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inspired by Ben Noah Suri
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come to us in twilight, and just before sunrise,

in the in~between times, when souls exit and enter.

through microscopic cosmic windows, and there

is nothing but you and the full emptiness of earth

and then!

fill our void with words as yet unborn,

and aid all our passages from nether to glory...

for you,

we, await...

for guidance inherited from

all your visions of greater-than-us metamorphosis

<
>
upon first awakening and reaffirmation of life,
reading the first poem of the day
6:59am
Sabbath
Sep 13
2025
writ originally for  Ben Noah Suri
upon reading
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5157140/is-this-goodbye-i-know-not/
amended title9/20/25
~for the inestimable and yet,
so oft underestimated,
Lori Jones McCaffery ~
*"That was beautiful and I lived it with you." ^


tell-me, tell-me,
he whispers so only he/she can hear:

is there anything more,
a simple poet could ask for,
but an admission of someone revealing that
your words,
inculcated, enwrapped, flowered within,
then carried them to you,
and you to them?

to sit beside me, on my unpillowed weathered throne,
and imagine them imagining through eyes that read, shared
your overflowing joyous insights of the outside domain,
your sadness glorious at the end of a summer
where you rediscovered, un~purposed,
a mindfulness,
from the early morning sun beams stinging you alive

that together ***** the air from lungs exhaling,
and this very breathe
is the synapse of an actual consummation,
transmigrating, transmuting, transforming
a kindred soul
to kin

how glorious!
no, there is nothing greater,
but to ask:

my dear,
can you feel, ******* salted tears, Lori,
as I kiss each of your hands for becoming/making/cresting & creating
a bond of us?
abecedarian Sep 16
passion
thirst
hurt
ephemeral
physical

cold heat
hunger
water walking
brutally real
physical

skin colors
words spontaneous
devious planned
desire desired,
physical

concrete
parchment thin
muscled strong
catch a caught
physical

making
creating
cresting
cannot live without
physical

electric
shocking
eclectic
varied
realized

why? stop here?

eyed
fingered
tongue tasted,
ear sensual
dreamt

famous
buried
tragic
comedic
gaming played

unsafe
at any
speed
languorous
fire immolating

physical chest pains,
incurable
incumbent
to possess
otherwise, death

fingernails poking
knuckle kissing
lips wetting
blood exchanging
oh yeah physical

foreign native
young old
permanently temporary
infinitely finite
definitely unending

nowhere
no expression
dying dreams
best better
agonizing

agonizing
unrequited
offer everything
receive shoulder
colder than hell

defensive
offensive
cape laid
walk on me
chivalry

until we hold each others fingers knotted
until I stroke your hair unexpectedly,
until we agree to hell with all the rest
until we say the say the same thing simultaneously
until we come together

when we have satisfied each and every one of the above,
freely confess
know nothing of love
but the picayune details that make us greater
greater than greater, greatest, then and only then
we, might have a few clues
  Sep 15 abecedarian
Nat Lipstadt
a birthday poem for S.

perhaps, this is the responsibility, the purposeful gentility,
that poetry engenders, that thwarts the impulse to anger,
guiding away, finding a way, to temper the temper, to out
and joust away our basest, our first, but never our foremost
nor finest, succinct instinct, yet terrible human nonetheless...

perhaps, this is where we hide, neath our carnival masque,
our-would-be better selves, and struggle in this, this intensity intentional,

the season's change is subtly blatant, not obvious 'cept to those
who have a front seat, a well worn Adirondack chair in the nook
where the airy breeze offers fruits of words so easy, pluck words
as easy as breathing, and the slight gradation change, in the light and
temperature, and yet, the suns cares not, for it still warms my body,
though lower and slower, nonetheless, when the heat invades my soul, confirming my, our, existence,

burning off the fog of our contradictory confusions,
and eliciting an unsolicited
"thank you god"
for my, our personal miracle of re~birthing
and better comprehending,
that other
miracle we can embrace
never enough

loving kindness

sun~mon
sep 14~15
twenty twenty five
The phrase "to tame the savageness of man" is part of a larger quote, often attributed to the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus, which reads, "Tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world". This powerful sentiment was also famously quoted by Robert F. Kennedy, who attributed his translation to Edith Hamilton, and it calls for humanity to overcome its darker impulses for the sake of a more compassionate and peaceful existence
the trouble with poetry
(and this poetry site) is its

facilitation

awoke in a strange bed, my own,
in a different city, with my old eyes
renewed with, by loving amazement
at the beauty of so many souls experimenting
with edged, loving, dangerous compo-notions,
that make me older than King David, who loved the
love of life and this world, for here I am, falling too
for the life & love potions
of words of my fellow humans across
vast oceans
and I stoke their and stroke their
heated words, pretending that
the cool warmth of my tablet
is both their gorgeous skin and
alluring verbal twists that arouse
my innermost, and break my already
broken heart, and heals it at the very
same time...
all too, so easily

this communication is at levels that
descend, transcend,
grips me with passion and consternation
at my own desires, my open body & mind
stirred, chilled, shaken, stirred and soothed
by the busting out contradictions of us, me,
so well hidden, so well revealed in the marvy
ability of so many to share their essences,
their own scents, just by words upon a page,
and here I pause...
to consider the duality of the word

f a c i l e
for poetry shared facilitates this burning,
  "     "              "            "             "     tumult,
and yet comes to me so facile, that I worry,
that the words themselves are facile, cheap
& easy, but then I am reassured by the very
real drops of my body's fluids upon my cheeks,
that confirm, that poetry is too so real, so living,
and I guess you know me by my real name,
my real face, and my realized words here,
and wonder if I need cease to wonder why
wonderful is...
a thing

my poetry is written by silent night, or early morn,
so very differing, and laugh out loud at myself,
for I am a differing man, at differing times,
of a potpourri of contagious contradictory
conceptions, that I traverse so easy, this facility
is my blessing, and poetry my well worn skill
at...facilitating this absurd admixture of
human~you-man~a man~amen.

and here I leave you...
for I have left
the sunroom too...

@
3:26 am
Thu Sep 4
someplace else
5 Sensory Deprivation Relevations  (Happy Birthday Will Shakespeare)


I     the smell of sad

odor colorless like *****, similar familiar sidewinder effects,
musty invasive, it has no specificity, no locale centrale, well closeted,
saddling saddlng, in place, plain sighted better to toy our lives,
pervades persists, worse lingers, impervious to sprays
and even everyone’s good literature (even Will’s)
good wishes good intentions and mood prayers
to the nearest lay god
on duty at the spiritual emergency room on weekends,
stink

don’t think that this poem is for you; solely for the writer,
your doppelgänger ******, your mirror’s inside hiding out place,
I, who has your sadness smell into my skin cells crept
waft woof and warp wet weft-woven
into the sad receptacles hidden in my
head’s cubbies and the palms of my tree hands-covering face


there are cures so wonderful and inexpensive but unavailable
at the local Rite Aid, though they are the right aid recoverable,
so closer than close, so close that the internist
cannot prescribe them because he must inject himself first
because the live bacteria in the antidote can **** all

this odor lays down bamboo-strong roots;
to eradicate you must dig down deep,
six feet perhaps more, with heavy earth moving equipment,
uproot at the source, follow sad always all-the-way down and the root
great god gone,
but the saddest truth
stench odor yet present

II    the taste of joy

the joy of cooking is not a gene in my litany possess,
but the buttery taste of joy I know, I know,
it’s a real princess rarity,
the hard costs of finding and keeping it,
I’ve paid endlessly and willingly pay on

the taste of joy is like presents under the tree,
shock surprises delights lives/life, customized, infectious
(except for socks, no matter how joyously exceptional),
joy to those whose buds never blossomed for its taste
readable on some one else’s, anyone’s ****** expression

I think of it as the taste of fast traveling cumulus whites
upon my eyelashes blinking as they are speeding you by, but happy
for ten more behind before the evening stars takes over

the taste of joy is physical, there can be no denying,
concentrations can be found in the lips and the fingertips,
which you think of as a tandem, someone else’s on mine

but it ain’t necessarily so; the taste of joy, shared I, having submitted to others kisses carried on the wind that
found their mark and were well received,
poems from the heart
that arrive well,
as their intended is sleeping, and
as intended, as waking gifts

the taste of joy in droplet tears
when you are notified that words
you joined in holy matrimony made you cry,
because the reader did, wept for two,
the weeping of contentment released,
free at last from container confinement;
this particular taste of joy is in the  
recovery and recognition that these
are not for you,
just joy peculiar these tasted tears for whomsoever sheds them

III   the hearing of truthful

truth am told is oft served cold and hard up for the hearing,
best avoided tween noon and midnight and any time a
bathroom mirror is in the vicinity; though religious men lie
too easily; bathroom mirrors cannot; a character flaw for sure,
but the truth to be trusted is this: no one is truly contented, always there are the richer, the more famous, the employed and
someone above who has more, more burdens of a different sort,
better quality losses and pains unseen not dreamed of

truth tastes terrible and is awful sometimes noisy painful;
it hides well in the stink of sad exposed to the atmosphere when exposed it turns red humans blue

truth may set you free, free to be what are you are or truthfully
an admission of what greatness you have to release the trick is
use the correct scale, do not let the wrong sized ruler rule you,
the truth, if you hear, hear it unfiltered w/o the bias implanted
by not your people; hear your poet voice growl like a blues singer and be truthfully satisfied like no thing no person only you could hear it as you intended it be spoken

IV   touches of fantasy fantastic
secret confess: touch my fav cause when its juiced with
mental visions of what might be, it Saturday satisfies and let me weep happy smile silly and is mine all mind; yes another’s tip
has sorcerer powers of revelation
but alone by myself I yet
relevate
and flow; my hands are right sized, my arms reach around myself for so designed, and the pleasure is mine to give;
mine to take,
neither better or worse if self-administered,
touch myself anywhere anytime and fantasy over dreams wins,
rise up, touch is a language and I speak six or a hundred;
listen to the sounds of touching and be touched human

V  insights for the sightless

at last we close the deprived
with an elegant elevation
sight overrated when imagination exists,
cannot be restrained
this the revelation
you have proffered and preferred all this time

have pity on me
I crystallize the unseen with the replacements
of my conjuring
the other senses lend a hand
telling me look up look up, be life save life
let your madness blossom in the spring airs,
the coolness of a first fingered ungloved snow
sight,
a mathematical function from the other four derived,
sightless an impossibility for with one alone defeat the
sensory deprivation and give tongues to words

epilogue

read my face
incapable of,
deprivation
but how now silent bow my head to Will
for teaching the way of words
traced upon
a fool or a king's tongue,
two too human,
so that poet may ken
his senses keener,
all for the better,
for the betterment of all
and now you understand how came this poem to be writ
in the pitch black
I.      the smell of sad

odorless colorless like *****, similar familiar sidewinder effects,
musty invasive, it has no specificity, no locale centrale, well closeted,
saddling sadding, in place, plain sighted better to toy our lives,
pervades persists, worse lingers, impervious to sprays
and even everyone’s good literature (even Will S’s),
good wishes good intentions and mood prayers
to the nearest lay god
on duty at the spiritual emergency room on weekends,
still stink

don’t think that this poem is for you; solely for the writer,
your doppelgänger ******, your mirror’s inside hiding out place,
I,
who has your sadness smell into my skin cells creepily crept
waft woof and warp wet weft-woven
into the sad receptacles hidden in my
head’s cubbies and the palms of my tree hands-covering face

there are cures so wonderful and inexpensive but unavailable
at the local Rite Aid, though they are the right aid recoverable,
so closer than close, so close that the internist
cannot prescribe them because he must inject himself first
because the live bacteria in the antidote can **** all

this odor lays down bamboo-strong roots;
to eradicate you must dig down deep,
six feet perhaps more, with heavy earth moving equipment,
uproot at the source, follow sad always all-the-way down and the root
great god gone,
but the saddest truth
stench odor yet present
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