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Left Foot Poet Jul 2024
~A grimy, grimace of a grungy summer day~

Good Morning!


let the un-fun sting,
as the ardor never begins,
forecast a grimy grimace of a lousy
day ahead, at best, a clouded mess,
just to differentiate between bereaved
periods of rain, that train you in windows~
avoidance, for a grunge gloomy invades
all six senses (including the brain)
where all are concatenated),
and you can actually feel
the pallor descending
from brow to the bow
of your container,
feet swelling,

and you
in addition
to avoiding windows,
put some towels out over
all the mirrors, lest your pallor,
ah,

too late,
the grim grimace of grunted day
arrived even before the poem
was conceived, I deceived,
once more, the bore drill
drives a tubular of
despondency into
my spinal seam

Whether Weather Wither Whine Wailing
*****-Nilly  Wade  Why Why Writer

Why, Writer?
yeah, good morning…
  Jul 2024 Left Foot Poet
Poetoftheway
and the great replacement is how I speak with but my

eyes…

and there is a sacrifice of subtlety…and nuance is a sometime thing,
BUT, when I

tilt my head and stilt my neck, and she laughs at my
aggrandizement,

for emphasis,
a periodic two step is most useful when exaggerating…

and the the picture of me grimace grinning, arms akimbo waving,
and the peculiarity of my grunts, well, makes her crackle with laughter,

which is so deep appreciated I further employ my tongue to
make the point  that words are super superfluous and She
reimburses my kissing with a two grasp handed heady head
embrace-taking, which necessitates our eyes in a combine,

and there is no more to say,

for the eyes have it!
  Jul 2024 Left Foot Poet
Sally A Bayan
They reside between pages of
magazines, books or journals.
some are yellow...some, white,
jaundiced
by neglect and by time,
lined or otherwise, upon which
are written spur of the moment
thoughts, maybe some nagging
experiences that can't be forgot.
they live amongst fellow papers,
unexplored,
crumpled, dog-eared.

Sun and moon
alternate,
while the unknown
waits.

Finally,
when found again,
the desire to resurrect
rings and echoes like an
indiscreet chime;
suddenly,
a crowd of ideas confuse
the hand and pen...soon
enough, words fall into their
proper places...old scribbled
notes, rediscovered and
revivified, a new poem is born.

Some, unfortunately,
are deleted unconsciously,
or thrown away accidentally,
some are purposely hidden
amongst life's in-betweens.

sally b

© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
  June 25, 2024
Hope is a light by the window, it glows
a lit torch of doting, it never dies
Biding its time on the wings of love's throws
its a matchstick of hope when one cries

Hope is a lantern that hangs way up high
a cresset lamp at the edge of night
Rising and soaring like an eagle in the sky
it is always present and never out of sight

Hope is a feather that floats in thin air
an eider down, for the crest fallen heart
It aims to restore with gentleness and care
it cherishes and delivers, a fresh new start.
  Jun 2024 Left Foot Poet
Nat Lipstadt
Mashup

Part I (and there is a Part II & III)

I mashup me, myself, and perhaps thee too.


Excerpts from my poems about poets, poetry and the process of compositions. In chronological order, earliest to latest.
---------------------------------------------------------­------------------

With words we paint,
With syllables we embrace,
Tasked and ennobled,
We are forever fully employed,
Missionaries to all,
You too, are one as well,
Your fate can't be renounced,

when the rusted unborn poem notion is almost done,
but remains unpublished,
for no beginning, no title, can be found,

Then I recall the cornucopia days,
when poems spilled forth like
there would never be a when they wouldn't,

I revisit my old friends, couplets, twins and triplets,
seeded inside every tear, happy or sad,
sweetly and freely,

my old friends, reread,
words rearranged in new combinations,
old poems, plants bearing new fruits,
re-titled all of them, one name,
a collection entitled,
My Solace.


My eyes, my eyes, see only the
Totality of this moment.
When mastery of multi-tasking
Is the single best poem this man ever
Penned with his entirety,
Of which not word survived
For its unspoken silence was its glory.

My compact with you is to
remind us all, through
music, dance, words (poetry) and love,
This is the only compact
with the power of human law.


Color me flesh ****,
Color me blue bottled,
Red ripped asunder,
The sweetness ascribed to my love poetry,
A subtraction of the bitterness of a failed life.
Colorist of my seams, my woven words,
I am white now, my canvas completed,
Waiting for another poet to write over it,
And chaining new words to what was prior writ.

Al,  what you did not ask was this:
With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me.


You ask me how I find the time,
(To write)
But time is not the issue,
For they, are all prepared, needing only recognition,
For they, are all in readiness, needing only composition.

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
tastes his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
and becomes one who was, yet is,
because of you, in poetry.

Awful poetry, some good, you will write.
But write and write till your heart be calmed,
For even ancient kings felt the anguish  of the soul,
And we profit even today by King David's psalms.


This wizened fool has his hands full,
Mouths to feed, bread to earn and bake,
As midnight is almost nigh,
He rests prone and adds a verse to this old poem
He long ago scribbled down, grimace-smiles now,
Realizing there is little difference tween him and the
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland.

For poetry salves his wounds still, even now,
Unashamedly, he thinks, hallelujah!

The poem is the afterbirth,
A conflicts resolution, an outcome,
Battlefield debris, the residue of
An exacting vision, a sentiment surging,
And your army of words, inadequate to the task,
Fighting to capture that insight flashed,
Each word a soldier, disheveled,
Crying, let me live, let me be saved,
Let me make a poem,
Let it be inscribed upon my victorious flag.

The poem is the sweat left upon the brow,
Having exercised the five senses,
The salt of struggle and debate,
It's completion, each word,
Both a victory and a defeat.

To write but a single line,
That uplifts the heart,
Eases pain, gives delight to strangers,
And makes you laugh out loud
With shivery pleasure,
That usurps a whole day and night,
That is a poet's true measure.

Mastery of the poetic,
Measured not in quantity,
But in tears of satisfaction
When others love the taste
Of newly born stanzas
Upon their lips,
couplets born and transcribed
In the wee hours of the morn.


You can have my love, my soul,
But leave to me the labor of poetry.
Loving you with words is my domain,
The speciality of my terrain,
So no more hasta la pasta if you please,
And by the bye, I would love some
Tonight, say around eight,
At a restaurant where the moon is
The only light illuminating our faces.

Until you have bent your ear to Shakespeare's sonnets,
Till you have laughed with Ogden Nash,
Wept with Frost, visited Byron's ghost,
Read the songs of King Solomon,
And once you
Despair of being their equal,
Shed your winter coat of worry,
***** your courage to the sticking point,
Begin to write then with reckless courage,
Unfettered abandon, make a fool of yourself!

Scout the competition.
Weep, for you and I will never surpass
The giants who preceeded us, and yet,
Laugh, cause they thought the same thing as well...


All I can say is
En Garde!
I will be coming back soon enough.
because you are my best poem,
and the there will always be another stanza needed...

I am no Houdini, it's quite simple,
After 5 years, I read her like a book,
A book of my poems that she has inspired,
Entitled the Mysteries of True Love.


Each letter, a morsel in your mouth,
Each phrase, a fork full of pleasure,
Each stanza, a full fledged member in a tasting menu,
Perfect only in conjunction with the preceding flavor,
and the one that follows,  and the one that follows.

Taste each poem upon thy tongue and then pass it on,
you know how....

Each word, whether chewed thoroughly,
or lightly placed upon a bud for flavor,
needs the careful consideration of your mouth.

When I hear Shakespeare
My own voice is stilled, it's poverty exposed,
I am ashamed of every word I ever wrote.
Hush me not, for t'is true,
Yet I write on for an audience of one, on but one subject,
A subject, a life, mine,
yet, still unmastered, even after decades of trying.

My poverty exposed, unmasked
for what it is worth, or not.


Lest you think this is paean to men
Another grand male boast,
Be advised this ditty be writty
By a man who, while no longer gritty,
Just put jelly on his scrambled eggs
And ketchup on his toast!

Mmmmmmm there might be a poem
Lurking in that too...

So baby,
shut it down,
turn me on,
make me warm for real,
glide your now practiced fingertips on my grizzled cheek,
whisper a phony "ugh,"
cause I know, you will read
this iPad love poem
and cherish us for evermore.


Soul of brevity, poetically,
I'll never be, this insightful critique,
("Your poems are too long")
I've received in multiplicity, from sources internationally,
perhaps, lucky me, you've read this far?

Surely still a chance that an angel will touch my lips,
my internal parts sign a final treaty, inside an armistice,
night sweats sighs a thing fully forgot,
poetry writing can now be dispatched,
maybe that will be my Act III,
if I can stay awake for it.

Walk a Single Word.
To write a poem, a single word select,
embrace it with a fullness that lovers, family and friends
and the *** who cut you off in the middle lane
do daily provide

Grasp said word, walk it onto a yellow, blue lined, legal pad,
touch said word with the whisper of a single tear, a single curse,
like a pebble in a pond,
said word will miracle expand
hugging you with concentric circles of lines of poetry,
visionary words and stanzas that almost complete themselves
and you

The rhymes you will require, the meter you will select,
no need to struggle, hug your child and as Abraham told Isaac,
God and Google will provide

The simple trickster, a wordsmiths, even your average poet laureate,
got nothing on you that you don't already possess, to offer them
Plenty stiff competition.


Therefore,
My life is mine to take,
Should I wish to choose the
Place, date, the time
To let the poetry cease,
I will announce it mostly gladly
with a blessing of
Shehecheyanu* and a
Smiling "by your leave."

Sometimes the pen, unnecessary.
The poem, fully formed, in his mouth, born.

Silent back labor, unbeknownst the existence
Of such a thing, yet knowing now
His contractions, coming fast and furious,
Eyes many centimeters dilated,
The sac's fluid breaks upon the poet's tongue,
He pronounces in a single breath his
Immaculate Completion

When his hand to mouth, goes,
Like Moses, when he touched the burning coals,
The words are signaled, freedom!
The words announce:
We are now created, conceived and
This new oxgenated atmosphere is now our
final resting place.

This child, the poem, this exhalation,
Once freed, is lost to him,
It's been renamed, retitled,
by hundreds of newly adopted parents as
Ours.


Words needed to create another love poem for my beloved,
Nose and toes, ******* and eyes all regularly poetically,
Cherished,
Now I have knuckled under
And competed a full poetic body scan
And have paid tribute to each n'every part of you,
Even your knuckles...which I am busy kissing
While writing this poem in my distracted mind.

The next time it be for the morning meal,
I will eat it in bed,
far from their kitchen hiding places,
And celebrate my heroics with original
Frosted Flakes and milk,
And extra sugar just for spite!
The bedroom fairies, living under the pillow,
Emerge to beg in iambic pentameter,
Won't get nary a bite,
Until they they return the poems they stole
From my midnight dreams.


I am exhausted. So many gems to decorate
My body, my soul. I must stop here,
So many of you have reached out, none of you overlooked.

Overwhelmed, let us sit together now
And celebrate the silence that comes after the
Gasp, the sigh, that the words have taken from
Our selves, from within.


On and on thru the night,
Riffing, rapping, rambling, and spitting,
Ditties and darts, couplets and barbs,
Single words and elegies,
Free verse and a lot of fking curse words,
It was a moment, a time
that deserved
to be preserved,
and so this poem got writ

You may think this story apocryphal
Which is another way of saying untrue,
But I got his boarding pass and it is signed,
To this crazy poetry dude, long may you rasp,
And it is signed by Mr. P. Simon, a big fan,
And it has never since that day,
Left my grasp


Some poems never end,
Nor meant too.
Alliterative phrases, invitations,
Add a verse, a word, even a sound,
An exclamation of delight,
A stanza in its own right.

Unfinished work, forever additive, collaborative.
Modify mine, pass it on.

Read somewhere some poems never end,
Now I understand that better,
Cause there are no bandages, stitches that can close,
Cause there are no pills, switches that can shut off,
The ripping sound, the cutting noise, the raging inside
Heard blocks away, almost reaching a house where you live,
And dying in the same **** place that
Poems come from after midnight.


And even if I am stranger now,
I'll prove useful to have around,
Giving you poetry precisely couture designed by command,
So I fully expect to be hugging you happy
Soon enough.
You'll see.

No matter combo or organized, a good nights sleep
Elusive
So poetry is my default rest position,
My screen savior.

**So when I warn,
All my poems are copywrighted,
My meaning simple, words crystal,
They belong to us, but mostly to you
Who are reading these words
Mashup Part II  Is now posted.

It appears that I write a lot on this topic.   Anyway all theses are indeed snippets from poems  I wrote  and have posted here.  Started with the oldest poems May 18 and working my way thru 'em
Left Foot Poet May 2024
somewhere nearby is a closet that only ever expands,
and all sacrificial offerings of homage, therein, accepted,
I know of a t-shirt of a medium gray chesterfield, with
white lettering, in a simple font, waiting, stating that:

FOG HAPPENS

this blunt factual, a summary judgment, does not
do fog full justice, though on the islands where I live,
its directness captures the massive totality of the
power of fog as a gentler reminder by the gods of
weather, that they are in possession of tools varied,
and fog which exert no harm directly, yet is fearsome
paralyzing, and extraordinarily stealthy, sneaky and
some other word that begins with S but propriety forbids
my writing *****.

is akin to an alien invasion, covering, never hovering,
taking all as prisoner, though never a full on
kidnapping, just an unlawful imprisonment -
sure you’re “safe” in the confines of your abode,
which is actually alarming, when you look out
the windows and see nothing, awaiting for your
own disappearance too but your cells knowledge
reassurance says not today boy, but do stay inside!

fog does not burn off. myth. it moves en masse,
in its beyond~bulky
undefined confines,
as a singular one celled amoeba,
moving at its own chosen speed, somewhere else,
to hide comfortably, knowing that its power is truly
awesome.

we watch it depart with relief, though it can come for
extended vacations in your environs, its peripatetic
course is such that it likes to lazy~leave, oft dropping
off pieces that are gentle called medium cloud cover,
as a reminder/warning/mission statement of
anytime, anywhere, anyway and nothing can
impede, inhibit, interfere, interrupt, with its own
rules of engagement, and is always victorious!


I will cease here, for there much more yet
to say about fog, as I’m watching its slow
withdrawal to caves in the sky, comfortable
air conditioned and above interfering rain clouds,
and the sun rays cannot harm its delicate,
deadly elemental,
shades of pale soft skin.

But it will be back, and so will I, to chronicle its
misadventures, describing better its blunderbuss
personality, hidden complexities, but for now know
in its abbreviated simplicity, eloquent encapture,
and all encapsulating nature, ‘tis no accident that
there are many things in your life beyond your control,
but this phenomenon unique for there is no
countervailing, counterwailing,
only a
just does,
but with no justification
only obsfucation,
when we state:

FOG HAPPENS!
Tue May 21 2024
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