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Nat Lipstadt Aug 2018
a poem I didn’t plan: but a foot upon my shoulder
gave me no choice

if perfection came along regularly
we would not take note of this August Sunday

the breeze looks steady, blowing a firm few knots
making the waves rulers of the bay
without the necessity of troublesome whitecap shoutouts,
the sailboats muttering ‘thankee’

the kids dock jumping into the water so warm
they shiver running in the chill of a warm summer day, 
 to home, where they do the coverup thing
with hoodies and their Great Aunts white haired cozy blankets
which appear in untold numbers,
one for everyone and don’t drip the cherry frozen sticks
stains from your tongue and lips!

the sun temp modulated and moderate, a summer kiss farewell,
after weekend of thunderstorms and house shakings, it is sad for now
we recount the costly lost days unretrievable and
sky watching
for  naught

the waters inviting again come walk-upon me Island Poet,
to  see my new sea bottom treasures that the heavens,
abetted by foolish men and children
have added to my storehouses of grains and pains

decline and recline for
Oh! have I not got one more weekend, to
close out that Melville tale^
and that is something one need not rush to complete

let me clarify -
!I am a Summer Man!^^
and the summers sunsetting
is a ring around my chest that sings ever louder
nearer my god than thee;
now at the age where one only counts down to zero at double time
marching, eye straight

in this place where we - god and me -
have sung and battled together
like good friend and peer,^^^
college roommate permanent enemies,
he keeps his teary rains in abeyance to remind
that the coming of his schooner is
inevitable and to pack my poems in
plastic for the journey
finale

Oh! how can perfect be so saddening but it is...

my perfection days are minimizing and should not complain
for wrote many poems to day, unable to refuse my traveling muses
who summer with me, one upon each shoulder
until god kicks them off, with a bossy look of
he’s more mine than yours

to make sure his presence acknowledged he
makes Pandora play Billie Holiday singing:
“I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day
In everything that's light and gay
I'll always think of you that way

I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you”


subtle, right?

but who am I to complain
the razor thin difference tween
blessings and curses so thin
sometimes are they not the same thing

ne sont-ils pas les mêmes?


an unplanned poem
naturally

part of the plan
kate crash Feb 2011
dessimating my free will
with my hand between my legs                                     sweaty n cold
and my the pinball
hungering for holes and big scores
in some beaten down alley
at the end of every road
my fathers crooked smile and a jand job
the ghost, the lover of yesterday
that american dream sinking in the credit hole
so dddeeeep it sunk beneath the bone
stings like the word no
blinding elephants
riding the tital wave
earth
there is no captain
only karma
holding us captive
a taste of our sewers
on the sweet ladies lips
ooo.
   look.
      ****.
Levi Kitchen Sep 2012
She's like an ecstasy trip
Rolling in silk
The cloth from her hips
Tangles around my feet
She beckons me...

Assaulting my senses
Weakened defenses
Collapse at one touch
Her fingertips brush my skin
Pull me within...

Candy red smile
unearthly light glow
To be showered in sunsetting kisses
So blessed and mystic

She's like an ocean of sin
Swirling around the prow of my ship
I'm sinking into her seas
Waves swallow me...

The blush of her skin
Blood rushing within
Only she can begin
The freedom that my soul seeks
Liberate me!

Candy red smile
Unearthly light glow
To be showered in sunsetting kisses
So blessed and mystic
Dimming sky lights
Changing all I know
We're treading so close yet so distant
So blessed and mystic
This is actually a song I wrote and I currently perform this song and many others around Texas with my band "Carry The Sun".
The cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring;
The rosebud’s blush that leaves it as it grows
Into the full-eyed fair unblushing rose;
The summer clouds that visit every wing
With fires of sunrise and of sunsetting;
The furtive flickering streams to light re-born
’Mid airs new-fledged and valorous lusts of morn,
While all the daughters of the daybreak sing:—

These ardour loves, and memory: and when flown
All joys, and through dark forest-boughs in flight
The wind swoops onward brandishing the light,
Even yet the rose-tree’s verdure left alone
Will flush all ruddy though the rose be gone;
With ditties and with dirges infinite.
david badgerow Oct 2011
there is an
old jewish hermit crab
spending his sunsetting years
in Boca.

after all these
years he still
finishes his beers,
but now he takes his coke
with cola.

he's gotten so old,
his heart's grown so sour,
that he believes himself
to be protestant;
remembers meeting ******
as a third-placing contestant
on Walt Disney's variety hour.

growing bored
with the Lord
he fancies the shuffleboard,
though he quickly grows tired
of being pushed over rough cement;
never invited to play--
he just came along whenever they went.

now he never thought
he'd make it this long,
he thought his heart
should have died from
being broken;
so he may not have
much longer in life,
but he'd like
to spend it wide open

so with polish for chrome
he shines up his dome
and makes haste to leave
his humble home.
he will sell his timeshare
--afer all, who cares?
and finally embrace
his freewheeling spirit;
--the West?
he'd never even been near it

well he didn't get very far at all
no, not even down passed the bar and all
when he was smashed by a car--
rims, tires, and all.
how lonely sits
the city says
lamentations

guess this mouse has what you americans call post traumatic
stress disorder,
think of it more like
a path for the
eyes.

one where eyes are finally forced away
from the works of hands
by the knock knock
knocking on
heaven's door,
everybody's saying,
hodi hapa? something's
wrong if no one's answering; tonight.

my neighbor whose
name is eej (for
real) came to
the hut with
his friend.

i said do you
have siblings
he said
i did

oh

said i

you are living
my worst nightmare
one thing about an african

childhood, they say fatalism, you say you
would think about death too
and who knows

what you'd
look
like

tonight by the bagel van i said bunkle
i gotta problem
what's your problem said he
well i think i'm not wearing enough colors
no said he you're missing a bright splash in the orange red family

who knows what we all look like
inside the infinite space
of our souls

wonder if
blue means purity or
green means beauty
or red means strength
or love
or love

well
we all look
pretty much
the same asleep

hatred doesn't look
different in one
eye or another

but why does
it have to
be in the
eyes of
anyone

this mouse has
been asking
since
child
hood

why
why
why.

the cruelty

but
yet
still
and
for
ever

(you always did care for me yeah
you always did share with me yeah)

you always make me laugh, still

the book of jonah makes me
think of sea legs
and just everything,
you know all
the palm trees
huts, nonvoices
of our lives

the blessings rain down
an ocean sunsetting
on an Ocean sky.

siblings

be strong the
good kind of
dangerous

is
the



fire
mapinduzi

just be
around
(this is real 
hope: in the
searing agony
of human
existence,
the fire of
your love
is burning)

psalm 107
Arcassin B Jan 2017
By Arcassin Burnham

Everything stays the way it should in days
where we belong in beauty on the television
that could make the brain upset from all the
controversies that flood the earth with wickedness
and lies to make people like me resent the world
bury me
learn from me
until the death of me
Ya see the people want to believe that we could be
as free as we want to be in this economy while no
difference has been made
the evil ones think to block out the sun so we could
have all the shade
for their amusement,
bury me
learn from me
until we are truly free.
©abpoetry2017
http://arcassin.blogspot.com/2017/01/sunsetting-amusement.html
zak  May 2015
daydream
zak May 2015
Like smoke you dance in my daydreams,
Beckoning me with **** me eyes and a lazy grin
An orange hue sunsetting your fire,
The curl of your finger saying come hither

And I wake from this like fire into water
I watch you twirl slower and slower
Into steam, you disappear like the wind
and with resignation again I'll dream
Third Mate Third Jun 2014
summer incisions on a crystalline day*
(it sorrows me to end a poem this way)

every leaf, every tree,
edged silhouetted sharp
against the pale blue cadet uniform color of a
portrait background framing sky,
this museum piece painting,
unsigned, unguarded, uninsured,
yet, surely the worlds most valuable

the sun's early morn golden glint reflection,
somehow pools in the palm of the each chlorophyll green flat goblet,
this necklace of carat gold cavatine melodies
gets me happy drunk on an aurora of
the green n' blue seasonal summer's glories,
upon the skin-stamped a caramel hallmark,
what we wait for all year long,
all the earth's colors crystalline pure,
my senses say it's as it was
on the first day of creation

this is not the first day of summer 2014,
yet, it should be so remarked,
for summer visions so perfect crystalline
are summer incisions,
allowing entry of interferon hopes of we irregular,
imperfected assorted human shapes,
the marvel of a free-for-all serenity,
nature's sweet permanent kindness to
wayfaring temporal humans

corporeal that I am, my being flooded
by all of this and a grateful satisfaction,
but my mind knows that as real as all this,
is as well, the not well, the ashen pallor inside,
the burnt tongue words that circulate
in my bloodstream, the status of my
reality, where my job, survival, is a
Monday day to one day thing, and where the luxury of being
summer incised
is a sometime thing

and it sorrows me to end this poem this way
but I come from another place this day

and the computer asks
save this poem?
and I answer,
no, save me, save my family,
even if it must rain every day for the rest of my
sunsetting life

and it sorrows me to end this poem this way
but I come from another place this day
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2016
aimless ruminations
(this is who I am, this is how I write)

<>

" I couldn't work or get ready for a piece of work
from a city base, from city life.
I need deep, deep quiet and a landscape too
that I can be absorbed into.
So much of the work is in the process of
aimless rumination
in which things may or may not take seed."

Daniel Day--Lewis

<>

just past six pm,
early but late, on a finely finished Friday,
long after-the-noon-hour,
the sun, presentable, clothed, well established,
high enough majesty in the hued blue sky

(all the orange pinks of  sunsetting soon to come but as of yet,
still guests of prior poems)

all around surround, the essential quiet,
essence of demure, parfumerie of the bath oil of
wind and wine, woman, a pacific stillness,
a soft sloping declension into the purity of just breathing

(well graced to prepare us for a slow descent into the soft richness
of a black ermine fur, a royal, star-studded night sky robe,
come to envelope, lit by jeweled sparklers of white dippers flickering)

but not yet...

O Magnum Mysterium!^
O Great Mystery!

a matin motet for a choral of four voices,
served up as an afternoon gift to us,
a present from the 16th century,
a tonal harmony of sweet majesty,
fills the sunroom atmosphere end of day musicale,
where we sip a Provence Rosé drink the music,
thoughtfully munch upon its pianist-accompanist,
slightly salted roasted cashews

punctuating the natural silence,
small bites of crackling noises,
planting the seeds of the nut tree in our bodies,
and licking the dead sea salt crumble, that moistens lips for licking-living

these then are the flavors of the moment,
quiet simple poignant pink and tawny tan of
clearly colored perfection

of earthly and earthy life tastes,
warmed salty sweet, from which all drawn to drink,
a celebration of the coordination of the sun outside,
the sun inside us,
sustaining, melding a harmony of soaring quietude

<>

ashamed, to have this spoil,
for just us two,
wondering why I,
why am I, compelled once more
to write of this Eden,
that so late in life I've come to cherish
as a rejuvenation, even satisfyingly sufficient
as just a bridging continuance between the speed bumps of...

of this time and place, I write once more,
surely not to flaunt, surely not to arouse,
somehow to share and tame
our crusted residues from a work week's enslavement,
end the drip of marking minutes, until to here, return,
where there are only tributes,
and no tribulations

but with you here, as well

how many times can
one mediocre poet write
of the same scenery,
the precise light, the my-oh-my-sky,
and not think, wish repeatedly,
as I do,
how I wish you were here,
all our dear ones,
to share the sharing

come sit beside us,
let I,
your faithful Sancho Panza,
pour your wine, remove thy scuffed shoes,
pull open the curtains, gift you the certains
of the great goodness of this garden,
give guidance to the yellow orb on how
to best warm the tarnished, slow eroding, river plain of
undernourished souls

let me bring you the readied ink utensil,
place in thine hand, the thin sliver of tree,
feed you, feel you feeling the felling blush of the grape skin,
all warm softened and proper chilled,
for receiving the new born fruits of inscribing

let all enfold, as we sit beside you,
watch with unconstrained delight,
as you too,
understand the addictive compulsion of this moment,
of this place and time that demands,
requires of you,  
not to justify existence, nay,
but to be absorbed,
but be come part and parcel, a resource,
grace this place and time by your hand,
elevate our existence

& write write write...


<>

always here, upon all this,
in this more or less, precise time and place,
doth nature beg me ruminate

permit eyes to inhale absolute aimlessly,
taste the floral glories, kiss the Roses of Sharon come to lavender bloom,
think deeply about nothing, and for anything present,
be concucopia bounty-full forever grateful

coming now to this our ending,
moved along by the gentling means of holy water sanctified tides,
the slow march of the sky's mentoring friends,
my aim, my ruminations, pointedly aimless,
my hands flowing, my eyes, purposedly never keener,
culminating in this so faintly heard,
nocturne of the absolutes of perfect...


<>

gifted to all my friends here,
poets who have happily transgressed into
kind caring friends


and also,
one gone missing,
Harlon,
who was, by his skill at praising this Earth's excellence,
was appointed by Nature as its very own poet laureate


7/29/16   6:06pm
Shelter Island
^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ch7uottHU
Frances Ayers Jun 2010
From Sorrow to Acceptance -By Frances Ayers

On sorrows'wings I journeyed to a land where I had never been.
Each loss was undiscovered country,landscapes I had never seen,mountains I had never climbed.

I had taken a journey past familiar landmarks I missed, and memories that were past.I had buried the familiar stories and neglected the happiness,which lay buried deep beneath the earth,only now and then pushing to the surface.

I drank from bitter springs and sat among the weeds,neglecting to seperate them from the flowers.
Beheld only the sunsetting but forgot the beauty in each new day.

When I had shed enough tears,I remembered the laughter echoing in the valley and heard the birds chirping a new song.

I saw the sun reflecting on the water.
and instead of weeds,I saw flowers. Where there were empty patches of dirt,I saw seedlings and the possibility of new beginnings.
Mike Adam May 2016
anyhow
that was the day I gave up everything

one thousand hotel mirrors
well travelled.

train Milan, cheek-kissed Maria.

cognac. A man. Unconsumed.

Guylove dance, marketplace Castries.
Lord Jackson, Victor
Calypso kinging.

Anyhow
that was the day I gave up dancing

Jack lighthouse, broken glass,
spilled Guinness never forgiven.
Named my son for him.

Anyhow
that was the day I gave up talking

crew cut Poughkeepsie, émigré fashion
boarding cockle boat, Dunkirking
Queen Mary.
Nero sunsetting on piddling empire
wallmap fading red to wilted pink

scouring the bottom of titanic bucket,
glorious lido summer, dear Liza,
got a hole in it(torn piece of rubber
mnemonic for a mother)

anyhow
that was the day I gave up ***

now come the restoration of the king.

London shall rise again,
borne on tide of flying,
infinite darkness,
osmosis of light.

whisper saint Paulus,
de-clocked, unthroning,
myriad swimmers swarm
canal cut channel,
(furry animals cluster, cuddle
in unlikely couplings).

quavering timbers
blowing and swaying,
queen lay dying, long live the king.

anyhow
that was the day I gave up my mind

— The End —