Agent Provocateur4

May 2018

harlon rivers

“You cannot hold it, but it will cradle you.
You cannot see or touch it, but when contact comes,
You will see me, hold me, as in the days of your youth,
When you loved me best,
And I, you.”

From: Seven New Poems for Seven Days #2: Hover
... by Nat Lipstadt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

in memoriam to memories:
for Miriam and Nat

reading each thought numerous ticks of days,
imbibe the silent of the silence
hanging from the rafters this wilderness roof;
grayed heartwood walls that separate
fractals of inseparable distances ― celebrations
the roads taken ― memories of those left behind
at the side of the mile untrodden

Congregated love and sorrow’s spoken words
scribed on paper bark touchstones ―
etched watermarks of perpetual tides
patina the afterglow of life's ebb and flow,
traces of everything and naught can ever fill

Experiencing intimate moments immemorial;
the whispers of living pulse still murmurs
in the gentle breeze between the gathered words of heart
breathing deeply ― a rush of systemic truth
born in the wholly sacred blood bequeathed

A soul outside the lines ponders ―
the sum whole of a life well lived;
coming to understand, although
all might not see the same light shine:

there’s a place one day we’ll return
we found along the way
because one day will come by here …

harlon rivers ... Memorial Day weekend ... May, 2018

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Out yourself.
What will you be remembered for,
if at all?”
... Nat Lipstadt

seven poems (+ 1) for my mother (July 2013)
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2509850/seven-poems-1-for-my-mother-july-2013/

thank you for sharing the love, friend...

#memoriam #memories #love #thoughts

May 2018

Left Foot Poet

sleep poses

human revelations in our sleep poses

she sleeps with both arms back, murmuring,
flung over her hearing head,
as if she is surrendering

nightly

me slip away for a few, only to find
her left hand ****** by her arm crook'd,
fit to her temple, as if to bear the weighty weight
of a heavy head plein des thoughts, dream-mares, tales and talks,
too dense to contemplate
without assistance,
armed support to hold on, hold up,
fighting/ accepting as a unwanted outcomes
or retrying old misdeeds
(no, no, oops, that’s me)

stirring,
she swift motions/crisscrosses her arms into an X,
a human parts tiara atop, on blond tresses, that fully messes
any remaining daytime efforts and her nighttime wild dancing^

no one reveals me,
none inform on me what positions
my containership adapts, adopts when my woke-guards
are dismissed/released and
lay unprepared to disguise my innermosts exposures

ow, early am resting comfortable with a six poem-pack of
slept hours on my tool belt,
so far this weekend one shot fired before the day officially
is belle rung and these poses thoughts
are upon what my eyes alight

can’t decide if knowing how I dance in the bed at night,
reflationary, deflationary, worth fact facing,
for this is no secret

my sleep hours are colored,
admixture of moving pictures,
punctuated with
stills of past and future,
the poses
of how to greet, were greeted,
withstood upheld ran from wept, murdered,
faced up, faced down, go unrecorded
and the
poems residuals
and the
poem prophesying-
both!

fearful confessions for acts
committed and foretold

Decision: I don’t want to know

7/20/18 7:08am

^(tango-ing with both, familiar and the unexpected men
who are she-allowed to lead for few minutes,
her cover up pose
expertly rigidly flexible, but her head thrown back to say
this is how far you will be allotted, allowed to dance/take me)

#sleep #poses #leftfootpoet

Apr 2018

onlylovepoetry

zelle ma belle

zelle ma belle

(zelle is an interbank system for sending cash in an instant to someone else’s bank account)

sent her an unexpected $250,
at 4:00am, of course,
a check-plus for her life,
because she revel reviews her day at school,
as special person day, teaches them well, and
anointed, appointed unsolicited confirmation by them
“as part of our family”
how they crave her body, her touch, at scary movie parts,
her kitchens diner size menu,
her refusal to ever disappoint,
her candy drawer supreme,
her crayon color visions which they execute,
her zen sense of their moods,
and for me,
for calling them without hesitation
my grandchildren

indeed more here hers than mine
she asks me why the $$ and poet doesn’t lie
but thinks quick at 7:30 am while bed prone,
“you won Nana of the Day award”
the only (grandparent) on the floor with two kids in her lap,
for the magic show,
all the rest,
benched, chattingly adultry things

she thinks on it and says
“ok, I accept!”

p.s. also, I have yet to inform her of the (my) elimination of a
crystal champagne flute while doing my manly cleanup from Friday night lights dinner pink champagne celebrating
le weekend’s arrival

olp

Mar 2018

Joel M Frye

An Invincible Summer

The boxes
which keep my blood clean
are stacked as tall as I,
a monument
in the spare room
to past battles.
Too many words,
too many thoughts
******* in the
hand-to-hand combat
with mortality.

No more.

What life I have
will not be defined
by an indeterminate end.

I live to write poems;
I will no longer die in them.

Camus knows.

Dec 2017

Nat Lipstadt

at the (explicit) point of entry12/31

at the point of entry (explicit)

it does not strike me strange
at the point of entry
when the heightened senses and the dark subconscious merge

when the lust and the sweat intersect
with ego desire and self is everlasting everything
that the ***** words secretion is sticky on my tongue

when I pant poems born in rawness and tears
on this the last day of the year
and eyes closed see visions extraordinaire
and the Maker whispers in both ears see!

it is the see of what is me,
it is the point of entry and departure,
one and the same,
conception an immaculate mess,
the emptying and the fulfilling, when unkempt promises
are born free flowing and semi-truths transform into
actualities unforeseen and my child cells of new poems
are injected, stored, awaiting the birthright
and the death of publication,
my moment of privileged perfection passes
and frowns and smiles are
one and the same, silken thread wove open and shut

the precision precious circumcising of flesh and soul departing

the utter collapse from within, the drowning in the amniotic,
rebirthing rebutting my denying that I have no more to give

I believe I belong to you for it is what the desire firing cylinders
say repeatedly in the union of the up and the down cycle:

come, come inside me,
I am the pleasure
you are the treasure
in one cup measured
conjoined container
when the point of entry is the point of departure
and with eyes closed from satisfaction and prayer
I see everything all at the same time, uttering:

I am undone utterly and the difference between
the end and the beginning can be seen only
at the millisecond long seven decade coming
point of entry

12/31/17 5:38am dawn dying and new day mourning

explicit point of entry 12/31 nml

Dec 2017

Nat Lipstadt

Secret Jew of My Heart

a message sent to me:
“I know you, Marrano, secret Jew of my heart, weakened by words and strengthened thereby...stout man of words”^

a stranger invasion - his technology, a new combine of words,
percentage of perception high, a ferreting scraping of tissue,
an abrasion of spoiler alerts that are not hidden but now summoned, despite being unbidden early on a Sabbath morn

and at this, my haunted hours, this secret Jew,
wanders unexplored yet familiar routes
of his well traveled innards,
pondering this sweet Shylock Accusation, nay,
this confessional truth, but more, the nut of his essence that ‘tis
his conviction, his twisted sentencing, the exact lived-level of
a hellish Dante verse that shreds the escape of sleep,
that is home

“weakened by words and strengthened thereby”

words forced to the fore, peremptorily summoned,
this inconsistency so constant, his battle,
where neither victory, loss or truce, are resolutions legitimate,
contradictory poems are the tension production
of this high wire act of the man, a performance
best assessed as one of always slipping,
more near-falling failing than cross walking,
employing his word emissions as a balancing pole,
and balancing is a sometime thing

I am not an illusionist - if anything, a disillusionist

there are stanzas writ
but unspoken
that shall not be out-spit
here or now; for lengthy answers already exist,
in a thousand prior scripts
and
the thin wire of preservation
teaches the value of brevity

stout, I think not,
man of words,
no doubt,
one who is both,
a secret Marrano and a Jew, fully exposed,
and one who is
“weakened by words and strengthened thereby”

12/2/17 The Sabbath 3:33am

<•>
extra credit reading

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/529429/the-true-tale-of-shylocks-pound/

^from Jeff Stier to me:

“I know you, Marrano.
Secret Jew of my heart
weakened by words
and strengthened thereby

Stout man of words.

Dec 2017

onlylovepoetry

the simplest song (seek your prime)

the simplest song (seek your prime)

the one that likely never finishes the course

tune that never ceases though it knows well stilling quietude,
one passenger verse in a lean vessel that reveals, declares,
anoints the outwards atmospheric condition with the conditions
of what’s within,
compulsively, incessantly demanding- seek your prime

write yourself a poem, be a poem, write of your becoming

bring the simmering sauce to a furious boil,
the words placed in your soil by your own five,
reap the fruit even if wormed, bruised, overripe
or trite

this is your song

breathe it into my mouth
until the last one,
making me glad to know you
and your becoming,
prime music

yes, this is a love poem

12/10/17 8:38am