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Sjr1000 May 2016
Sometimes
I feel the innocence of all of us
Filling me

Our lives
Our deaths

The moments of love
The moments of terror
indescribable
far too real

Nature has enough in store
How do we treat each other so cruel?

Within this humanity
is everything I feel
All of us really
children without protection

Maybe it's sentimental
morose
maudlin

People work so hard
Try so hard

Put out
Put on
Endure
Put up with

It's all we know how to do

Sometimes I stop
when the colors are vivid
the birds cease their call
a pause in the breeze
and I can hear the innocence
of all human beings
whispering
to
me.
Another hippie dream.
Sjr1000 May 2016
We started a conversation
Many years ago
It never really ended
There was always
More to go.

It's in our conversation
It's in the eyes we both behold
Whole world's inside
Our conversation
They just continue to unfold.

Some may call it love
Some may call it
Talk talk talk
We started a conversation
And until it's ended
I have no where else to go.

Landscapes
may change
Friends and names
may come and go
Children
Ourselves
We all grow old.

Conversation
Our connection
Started many years ago
It never really ended
There is always
more to go.

The  mountains
have called us
The ocean too
It's on these walks
I talk with you

One more conversation
And maybe we'll be through
But first I know
I will be listening to you

We started a conversation
Many years ago
It never really ended
There is still always more to go.
Sjr1000 May 2016
In
the peace
we seek
True love
shall be revealed.
  May 2016 Sjr1000
Lora Lee
Heartbeats fast
whispers and plans
a mother's heart conflicted
as she wrings her hands
through the courage,
streaming tears
        she will let him go
despite her fears
Outside, canines barking harsh
men's cruel shouts
she must say her goodbyes
as the shots ring out
So many kisses
on his sweet, sleepy face
         little man deep in slumber,
in angelic grace
yes, he cried for a minute
as the morphine kicked in
and she rocked him and rocked him
his little frame, so thin
Now as his father takes him
she crumples to the wall
"By the will of God may I see
him again" she whispers
for he is her all
Outside the freeze
puffs breath into clouds
the quiet imperative for
             this next move:
Father gently slips son
into the rough-hewn jute,
No rotten potatoes today, no
this is far more important
No one will look for a tot
in a potato sack, he hopes
He looks around and slips
through the hole in the wire
These moments are critical
the need for speed is dire
A quick trip to the village
           in the black cloak of night
looking over shoulder
Finally the house…it's just there,
the next meadow over
the secret knock is sounded
and the door opened in silence
warm arms greeting, helping
carry the goods inside
Will this be a respite
from all the endless violence?
            Laid gingerly on the bed,
the sack is eased off gently
no potatoes inside
just a small sleeping boy
his parents only pride
Father strokes his hair,
Lays his palms on his head
to bless this bundle of sweetness
in his new environment
"I will come for you, my son"
tucks thin blanket around
and the deed is done
and now, in the cold lonely
smoldering air
of the burning dark
now in the kiss of hopeful protection
yes, now it's time to part

Back to his wife in the ghetto's
cold, sickened  space
to try to convince her
to bust out of that twisted place
You are my warrior, you
and all the others
Your spirit beats on
in my
     naked heart's
            thunder
For my grandfather, badass survivor partisan
who saved my father (and also survived)during the Holocaust by smuggling him out of the ghetto to farmers in a sack of potatoes
My grandmother never made it
Tonight is Holocaust Remembrance Day eve in my part of the world
Sjr1000 May 2016
One thing
on my mind
Our midnight
kiss
Perfect bliss.
  May 2016 Sjr1000
Nat Lipstadt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Infinity's Mirror by Nat Lipstadt

Two mirrors, set in opposition observe created notional blending,
a reflecting pool of bonding's of unglued, contrary compositions.
Mirror to mirror, his imagery, fuses to Sylvia's images, hers,
faintly recollected, now living face, face to face, with his past insurrections, alters his future visions.

From cold water lake she's drawn, impaled by refracting regrets,
retrieved, drawing her words upon him, an awakening slap to drink,
beloved, tragic magic, infinitely captive.  But this old man's tiddlywinks, land-locked words, blunted instruments, needy for release & salvation, are neither silvered or exacting, just stains on a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon, except for the brunt'd bunting of lines across his roughened terrain'd face, black and white, pen and ink etched illustration of howling agitation.

His words worn down, hardened, red faced, purloined speckled pellets, damp to roll on down her rutted, almost ancient, tear streak paths, disbelieved superstitions, sacrificed for one of her living morsels of words.

Man, here to her, pledges allegiance, audaciously defiling her poetic sanctity, a visage endless repeated, delivers her shiny poem-poised countenance, even though no forgiveness from time can a mirror afford for either, from her words,  confession born, terrible truths beyond, beyond the finite.

                                                
~~~~~~~­~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
with gratitude for the inspiration from, to:

"Words are his instrument, poised to deliver, sometimes
infinity's mirror,
sometimes a word or two for you,
reality is on its way...going to come through and fit for you."
SJR1000

for Patty M, who swore me to never, and only, give up to you, my best.

for Sia, who loves her Sylvia so.

Born on April 24~25, 2016

and of course, for Sylvia
Sjr1000 Apr 2016
She's texting me from
old L.A.
Heading north on the El Camino Real
driving fast on 101

I'm heading west
from Paradise, Nevada
No work here
It's all shut down

Driving through
Susanville
Hat Creek
Shingletown
Redding
Across the burning Trinity Alps
the river sure is beautiful
My heart is soaring,
just missed that landslide
late last night

Meeting my life in Humboldt County

She, from the South
Me, from the East
We cross that
Redwood Curtain
Right into the heart of the Emerald Triangle

Meeting my true love in Humboldt County

They say the streets
are lined with
green gold

The family "grows,"
up in the hills
where everyone is welcome
to trim scene solutions,
the emerald gardens
with trees six feet high
Glistening buds as big as your fist,
Everyone is smiling
Everyone is high
sure I may reek
of that Marijuana resin
but two hundred dollars a day
flirting all the way
all I can eat
all I can ****
sounds a lot like heaven to me.

I'll be getting that 215
growing plants
as far as the eye can see
Another millennium
with back problems, insomnia and anxiety.
My fortune is just waiting for me.

Meeting my sweet love in Humboldt County

Like an old Woody Guthrie tune
you ain't gonna find nothing
without that dough re me

There ain't no doubt
that ****, so pure
will get you so high
you'll be wishing your still alive
No matter how high you get
There will still be reality.

Gotta get out of this indoor grow
Black mold growing up the walls
The floors are buckling
The ceiling too
The electrical is sparking
Another landlord on the hook
What's a boy to do?

The methamphetamine
The ****** machine
Trying not to blow my face off
with a butane tank
making that concentrated cannabis

Cold and wet
sleeping bag soaked on the beach,
A tent in the Devil's Playground
the  homeless encampment
behind the Bayshore Mall
that's what I met
and don't leave your ****,
It'll be gone in a quick minute.

The gardens are beautiful
good chance I'll never see 'em
The man with the ball cap
The big *** truck
holding a shot gun
"Better move on, son,
No trespassing here. "

I'm just
another dread locked kid
on the Arcata Plaza
with a dog I can't take care of

Down in Eureka
on concrete Broadway
Fourth Street
Fifth Street
Old Town
Where the fights break out
The cops they have no patience
Another Drunk in Public
drunk tank
Back on those same streets
at one a.m.

Get too crazy
5150 for an overnight stay,
second floor in County Mental Health,
walls closing in,
Psychiatrist says
"We ain't got nothing for ya,
good luck out there. "

Meeting my sweet love in Humboldt County

Once here
there is no way out
Panhandlers
Hitchhikers
on every corner
No one's giving out
No one's picking up

I'm gonna need my family
to send that Moneygram
Get me on a Greyhound Bus
haven't heard a word from them yet.

Even the police say
No one's gonna accept me,
So they ain't gonna pay.

I've been
Trying to leave a message
for my sweet love,
haven't seen her for a month,
She headed up to Trinidad
with a would be spiritual monk

The Redwoods spiral to the skies
The ranchers own the green
pastured hills
The beaches are vast and empty
The ocean is wilderness wild
waiting for the tsunami
turn your back on the ocean
you may fall in
many have fallen
few survive
on the most exquisite
blue sky day
you've ever seen.

Meeting my true love in Humboldt County.
Inspired by Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City.
For r who told me to write this a couple of years ago. I should add that Humboldt County is considered the Marijuana capital of the U.S., lures many young kids thinking their going to find riches and nirvana.
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