ourselves



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
this morning I went to the store

came back and answered emails

engaging a long thread about old horror movies

wrote chiseling down to 500 words

a piece on Anne Simpson for a reference work

looked at the a milky sky of milder air

and thought

here--this is the stuff of lyric poetry--

chores and scribbles and blanking out--

here is the substance of the biography



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Monday, February 14, 2011

I sing a song that is centuries old--

centuries that were long gone

even before I presumed to represent them--

now all time past is solidified into the present

and what is to come mirrors all that is past--

but not exactly--

the song I sing now is the same one

but with variations newly discovered--

and so those to come will forgot and relearn

that nothing new is starting--

but only the Only All There Is

happening--ongoing--



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
the less I am myself

the more I am loved--

what the hell is this?

who the hell are these people?





Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
beware the Mass Mind--

the 'good decent' folk who'd lynch you in a second--

those who'd destroy your freedom for the sake of their bigotries-

those who'd tell you not to judge the mites

in one's eyes when you have them in yours--

but I say that how evil and hypocrisy get in--

that's how the Mass Mind will control you

and cast you out if need be--cementing their social norms--

none are clean--yet we are called to serve others--

if no one is called on their mites then who will do it?

the God in heaven who weeps with us?

call out mites if you see mites--taking yours to task also--

and let the bigoted hateful Mass Mind

pluck out its own eyes if it be offended--



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


the last Authority saw of me

was my shoes on the ground and a cloud of dust

flying down the road--

now if I only knew how to hunt game

can my fruits

store my vegetables

be part of a community that survived the collapse

of the mad world of the Common Lie--

as it is I may wake shivering one night

in time to see the beast that will end my earthly problems

on me--just like Authority used to do--

a universe full of kings and beasts

right up to the top--



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
you may have gathered I hate the world a bit

but hell I had great drugs great sex in my youth

(and if I may brag like an asshole--a little some later too)--

and now that all's left are an aging man's aches and awareness of decline

I make no apology for mastering the curmudgeon's attitude--

it's easy it's fun it's fatally right about things (except for the inexpert

who reduce it to mere sarcasm and personal bitterness)

it's the best antidote to ennui and it's got enough garlic to drive

cats and vampires away for miles around--

don't do this unless your hurts have really been hard and unhealing--

don't even try this if someone asks you how it feels and you can't say

"it will always hurt but I've gotten used to it"

get to that point and you'll see how clear the blue sky

how rich the food and wine taste

and how pure and cleansing will be the laugh

with which you'll greet life's sad absurdities


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
what happens now is up to me

how it turns out up to God

I can only do what God allows

but despite what God allows I'll do what I must

blocked broken frustrated and taught

I say to hell with the hell I've caught

if nothing I do matters then it doesn't matter what I do

I'm here for the duration...how about you?



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
the night's swan song

echoes in the new dawn long

after I am arisen in another skin

a new identity wondering what it's gotten in...




Content 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

visuals

sounds

words

broken

of

meaning

syllables

seeking

their

sound

I

left

my

old

forms

behind--

what are the new forms now and what now is morphing beyond what todays wizards know and when will they reach the limits of their powers and what will the young 'uns of fifty years hence (should the world still be here in any recognizable form) know that we don't and what will they lack and mock and how much further from humanity will they get and I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't fear the new any longer now that it is already passing while I do what I can with what I got and find myself looking at any empty sky yet again musings fallen away with all

the

old

forms

I

have

left

behind



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
oh where we end up depends on how we get there

we stop after too long a while blaming the start

all the ones you hated for harming you

have themselves been harmed dying peacefully forgiven and redeemed

or suffering in uncomprehending pain and bitterness

and you find out and need to avoid patting your own back either way

I feel like I've broken out of a thicket

body scratched and bloody sick and soul-weary in the heat

but all memory fused in one twisting node pointing forward

being everything you've ever been or done

it's easy now to die clean and relieved in the sun



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
An automatic 'A' if one fulfilled the requirements?
Now that was a nice gift in an adult ed program--
Night school at its best to lure the Prodigals back
Each week to make up for his wayward course!

How easy to do--just keep a journal with the
Understanding that written pieces and class discussion would ensue.
My mind was engaged but I found the instructor a bit snide, well,
Perfunctory at any rate--but I didn't care. I killed the course!
Had done what I had to--and the cunt gives me a 'B+'
Either I didn't measure up (crap--I'd been published) or
Really she gave me less for spite--to punish me for not sufficiently reaming her!
I've never been the type to sweat 98s over 100s--but this was just pettiness!
Each time now you pass NYU and smell her stench--have my revenge--
Shit in her mouth and make her swallow!



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
conflict will come

natural as moonrise and sunset

for what earthly reason only God knows

but let that reason stay with God

Let it be God's woe

while we silently wait so

natural as sea going to sky and raining back to sea

peace will come



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
do not suffer on behalf of some misbegotten creed
God is no dummy--no plaything--no fool--he'll provide what you need--
but just don't bank on it to carry you on when it's up to you to do
what you must--you're to do it in what way you can--need will be filled
when it is truly for you-





Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
The Will of God and the Will of Man--
incompossible from where we stand


but no matter what defense we say
we are damned anyway


so I'll just have a real good time
fire the stick and watch the moon shine


we lay there a-cuddle in the glowing sand
and to hell with the Wills of God and Man


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
how hard it will be

to finally let go

of the grief that defined me--

who will I be then?

will I matter at all?

ghostly brides will float along

dark crypts skull teeth grin

greeting me and I'll be so bored

as to say "how trite! poets and mystics

starve themselves for visions

and all they get are these stale images

from generations so far gone

imbeciles point and hoot at their relics

in sideshow museums?"

how good to finally know the great fear

the big gaping wound

are as nothing

just things we thought we saw on us--

but how hard to let go of all that

when it is the mistaken world view

of the age that formed me?



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

and so life winds down

one ordinary day after another ordinary day

after another ordinary day

over and over

down the line

until ready or not

one day they just stop






Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I cannot reach you

nor should I try

if we had anything to say

the conversation

would still be going on




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
waiting for a change in life

is like waiting for a drug to kick in

suddenly what's to come has already been

and you're noticing everything else






Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

maybe it's just that all our tribe has entered the 'zone'

we are now the elders and now we must prepare--

oh Loretta--all the little Peter Pans suddenly waking up

as patriarchs--suddenly you're the parents of whom you've always despaired

your parents malingering and their grandchildren--your name and future--

throwing tandems in the dining rooms--yes what has happened?

where did our youth go? who can face that it's been gone for decades

and your nostalgia is sad and common--well now we are the elders

and once the moment of bittersweet sadness passes

we get down to the business we've been about all these years--

only now--with an endpoint in view--and each individual mind

to make of it what he will--




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
no magic left in me--

sick this whole season one way or another

a spike of a splinter deep in my heel

deaths (multiple) in the family

virus illness then two weeks later

a chest and head cold virulent as pneumonia

while I sit here too dazed to work

boiling drops of tea tree oil in water

and breathing it through rounded paper towels-

if the One is holding me in place for some divine reason

will I live long enough to see it?

I can't help but think at times this is the killing shot

but coming in merciless increments

gradually by degree--

if I had magic left in me

I'd know--



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
when where you're going looks

a whole lot better than where you've been

then you know

you're ready to go




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito
I know only the last loose end

dangling like a dare to my determination

in my mind it's set to stay

I tied it up in every which way

and now must feel for the groove in the air

that will lead my hands to those threads

to make real what my mind has orchestrated

however unreal it may be--

perhaps vectors of grace were finely cut

or a dull mind blundered and scattered

all concourse in the doing

but after this loose end comes release

if eagerness doesn't undo me--

another clod breaking free of the mound

and falling free to the dark--

oddly--released at last--




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Miito.

Monday, February 7, 2011

I wasn't about to go out looking

for what I knew would refuse me outright

so I dug--harder and deeper--

I learned to cultivated and put trust

in contingency--and a ready grip to deal--

whether it's pathological greed on the part

of men in daily business or the

unpredictable rages of weather and stresses climates

the first flares of anything going off

will see me gone--late moonlight shining in the door--

dark blur in the moonlit field--

at least prepare a peaceful place to die--

whether God allows me that is immaterial--

I will at least prepare it--for someone's use--

everything in its time--as long as I'm still

living in this skin--it's not my business



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
so familiar

so out of whack

the daily testimony

a foolish wise crack

for a singular review

from one sullen soul

a few dozen hells

fly down the hole


all you want

you can have as much

as two hands can hold

but after you lose the taste

your mouth will crust shut and be silent

and hells will fly no more



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


teachers are at a loss these days

everybody's a genius a god a superstar

(and not above hogging and extending their 15 minutes

as they can)

no one can show them anything

they know everything

(except what they need to know)

and they'll take no one's word for it--


I think I'd rather be an exterminator

than a teacher--both held in disdain

for the same reasons--but the former you must admit

has a greater potential for effectiveness



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
just a little while longer

and it will all be past--

the hurts

and humiliations

will be laughed off

and those who brought

the unwelcome gifts

laughed off with them--

God probably would've preferred

I'd have repented sooner--

He thinking it too easy to forgive

where there's nothing left to forgive--

but this is the best I can do--

and if I'm not perfect enough--well too bad--

how good can He be if He doesn't see

those hurts are still there--still carried--

still mourned--but without the nonsense

that attended before--

sweat it if thou needst to Lord

just a little while longer

and it won't matter anymore--

it will all be past--




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip MIlito.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

spiteful as a brat this avenging god

unforgiving as his enemies

knows only to flay skin from the bone

and make bone scream in the doing


vicious the process

that turns men to judges

in absence of divine excuse

we will kill him saying he is god


stay from all notions of gods and

self you do yourself no service

to be so like the god you claim to hate

than to take your place and set



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
took a long time

not much to show

all I thought mine

it all had to go



retaining nothing

relinquishing all

"a rhyme for something"

then on to the fall



now understand

what vanity foiled

when a call demands

what yield failed the toil



vanity of prayer

empowerment of deceit

seeing you where

to view your defeat



that's what's abandoned

that's all to show

since nothing was gained

it's easy to let it go






Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I'm feeling the poetry empty out of me

as if I've spilt my allotment and there is no more

but that's alright--there's nothing to say

to those who can't hear

and personally I can't listen

to the stuff myself anymore

let the techys have a few centuries of harm

we'll return to repair that damage and produce more--

but until then--what can you say?

and even then--what will you say?



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

closing down the business

a tornado skipping his drunken strut

unrooted and leveled the town--

if he'd known that--he needn't have bother--

my eyes must've closed for a moment

there at a reasoned conclusion

an unaccounted end was imposed--

that's hard to take

when nothing's left for the taking

stress--the magic name the reasonable description--

gnaws at out vitals

please don't make me preach!

I'm trying to draw people in--not drive

them away--000hh why does my neck hurt?

I must have closed my eyes for a second

suddenly I'm as neurotic as the world thinks--

screw 'em--


(he raved and raved but remained docile
as they lead him away
from the spill on his floor--
I feel so bad for him I almost think

he started to make sense...)


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I expected more than a dusty hallway

winding down a corridor

toward a bright hot door

but who knew what they were saying?

who had authority to speak?

those with least to say said the most

those who knew better withdrew --cowardly--

and sought a nirvana out in the 'burbs--

there the wind blows especially loud and long

and becomes easy to ignore--

heavens and hells are relative

and for those who resent having

a vindication snatched from them

will recognize the peace of fire

the purging flame

and for those who meekly accept

may find hell freezing stinging cold

absolute as the fringes of creation

and shiver--

but who has authority to speak?

who comprehended what they were gibbering?



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
what I do wrong now

will settle my finish

but it feels like

that's already taken care of--

all I have to do endure

the charade and and pass the first opportunity

to duck away when all is right



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
Jim couldn't come
Fred didn't come
I didn't want to be there
but got stuck
when I was leaving the building
and ran right into them--

you don't even have to know
the particulars of the story
to get the point of the situation--

and we must share the earth with them--
I tremble before the Vile Word
and relish not giving them their satisfaction

I will amble out through the back
after my presence
is noted and I'm ignored


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

oh poor old mangy bear

honey jar stuck on your snout

please take your claws out of my chest

and let me breathe my last




(sitting sick at the computer

bored all day and thus all this inane talk

of ninny pies and brats

crap)



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
a long day and a longer night

again we compare notes on the neighbors and their rotten kids

how I loathe the social conventions

that keep us from kicking doors in and strangling them

I'll flip you a coin to see who leaves the nasty note

on the door tonight

'love your neighbor' indeed--not what we or even God

meant for it to be


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
unshakable cold

I wonder what holds me in place--

my ancient fears

or some cosmic vengeance

a magnet for misfortune--

well enough of that--depth-charging

vitamin C like a commander

stalking a sub--

let's see what insurmountable

tragedy I can make

of this hangnail




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.


Joan Crawford used to refer to her own breasts as 'ninny pies'




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
double punch
in the chest and neck
while I worship
the artist's memoir
(great--but a brat!)
and I mean literally--
I must've slept
on it wrong I swear
I feel the way
I imagine meningitis feeling--

I envy the courage
you were able to summon
to produce anything--
I was Martha to your Mary
I took care of business
while you did The Work--
(brat!)
but I benefit from
the insights--yes we've both
figured some things out--

Still you had more to lose
and that loosened your hand

smote because an identity
wore out like the crotch
of some pants
I see you
tying mites out of the air
binding them in aspiration

but I stayed home and wrote
while every spirit
in earth strutted to your service
belle of the ball
the geek dancing
in South Jersey bars
while I mock you now
reading your tales
and remembering
a different scene

so I put it aside
and turn out the light
turning over carefully
for that aching neck

another day I didn't ask for
draws down on the fading pages



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

anything can happen next

that is why I no longer speculate

enough people have said "enough"

and have awakened to newer applications of reality--

how far it goes is not for us to know--

we mark our mile then say "no more"

let others pass as we linger at our own door

one more minute in the deep violet twilight

befor sitting to rest at last in the mild night air



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
ice is melting

the trees slowly unsag

under the gray sky

a warm fog rises



such is this moment in time



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I reach out but no one's there

so I stop reaching out

and settle down here--

now I don't have a minute's peace--

everyone passing by

stops in to wag their jaws

to refresh and to laugh--

everyone's here and there I am



Content (c) 2008-201 Philip Milito.
oh how being alive can hurt sometimes

this planet of toil and expiation

was not made for our pleasure

though one could be derelict about purpose here

swayed by the beauties of earth and sea and sky

flowers of the land

birds of the air

stars beyond our sky

and all of it mirrored

in every corpuscle of our blood

oh how being alive can resolve itself beyond joy sometimes



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
you who wish to destroy everything you touch

we will pity and pray for you

for all you harm can and will be healed

but for you

nothing (unless our pity and prayer helps)

having only destroyed yourself


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito
I will love you even when Love itself

is subsumed back into God--

how's that for bravado? yet

how's that for fullest deepest expression

of the fragile as steel love

that ever binds us-

let the Almighty try to flummox us

with the insane contradictions of creation--

we will love in glorious paradox

and be Love itself



(for Ali)

Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
now I take it on for no reason at all

this need to scribble

this need to express in words

quickly becoming antiquated

the mystics of tomorrow

are striving for spontaneous non-verbal

expression and direct apprehension of actuality

as if they had achieved such permanence of being

instead of yet another step back to the Divine

meanwhile I use words

poor old words as the medium I know and love best

to bless all of us mistaken questers

in elegy and hilarity



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
nothing will hurt you

I'll see to that

unless in my clumsiness

I'm the culprit

in which case

tough luck dear girl




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
octopus and orange are the same thing

because they both start with the letter "o"

so let it be unwritten

so let it be undone



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
how often it just comes to me

inspiration ephemeral as time

hollow as the First and Only Thought

and how often I do nothing with it

rather than do something

and achieve the same result



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I saw the monster against the moon

wingspan at least 500 feet across

then it flew and I didn't see it again

but I heard its gigantic whoosh as it vanished

into the night

the air atremble and me vowing to say nothing to anyone about it




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
Harpo was the greatest poet of them all






Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
oh boy I'm on a roll now

here I go

there I am

...er...now...what was that again?



Continue (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
all right if I must be famous

let it not be for being Bill Knott



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I stopped long enough

to look over my shoulder

and that's all it took

to be overtaken



Content (c) 2008-201 Philip MIlito.
one word unleashes a torrent

and you never know

what word that will be




Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
oh I did it wrong again--

I should have laid down my life

before laying down my pen

and not the other way around



Content (c) 208-2011 Philip Milito.
I have a chest cold

I think I'll go online and boast

how do you like that friends?

it's my seventh chest cold of the season



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
tote 'em up

the sins and atonements

you end up as pure

as the day you were born

just by dying


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
I've handled my hurt with enough desire

to rate being one of this generation's blithering idiots--

and that's saying a lot

considering the overcrowded field



Content (c) 208-2011 Philip Milito.
too much or not enough--

it's so easy to ruin all endeavor


Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.
am I glad to be signing off on this country

slag all you like

it'll all come down on your watch

not mine



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito
5 SONGS of DOO-DAH


not only can't they read--but they don't want to be bummed


*

there is no history before the time of their birth

*

they hate and envy each other--they of course resemble each other


*

having pushed a button they cannot connect that act to the rumbling in the earth

*

they are dead but do not know it--trying to drag the world down with them



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

who will now doubt that we've reached the saturation point?
beware now of everyone
the pathological power-mongers and their greedy henchmen
and your own neighbor scrounging food for his family
ready to blow your head off if you even glance at his house

think I'm being extreme? current events say otherwise
and it's only just beginning
we've reached the saturation point
pack your grip and be ready to run at an instant's notice

those street corner cranks we used to dismiss are smirking for a reason



Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.