INTRODUCTION

Nocturnal Omissions is my collected poetry written between 1982 and 1985.  Then I was single and mindless dancing through my mid twenties when poetry found me pursuing girls, the next wave, and my first novel.  It was an age when Herpes was the scariest STD and AIDS was only a shadow on distant horizon.
    
Originally titled Nocturnal Emissions, which at the time seemed clever, but upset my mother, it was appropriate since wrote late at night.  When not to drunk or stoned, or with a girlfriend for some time, I emitted these short poems.


It is seldom I can read my work without editing it.  Initially I began this project only to digitize those precious yellowing papers.  Since then I have rediscovered writing and what a game, like solitaire, it is.



Please enjoy, and enjoy my other blogs: 




 

Halloween

For one bitter cold October night
a fog rolled from the sea.
Two strangers stalked the mist,
and crashed into their fantasies.

Fate, or fear, or fear of fate,
tore loneliness from their hearts,
for one desperate impassioned act,
committed in costume on Halloween.

Afterward, they pulled out a pack of cigarettes,
struck the tips from the very last arid match they had.
Drawing in a breath, which blew all their courage out,
they watched the glowing embers 
turn to ash and hit the ground.

-dp-
6-14-84

PUBLISHED: Scrypic 1.4
and Scryptic Best of 2017-18 Anthology
March 2018
 


(on or about the year 2000 this poem was transformed into a song of the same name and rendered in two versions, solo with guitar and solo with piano, by band mate Andrew Patcheck.  Both versions charted in the top 20 in there categories on the SOUNDCLICK, the Artists Music Community website.  The piano version earned a top 100 notation for its performance among the tens of thousands of songs on the site.)  

 http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11017232 

Morning Light

I lie in bed looking at your white butt

as you brush your hair at my mirror

wondering whether you know that I know

that we agree you're overweight.

Was our passion last night your plan,

my lust, or coincidence?

Were we in each others arms

or imagining other lovers together?

-dp-
2-27-85

Read-

 Altadena Library- 11-22-13

 11-29-14 Submitted to:SGVPQ 64  Fall 2014 Issue

 

 

Frankenstein

Our man of many men

twitched to life
with the ray that brought life.
He saw and sat on command,
sought the light, but feared the fire,
preying to tear him down.

This innocent of child murder
needs some time to adjust,
to pull himself together,
sympathy and understanding
to foster growth. 

But there's no time for psychotherapy,
the Burgomaster's formed a posse!

-dp-
6-14-84 


submittted to Scriptic 3-13-18

Snowman

Rolled to life by tiny anxious hands,
born of three tiers, given senses with coal.
I share this excitement with new young friends    
Delighted, now sorrowed by fleeting cold,
I cry cheek in shoulder through the night's rain.
Sadly, ever faster, I run away,
dissolving from existence as happy tears.

-dp-
12-19-82

Tacklebarn Press 

                    

Reunion '85

Have you memories?

Do you recall those days 
with ease,

or not at all?

I remember you!

It was high school.

Biology class,

Mr. Pratt,

you sat next to me.

I never stared

so long at someone

and had them look back
and smile. 

-dp-
9-6-85
9-22-13- Read Bolton Library 

Closet Case

Shall I step out of my closet?  Proclaim

to my family and friends that, yes,

their suspicions and fears of who I am,

of what I am, are well founded and true?

How shall I do it?  Pronounce it boldly

at a party, or at Christmas dinner?

Shall I confess my desires to close friends

and wait for the rumors come back to me?

Maybe I will reveal myself in this poem,

express my sexual and emotional needs

graphically.  Elicit your compassion

and understanding, and hope for the best...

...nah. 

-dp-
2-7-85

Read:

Bolten Library 11-24-13 
10-2-14- 31 poems 31

 

Point Conception

Half of me half expected to be

a victim of feminine hygiene.

Billions of my brothers and sisters

were washed away in the menstrual stream.

I may have been nothing, but for a

half witted sperm dragging its Y chromosome

beyond the perils of penetration

and tying a knot between man and wife.

I don't remember meeting myself,

that chance embrace of two random cells,

clambering down the uterine wall,

lodging there for our ten month honeymoon.

Two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty two billion

cells, formed zygote, formed embryo, formed me!

By birthright, I should have been told aborting

was an option to meeting this world head first. 

-dp-
1-4-85

 11-29-14 Submitted to:SGVPQ 64  Fall 2014 Issue

Involuntary Reaction

I was scared, being pushed around like that.
The last thing on my mind was mother's pain.
It was the first time I had to hurt her,
had I known, it could have been the last.

They severed our ties at once.  They hurt me!
I was breathless, as my mind raced in
that bright, dry, unfocused light.  I hung
in the hands of a stranger for the first time.

The doctor slapped my ass, forced me
to gasp that first involuntary breath.
I was too young to control my feelings, then.
Now I'm a master of the craft, and still scared.

-dp-
2-7-85

Nucleic Acid Trip

Ever since mom and dad dropped acid

I've become less spiritual, more

molecular.  I've enjoyed a structured

hallucination.  Grown body and mind.

I've become a tactile beast.  I hear,

speak, see, smell, taste, and feel.

I must maintain body functions:

eat, breathe, and breed. 
   

I am a seeker of warmth, shelter, and love,

competing with other hallucinations

for a bit of recognition and status

on this orderly speck in the cosmos.

Before this happened, I was the cosmos!

A part of it all.  Apart from it all

I'm this complex being.

Contend with me...

-dp-
1-16-85