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 Oct 2015 Joel Frye
Mike Essig
odd, how an
ordinary evening
can turn
miraculous
when you've had
a bit too much
to drink
and your woman
is very beautiful
poised against
the unexpected snow
that makes
everything shine

   ~mce
 Oct 2015 Joel Frye
Mike Essig
when i wear
a suit
i look like
exactly
the kind
of old man
who would
wear a suit,
the kind
of old man
i almost
was
but never
became.

   ~mce
We need not count on fate
on the battlefield
where windows reflect our dreams
when we find ourselves crawling
as we laugh.  
It is merely an invasion
from which I will not flee
no matter how hot
I find the essence
stained by my other half.  

Life’s best moments
will not make you famous
so don’t be anxious
or make empty promises
to a world
which remains the same.
Stay weightless
within your spirit
and keep the salted seas
from turning you bitter,
left behind….
in shame.
Copyright @2015 - Neva Varga - Changefulstorm - 09/28/15
 Oct 2015 Joel Frye
Helen
I've spent a lifetime
suggesting solutions to others
to ensure their happiness
even though my suggested solutions
mean more heartache for me.
Just once,
I'd like someone to repay
back my kindness
so I don't have to live constantly
with the repercussions
of another's found happiness
*because it's rarely
happy for me
I'm coming from afar
I tell the woman
the last time I came
I could walk straight to the river
now monsoon mud has made a mess
can only glimpse the river's face
is there still a way on dry feet?

She raises her eyes
no way she says
it's all shrub and slush
but you can have a look at my garden
pomelo and papaya,
gourd and green banana,

I haggle over price
wouldn't settle for less than a bargain

she smiles all the way
succumbs with ease
for the take a bag too she gives.

As I leave her on the falling day
I feel no loss
not finding the river's way.
 Oct 2015 Joel Frye
Sjr1000
I live my life
in the shadows,
the disconnected hours,
observing all I see.

I've learned to hide,
bide my time,
while time keeps passing all around me,
this set in
not today or yesterday,
but somewhere else along the way.

Eventually
that which protects us
defeats us in the end,
I become the naked dreamer
quaking
in the quad,
it all begins to strangle me.

Nature,
Open skies
open air,
this room
this mind
a suffocating refrain,
one wonders how it became this way.

I live my life in the shadows,
the invisible man for all to see,
take off my clothes,
shed my ego,
there is nothing left of me,
but this sacred breath,
these words that make no sense,
I'm the one that you don't see,
but I see you all around me.

I'm singing the Poet's lament,
the whispering voice,
you hear it in the shadows,
the figure passing by
out of the corner of your eye,
the one you can't quite grasp.

I live my life from the shadows,
the light is on the other side,
One of these days,
the dawn will call my name.
 Oct 2015 Joel Frye
Nat Lipstadt
hard poetry
is the best,
for the work of you,
it does request,
works your hardest best,
needing you to lilt each chosen letter
with a slow cooked, thoughtful tenderness

the writer wrote but a single draft,
but lifetime in the making,
it took,
as each word was,
both chewed and vine tasted,
over and over,
avoiding the arrogance of hasty egotism

hard poetry when read
reveals the authored heart
between each word space,
marks of the beats of a thundering mountain,
that upon it's peak,
lives and dies a temple's altar for sacrifice,
from where the odor of burnt,
parse rises and colors each verse
to heaven ascending,
not once,
but thrice
and long long after it is consumed,
its scented smoke returns,
wafted from nostrils as a hit
upon the brain

hard  to write,
hard to read,
more than concentration requisite,
an open mind that mines the text,
laboriously hard,
as was such intended

cheap are the easy-quick rhymes,
that fall like flakes,
an endless sky
that rains upon us like a
plague of "made in" knockoff fakes

looks good, goes down easy,
but gone tasteless like sugared icing on a stale cake,
but
hard poetry lingers for days
or forever,
and it asks you back,
without ever asking

write hard,
read the hard,
for these poems are the real shards
of human hands that sweated while love making,
serving you their best works from deepest within,
torn out and then smooth potter-sculpted

hard poetry
hard to find,
veins in the deep earth
that you, they do not find,
you must drill core shafts to
ascertain their existence

packaged not in gift wrapped clothing,
that is torn off fast,
over the cheap plastic gift it covers,
that the promise of forever disappoints
and does not garner any interest
as fast as the day after Christmas arrives

hard poetry,
rewarded to the seekers
who read it with self same love and care,
the poet employed,
to wrench it from his soul,
it's elimination,
the pains of a labored. childbirth

do not depreciate what you appreciate
by giving up your honor easy,
love only the one you are with,
the you will keep
ever

like what you love,
like but the ones
you must addictively return to,
wait for them with patience eager,
lament but do not tarry over the
discarded chaff,
while you wait for the
hard poetry's loving grasp

roses are violet,
violets are rose,
don't care if you live in states red or blue,
but you drown discouraged
from such nursery poems
proposed and tendered
with a " look at me" gloss
ad nauseum

effort to find the hard ones,
the ones you wish to emulate,
the ones that will justify you
as they grow you up into
being better than your dreams
-~~~
Oct 11, 2015
4:23 am
really sick and very tired of.cheap writes that are pedestal  hailed
by those who revel in simplicity,
hide behind  easy rhymes and
nonsensical metaphors
that sound so good
and taste so bad,
even if they last for but seconds on our tongues

cheap writing cheapens the writer and discourages the.reader.
~~~
poems are work; it takes work to like them or dislike them. Put the work in, demonstrate the care, and we will be more than friends, becoming caring~poets~in~arms.

a flawless poem
if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy spent, easy get

if only, how I wish
could harvest my best,
with golden cutlery knife excise
the single flawless poem,
that I know in my possess

then only,
to lay down this hand so weary
from cupping tears,
satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that as my casket lowered,
my hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best, easing the rest,
a paper record placed in his primary
to join his ash,,
keep his faith companioned,
his flawless poem,
at long last
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