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Poetoftheway Oct 2018
how do you know (when a broken human can be fixed)


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2644586/how-do-you-know-when-a-human-is-too-broken/

supermarket checkout line, so lazy broken down dressed,
I’m probably arrestible for disturbing the peace,
my haired piled, and held together by a broken clip,
makeup at home in
a drawer labeled ‘why bother’
my t shirt, don’t please look too closely,
yesterday’s coffee spillage outline
only mostly gone,
and the skinny jeans that felt inappropriate
ten pounds ago,
now looking semi-completely ridiculous

is this a tv show?
wallet, a twenty and a single,
who knew a pound of ground blue mountain
cost the better part of the the twenty
in that case no need for a gallon of milk
and *** a box of chocolate frosted donuts
silently slid far far away,
evidence of a guilty plea of irresponsibility resignation

short $2.42 (cut up the credit cards)
and no convenient pit to fall into
when the teenager cashier snickers,
when a sam elliot voice says here ya are,
stammering a no, a thank you, and thinking getaway direction

truck safely, made it,
knock on the window
sam elliot soundalike is a lookalike as well
standing outside with my wallet in hand,
two heads taller than my ex-petite figurine

more stammering ******* could I look any stupider

but inside a piece of brown shopping bag torn
with ten whole digits
I’ve never seen prior to this disaster
saying call when you want to return my $2.42

turns out he got, no, he is glue and paste,
an eraser man for fine lines and sad times,
and a lasso to keep me held together,
a pocket red handkerchief hanging half out
of his back pocket, never without, calls it his tear catcher

pulled out that too tight blues-blouse
from back of my closet
that still complements my complexion,
wear it ever time that day rolls around

just dumb luck ain’t much of an answer
so I’ll rephrase, dumb luck is in the everything
cause his number was 917-242-2424
and he is a gambler in matters of the heart

bust his ***** when he says he’s a lucky man,
reply he ain’t got no luck at all
compared to me on that daft day

and every daft day thereafter
I glue his lips shut to mine, no escaping,
and paste a new $2.42
into his wallet
when he is sleeping mine,
no erasing our lines,
just redrawing them deeper and finer,
just making sure my
dumb luck is working overtime
Helen Murray Jan 2014
1:   The Greatest Insurance Policy Ever!
Lord, You are my personal insurance plan.
Don't let Yourself out of this contract.
Extricate me from all my troubles with your superb mastery.
2:   Flick your wonderfully sharp ears in my direction,
Get me out of this quagmire ASAP;
Be my total fall-back blueprint,
My absolutely secure fall-back scheme.
3:   Yes, You are my complete, rock-solid defense.
That being the case, and so that You are recognised by everyone around me, direct my footsteps and show me the way.
4:   You know about that trap they hid for me - so get me out of it fast.  In you is my surprisingly  sprung rebound.
5:   I am only too happy to fall untterly into Your hands, body, mind and spirit
Your indomitable truth has freed me over and over.
6:   I hate the deference given to fool's game icons when I can trust in You.
7:   How ecstatic I am dancing here in your compassion, for you are intimately concerned with my problems, and my very soul is safe in Your hands when I'm struggling.
8:   Never once have you let the enemy take over - It's always surprising how you extract me from their schemes.
9:   And here I am again, Lord, in big trouble.  Don't know if I've got any tears left for this poor old body and soul.
10:   All my life there is nothing but depression and misery.  I've made some stupid mistakes and now I'm paying for them.  It seems I haven't a leg to stand on.
11:  My detractors make a fool of me, and that includes my close circle of friends.  It seems they can't stand the very idea of me.  They can never stop to talk but are always busy somewhere else.
12:   I might as well be dead for all they care, as long as they don't have to think about me.  I feel completely knocked out.
13:  They don't get it Lord  They're telling lies about me.  Their bullying is just plain scary.
They get together to eliminate me out of their picture.  ****** is no problem to them.
14:  Yet I know I can bet on You, dear Lord.  My answer is You.
15:   I know that times are yours to deal with; Just get me out of their hands, and get me somewhere safe from this constant persecution.
16:  Make an example of them Lord, by exonerating me.  Let them know that You are my BLOOD BROTHER!
17:  I am dependent on You God, and I know You won't shame me.  Let them wear it themselves.  The grave will stop their boasting.!
18:  I do like the open mouths when liars have nothing to say, because the proud, contemptuous rhetoric against your people hits the dust hard.
19:  There is such magnificence about your  kindness torque which you set up for us who have finally learned to esteem You., which you spread out for the ones who have joined Your ranks, and it's right out there for the sons of men to covet!  (That's what they need to covet.)
20:  It's so fun that You protect us secretly by Your very presence, so they can't get a grip on us..  Yes, Your Truth keeps us safely secured, away from their tongue-lashings.
21:  I'm screaming out "Blessed be Yahweh" because He has demonstrated to me his kindness torque right here in a dynamic place.
22:  I thought, and indeed I said, "You don't care about my situation."  Even so, You paid attention to my pleading voice storming your ears.
23:  Oh, How can I say it any stronger?  All of you who are His children, that the Lord immunises the faithful, and boy does He repay arrogance.
24:  Get your war boots on everyone.  He is your backup cover - (BLOOD BROTHER JESUS of the NT).  Your heart beats in sync with His heart all you brothers and sisters in Jehovah, and that is your strength.
Psalms are songs.  I love to re-write them as if they had been just written in Australia.  They are certainly not accurate translations, but directly inspired, verse by verse, by David's psalms
jeffrey conyers Aug 2014
Oh, we know them.
Might be kin to them.
We aware of many.
We have seen several.
In truth plenty.

Yes, these lookalike kids.
Who hear this a lot?
Some surely gets upset.
Constantly hearing other confess they look like another sibling.

Especially, the older ones.
And a few younger ones.
Especially, when you're not twins.

Still the comments keeps on coming.
When you're a lookalike kid.
And you're not about see the saying about to end.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
The groove, the rut, and the cut
were walking down the street.

As good friends do oft,
Cousin in name and in shape,
They strode sided, but said not a word.
Still understood that three
So different, nonetheless, one design.

The cut was old yet still bled
From time to time.
The groove and the rut, always in touch,
T'issued spear-carriers, armed and
Loving, dabbed and blotted the cut clotted.
For that is what the friends are 'the for,'
For the clotting, the knitting and the closing.

The bleeding came when it came,
They jested that they could never leave him,
For tho he bled regular, there was no schedule,
No knowing the when, but the why, that they
Understood. They would not have left him anyway
Exception of course now and then, but leave
Their man, their cuz, was not to be conceived.

The rut was long, thin, you had to look down
To see his full length, for he grew bottom-down,
Every day another ring, another inch, on the soles
Notched, they dared not, count them, so many days
Rutted in the tedium of a blood count of unable,
Incapable of being broken, his enemy, arch, was his friend.
Tedium his companion, his drug dealer,
When groove and cut were at work, failing to supervise.

Rut could only sigh. Sole solitary sound, except for the
Quiet ringing only he could hear, rings forming,
Day after day, and he could not count that high,
So instead each rut was given a name,
For blessed endless the world of words that say
I am a daily existence, nothing more, nothing but less.

The groove, hero to the cut and the rut,
Had his moments.
But he had secrets he did not share with them,
But as an outside-looker-in, I was privy to the
Privy of everything.

The groove was oval, wiry, snakey shaped,
But prone when prone to twisty turns when
Objects like objectives met, in counter ed.
But when groove was grooving,
There was full blown full mo, the world observed.

Strict silence for the poems that
Shook lose from his frame,
Bad his eyes, wept he,
Lines of ones and twosies,
Fat and wide his fame,
For when the groove was
Cooing and cooling,
Life infused him and sips of tea,
Each transformed into the heat of ooh and the ahh,
When the cup was empty, he had his finished 'aha,'
Of a new parting, gift giving in his heart.
For he she see saw the angle of simple, and thus could
Groove on grooving.

The rut and the cut were happy for him,
Watch with incredible incredulity and an itty bitty
Jealousy of which they never rudely spoke.
But they would board his poetry-train sled,
Down they rode, the white snow
Of being a a lookalike groovy kid,
Even if and but, for just a few minutes.

Everyone loved groovy, and watch his every movie,
Licked the whiskey wooden snowball words from his lips,
but would not admit they kept them hid,
So they could be reread when they were at home
In the closet with flashlight, and the weeping was easy.

The three cuz went to the carnival.
Fun house with mirrors that made you look like
Who You really were.

But not them, for "the for" was different,
For when they strode sided before those mirrors,
They could plainly see that the
Groove, the rut the cut
Looked exactly alike,
Exactly alike,
All looked
Like
me.
For Rebecca, just because.
Created October 19th, 2013
Alin Jan 2016
I dated two robots yesterdays
Both were programmed to service me well
We did things
In the same
good old  
learned order
of doing things
And after sunset
we kissed
at the beach
With one -
our feet touching
With the other -
our view inviting
the rush of salty waves
Alas
Both robots could suddenly
not speak
One even bluffed
he had a virus in throat
AI intelligence?!
jaa ha ha
The other was hanging just with
With variations of
what do you feels
Tell me your fantasy s
‘Don't think
tell me whatever comes first’ s

And
I believe
And
I say
But
Mine is what he can't understand
His’ is
I think a drink on the beach
But unfortunately I don't drink
Using coconut biotica only
These days
Ahhahhaa
...
While they chatted so well!
Without any error of a word to spell!


I dated two robots yesterday
That sighed only to say
I can't believe I am holding yous
How much I missed yous
Hugging robots
Vibrating robots
Robots with small mouth and twister tongue
Ready to penetrate into mine at a slightest chance of an opening
A disguised disgust of my sincere failure
not towards the robot but myself
Hiding you still under my palate
from where the soma of your love drips
Now as if forcefully been replaced
to a taste of this preprogrammed chatalike

Have they lost their voice because of my best dress
or maybe the fantasy of the sandy bikini
which they will never see
in the dark wherein
Both hiding their face
But I see
By my loose body parts
Maybe a lookalike
But I ain't no robot

Oh my sandy bikini
Oh Chosen so carefully
To rejuvenate their fantasy
a different pattern for each-
yes. I do take care of that!
Stays now
as an Everly Brothers’ dream
In my mind only

But
My ‘okey ‘ is an ensuring
‘yes yes’ the Indian way
Of course
They did their best
Seriously
Thus
A big CHAPEAU
For the zest
That obviously still can break china hearts
I took it as a test
To get to know me better
Let me be broken through your dream
Let me cry and shake and perceive an angry cloudy color world
let my remains of china burst

I dated two robots yesterdays
while expecting for a man
Thankfully though
these are yesterdays
Today I met a true man
A gypsy
We will date sometime
Play tabla and darbuka
Drink dance and sing
And sleep
To salute the sun
early in the morning
At the beach
LOL
Helen Murray Jan 2014
1.  Powerful is the man who isn't listening to culturally correct counselling, isn't cautiously trying to please everybody, and who doesn't see outright scorn and sarcasm as a reason for backing down from the truth.
2.  But he is so excited about the teachings of God that he spends time learning them every day and night.
3.  He shall be like a  giant-sized redgum tree by a great river, blossoming and seedbearing regularly each year, never looking even a little bit dry, and every year he'll be getting more and more successful at what he does.
4.  Outside of God there are no guarantees like that.  The wind can blow anywhichway for outsiders.
5.  They'll fall over when the rubber hits the road on the Day of the Lord, and narcissism won't work among God's faithful people.
6.  The Lord can easily pick out His faithful followers, but the others won't be able to hold their heads above water in the long run.
Helen Murray Jan 2014
1:   The Lord is my wonderful mentor.  I have no fears of lack when I'm around Him.
2:   He is so peaceful to be around, so SAFE, it's like spread-eagling out on the grass, or dabbling one's feet in still water to make my ripples.
3:   He always has encouragement for me so that my soul feels well content and animated.  He teaches me the amazing values of righteousness, of  keeping my behaviour honed and clean, because He wants my intimacy!
4:   No matter what happens, or where I am emotionally, or what I'm facing - even death itself - I have nothing to be afraid of
Because you are defending my back with your powerful weaponry, and that is a great comfort to me.
5:   There is the most dazzling table of goodies that You have set up for me, and those who make fun of me have absolutely NO IDEA about it - they have no idea of what they are missing out on!
      Not only that but You pour the oil of your favour and blessings all over my head and life.
      My cup isn't half empty.  It isn't half full either.  It's absolutely running out all over the place!  It never stops.
6:   If there is one thing I am sure of, it's that true love and gentlest touch are my environment every single day that I live, and that is exactly where I will remain - right there in the Lord's House, for ever and ever.
This psalm is a favourite of mine especially verse 5.  I really love these secrets!
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016
oh right... i thought i was on a ****** nod for a minute,
what, a, blank...

she thought i looked like Jim Morrison when met,
i worked out, played squash,
a really healthy example of zoology -
is that, the logic of caged animals?
a bit like the logic of soulless animals
with a god, soulless animals without one,
and the other two 90° variations of the square?
they're inspereble (blah) / momentary
dyslexia, naturally with English - inseparable,
pairing, ah! but isn't much of modern
psychology a bit like zoology? i mean the cages,
the untested theories, stemming from
roots of Jungian and Freudian *******?
Edward Hopper sketched himself with the joke
on visual inferences from these two
molesters of fair game - Michael Myers
just walked in and smashed their heads in...
win win scenario... but psychology is very
much like zoology - keeping a caged animal,
reverse baby onomatopoeia from what the adults
equate mama with... ego... that's their childishness,
babies say *mama
adults say ego,
as if no dead Latin bureaucrat is listening
with a chisel in hand to double-fold missing
the concept of handwriting - it wasn't alive
back when it was all on papyrus, or stone,
it had a brief existence in aristocratic circles
when we wrote with quills and connected pretty well,
we soared with geese! we soared with swans!
we perched on trees like jerky crows!
god, it was beautiful, but then digital came in,
newspaper print, we felt claustrophobic connecting
letters, like jigsaw puzzles put together
some things didn't connect - unless it was a case
of a familial affair, ******, less game of hide & seek
and more a game of lookalike...
we even had perfumed paper back then...
right now you read a newspaper for too long
and you're ready to stamp your fingerprint in a police
station... and i thought money was *****,
newspapers are second-best... ***** currency of
the omni-literate populace - starving journalists
who parasitically feed of of celeb culture,
provided with excess stimulation by paparazzi
nudes... but zoology and psychology are alike,
cages in both cases, restrictions: either no god
or no soul, either some body or nobody -
trained cognitive monkey... does a fanciful trick
sometimes: yep, gets up onto a table in a nightclub
and does a cancan interpretation of the goose step
(stechschritt - all those in favour of the ministry
of simply silly get drowned in the Thames)
as if jogging on a treadmill, in one place -
the mantis in a game of chess - the mantis in a game of chess -
a game kings believed having the earliest known
satellite image from way way above - the best
way of looking at the abstraction of insects.
still, zoology is very much psychology, or vice versa,
cages and prior theories with their guillotines of
Aztec like sacrifice - i told you! those pyramids were
built for capital punishment, excess on architectural side
of what a scaffold could look like, fear inducers,
deterrents, but at least not Egyptian tombs!
and how many bars in this cage of yours can you can
with psychology: the logic of having soul, in practice
the logic of not having a soul, i.e. treatment of thinking -
the behavioural study of a man sitting in silence -
after an hour he folds a leg over the other and continues
sitting in silence - psst... it's called listening therapy...
or talk... 3 hours pass some rain falls... neither patient
or the psychiatrists is any wiser... but the latter gets paid,
the former just looks like a **** clown without makeup.
so she hooked up and wanted to start a band...
she had keyboards in mind... that was already a bad idea...
she thought i was some sort of version of Jim Morrison...
well, if i was, or if i am... i'm doing this thing solo.
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
The root cause

What makes so many
Weep and write,
What is the root cause?

Natty boy, c'mon,
This question, repeatedly,
asked and answered!
Turn the radio on!

No, scorn me not,
My answer sino-complex,
mine too.

Many of our devices
Record waves, cycles,
Of which the length, shape,
Endless are the variation.

Your expertise? Your cycles?

Read my **** poems,
A to V.
Even the equations.

I have known heart ache so real
My chest hurt for months.
The doctor had no pills for that.
Risked everything. Lost.
My own weakness seek and sought,
Self-destructing me.

I have known the soul ache that makes
Rising From The Bed,
The most agonizing decision.
A life and death incision/rescission.
A go/no go apparition questioning.

All this long after I was a man.
Two children, reso-possible?
Nope. Choices limited,
Sat in the sunroom,
Contemplating all this.

Say what you need to say.

I try every day to just grab,
Hold, get fastened to me,
The tiniest scrap.

So when I walk by the river,
One atomic iota of sun, a single rain drop,
Gives me cause to pause.

The cycle begins again.
Still unclear? Get graph paper.
Copy this overlay down.
My manic-depressive cycles lookalike,
But the amplitude variegated.
In 59 seconds, Live and Die,
A calculus point on a monthly cycle,
Which in turn, but a point,
A microscopic dot,
In a cycle longer,
A Hundred Years War.

You ok dude?
.
Where is this coming from
On the commencement of a
Three day weekend?

Fair question.

There is a button here,
Randomness incorporated,
Into some poetry sight.

Led me to a eleven year old, poet.
Now,
Know, you understand...the question, posed.

The tiniest scrap of hopeful buried here
In plain site.
These colorful, wordy points,
Scattered, on the cycles,
Usually at the highs and lows.

Maybe I did not answer it well enough.
Maybe nobody can.

Yo, need a job.
Yo, need money.
No cycle in my savings account,
Only a straight line downward sloping.

so I grab an iota of sun,
a solitary raindrop,
make a plan,
write this poem,
a cycle
inflection point.

I ask this question
Every ten seconds stil,
If you must know my truth.
Dueling banjos in my head,
never ever
have stopped playing.

This poem-answer,
Not my best.
But a cycle turning point.
Again.

Having fed the beast,
Maybe I'll get five minutes till
I write it again
In a different shape,
En pointe,
Standing up and beautiful,
I am a twirling ballerina,
who can twirl with out ceasing,
knowing the perpetual motion secret.
For but another mini-cycle

I am endless.
It is endless.
But dear god,
why must you commence with the young ones,
aged eleven?


6:40am Saturday.
I see you read this, but you don't like it.
Shocking....


See Nat Lipstadt · May 24
In The Sun Room (Suicide: Here are my truths, here are my sums)

-------------------
Nat Lipstadt · Jun 25
Evening-tide: Dementia, King Lear, Humpty Dumpty and Me
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
No,
not short poems.
honest to goodness
short shorts,
jean-like short shorts.

No,
not those kinds that
the young girls wear,
jean lookalike stretch fabric,
skin so tight it makes
their ole daddies' faces
wince the same color blue.

in the middle muddle of fall,
now you write of short shorts?

Well, I was told I could not write this
till after the summer was final gone
from the rear view mirror glass.

Once I wrote/imagined about
a woman of a certain age,
who emptied her armoire drawers,
time to transition and take things
that could no longer be,
to the thrift shop,
for others to be
thrifty in.

Except for one bathing suit,
a two piece back from the days,
when two pieces meant
you were proud
of what you had and
what you didn't have -

the same suit she was
wearing grabbing her little son,
then a man of six or seven,
(now a dad with a son,
of three or six or seven),
in the photo on the night table,
some thirty dreams ago.

Man you take a long time to make a point!
what's all this got to do with short shorts?

one summer day,
a woman I know,
an actual
fire-breathing dragon,
went thru the drawers
of her ***** blonde armoire.
there she "found" a pair of
shorts shorts, from some
thirty dreams ago.

it did not take
too much encouragement,
just a little courage
to try them on,
thirty dreams later.

now these short shorts
were the old fashioned kind,
they look liked cut off jeans
but were not, they had rolled up
cuffed bottoms to increase the illusion.

They no longer fit!
Yup.

******* short shorts were


loose


around that curvaceous waist,
known as my favorite place.,
where I rested my head once again,
after,
we celebrated.

that is my poem about short shorts
that I've been carrying round
until the curfew was lifted.

but even tho I like short shorts,
I'll never ask someone to wear them,
risking scorn and mockery,
but I know for a fact,
those short shorts did not



**get thrown out.

— The End —