Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Oliver Sacks passed away today, August 30, 2015
He asked the best questions
and never stopped seeking ever better answers.
Perhaps now, richer, he has them,
but this world is surely a poorer place indeed.

by N. Lipstadt
~~~

"And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest."

Oliver Sacks


I hope you read the entire essay at the URL below.

~~~
humble humble,
mine own own muse~jester
self-mocking, calling me out,
giving oneself the *******,
who you?

indeed,
you, the greater fool,
utilizing, thriving on self-contemptuous thoughts,
you are no Oliver Sacks,
what are you doing
messing with his essaying?

go back to being
a standardized human,
spilling the detritus of thine mortal coil,
that employs you as a full time slave,
a scab-working seven day affair,
is that not sufficient?

you,
in your sixth
decaying-decades-day,
forsook the ancient Sabbath long ago,
keeping it for ****** rest,
cheaply tired from the liturgy of
straitjacketing of do's and dont's
of excruciating detail,
that put only distance tween
you and your
essential spiritual oils

Sacks invades directly my eye's clouded storage,
now, two brains cross-wired,
histories,
his story, my story,
all too familiar,
almost indecently similar

here I am,
nearer my god than thee,
on this Sabbath day
of my ancestors,
(a hand-me-down gift to the world's conceptual heritage sites)
working hard,
as an everyday day laborer,
looking for work on street corners,
busy busy searching my conscience,
angel wrestling,
sacked
by questions -

when is
one’s work done,
and when,
when may one,
in good conscience,
rest?


this poetry writing, is it not work too?

work,
a violation of the Sabbath commandment,^
even if it is of no great matter,
for by now,
this lifelong dialogue internal
this contradictory poetic dialectic
which has yet to justify the emotive words
final or finished,
is a seven days of the week affair,
undeserving of a day of rest

~~~

as I essay out this Sabbath working poem,
in a place of beauteous, natural calm,
it's so easy to agree with the
passing schooners,
all whispering,
via genteel southern breezes,

later, not sooner,

no need to decide, let it ride,
answers will come,
perhaps, all on their own,
perhaps, all on that day
when you're within
hailing distance,
in a flailing,
failing-voice-recognition way,
of the shores of the
Isle of Surcease

the answers will come
contemporaneously,
when you have leave to
exorcise from your calendar,
Siri's spouting, inexorable,
pop-up perpetual reminder
that today's first thing
on your
to do list is:

"live a life  of
good and worthwhile"**

for then,
you will have all the answers
for the Oliver questions
that need perpetual asking



Finis
~~~

^ "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates."
~~~

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/ol­iver-sacks-sabbath.html

~~~
Aug. 15, 2015
Shelter Island
for Ursula,
who I think of whenever
I read this
The difference between smite and smitten is only a couple of letters,
But the sentiment is worlds apart.
One harm,
The other love.
One lacks charm,
And the other is a healing balm --

What does it take to be
overflowing with warmth
for another?
That your mind doesn't make sense,
And yet it is above common sense.

Is it the same
Between bite and bitten,
The intent or effect?
Prey, it is somewhat better when it is enlarged and written --
 Jul 10 Poetoftheway
Caits
I fell in love with pink again
the creases at my eyes and
freckles on my cheeks

the way clean smells
and feels against moisturized skin

the second glass of red
and bites of cherries
mixed with gin

I fell in love with all of the curves
and the curls in my hair

I fell in love with breathing
and romanticizing each breath

after feeling like each should be my last
Every tear
is a precious treasure,
each drop carrying
a moment of pain
life hands over.
~Especially For our own poet, Immortality~

we all dream for a few seconds,
mostly when we are younger,
like, say, s e v e n t e e n, that
something, we might be~come,
known for, perhaps even believing
our names|our poems might be read,
a hundred and one years on…


periodic, episodic,doesn’t last long,
though it
does get repeated every
now and then, and  then again,
each time, the notion disappears
faster, sure, better things to dream
about, better hopes more closely
held, tangible tasting, envisioning,
deserving for intensely scheming,
using that double edged

s~word,
realistic,
and even, in the
planning, schemin’ dreamin’
always a nagging fearin’
can
they really
could come true


others fantasize,
that class of crazy dreamers,
standing at an airport gate,
hear a call out your name,
and someone will,
from behind, tap you on the
shoulder and asks, shyly


hey, you wouldn’t be that person
who writes
poetry on HP?


unlikely of course, odds against,
whoa,
even worse
than winning a lottery jackpot prize

but then again, surprise always
favors biting you on,
well, them tender places,
and a day comes,
when  a younger poet, amazes, takes the time,
makes the effort to look up your older
writs, languishing in bits of bytes on an
unknown server, aged  graying from
relentless time,
and the absence of eyes,
being read, thereby re~realized,
revitalized,
visualized, inhaling light+ air,
away wiping
the dust and webs of  suffered mortality
and, that silly notion escapes it grave,
and you writer, run into an encounter
with an old fantasy, resurrected and
you too reread that old poem, issuing
voluble ****!, not half bad, and restoring
that momentary potent potentiality of
it
surviving past the beyond date of expiry,
and then, another is read, & another,
swallowing a pill stronger
than a a Doctors’s best guess forecast
of 20 more years you’ll live,
for an actualized prophecy now
is tangent tangible,
like mouth to mouth-resuscitation
and you, unusually,
think once more about tomorrow,
exhaling the headyatmosphere
of a rainy forest,
well appreciating, laughing at the future,
for here, she has shared but penned
but twenty four original poems,

me,
thousands open and disguised, and my newly formed grin is now for her,
for now my breath and its baggage of a fantasy, may
be coming her
reality realized?


and I will surely still be an
avid cheerleader
for her, for you, a
devoted
follower-in-absentia
poetfriends
°☆  ¤  ''☆•°
°°'~,,☆ ○•,,°°
~~~/\^/\/\^^--~~

we see the same stars
knowing somehow
the light enters
our corneas
at exactly
the same
time

yet we have such
varied ideas
about the

sky

we read the same books
the same letters which
make up the magical
ideograms we call

WORDS

yet our thoughts vary
as to meanings and
how they will
impact
us

but one thing we all
have in common

we ache to be understood
that our words adequately
describe our feelings
our hearts radiate
from the page to
enter readers
pupils like
the light
from


☆ STARS ☆


SoulSurvivor aka
Write of Passage aka
Invisible inc aka
Catherine Jarvis
(C) 2/19/2016
What has come of those days,
That I longed to pass?
What have come of those days,
Now that I long wish they last’d?
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
>crumbled, rumbled, street survivors,
paper scraps that took the rage abuse rap,
dead love notes, bills red with overdues,
these pre-poems have traveled wind currents
some in from Jersey, some hailing Minnesota,
ain't never see one that crossed the Atlantic,
but reckon it is not a theoretical impossibilty

unpretty city streets, like a museum, collects 'em,
plenty of exhibition space, forlon, historically
orphaned, disbanded, whose paths all got confused,
some sweet, all beat, balled and thrown, no home,
no more, each a reveille, each humming taps, now,
all scented by strret odors, none pleasant, each was
in its prior life, the meat, the grist, the meal of what
was, coulda been, a poem that would have survived
yellowed in care, tender glanced, tucked in books,
safekept, but slipped away, victims of friction, fraction

look down, be unafraid, unravel them slow, careful,
abused, all these messengers all need a good home,
a box in a closet, a book of tenders, witnesses to what
they've seen, places they've been, hand held, tenderized
by words spiced, variegated, ink, pencil, typewritten, like
their prior human authors, all sizes, all shapes, some on
colored paper, a l l astrayed, accidental, purposed, details
and detritus, once deemed essemtial, important, necessary
and needed, even believed, but times change

you're stuck, brain ain't cooperating, tired of staring inside
your self's self, pull on a sweater, it's a chilly spring overcast air,
that don't natural warm, more naturally warn, be careful where,
you step, your next poem is laying right there, grab a few, take
more than a couple, this is like a school dance, try a few, until
you bank the right one in the till, the connection made, a kiss,
in secret stolen, and the drive, the forces, the perspiration urgency
leads to you desk, nook, granny's cranny, and the world of words
overflow like seagulls in a harbor, so many spilling, hard is the
choosing, but excited adrenaline, free basing, in your veins and
****, you gotta just write again, right now, add a ***** poem
back to its rightful place in a heart, upon eyes, tongue taste them
syllables, clap and laugh as they symmetrically form, subtle rhyming,
the sleeping seeds have sprouted, the brown brain loamy cells,
fertile and potent, energize, impregnate, and you just can't wait
to walk the streets, in search of many, many more

it's ok, you have permission to utter a whispery nearly silent
hallelujah<
April 13 2025  10;10am NYC
this cane to me sudden, slow and no intentend to  marry< no reason wht,
but the title hit me square, and sat down and spilled the beans, and left me quite
satisfied, almost a little purged
Next page