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Calm, the eventide is calling,
Soft, the tendency to  smile,
Knowing well that good friends linger
Knowingly, to share awhile.
Greens and golds, the leaves are falling
Carpeting my path again,
Golden light of sunset calling
Rendering our view, aflame.
Would that we, this moment harbour,
Would that I,  your smile retain,
Radiance in sunbeams falling
Intermingling love's refrain.
Fast, the moment softly dwindles
Shadows interceding light
Swiftly now the curtain falling
Bringing us unknown, and night.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
11 May 2024
Our Holy Communion of Words

you wrest my words away, with tongue and teeth,
running their sounds out with your soft tonguing,
gentling their enunciated freedom to float airborne,
but not before,
your teeth hone them sharper, wiser, better,
before freeing the letters
for life eternal rebirthing,
swapping, warping words,
into a
a holy communion

then with thy lips closing after them,
wishing them godspeed,
safe travels to yet another’s eye imbibing,
until released once more,
traveling from souls you likely
never to meet, embrace, greet,
but to whom you have formed a
direct intangible tangling,
shared wafered words,
a holy communion*

But

yours,
your words,

gut punch me,
how could you know,
where/\were
you there beside me when in darkened hours
the sun shone brightly, illuminating with bent light
our crevices and our crevasses,
your, words, written,
stun me into crazy, as if
you were within my interior
a cacophony exposed for all to hear,
my grunts & oofs,
visceral, too real, and
my actual tears cascade unfiltered
into the cup of our tangible entangling,
salted & starry*


our holiest communion yet!

~~~~~~~~
Fri Feb 9,
10:00pm~10:30pm
inspired by Audra McDonald,
this poem came in a single short breath i taken,,
and left just as quickly
single, speedy insight
  Nov 2023 Dead Rose One
Nat Lipstadt
an all purpose cleaner response to the

how-ya-doing-question,

as my vibe unmistakable;
the hatred in the world directed at
MY PEOPLE,
is inexplicable, beyond reason,
a hatred raw and pure in the
tiny places we humans hide it, lest
our ancient linkage to an unreasoned,
embarrassing emotion, be revealed

but now revealed it is reveled,
as the freedom to despise is a
valued thing

is an ancient scar, now freshly wounded
and the two thousand year old accumulated, callused,
surrounding wafer thin, layered upon layer of
tissue,
wiped away
in utter disbelief
cleansed,
a different kind of impure clean,
“like” an ethnic cleansing,
traceless, whisked away in a wink of moment,
a goner.

like hope, prior sentient optimism
sentenced to life imprisonment and
this sentence, and this very sentence!
written finally understanding that it is
a punishment
far worse than the quick relief of death.

c’mon, how about a few “fukk you jew”
cri de coeur, heartfelt, genuine, pointless
hate

no, not I, no, not me,
spare me the pithy comments,
the pointless sympathy, glistening
like evaporating water droplets
before disappearing, I ask myself,
not
why they hate, why it persists,
for this I understand and accept
the foulness of what we are capable of is,

beloved,

as a secret pleasure, now secreted in torrents.

no, I ask myself,

why do I write poetry,

for it is as pointless as
the hatred directed at me,
from birth, till death,
and ever after,
the humanity of poetry
just another fraud

another reason
why this man cries in the bathroom,^
not from any shape of shame,

because poetry is pointless
in times of hatred, and now we
know, recognize, it is always
somewhere, nearby, always
present and prescient,
pointless hatred,
itching to be pointed at me,
makes for
pointless poetry.


To whom shall I point my poetry?
  Nov 2023 Dead Rose One
brandychanning
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph
from Warning:When I am an Old Woman I shall wear purple (Profile 2021)
Dead Rose One Nov 2023
“Whatever happened to Tuesday and so slow?” ^ or
Absolute Absolution



<>

the slow Tuesday fragrance fills the nostrils,
Van Morrison in my earbuds, reminding that
“This Must Be What Paradise Is Like!

So quiet in here, so peaceful in here…”

Sea salt spray spicy sauces the atmosphere,
Many boats, some silent, noisy too, transverse the eyelids,
entertainment of the vista, decorating time’s motionless motion

So quiet in here, so peaceful in here…

the voluble hush, delightfully confuses mes sensories,
noisy cacophony orchestral avians, waves, and a human voice,
punctuate the music, absolute absolution of mes sensoriels

So quiet in here, so peaceful in here…
Indeed, it is a Tuesday, and the slow of the surround sound,
vanilla spotted with rainbow sprinkling of the noise of life,

So quiet in here, so peaceful in here…,
so full, so rich,
so vast the strands of colored variegated, perpetual motionlless
moves me to tears, steals my emotional refuse,
I too,

So quiet in here, so peaceful in here…inside of me…







~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~—————-~~~~


(1) Lyric from Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
  Sep 2023 Dead Rose One
Left Foot Poet
they hit you everywhere,
bruises, slow faders,
pretty much all over,
spaced out, body and time

some, they come back,
months, years later,
enticing, devising,
with revelations perfect,
you melt with helpfulness

some claim they are born
with only questions and an
insatiable quest for knowing,
but line in the soil tween rows
is there for you not to cross

some proffer their pain,
asking for ablution and absolution,
from demons they wish to share,
but refusing the smoke of my offering,
that could cleanse both our inhalations

like highway men of yore,
they hit everyone, below the belt,
stave breaking into the heart,
slow bleeding, with answers
received in absentia and silence

until the till needs refilling, and they
renewed, reappear, reformed, with
perfect words, even better questions:

my portfolio of replies mostly go/grow
old, noting the obvious, we are socially
distance by age and geography and
degree, I free and clear to provide while
they just free to hit and run, one more time
if you think this poem is about you, then it probably is…
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