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  Mar 2017 Left Foot Poet
betterdays
the god boy, grows a pace
no longer small, squalling child

now showing a fierce independent streak
that causes pride and fear in equal amounts

it is hard to balance the need to learn
and the need to teach...to protect
we fail the balance regularly
yet are fortunate to have suffered
no great ..... or lasting consequence

his greatest attribute,
our greatest joy
his sunny side up,
the ability to always,
see the best
in everything.....
eventually

as we slow and grey,
he seems brighter,
more intense...
gathering colur into him
only to give it out...
in a argent radience
that is contagious...
in  it's beauty

of course,
he has his flaws
my child,
is far from perfect
like his father,
his floor is his wardrobe
and like his mother
he is prone to losing himself
in bookworlds, while mundane
chores await..

but he is both the worst and the best of us

and more importantly
he is himself....forging
and identity and entity
bourne of love and compassion

and honestly
as a mother godess
and as a father god

there is naught more
we could wont
or ask for...
She comes to me with
seductive expectation
in her alluring grey eyes,
Bewitchingly she crawls
onto my lap, my chest.
Our mutual desire for closeness
quickening the mood
She puts her arms around my neck,
Our eyes locked in an intimate dance.
I take her beautiful face in my hands
stroking it's soft contours, as she
closes her eyes pleasurably succumbing
to the gentleness of my touch.
She begins to softly purr.  

We both understand these brief
loving moments can never last,
owing to my damnable allergy to cats,
Thus, soon back outside she must ****.
As my shadow of a jealous dog herds
her out like she was an interloping stray lamb.
Part of my goal here was to tell a descriptive
story poem,with a beginning, a middle and
an ending in less than 100 words. Brevity being
the key.
  Mar 2017 Left Foot Poet
Nat Lipstadt
~~
for Danel Kessler^
~~~

in the early morning
of one's youth,
going to synagogue,
quite regularly,
a fabulous, honorably believing,
father's sole request,
more than a half-century ago

time eroded,
the fallacies of organizing a public meeting time
with a deity who seemed unavailable,
when most needed

instead we chatted
in the late of night of the early morning,
a time and places of my choosing,
for human fools do like  a setting regular,
comfort food for the divine spark within

rising/writing for early morning
poetry mass,
was a noted feature of the twofold meaning
of my latter years

where and whence, now and thence,
irreverent dialogue
tween the invisible one,
that would be me,

(can you see me now?)
and the visible one,
the you-know-who-
maker-of-custom-suited souls,

(can "you" see me now?)

*had become  
quite the regular artistes salon

witty repartee, elegiac conversations,
the residuals, in a rain drain trapped,
products collected by the light of  the early dawning,
apres skiing of an all deep-night long mournful body scoring,
poetic raconteur-ing

heaping spoonfuls of two-way mutual chastising,
paeans to the divinity in human-inherent,
regular debate team features of a
contested dark bedroom,
lit only by tablet light bright,
one if by land, two if by sea,
which the shining path to be taken by
itinerant signal comedic essays,
crafted aboard frigates and kayaks
voyaging on turgid, turbulent rivers,
mean city streets, 
swath cut by switchblades of greed,
exploring stories of the dying lands
of an aging man
fed by the streaming videos tubing down
the veins and arteries of an aging poseur

so in the sleep hours,
when I did not dream,
instead nail bled from my hands
words upon  a cold sweaty screen
from fevered fingertips,
diatribe prayers of hope ever after,
after every
dialysis of the arrogance of human nature,
removing, diabolical urea of our tainted beings,
replacing, with granular molecules of wishful thinking

then it stopped, for unknown reasons,
unbegotten creativity, chilling like
***** and champagne layabouts,
on the upper shelf of a mind's refrigerator,
always ready, just in case,
say
a new borne terrorist atrocity,
a seasonal wistfulness flu,
a cold virus blue through the heart,
love came and went with nary a
how-the-hell-did-that-happen,
even a new born babe joy
to the family est arrivé,
comld torch that heirloom/heritage seeded
inert patented creativity
into anime wakefulness

so here, so hear, I paid-pause,
conclude-delude, at 4:44am on
January Seventeenth of Two Thousand and Seventeen,
winessed by numerals white on a blackened background,
of a digital alarm clock with time, temperature and
the lunar phase of a madman
who twice was Christ told
would be a poet/story teller,
like his mother

a bountiful clock telling,
precision information detailing,
a tale that tells about nothing about a man,
who no longer requires
an alarm reminder to attend
his own moring reborning mass,
on a regular basis,

for his disheartened verbs,
runaway convict adjectives,
con-nouns, whimpering exclamations,
all on the loose,
nice sounding,
but of no earthly use

his lips like (the book of) Ruth's,
move in silent prayer,
only two can hear,
but the low priest observing,
disbelieves, thinking the piety of the poet
is just drunken emotion, not devotion,
kens not the broken poems
of the morning mass service no more,
but for
this one, irregular,
unacceptable exception
5:18am 1/17/17

^
I don't think I can write a storytelling poem much better than this. So happily gift to Denel, who serves the gods of poetry and our works with devotion, and who wrote this and inspired me

You must begin early
while it is cool and your head clear
discernment, a sharpened tine
probing the rocky darkness
for all things latent and destructive...

You must delve as close
to the origin as possible
or the **** you think eradicated
will bide its time, germinating
in the still secret ground

waiting for light
to penetrate the moist earth
waking the sprout
who voraciously pushes up and out
a curled blemish

in your otherwise carefully tended garden.
Left Foot Poet Mar 2017
She, my cutter,
my body, her cutting,
with tongue and finger nail,
any handy human implement,
she sculpts me to
her eye's configuring delight

she, grabs my wrist,
and my face
by her hands embraced,
unblemished once
now becomes scarred tissued,
no guise, no lies, no bearded mask,
no disguise -
all forsaken
hidden hardened skin,
speckled red/white translucent,
she kisses with adoration her
heart designed
objet d'art

no better blade than she,
with every cut,
transformed, she becomes
my devotee,
I, her escapee,
I am her, she is me,
inseparable, my every command,
she obeys


for our love cuts both ways
  Mar 2017 Left Foot Poet
betterdays
I sit amongst
people I know
people who have
the same blood
and the same
historic milestones

and yet we are so different

i feel the black sheep coat
knitting itself about me once more
high turtle neck choking me
and wool coarse, causing my soul
to itch and raise hives...

as i sit  with family
but excluded by feelings
both mine and their
I must be true
and cry mea culpa... too

when  I was younger
I ran to the end of my tether
and was held to the family tree
by mere threads  
of silken spider web loyalty

then as I aged  
I reeled myself
back to the shore
of shared mythology

only to find my time
of freedom at the
end of the line
gave me a permanent
feeling of never having
been there...

and now as they visit
the mother of us all
we sit in polite conversation
about the progeny of us
and I think that
our particular dysfunction
is more of an exclusion
of the intricate nature
of bonding and care...

we are tied loosely
this bundle of family sticks
and I fear once
the bind that ties
the love of our mother
most dear
is torn from us
even now
she is threadbare
and once that is broken

our nature of exclusion
will scatter us to the wind
.....a family tree laid bare
This is me, trying to understand the pathways my brothers and I have taken....and will take as my mother's health continues to decline..... forgive me if it is mawkish...
  Dec 2016 Left Foot Poet
Nat Lipstadt
embrace the stones
that obstacle the journey,
gather them in, together keep,
for they are the markers,
you have used,
you have been,
you have exhausted,
so long after the body ashed,
these words will trace for
those that follow the path
you marked with
these same stones
you gathered in
olden days of
simple joyous embrace
  Dec 2016 Left Foot Poet
SE Reimer
~

the mercury is falling brisk,
large flakes of snow are drifting fast,
her blanket heavy on the limb,
as ice paints frosting on the glass.
winter’s tapestry is forming,
street lamp’s light reflecting;
strands of pearl stretch out, adorning,
as fir transformed by snow,
become a white angelic host.
a fire burns brightly in the square,
hands and cheeks find warming here;
sound of bells festoons the evening,
children dance along in time;
’round a village Christmas tree,
bedecked with lights, the smell of pine,
a whistle heralding the train’s arrival,
a burst of steam floats on the breeze;
her clacking wheels grind to a halt,
and like treasure’s journey from afar,
one by one, her most precious cargo
laden down with parcels, disembark.
excited voice, in joyous welcome,
warmest hugs, wet kiss on cheek;
familiar sound of families greeting,
newborn babe grandparent meets.
here my heart on Christmas Eve,
to us though distant memory;
for snow globe wishes,
and angelic kisses,
each as magical as these,
a hopeful prayer, a song for peace,
on earth for all who still can sing
who long... who dream,
of Christmas yesteryear;
though even if a different scene,
it's ember’s spark...
it's wistful call...
this is Christmas present,
its gift love-scribed,
on ev'ry tender heart!

~

*post script.

as Christmas arrives for you and
your family, may you be present,
reflecting, not on what is missing,
but on the joys of all that is not!

Merry Christmas to each of you.
who still dream!
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