She pulls herself upon a cloud
With pen and pad in tow
Imagination in her heart
The gentle Earth below
A poet’s mind starts wandering
An endless world awaits
She leans beyond the cloud’s extent
Peers down and contemplates
Amazed at how it looks from here
Her perch up in the sky
The whole of all she’s ever seen
Reflects now in her eye
But she is more than what she’s seen
Knows more than where she’s been
For what exists is infinite
Condensed within her pen
She shuts her eyes to find her muse
A smile finds her face
Upon her pad she pours her soul
Filling up the space
The words are hers but not from her
The ink just seems to flow
An energy directs her hand
And tells it where to go
She lifts her pen, and calmly reads
Words she’s never said
Feelings she has never felt
In lines she’s never read
Through her words we’ll touch the sky
Find places never been
And briefly know infinity
Condensed within her pen

I used to read your poems
but lately you don't write
you're silent and aloof
you know that isn't right.
You can't close a door once opened
you can't abolish all your dreams
you're a poet of the heart
mustn't fall apart at the seams.
Say what you can in words
they speak the message true
spoken from the heart
the poems will see you through.
A hermit's not your style
a recluse, you are not
never give up writing
of things that you've been taught.
I used to read your poems
I'd read them once again
if you would send them out
(this one's from a poet friend)

Below the starry sky,
Under the shade of the mango tree,
He said to her "I'm never giving up on you."
That's when they realised,
That they were meant to be.

theres a stairway to heaven one that we all take
to our final resting place in heaven we will make
there are many steps so the people say
high up in the sky beyond the milky way

each step made of gold so the story goes
is it really true no one really knows
when we go to heaven in the sky so blue
we will get know if the stories really true

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.

It’s good to be hated!  But I know my name…


hate, blackened, misshapen, ugly, unnatural,
yet
how it clarifies the mind, like a cupped hand
carrying clear, cold, brook water to dry mouth,
to shock, enliven, resets resets, all your priorities
with alacrity, a word I prefer cause it is an intuitive
combo of eagerness + alarm, suddenly much of the

trivial is no longer worthy of your  ‘to do’ list,
you, without thinking, DNA filter your filters,
those screens that digest, then reject & reflect
the inputs ongoings around you, and you are now
reclassified! by the hate surrounding, it declassifies
the time wastrels, reinterpreting most everything 
on a bipolar scale of  1  or  10, there are no shades,
the middle ground of gray be fully eliminated,
just like those who wish to
eliminate
                                                                ­                   me.


in a palette of black or white, your
e +e,
(essence and existence) cannot be ever
a gray area, yes, of course, the sunshine
is yellow bright, and the grass is spring
flushed green, the multicolored daffodils
newly define colors varietal, and the waves
of the Sound, roll relentlessly, but hate can be
coated, camouflaged and subtle disguised, but
we  know, oh how we know, and how we wanted
to forget, our “sins”, our original liabilities of
our multi colored skins, our religion, our race & ethnicity,

but NOT our names!

the Rabbis tell us that God nearly did not keep
his promise to Abraham, to rescue his progeny
from slavery in Egypt but saved them only because:

‘On account of four things Israel was redeemed
from Egypt: they did not change their names, they
did not change their language,  they did not speak
slander and not even one of them was found to be
promiscuous.’^

I know my name; and though you cannot distinguish
me by dress, know not my moral life, but now you
know my name,
given to me by my parents, in the language of my ancestors:

Mordecai Netanel ben (son of) Eliyahu Chaim**

Per my family lore, as told to me by my parents, our
family fled from Spain because of the Inquisition (1478),
settled in a small town in Germany on the banks
of the river Lippe; and from the shtetls of Poland,
and those who survived or avoided the Holocaust
ultimately left Europe, came here, to the land of
the free, the United States of America with names,
in their language, with memories intact.

I will not flee this country,
for I know my true name,
inscribed in my pores, in my
DNA


May 2 2024

We fell in love by chance,
We stay in love by choice.

The cold moon breaks through the crevices
and where do I hide?
there's nothing to haunt my mind
but only the guilts inside.

Told not to venture into the night
I braved in the power of moonlight
where every shadow was a ghost
every dark nook a lost coast.

If I had someone with me
it wouldn't be all that scary
but I left them on the way
thinking I wouldn't need them anyday.

The loves I betrayed
the souls I traded
descended behind the tree
like the waning moon.

Before long the dark would devour me
knowing, I moved down with the moon
with none but the sighs on my side..

The derelict offered no place to hide.

Heaven rained on me,
I breathed in the petrichor,
Bathed in the downpour.

Get out
Go away,
I've been working hard
For too many days.

Can't think
Won't sleep,
Not with you there
Herding all my sheep.

Get out
Go away,
My head's so full
And heavy with clay.

Can't think
Won't sleep,
Afraid of monsters
That are sure to creep.

Get out
Go away,
I never said
That you could stay.

Can't think
Won't sleep,
Could end it all
With just... one... leap...

I love you so much
I would give you my heart
Every kiss, every beat
I’d give you my heart
In all this heat
Heart to heart
Your my love
Every step, every day
You have always made
Me feel real
Heart to heart

I think
the world
needs
more
of us
than we
can offer

I should’ve
waited
for someone
like
her to
come
into my
life.

I watch you play
Small and mighty
Yet you are flighty
Swift as an arrow
A funny fellow
Beauty shimmers
Light glimmers
As beat tiny wings
Inebriation
On occasion
Or so it seems
You sip then zip
Away

He was glowing in my eyes
A blazing star that could never die
So bright that he made me cry

“Why are you alive”
“You don’t deserve this”
“They would be better off without you”
“Leave and don’t come back”
“Push everyone away”

You can’t compare yourself
With the unbroken girls
Surrounding you
You already shattered
Creating
A new form
Of beautiful

-jt

Why Men Cry in the Bathroom

For so many reasons.
I will tell you the why.
I think you know,
Or perhaps, you think you know.

Men are always O.K.,
Even when not.

We expect the worse,
Accept the worse,
Nonetheless,
We are forever unprepared.

Wearily, we cry,
In the bathroom, in private,
Lest sighs slip by,
We be unmasked,
Early warring, strife signs warning.

Copious, tho we weep
Before the mirror confessor,
It is relief untethered,
Unbinding of the feet,
An uncounting
Of beaded rosaries,
Of freshly fallen hail stones,
Of night times terrors
By dawn's early edition's light,
and welcomed.

But look for the mute tear,
The eye-cornered drop,
*** tat, that never drops,
But never ceases formation and
Reforming, over and over again,
In a state of perpetuity of reconstitution,

The tippy tear of an iceberg revealing,
And I see you peeping, wondering,
What is beneath

Look for:
the torn worm-eaten edges of spirit,
thrift shop bought, extra worn,
grieving lines neath the eyes,
where the salt has evaporated,
discolored the skin.
worry lines,
under and above,
browed mapped, furrowed boundaries.
the laugh line saga,
where better days are stored,
recalled, as well as recanted,
publicly, privately.

Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.


Jan 6, 2013

The star's are obscured by clouds
Like curtains hiding a stage
I wait
For the play to begin

creation
maybe, isolation

that I'm in this kind of flow
learning and re-learning more within

disbelief,
needed a reason
chaos deciphered

tickles me
a eureka moment
maybe
this is how I currently love myself the most

It may look like I'm silent
But don't let it fool you
I'm holding back the will
To say that I love you

Poetry has to rhyme
No it doesn’t
That lie is just a crime
It’s meant to fixate
To inflate
The curious mind
The literate kind
Words in a verse
The gold in the purse
Of a creative person

Poetry has to rhyme
No it doesn’t
Your wrong this time
Its meant to uplift
To drift
Into a person thoughts
A charm of sorts
Letters in a line
All beautiful and fine
To read everyday

The poet lives two lives.
One on the outside,
And one in their mind.

When you look in their eyes
You could see an abyss.

If you looked long enough
You could sink into it.

But most people don’t see it.

Take the time to read the words, though,
And you would know for sure.

The poet lives in two different worlds.

(inspired by Malia’s poem ‘crack the code’)

the unspoken poems
are the loudest
the ones you don’t utter
the times you don’t bother
symphonies of silence
votes of no confidence
trust marbled with rust
what's become of us?

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