Living Poets Society - Hello Poetry

Jul 2021

Francie Lynch

Gates

I'm not unhinged
To consider gates,
And which side I'm on;
Who's allowed in, or out.
If a gate's open,
Do we rush or seep in?
Uncle Frank's gate leads to his plush meadow.
That's how I envision the Pearly Gates
With a slight squeak as they slowly close
On all the lies outside;
Souls sticking a foot between the gate and the post
While banging on the bars.
But the toes don't lie.

#gates #heaven #judgement

Jul 2021

Francie Lynch

An Immigrant

Kathleen Avenue still has houses,
But people left, and trees were felled;
The canopy across the street
Has lost some limbs
And many feet
Of children
Playing hide and seek.

One house, a brown-shingled frame
Is aging there as are our names;
The front yard doesn't boast corn
That Daddy grew
When first we landed;
Not knowing neighbours were offended
With farming behind green picket fences.

      so corn, cabbage and turnip too
      were left to rot. Daddy knew to
      strike when hot.

The locals weren't too much impressed
When Daddy taught them some respect.
The human smell of decaying turnip
Turned noses down that stood straight up. The front was never farmed again.

Recently, I passed that yard,
The picket fences gone;
And someone has a garden there,
The new arrivals,
If they care,
Really see the wisdom there.
I give a nod
To my Old Man,
An immigrant
Before his time.

All true.

#immigration #immigrant #emigration #suburbanlife

Apr 2021

Carlo C Gomez

Return of the Gentle Waves

~
A break in the clouds
Of heavy burden

****** sand between
The toes, for certain

The surf, a cleansing
A light mist descending

Dark days of struggle
They ripple away

Laughter in the air
As children again play
~

#calm #peace #future #storm #light #happiness #darkness #children #laughter

Apr 2021

Francie Lynch

If It's Not Write, It's Wrong

Take your Seven Deadly Sins,
And butcher them with punctuation.

Capitalize on floods, famines and fires.

Express sickness, war and homelessness.

Parse politics.

Syllabicate and spell out for all to read
The horror of homelessness and apathy.

There.
Nothing's too real we can't fictionalize... marginalize,
Again, and again, and again.

#writing #fiction #disasters #hunger #famine #fire #homeless #war

Apr 2021

Nat Lipstadt

10,000 steps to a poem

10,000 steps to a poem

<~>
walk to save my visions, my subterfuge-self, trying to
encapsulate the moments, seconds of nano-instances of a
tableau of histories, of actions becoming interactions,
a physical mitosis, ground into one human paste of word-cells
by a singular mortar and pestle that more than blends, but condenses

walk in Whitman’s footsteps, prowl old cobbled
streets seeing them anew, listening to the patois
of each skyward pathway, a commingling of
catechisms, Tefilot, Salah, Stuti Karana, into a stampede becoming a tornado funnel of a multivariate alphabets singularity - a prayer|poem returning to birth-mother

rush homeward desperate to retain the holy mess of verbal music,
before aged eyes release the visions, into a heavenly lost but found
depot of single lefty gloves, snatches and refrains, hymnals, phrases,
10,000 preservation band steps keeping but scraps, weeping
for the so much lost, yet blessing-uttering thankful for this one,
to a one

who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to
this moment, to this season.

4/4/21
1:50pm
~writ by night, daylight born~

Passover/ Easter Sunday

#10000 #steps #poem #lipstadt

Mar 2021

Third Eye Candy

THE DAMP LIGHT

On this day, the sun is wane-weary in the mist of an offshore fog-
come ashore and gumming the works.
It’s a damp light all around
and the foundry of heaven has come to a halt
with one anvil ringing in steam
as Blue retires
from its perch
so the Grey
mayhap-
and the Dawn
drab.

but the hawk in my eye is immune.

Feb 2021

bs

Where a Poem about My Body Becomes One about being Touched

and in that deafening silence,
i’ve never wished more to be heard,
wracked with endless demurs of regret and remorse –
impure, impure, impure.

ii.
but it’s my choice, isn’t it?
to bear the knot of pearls come undone,
to feel it shift from skin to soul,
to speak of loving, and then let go.
(i see this now as a luxury i could not afford.) iii.
if i don’t rise come blooming spring,
ring the church bells for those left unheard,
wash the red from the bed sheets,
please unhinge my strife from the earth;

and know this:

a man is no longer a man,
after his unbidden pillage,
has left an innocent soul shaken;
unholy.

holy, holy, holy.

#tw #**** #assault

Feb 2021

Nylee

Go

Jet set
Let's leave
Leaving no trace behind
Like we never existed.

Let's escape to another world
It is not strange
If we stayed any longer
We'd bleed out
sweat, dreams and blood,
eventually like all others do.

#jetset #leave #go #bleed #nyee #world #strange #escape