Bring 'em on home

A long time ago,
A fellow New York Jew,
Happened to be a poet too,
Like someone else I knew,
Wrote some lines
The people of France
Thought were pretty grand.

So they built a statute to,
Her words, realized in copper,
And placed those words on its base,
Where it rests today in the harbor.

Everybody, especially a lady of
A goodly number of years,
Needs an occasional makeover.

A colossal mistake of unbridled arrogance.
Natty, you sure?

For sure, my words to greet, to welcome meet,
A special class of people,
Who come not by sea, but electronically,
Who need a statute of their own!

Give me them again and again,
The sad eyed teenagers of the lowlands,
The cutters, the pill poppers, the heartbroken,
The incomplete poems,
Send them my way
So I can
Bring 'em on home.

I have no lamp just many arms
And a handful of words,
To comfort them tween the lonely hours
From midnight to dawn,
When the ancients are on duty,
On the lookout, on patrol,
For these special many.

My qualifications you ask?
I can read, I can feel, torment, he be,
My right hand man, scars to prove it too.
Do I need more to simple want, please,
Bring 'em on home.

Like scraps of unfinished poems,
I want them all,
My job to complete and send them on their journey,
Back slapped, chin chucked, safe home,
Secured, knowing, that there are many o'me,
Who desire the same.

I cannot give them absolution, or permission
To do what they feat most in their submissions,
Lend them my grays, my ancient perspective,
My heart that has no shape,
But room enough for them all.

Unafraid to cry alongside them,
Unafraid to say it is beyond belief, inconsolable,
That hurt has entered thine bloodstream,
That there is no drug to cure what drugs undone,

But I have intent, I have poetry aplenty,
To assist, write with you, new endings,
For you are but a stanza now,
And someday you will be a
New Colossus...

And I will still be
Here, in case...

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"No­t like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus
The New Colossus

"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–87), written in 1883. In 1903, the poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the lower level of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

Look at me. Who am I?
You can’t tell can you? That’s right, my mask does its job well.
Look into my eyes! Save me!
I’m fading into the background… slowly
I fought it, but now I’ve grown tired
I feel my body relax and I go numb
No More Pain?
My eyes droop
I look around at the world as it passes me by.
It’s already forgotten me.
I grow pale and slowly I disappear
My life like a mist from a waterfall
Dust in the wind
A single tear slips from my eye and runs down my fading cheek
I guess this is what I was meant for
Now I’m gone, and if I were to ask you who I was…
You wouldn’t know
Who am I you ask?
My answer is simple… I don’t know

we laid on the bed and didn't touch.
i wanted you to hold me but i was afraid you'd catch this disease i have, apathy.
insomnia and heartache are synonyms,
you told me.
everything looks different in the dark.
you think you know your heart until the blackout illuminates a new one entirely.
i told you i was afraid and you wrote a lullaby down my spine.
that's not right.
everything is different in the dark.
you didn't touch me.
i forgot you didn't touch me.
the loaded question was on your lips as i pressed mine to yours. bang.
kissing doesn't count as touching but you stopped me anyway.
it was raining cats and dogs and you told me to lighten up or it would never stop.
i choked on your tongue and you called it a laugh.
silence is an accent i wish more people had.
you didn't say anything.
you didn't touch me.

but first you were everything
and then everything
and then complication
grew like how on a fig tree
a fig
might not grow.

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but now it's come to distances and both of us must try,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time,
walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme
you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me,
it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea,

but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.

the droplets of water are singing a trail down the bricks of the houses
through the alleys of the glassy-eyed broken people with soft hearts, a pre-disposition for death
weaving a tabooed trail across the sidewalks that when gazed upon reeks of obscurity
and leaving faint lines on the creased skin of all the sinewy fatalities
the mildewed rain peaks across the rusted windowsill that sighs with familiarity
it sloshes against the children’s playground and slaps at the pavement with a sudden clarity
it empties itself into the spiked maze of the tree branch hoping the leafs will cling onto to it dearly
it mellows into a pond that breaks apart with sharp staccatos when mushy feet run down the street
and it hurls itself into the bitterly sweet lips of two frost-bitten lovers who will soon meet
it daintily steps into the burning embers of the flame, only to be flushed out in shame
it turns to the shower as a last resort, but whines in dismay when it’s slurped down the drain
it embraces the eyelashes until it’s shaken in misery and then watches wearily as it’s blinked away in positivity
it lumbers down the path of the bruised ego, a shattering of phrases that leaves the person’s mouth
and before it has the chance to drop it is scooped up and chastised until it moves no more
the tears and the rain drops wander listlessly for all of eternity
only to be hastily thrown away or brushed into cotton for fear of a restless divinity
it is never to reach a destination and only doomed to be forgotten
and so it seems dear friends, that raindrops are simply you and me