Living Poets Society - Hello Poetry

Jul 2024

Thomas W Case

Night comes on like
an old hound lumbering
in from the field.
I don't fight it.
I'm getting too old.
I sit with pen in hand,
and wait for the
darkness to show
me something.

I think about vaginas and
Ireland and fish that
hunt a t night.
I think about
Bukowski and
Beethoven, and the
*******, and a kernel
of corn.
I think about my
life and this night, and
how it is better than
those near-death years of
caterwauling and chaos;
drunk by the river, lonely
as a glass snake.
I was living to drink, and
didn't give a **** about
anyone.
I was searching.
I found it
when the light came.

Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry from my recent books, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, on Amazon and Rise Up Collected Poems and Short Stories, available on Booksie.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qum45hpUqrg&t=16s

#sobriety #life #growth

Jul 2024

Francie Lynch

Spokes

So many roads lead back home,
But not the one where I was born.
That first wet road was slippery,
With curves and hills and holes,
But every mile I travelled on,
Without knowing, I headed home.

Those many highways,
Like a wheel,
Were radiating spokes,
But like the wheel,
They're circular,
So always lead back home.

#home #travel #roads

Jul 2024

Thomas W Case

A Small Place Above His Left Ear

My friend asks
me where I get
the fodder for
writing my poems.
I tell him, life.
He says that's too
simple.
He isn't satisfied.
I tell him that
sometimes, I sit at
my desk and open
the window above the
litterbox, and look
outside at the
orange daylilies and
wait.

He says he writes
from a small place above
his left ear.
It tickles at times, but
often it's painful.
I nod and make a
note to call my
doctor about the
headaches I've been having.

He reads his posey at
the coffee shops while
drinking espresso and
chatting with the other
young poets in sweaters.
I tell him that I used
to live under a bridge,
I read my poems to the
savage river and the
Mallard ducks, and the
drunk friends that
wandered in for a drink of
***** or a beer.
He says the little place above
his left ear is beginning to
hurt.

I walk him to the door and
tell him goodbye.
He asks if I will come
to the coffee shop to
hear him read his poetry.
"Sure", I say, smiling blankly.
After closing the door,
I sit and smile at the view from
my window.
I can smell the freshly cut
grass, and hear the
grinding whine of the
lawnmower.
A woman across
the street is lying in
the sun.
She's wearing a turquoise
bikini and big sunglasses.
Just then, a slight hint
of coconut wafts into my room.
I get hard and pick up the pen.

Here's a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjeCroHYQxU

#writing #art #inspiration

May 2024

Francie Lynch

Anywhere Else But Here

I woke to the warning blasts
Of fog horns on the St. Clair.
They comfort like a weighted blanket.
And the rain falls evenly, now,
On my vegetables,
On everyone's lawn and garden.
All is as it should be this morning.
Quiet, ordered and secure.
I'm glad I'm not over there,
Or anywhere else,
But here.

#peace #tranquility #rain #war

Apr 2024

Francie Lynch

A Canadian Middle-Class Life

Do you see
How all things
Have conspired
For an average ******,
Like me.

I am grateful
To evade
The poxes
Others have endured.

The cold, the hunger, the homelessness;
The hate, the fear, the lonliness.
There's more.

I have never
Stretched out
A hand or fist
In want, fear, or hate.

I held chalk, and *****, and babies.
Such things sealed my fate.
Peace and Love
Filled our waves;
No poppies and crosses
On a friend's foreign grave.

Yes, all things conspired.
And this time got it right,
To live happily ever after
In my middle-class life.

#middleclasslife #canada

Apr 2024

Carlo C Gomez

Tunnel 13

It must be dark
out here in the cold penumbra,
where mile after mile
no one smiles,

dots and loops,
dots and loops,
a kind of blissful nullity,
beautiful and pointless,

wearing at the edges
it almost stings,
seclusion unraveling
at the underground in us all,

aubade aberrations abound,
challenging the orthodoxy
of the troublesome
morning road,

but should this near-life experience
hydroplane toward
another mineshaft, it helps to know
less is less, not more.

#satire #sarcasm #pessimism #optimism #life #future #adventure #travel #driving

Apr 2024

Francie Lynch

Good-Night, God

Distant trains still sound alarms,
Blinds are drawn, people yawn,
It's time to call the day.

The sun's turned off,
The moon's turned on,
The stars like pinholes
Blink till dawn.
The animals are bedded
On the farm;
Beneath this counterpane we're warm.

Today our work is done;
Tomorrow worries not begun.
But tonight I'll sleep
Like the seventh son.

#sleep #peace #night #work #rest #god

Apr 2024

Thomas W Case

Sonnets and Villanelles and Cats on my Desk

I'm in a cool group.
To stay on top
of my writing, and to
promote and market
my poetry, I often
publish online.
If Lord Byron could
hear that.

In this place that
I belong,
I have deadlines.
I procrastinate until
the very last day, and then
scribble some ******
lines and get angry with
myself for putting the
writing off.

I have a couple of
weeks before I need
to write a sonnet or villanelle.
I'm getting anxiety.
It's not producing the
desired effect of
hard work or discipline.
No
Not that.
It is getting me thinking.
That is sometimes productive,
and usually comical.

I'm thinking about
the 15 months I've
been sober.
For many years,
I was miserable.
Drinking and writing.
Writing and drinking.
Holding the bottle of
***** to my shivering
lips to get the last
spider of liquid.
My clothes smelled of
decay and cowardice, and
everything tasted like
rotten meat.

Now, I have a beautiful
maple desk that my three
cats like to sleep
on while I write
poems about
procrastination and sobriety.
Such fuzzy black miracles.
They twitch as they
dream of fish and catnip,
and just maybe they
dream about writing a
sonnet for me.
We are all
addicted to something.

Check out my youtube channel where I read from my recent book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgXtR-Z6G9s

#writing #cats #procrastination

Mar 2024

Third Eye Candy

THE THINGS OF YOU

i had words with a silent thing.
i won the argument, needless to say.
but fewer trumpets were in my bag of air
too asleep to be awake
with the things of you
strewn about the palace
of my misery

I suppose a jewel is vacant
spoiled by the sun and no longer a friend.
the way the things of you
pinch the law of my skin
like a twist in a maze of love
grumpy with northern lights
percolating forever
because love
can.

. .

Mar 2024

Francie Lynch

Keep Muscling On

Got some hope today.
It felt like a tingle.
In my insides somewhere.
This was familiar.
I was reminded that the world
In which I was born,
Was just as ****** as now.

Somehow, we're muscling on.

Nucleur threats,
Idealogical jets,
With invasions, wars and debts.
I kept abreast of the U.S.S.R.
Covered heads beneath school desks,
Bent over likeVesuvians.
Korea, Viet Nam,
And on and on;
Granada, not Canada,
Look what happened in Iran.
Did you see them hang Sadam?
I can still hear the alarms.

We still keep muscling on.

Mar 2024

Francie Lynch

When My Brain Disappears

I'm disappearing.
Bit by tiny bit.
I'm becoming a mosaic
Of technological parts.
I'm not bionic,
I've a real heart;
But aids help me hear;
Implants help me chew;
Stainless steel lets me kneel,
I wear specs to see you.

Nothing man-made can last;
Not like mountains and forests
That don't need my resources.
You may say these things aren't living, as such...
But you'd be wrong.
You may argue I am not living as such...
You'd be wrong again.
I need batteries and oil,
Scripts or x-rays to prove it,
But the proof is there.
I'm shedding skin, losing hair,
Have diminished hearing and sight;
My legs are sore and tired and my back...
Oh my back...
Yes, I am disappearing
And will be remembered for a generation;
As my grandfather was with me.
When my brain disappears,
So will he.

#aging

Feb 2024

Francie Lynch

Shush

There was once a time of quietude.
If I said something;
Showed you something,
Or did something; and,
If it was warm and loving,
Interesting or whimsial,
Controversial or agreeable,
You might nod, shake your head,
Sigh,
Perhaps gesture -
Yes or No or Maybe.

I'm reading.
There's too much noise.
Some friends, many strangers,
Laughing... loudly...
Out loud;
Smiling, hugging, liking, Wowing, loving, tsking. crying...
So much emotion.
I can hear them.

Not long ago,
But mostly gone,
Like silent films
It was quiet.
LOL WOW *** :)

#internet #noise #likes #dislikes #thumbsup #thumbsdown #quiet

Feb 2024

Francie Lynch

Shards of Glass

A long unopened folder
Fell from a shelf,
Spewing unfinished poems
Across the room
Like shards of colored glass,
Edged as sharp as razor wire.
We know those fragments;
And how deep they can cut.
They speak of life and death,
Love and leaving,
Good, evil, and Roads.
I may arrange them
In a stained glass mosaic;
Not much symmetry,
But piecemealed,
Telling of my Inquisition.

Winchester Cathedral: The stained glass windows there are a mosaic of shattered glass. Cromwell threw the bones of ancient Kings through the windows, but the people collected the shards and piecemealed them back together, but there is no distinguishable pictures, just a mosaic of colored glass.

#poetry #unfinishedpoetry #unfinishedpoems #poems #mosaic #stainedglass