I am the deep, the sky in reverse
I have what you seek, for better or worse

I am the blue of infinite depth
I've swallowed the crews and cleared the decks

You are afraid or maybe intrigued
Of the place where you played and also was freed

Kiss me now like you did before
Give me your vow and the ocean is yours.

There will always be change
That much is the same
Yet it's not the change
But the chains
That mire me

I admired
She knew
It was nothing new
Us two
In this game
The one that we played
Where the rules displayed
That the game
Was not spoken
Or displayed

A cat and mouse chase
Set at tortoise's pace
Torture gladly I take
While I patiently wait
Possibility's sake
Of a move I might make

<>

11:03 Sun Sep 20 2020
2nd Day Rosh Hashana 5781
S.I., N.Y.

when I was twenty years younger, I wrote oft introspectively,
nowadays, today, provoked by the High Holy Day, the New Year,
it is my only filter, lens, and this solitary perspective that this moment affords, permits, demands, commands, insists on,  
prepared by this confession, so that I may better return to the union of my divine spark, unify body and soul, recover my true self,
by acknowledging that I am
not beholden to anyone,
therefore, thereby,
     beholden to everyone

how inconsistently wonderful that additional experience, alive in a time of upheavals, pushes me past the first stanza, where most often, my poems, prayers, go to rest uneasy, incomplete, only to be buried alive in me.

Yet, here I am stuttering, sputtering, words that come unexpectedly!
I have reached a second stanza, with the ending well sighted, nearby. The collective, overlaid wake of each passing boat, finger pointing, a road line for following, to a larger directive, a river emptying into a great ocean, birthplace & graveyard

premature celebration as it’s weeks till I return to this poem-in-progress on a bleak week, the winterized grays have dominated, the freshness of sunlight is just an occasional peekaboo.

The larger directive now suppressed, the pilings of damp brown leaves, multi-message; funeral. mounds of good days gone to hell, the inward perspective has returned me to a deep, dark place.

(Stutter, stutter, each day asseverates solemnly with tinges of rancor, no, no, no, still no answers yet, the second and third stanzas are *******, suns of no man.)

my memory is like DNA
there’s some really important stuff in there
the rest of it is just junk

They’d waited too long to say

“I love you”.

3 words. 3 syllables.

Yet they held millions of emotions unspoken.

and now that they’d done it, they wouldn’t,
couldn’t, stop

they told each other all the time. In the end of the argument and before the good news.

In the middle of the storm, even though it was hard to see, and after, when the raging winds had settled on a breeze

before the rising sun turned the sky pretty colors and after it flickered out and faded away into the dark

Underneath the stars that their love had been etched into

There was no love until death for them. Because it would never stop. Their love was beyond. It rose above any border that would dare to try and stop it. There was no finish line

because they were each other’s end game.  
-L.R

.............I found
    some           words
that                              I
can                         use
       to                 bind
            you with

Why is poetry dying
when we still have the gift?
If we still have water
then we still have a ship.
We can sail to the places
these words take us.
We are still shaken
by the words that make us.
Why should we let poetry die
when there is so much to explore?
If only people read it
and discovered more.

Sun in the morning
Heralds night
Elsewhere

A glowing warmth
A growing cold
A joyful youth
A man grown old
A winter’s night
A summer breeze
A violent birth
A death at ease
A memory gained
A family lost
This is our tax
Our final cost

Eating my beyond burger with a fork and knife,
drag race in the background,
my Samantha doll by my side.
This isn't loneliness anymore.
This is just life now.

I'm not very good with words anymore,
maybe I never was.
So little has changed and yet everything has.
I still long for love.
I still want to be wanted.
That might never change.

Yet now this lonely world is one I've come to accept,
come to love.
I may be my only friend here,
but that's one more than last year.

Nothing I create is good,
but I'm learning to create anyway.
I'm learning to share my bad art,
at least it's art.
Right?

I dream of slitting the throat of the dog next door.
Someone outta shut him up.
I used to think that was an evil thought,
now I know there's no such thing.

I turn 21 in 2 days.
Math. Yuck.
I'm old,
getting older every second.
Whatever.
I will grow into this skin,
I'm sure of it.
Maybe.

I'm grateful.
More than anything I am grateful for it all.
The pain,
the pleasure,
the guilt,
the anger.

Pills,
family,
friends,
dolls.

No one reads these except me.
So this one is for her.
For you.
Anne,
my love,
my villain,
my biggest fear.

May this year be kind to you,
may you be kind to it.
May you listen to your spirit guides,
may you accept what you never could.

Growth is sticky and wet,
Knowledge is thick and grey.
May you be the light and the darkness,
the cut and the band aid.

More than anything,
be okay.
You're gross,
in a sort of beautiful way.
May you be okay with that.
Truly.




Bad art is still art.
Right?
I think so.
For now.

To this day,
your name
still hurts my tongue
but I still say it anyway.
Sometimes I like to
hear my soul
gently tear itself
apart.

time will heal
and silently
collect the scars
that are
meant to be
left in the past

after all
love
simply isn't enough
to make us last.

When love dies slowly
We are reluctant to blow on its embers
But quick to cry on its ashes

In the cold, dark
        of January,
         I remembered
              you
        the most.
  As the chill
      snapped bones
              like branches,
     as the afternoons
   bathed themselves
in gray,
     as the birds
and the backs
      shook,
so did my lips
   around your name.
I'm so happy
     January is almost
over now.

Have you seen the faces in the queues so long
Like the world has stopped until the next loud gong
Have we become immune to the system is the system wrong
There's no life left in the faces of the queues so long

She slid between the cracks
And frost followed,
Leaving a crystalline trail
Deep in the seam of the
Underground
From where she would spring
Afresh and
In bloom.

your name is
forbidden in
my mouth
or in my heart
because when
i think about
you;

i'll cry a little more,
hurt a little stronger
love a little softer
because you no longer
make me feel sober

i'm drunk on the
memory of you

she was a girl
made of starlight
the essence of freedom

all stars burn
so she burned
brighter and harder
than any other
only to fall

shooting star, they said

make a wish.

Before you judge
Another's heart
Examine your own
Inside and out.
What you criticize
In another
Is what yours
Is all about.

If you could read my mind,
You’d see a thousand papers
Filled with broken poetries
And deadbeat proses
Full of woeful verses
With mournful pieces
Of unfinished stories
That are yet to be written
And failed to be spoken;
If you could read my mind,
You’d hear horrible screams
And earsplitting weeps
From shattered dreams,
Kept in a nasty notepad,
Scribbled on a bed
Of bloodstained words,
Ringing in my head.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the shadows
That lurk within me;
You’d hear the bellows,
Screeching the words
“I’m tired,”
“I’m a failure,”
“I’m stupid –”
I know it sounds stupid,
It’s pathetically foolish
And seems like *******.
If you could read my mind,
You’d feel the tears
I had ever failed to cry;
You’d see the people
That make the weak weaker;
You’d see the monsters
That consume my head;
You’d hear the hollers
That failed to be freed;
You’d see the heart
That still bleeds and bleeds.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the face
I’ve failed to show back then,
The face I’ve faked back then.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see a character
I had ever failed to become
If you could read my mind,
You’d be able to read
A book you never wished
To touch and read,
But sometimes I still wish
Someone could read my mind.

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

Everytime I close my eyes,
I see my world burning down.
There's this fire behind my eyelids
that the tears can't put out.

Late night texts
Sleepy eyes
Small smiles
Butterflies

Stolen moments
Held inside
Beating heart
Stupefied

~

Left alone
Tear filled eyes
Chapped lips
Scarred thighs

Empty promises
Cast aside
Broken heart
Terrified

~j.l.