Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Tree, I have come to shelter and with the rain to weep
I am soaked, barefoot with mud running through
soft the moss, cool and cold
to soothe my heart that bleeds.
Our waxing nights of love and moons
now fallow, a field that burns
****** our hollow bed
of haunting, silent screams
too soon the fiery devil
too far my lover
the spring.
~for M.C.C. ~
who sang me to sleep,
when my soul begged me for
sweet release,
just was lucky, I guess

"Mornings here with a coffee cup
Stories in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway"


<>
Been there, done that,
ritualized & compartmentalized
the essences of the routinized,
to measure the days of my life,

as small keepsakes,
charms and tokens on a bracelet,
jingle bo jangle,
when another be repeated,
the telling belling of
a ✅ of satisfying satisfaction,
<>
and I!ve been bone
marrowed & narrowed hell~married,
imprisoned until decisioned,
that no life was no life at all,
(take note! y'all y'all),
and I miss my dog's greetings,
and snoring while I'm wide awake,
always loved to drive too fast on  
back country narrow lanes,
in my suburban shrunk
small suv,
with radio blaring, no need for
trucking on the Truckee,
been there, done that..
<>
in the small ways,
in the
small places,
take my slow going days my way,
and not no need
to rent borrowed uninfluenc-ed content
cause I custom built it in,
easy like, five easy pieces,
learned to make daisy peaces,
of the bright nights melding
with life affirming hot sunlight
and there is no bad time,
with a cold blue~ribbon
in my left,
my right grasping two O'clock
on my heart and steering wheel,
driving freedom fine,
Chapin~ Carpenter
on the stereo dial,
no set time,
just anytime,
rain or shine
for me and my poems
to *** together,
like old time,
any fine rhyming time,

together we flashback
to the sweet Release
from jail in 2008
<>
and break out a new one and clap  it onto the clasp
my bracelet of charmed
keepsakes,
like memories of
my old dog, thinking
one more time,
just got lucky

6/27/25
Mary Chapin Carpenter Lyrics
"Girl And Her Dog"

Everyone asks when you're growing up
Who do you want to be
I never had an answer, couldn't figure out
Why I couldn't see
Myself as some future other
No one's partner no one's mother
No one's answer no one's lover
Nobody but me

But the older I get the more I see
That more by itself never worked for me
Keeping it simple as it can be
Walking along just him and me
Mornings here with a coffee cup
Songs in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway

A long time ago I got married once
Didn't take long to find
That the words I heard coming out of his mouth
Were not the truthful kind
I thought about moving to LA
Maybe upstate or the UK
Anywhere as long as it's far away
From what I left behind

And the older I get the more I'm sure
That more by itself never was a cure
Some days I've got nothing to show for except
Walking the dog and walking the floor
Mornings here with a coffee cup
Stories in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway

In summer neighbors leave tomatoes
In fall dust coats your tires
Spring greens up every shadow
In December we lay a fire
I figure I'm finally old enough
To know who I want to be when I grow up
A girl and her dog riding in the truck
Wave as we're going by

Now the older I get the less I need
Just a good old dog underneath the trees
Keeping it simple as it can be
Fitting together like a puzzle piece
Mornings here with a coffee cup
Whistling for him while I'm looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway
 Jun 27 lmnsinner
rick
smile
 Jun 27 lmnsinner
rick
it’s sad to say
that nowadays
a smile
is more often
used
to hide depression
rather than
express
happiness.
when you poem me,
and the sudden tumble
into a mesmerizing moment,
is a felling of a tree, that
everyone can hear, anywhere,
forest everywhere,
suddenly, I will know you,
no introduction required...
to be with you, and save my
day, my heart stolen, and to my
captor, I hereby surrender,
capitulate completely, quick quiet,
and we are three thrilled together, a triumphant triumvirate,
for each other and a unity of
1 + 1= 3

is a new counting,
a unique
formulation
a formidable forming

a mutual following,

a fellowship

nml
Weds.
June 18 3025
In the sunroom
for vicki who loves this poem for the best reason ever: just does...
<•>
read a thousand love stories,
pause, rest awhile,
read ten thousand more,
and then deny equality.

If you ask for no more than you can give,
you ask for not enough

love is imbalance not an equation,
with a single solution

love has both constants and variable factors

so you write of tribulations and tributes
so you write of lamentations and liftings

you think you are on the same page
perhaps
but do we not all read at different paces?

one of you is solid, one is dotted and dashed
one of you is straight, one is bent, forever curving

when you think you are
in balance
in the same place
in syncopation

perhaps you are for a moment
a calculus of one point on a trajectory

and you say I can only ask for what I give
and am given
and no more,
you have miscalculated

this flux
flummoxed
when the old terrain is flayed flat
but thru the windshield you see the
plateau ends, the geography unknown,

when you see unknown
when you seek the unknown
when you give from places you did not know
you had to give from
when you kiss a hand
for  twenty minutes more than than the one minute you intended
when you give more than is asked
when you ask for more than you can you think you can give
the imbalance that  is the only concert
the imbalance that is the the only constant

how do I know this?

what are my credentials?

you are not a teenage girl,
what matters of what you know, recall of these matters?

I am who I am
a diversity of man and manner;
I am past prime and in decline
but this I know
for having failed ten thousand poem times
you must ask for more than one can give

but that's not fair!

silly one, still wretched confused,
even after one hundred thousand poem times

you must ask of
yourself
more than you can give
and ask no less
demand no less

a body in emotion is not a body in rest
when the imbalance is too great or insufficient

then you write a poem
look in the mirror that cannot lie
and move
on
or
move off

  begin to ask
yourself
to whom may I give myself
more than is asked.
then you have finally asked
the correct solution to the
unsolvable equation
---
Ask for more than you can give
was added to HP on
Feb 8, 2014
 Dec 2024 lmnsinner
Nat Lipstadt
~for Lori,
they await you~
<>
be:
of two minds, a peculiarly human
distressing and wonderful
characteristic s~trait,

straightforward and regular,
as hu-man was intended,
or
be:
truly crackling delighting
twisty like a river bend,
with a flood plain,
defying nature illogically,
here today,
and new direction on-the-morrow,

the creativity of time
making its own best laid plans
that either wash over you,
or wash you away

what you may not be aware,
as I too, was overly innocent,
that the sidewalk cracks are mini-seas,
full of overheard words, true tales,
a depository of the stories,
of tithes of titles
beckoning, becoming fables,
left by millions of
endless passer-byes
and passer~overs,
a repository of human insights
held inside them cracks,
under cover of
thin brown line
of ***** grime, soil and ****
& history

for this ugly surficial,
environmentally rocky but semi~
solid environ, is perfection personified to
retain. restore all the power memories & glories
of those who tread upon them
in flip flops and snow boots,
spilling the detritus that is all of us,
thus,

a gold mine of poems for  asking,
a vein of jewels for simple taking,
no secret word, no library card, just a
few taps of the shoe’s soul, will kick up
the dust of disorderly unused words,
to be easily inhaled, or cab~hailed, and then
by gum, yous for the making


so walk with me, eyes open, nostrils wide,
ears keen, tongue open to lick up the dust,
impress them upon you skin,
do so!
so they be
not forgot,
nor slip away to a new street line,
and be lost again until someone else
comes along to use
what was rightfully yours
for a moment of seconds


bring your sheaf of blank memory sheets,
scribble madly for the volumes are supersized, stupendous, and you
will never lack,
wander for hope,
nor
wonder too long
for the whereabouts of that next poem,
for lives-it, beneath you,
awaiting and aging,
pry it out by by fingernails
if too well hid,
but trust an old fool,
thee best me-kind there be,

the grimy grinning grungy pallor
is the best camouflage extant,
the dust is gold, a miner’s delight,
speckles of glassine letters
sapphired and rubied,
all yours, when you fall to your knees,
and finally witness, finally see
wide eyed
a new flood plain
of satisfied tears pooling,
*****, hard earned,
falling, forming
from your own
flood plane
5:09am 10-22-24
~
4:21am 10-24-24
 Dec 2024 lmnsinner
Where Shelter
Fall Leaves Fall
by Emily Brontë
<>
Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.


<>
the summer visage long faded from caramel,
to a bastardized version of ugly dirt brown,
the streets empty of traffic and the silence
is a sadder shade of lesser peace, the vibrancy
given way to sharper clearer long division disagreement

my worrisome peaks when the trees
denuded, less shelter than ever.
no cover offered, we stand divided,
visible lines of demarcation,
unable to hide, from each other,
unable to hide, from our selves,
the briefer day transits quicker
into night’s decay, and the words
we utter and state,, hollow sounded,
have no echo ability, no resounding,
and we all grow silenced, partly in
shame, partly because partisan words
bring no gain, or the satisfaction of a
response that makes us say ah ha! you see!

the leaves crumble breneath tired treads
and forested footsteps long ago forgotten,
beige dust that the wind swirls, delighted
by its new power to spread its grounded
memories of human interference into
a coverlet of dust

this fallen solitude hurts me, for it is in
opposition to the joy gay screams of children
in to water running, the oohs and ahs, of freedom’s fireworks  gloried colors proclaiming we are “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”
The evening shades have descended
and a peaceful darkness is upon the land.
Clear star filled skies and a new moon on
the rise.

The frogs and crickets are in fine fiddle,
their night music in tune, romancing the
air with their hypnotic rhythmic tempo.
The garden fountain is playing along, water
sounds join the musical chorus as does the
light fresh westerly breeze rustling the leaves
of my two garden birch trees. Truly a musical
symphony to my old man ears. Another
tranquil night interlude heard and enjoyed.
Add a purring cat on my lap, I am content.
No need to travel into the busy city to attend
a concert or Symphony, find parking, fight the
crowds of people, pay $40 a ticket to sit in a
hard theater seat, with strangers I do not know
all around me, and a woman in front of me with
her hair piled high blocking my view. Drive
over an hour in and hour plus back, when I can
sit on my Porch, not even leave home and enjoy
Nature's own wonderful concert for free.
Only a fool or much younger person would
do otherwise. Having done all that in my youth,
now I don't need or have to.
 Aug 2024 lmnsinner
island poet
pick a word, let it lead you astray, then (soil)


a poem to exclaim, refracting the sun rays emerging
from the curves of your chested heart, the waggle of
ten fingers conducting your inner song, the baton first
waved swipe to earth pointing, let us commence there:

think of yourself, entirety, as soil, you the potter,
what has been planted by others, nourished by others,
along sides of your ingestions, you the grower, seeded
anew, each word, hybrid edging with existing vocabularies

the sun from without, the sun from within, the rivulets
of water, the arterial pathways, feed the treasure chest,
and you, farmer, planter, grower, picker, plucker of the
produce, serve us, baskets grown on the fruited plain of

poems’ soil consisting of the writings grown in the
unique you,
all of you,
body & soul
 May 2024 lmnsinner
Traveler
Perhaps I prefer to play the ghost
To only be seen by the ones
I love the most
To limit the stress
Of life’s bumpy roads
I won’t let bad take its toll.

(But that’s not how I use to roll)

Life’s beauty fulfills my quest
A peaceful life is my success
There is no sense in worrying
Simply stay out from under the gun
If there’s nothing chasing us
There’s no need to run.
🧳 TT
Next page