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  Aug 2018 Mark Upright
Left Foot Poet
pale dead moon

them the words heard, cloud covered, make the few streaks visible
look like mocking smiles saying see we got your numbers,  
play pale and dead you’re sure to win and add an over/under
and a trifecta guaranteed

everyone is willing to take and give you thanks
with a nice tap on the head which buys them
a grimace smile of 2 seconds recognition and
further confirms the crumbling internals
and unless you walk away,
into solitude and recall from
high school language class

répète après moi "c'est la vie,” repeat after me, that’s life

no, now,
pale dead moon,
that’s life
Mark Upright Aug 2018
The World Requires Edmund Black’s Random Acts of Doughnut Kindness (1/36)

Edmund!


a friend mutual on HP
sent me your poem below
asking me to respond appropriately,
close the tale, he said,
and that I would understand,
thinking by being marked,
I had some expertise in the matter

perhaps you are unaware that the world
exists only because there are at least thirty six^
righteous men on the earth and
personally believe,
there are more

who they are, a well kept secret,
but secrets tend to leak so...

only one,
Mr. Edmund,
employs a dozen doughnuts
(chocolate frosted)
to follow through
on the most important
commandment human
love thy neighbor
with a dozen holies

I’m told that like certain loaves of bread,
a dozen doughnuts
now have along with
wine and water
a place in the repertoire of the selector of the
thirty six

which needs noting,
a dozen
is 1/3 of thirty six

sometimes the answers are in the wholes of the holiest!


<•>
Edmund black
Jul 15

My Perfect Morning

The climate in the
World may change
But it will never
Change me
not for a moment
I truly have the most
amazing  life ,
Couldn’t be any better
I get up every morning
Next to  this gorgeous
amazing woman
Get my morning kiss
Maybe a few morning kisses
in my open mouth
If you get my drift
Cause you know I’m in love
Sit back in the back patio porch
Listening to Mother Nature’s  
Performance
while reading hellopoetry
Few minutes later
I told my lady  I had to
Go run  some errands
Not realizing yet
What’s up ahead,
Arrived and
While in line at Chrispy kreme’s
A little boy about 5 years of age
Loosing his mind over some
Chocolate frosted
Mother and father told him
They couldn’t afford it
They were only there for coffee
Little boy started
crying hysterically
My Heart Cries out for him
And chivalrously I’ve waited
in line right behind them
Just couldn’t allow
That to take place
I told dad if it was okay
I would love to buy the boy
a dozen chocolate frosted
He accepted and gave
me a hand shake
Mom teared up and dad
wouldn’t Stop thinking me
I hate seeing good
People like this
But anyway,
What an awesome moment
A moment of love sharing
And here’s the most
Amazing part of
my early morning outside
Of my morning kisses
I got the longest hug
From the little man
A handshake
From dad
And a kiss on the cheek
From mom
What can be any better
Than the life I live
I do what I want
And it’s mostly
Helping other people
That’s all that matters.
Having meanings in
Other people’s lives
Fulfills me ,
And what more
Can I say ,
My perfect
          Morning

I live life
For the inexplicable
Moment
Life is love and love
     Always gives
                    ALWAYS
^Mystical Hasidic Judaism as well as other segments of Judaism believe that there exist 36 righteous people whose role in life is to justify the purpose of humankind in the eyes of God. Jewish tradition holds that their identities are unknown to each other and that, if one of them comes to a realization of their true purpose, they would never admit it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadikim_Nistarim
  Aug 2018 Mark Upright
Stephen E Yocum
The older we grow
the faster life goes,
priorities change
quality of living
and loving takes
precedent, over
self-indulgence
and material things.
Nothing as important
as family and friends.

It is racing now,
these fleeting days
and years, reflected
most in my grandsons
growing too soon from
children to young men.

Along with Steller parents
our little farm provides
a learning ground for the
kids, teaching life lessons
that inspire character and
self discipline, with Cows
and pigs to show at fairs,
pride earned with accomplishments
and Blue Ribbons to share.

So lucky am I having a ringside
seat, watching yet another family
generation ascend and grow,
Football and basket ball
games to attend, Christmas
morns of excited children
clamoring down the stairs,  
many birthday celebrations
with ever more candles aglow.
Memories all, retained and shared.

Perhaps the best part is,
these grandsons of mine,
still are up for hugs and
good night kisses, genuine
affection received and given.

Families are a true blessing
and a privilege, the only
real reason we are here.

All these things, remain the
sweet frosting on my aging
Grandfather's cake of life.
I sometimes wonder where
I would be without all these,  
my reasons for being?
  Aug 2018 Mark Upright
lmnsinner
he gulps me into peaces
__

led to his bed.
eyes kissed and asked to
come and go to where I
dream and imagine
but do not think.  

he gulps me into pieces.  
oh my god
oh my god
oh my god.  

and when he sees I am at last
in peaceful,  
speaks.  

god could but desires not to answer
all who call out to him.

thus the human was invented:

an imperfect messenger

a version of his image

that answers you in

pieces of peace

as best as any

human can
Mark Upright Aug 2018
|“lead into gold, good into dear, mortal into immortal”
(where poems come from)”
|


you charged me
with crimes three times three,
sorcery and witchcraft and doing god’s work

plead guilty three times three
not that I was successful,
but a complex, candied marvelous failure

not in my possession, the sorcerers spell,
my dross and wordy dregs all sit sidelined,
perchance perhaps,
if you search with a leaden patience inhuman,
you might just find a minuscule golden vein there’d unmined

turning good into dear, an “anyone can do it” miracle,
when you whisper with just one kiss those forever words,
don’t be afraid, say it low and slow, I love you,
and
“I only want to be with you”
and dare it to be become dear

mortal into immortal, an order tall, for one knows his
hiding places for all too human pockmarked weak,
but having been charged and found in guilt,
no one proffered evidence but they wanted a unambiguous
unanimous verdict and proof is such an old fashioned truth notion

happy accept your accusations and since confession is
the best soul medicine, with glee, here and now reveal
how immortality is achievable


breathe poems  constantly instantly throughout
the orifices in the skin cells and
pore’d orifices you were god given;
it is how we immortals communicate
with what cannot be seen,
yet drunken heard when spoke aloud

taste the poems in and on tongues you can’t comprehend,
the sounds fly skyward after infiltrating your eyes,
then you can see your own immortality anointed rising

all nonsense you plead,
indeed,
only immortals truly cherish and envy the
human ability to create
nonsense, the place
where poems come from

*******
Mark Upright May 2018
"Stop your navel gazing, get out your notebook, there’s a world exploding out there"

Tom Wolfe
”good night, good travels, pitch black”

depending on how one counts,
cause size matters,
do have I
one small blessing


though little do I get, more-less,
in each twenty four measuring cup,
when the sleep gas has come-for-inhaling,
lidded heavy with greatful/tearful anticipation,
it’s less than sixty seconds till
dispatched to where all poems
plead like unborn angels for
good parentage

the spoken good night ritual signaled and completed
with a perfect half turn skating axel onto ones side,
preceded by, a single solid smacking of
an innocent but flaccid, equally tired pillow,
then lost in pitch black galaxy travels
with other sleep-drunk little princes

instead of the wavering, singular word,
a traditional goodnight,
a parting and a haling simultaneous mumbling issuing,
undebated and a wish shot to all within dream-shot, a title,

“good travels”

to places where ferment the aging words under
the winemakers watchful caring eyes opening,
names or titles, same difference, for the newborn babes
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