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 Nov 2024 matt r
Claire Hanratty
Daisy.
A little flower with white petals that sometimes turn pink.
An orange centre that withstands the constant extraction of those petals,
with the pang and echo of tiny voice shouting
          “He loves me; he loves me not!
Often mistaken for a ****.

Daisy.
A girl who winces with insecurity
every time the nearest dandelion clock is
plucked from the soiled earth around her.
She watches with wet, reddened eyes
as she is paralysed
and unable to stop the careless children blow away Time,
as if it were some sort of lark,
seed by seed.

Daisy.
A witness to the exposure of stalks and leaves alike;
a veteran of the unwanted embrace and, indeed,
the wanton thieving of petals and memories and silence and voice
combined.

She is swaying but explicitly not
bending to the wind.
She stands her ground and she has
blossomed.
Written in 2018 and published in an anthology the same year, this poem acted as some sort of prophecy for what I was to endure in the next 6 years or so. It’s really cathartic for me now, as I have just rediscovered it and can’t get over how much I can relate to it.
 Nov 2024 matt r
Claire Hanratty
“O, who hath done this deed?”
        
“Nobody, I myself. Farewell./Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell” ~ Othello V.ii
            
                                     *

The day my dad built my new bed, I cried for hours.
At last, a frame that will lift me up,
Not force me down.
At last, a frame that was fit for purpose.

No more hiding from the monster that lived underneath,
overhead and
in-between my sheets.

Somewhere to lie in without being lied to.

            (It’s just a bed, but it’s a safe place to rest my head.)

Somewhere to peacefully retire, not hastily retreat.

            (It’s just a bed, but it’s without him, so it’s without sin.)

There used to be so much silence after all the violence
          “And yet, she must die.”
You could use the very knife my life rested on to
Cut the tension in the room.

But now, Sweet Desdemona!
Now your rest is due.
He took your every breath away but
His chaos could not consume
Your famous last words.
He cannot reach you in your eternal sleep.

For months, I have thought you lucky, and envied your fate.
But now, at long last, I have found comfort in my own bed frame.
“Keep one eye open and your mouth ******* shut. I’m going to stab you in your sleep”
 Oct 2024 matt r
neth jones
.
you're at the front door                                    
you're in through the front door   my door 
  without knocking
face flushed with malice and ****** visions  
"uh-huh" i say
there's a cotten shopping bag                          
                    of who-fears-what   in one mitt
and you throw yourself                    
                   on my sunken couch
you unzip those mad pricy leather boots
with flames down the sides
and clutch your bag to your chest  
with meaning and taunt
        leaning toward
                  a smile  crocodiles your face
          your clock ; three forty seven
your mind ; immersed in some midnight woo
a witching verse and a fortune boastful and blue
am i to be involved in your clockwork mockery ?
(i have been your collaborator                          
              and coal mine canary in the past)
  do i even want to be invited ?
i don't know any better   i am  as always  excited
"alright, i'll bite .. what's in the bag ?" i say
 Oct 2024 matt r
Nat Lipstadt
disclaimer:
a long poem, tumbled out complete,
feel free to *** along

<!>

a poem that does not need writing,
scripted once before(1), sung this song,
nonetheless the heart purges,
then
newly urges
for fresh eyes to revise

for each second, four new babes come
into these world, estimating that one
will be infect by poesy, and there is
and yet,
no-known/cure, there be no disturbance,
no Cain mark distinguishing,
no sign from heaven,

so this enlivening disease, sometimes takes
almost a generation to bud, blossom (4) and pollinate the world with its unique nectar, uncontained, unconditionally & uncontrollable, and naturally,
incurable

by you awoken & aware of yourself
as a carrier, the strange heart rate
display of your EKG, that the doc
cannot explain, with that extra heart
beating beat (2) revealed, tell them not
to worry
it’s ok,
it’s a genetic
that makes you
tick
that’s yours
distinct,
and

there is no cure expected, no foundation advertising for dollars to lead the fight,
maybe one that does exact opposite, but no
matter, the infection becomes a condition,
with symptoms diagnoseable by the
colored gleaming lights in your
aggregating eyes

then comes the days of
frustrated declination
when every undisciplined
***** ditty wordy rejected,
crumpled and to the round
container sailing,
that’s the pain for the gain,
though all natural talent marked
by higher standards
self~imposed,
for only you can judge
when it’s good enough to satisfy
the judges observing,

the ones astride you
on each shoulder,
censoring the trite,
******* you back into the fight,
and soliciting you to go easier
on that body
for it already contains
all the nutty nutrients
that will combust
into a poem
that will be any equivalent
to an
******  of
new life breaching the
mind’s cautious customary warnings

so much more to tell,
by way of example,
who are the
predecessors that give me instant inspiration,
in the expectation of periods of
Saharan drought, (3)
the need to jot every random thoughts,
for oft
we compose in drips and dabs,
every birth owns its own timetable,
took Cohen ten years
to make Hallelujah satisfactory,
theiving so/too much of your time,
until the best distraction arrives,
announcing the following;

“if I did not truly loved her
it would be causas belli
should I fail not to
bring her an ember of
coffee”



but writing in the moment
is a stupendous momentous
so smile sweet,
tell her where to go,

where
the mug with Hawaiian scents
awaits, and let her lover
decompose what needs saying

immédiate
right now!

so by way of closure
I ask you
why
are you still reading this too **** long
soliloquy
and not
stariing into a world
of words
all your own?
<>
for
inscribed upon your every breath,
are
your words,
a trickery uniquery
to which

nothing will ever compare
<>
this one, came atumbling, stumbling
in one fall fell swooping on a Sabbath morning,
10/26/24, between
6:00am and 9:00am
>>
(1) https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2433933/0-followers/

(2) https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4767467/intrinsically-intrigued-by-my-irregular-irreverent-extra-heartbeat/

(3) Hafiz, Whitman
(4) started writing late, in my sixth decade
 Oct 2024 matt r
beth fwoah dream
you wrap the stars around my shoulder blades
place the night on my lips, listen for summer
and whisper day-moons and gothic hills,
bend like the willow dreams of old, sad songs.
your ghost is the rhythms of a sigh,
is a planet stunned by the dark-lashed sea of skies,
an enigma where the pools empty turquoise
and topaz, where we fall - how we fall.
 Oct 2024 matt r
Nat Lipstadt
seethe ~ bubble up as a result of being boiled,

<>
sunrise was 714 am in nyc
this perfect fall day,
chilled to perfection,
a white wine of a day,
so imbibe,
only later does it
heat up up and onwards
to the temp where the
walkers/joggers/runner recite
hallelujahs and hosannas while
moving at their own chosen pace,
in a state of warm southern comfort,
never a racing

lest
the poems
now seething, boiling-burning
bubbling up inside
into the atmosphere explode!

all of these
early warming~warning inspirations,
now~expressed,
realized flickers of
original ex-impressions,
cannot be contained in
an open field unsupported,
these
breech babies each,
in a pediatric ICU,
demanding an
instantaneous airy concoction
to Earth’s atmospheric
literary intoxication

they use:
up hard, a dice roll,
who lives
who wilts,
that docs cannot but
obey
the fetus’s insistence,
many instructions,
push pull breathe,
must the. be given forthwith
through to our
servile waiting
uterine fingertips,
for we human are just be
~ings,
nurturers of
verbal artifacts
that never die

in
an~always~at~the~ready,
in service to
the great conceptual,

poetic in/justice
what happens when I walk the streets
assaulted and assailed
by rapid fire poetic insights
exploring, exploding
inside
 Oct 2024 matt r
beth fwoah dream
i ask you how the water cries, how you hold
the tide, the light, the thin light glistening.
i ask you how you bury root and earth,
how you dress the wind, how you carry
clouds in your mouth, how you drift
out of morning's ghosts, sky full,
how you drift downstream taking
part of me with you. i ask and i ask.
why do you not answer me? tomorrow
stretches her wings, tomorrow with her
tremendous oceans of fire, her dark eyes
full of hope while part of me dies.
no furnace could burn like you burn,
every whisper the dark, the infinite dark,
and that little flame hovering like a bird
a paradise higher than stars.
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