Still Crazy

Jun 2020

Andrew Crawford

Seasons

Morning frost
lays crystal sheets,
steaming in
the early heat.

Autumn breathing
steep release,
surrendering
last leafy green;
final piece
of creaking tree
won't let go
so easily.

Achieved by
a tease of
frigid degrees,
reason's razor
sharp, now cleaves
between stability
besieged by treason
and terminal
velocity agreed,
competing speed
descending free;
earthen dirt
eagerly pleas
and receives;
turbulently earning
unpredictability,
it careens.

A final sigh,
falling relief,
I hold my breath,
freeze expectantly;
winter seized
as seasons leave
seed buried
somewhere
six feet deep
beneath dry bones
and brittle debris,
lost in all
of eden's weeds,
covered in
a snowflake sea,
icy geometry impedes.

Heart, a beat,
syllable speaks,
rhythm repeats
infrequently;
silence broken
for a moment,
it meekly greets
and peaks,
exhausting extreme
expediently;
though gravity
its greedy thief,
time denies
my soul to keep;
not dying yet
in faded defeat,
mortality has
still not ceased;
just enough
life left to lead.

Still hope to be
and blessedly believe-
a flame to flicker
in the breeze
when you need
the light to carve
through dark to see,
if only ever our meeting
but fleeting and
happening briefly.

Dark circles
and a ******
of crows' feet creased,
show me deprived
of sleep, fatigued
on the eve of
dreams, leaping;
as the sun sets
in the west weeping,
reflects again,
blinding iris
rising east,
horizon breached
again eventually;
coronary arteries
won't concede
until this vessel
bleeds empty.

EDIT: I might be expressive but I'm not a very prideful person (probably to a fault) but I'm especially happy with how this one turned out (honestly I would even say I'm really proud). I can never tell if the rhyme/structure is too distracting for people because I read over it so much myself, but I'm really happy with it just for me.

EDIT 2: Sorry, I'm gonna use a sun, promise it's not vanity, my stuff just doesn't get much visibility on here (not that I care about my monkey brain hitting the dopamine button with internet points, it's just nice to be heard, otherwise why write, right?)...

I know it sounds weird but I feel like the voice I write with comes from outside of myself, like I'm compelled to say what comes out without consciously thinking about it so much... the method I use to write is unconventional... I'll start out with a word or turn of phrase in mind knowing what I want to express or show with the poem, then I'll find all the rhymes I can using words that generally fit, then I shape them into what I want to say.

I definitely don't believe 'it's my calling' or anything supernatural/religious, but it feels like it's the closest thing to channeling/tapping into some sort of spiritual essence/communion (even though I can't logically allow myself to believe in any sort of literal divine energy, that's just the closest I can equate)... and it feels like i write for the same reason the birds sing and the grass is green 🤷‍♂️ I know to anyone else it's just poetry (and any art is subjective, who cares about poetry in 2020?! 😆), I could never delude myself into thinking it's any more than it is even on a personal level (my mother is schizoafffective based around religious delusions that developed from a personality disorder and it's genetic, ill likely always have particular barriers against it myself, unfortunately), nor is it any sort of mania... it's just certainly nice having that sort of outlet (I would even argue necessary to a degree) even if it doesn't amount to much.

#hope #growth #mentalillness #love #purpose #change

Jun 2020

Nat Lipstadt

Eden’s Weeds (Andrew Crawford)

Eden’s Weeds (Andrew Crawford)

“seed buried somewhere six feet deep beneath dry bones
and brittle debris, lost in all of eden's weeds” Andrew Crawford

<><>><>
you tripped exploring mine own eden's weeds,
more precisely, tripped me up, your poring over,
my one hundred year old poems, flawed, by
many spilled tears, aged old, for and over them,
and now, once again, je vous réponds s'il vous plait

this poem planned, title chosen, well before you
exercised my memories, disinterring by your fingers,
(surprise!} but the content you also now provided,
@ ten to midnight, your privacy invasion, a very fine
sleep deprivation excuse to compose one more time

who knows, perhaps this next one could be ”flawless”^
not likely though, flawless never found amidst the weeds
though in Eden chances are, chances are, not impossible,
for that’s the place where slow, simple songs get replayed,
celebrating lovers of life, its pleasant harmonies, go figure

over, over again, like a rolling stone, until friction finally wins,
yes ”my own chosen speed”^ is a-slowing, direction home, finally,
the mosses occluding new words and combinations, concealed,
like a moss, got no roots, birthed by shedding spores airborne,
my new old poems, plucked from air, words passing by in phrases

your phrase,
eden’s weeds,
hit my irises,
insisting it deserved,
instant cognition,
two words,
demanding special education,
accolade recognition,
perhaps if I
stick around,
for a few more poems,
I’ll learn to write
as beautiful as you.

11:50pm 6/17/20

the source:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3900296/seasons/

^ https://hellopoetry.com/poem/567944/a-flawless-poem-june-2014/

^^ https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2704404/leave-at-your-own-chosen-speed-91118/

#edens #weeds #andrew #crawford #lipstadt

Jun 2020

lmnsinner

Whitman: “Have you reckon’d?”

<>

“Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much?
Have you reckon’d the earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by Walt Whitman

                                                            §§§

A night of reckoning, calculations repeated-checked, sums divided,
did I use too many, or not enough, words to be understood, verbiage eloquent,
did daytime reveal my poetic meanings, or double-occlude it’s essence?

I have reckon’d Manhattan Isle, circumnavigated its riverbed boundaries, a younger me, by kayak rounded it, from the Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the Battery, 14,500 acres give or take, a lifeatime to complete a dead reckoning, an unfinished full configuring.

but haven’t reckon’d that Earth and I will be entwined/entombed in each other’s arms, until such time, one of us or both, will be reduced to cosmic dust, our pride, our poems, will be equally unimportant and irrelevant, I reckon.

in retrospective rear view perspective, come to understand that we spend every moment of our lives, reckoning, determine the odds of which fork we will take, laugh out loud, for each moment, a poem  is titled, the resultant, a poem - who needs a muse, you’ve got choices!

So, yes, Walt, the questing  answers you’ve requested:
Aye, yes, yup, but no to pride, for pride and poetry in one sentence is
a death sentence at multiple levels, pride, poetry, ego, suicide,...sins,
so better no proud for it is the entree, the invitation to fall-fail...
                                                         §§§§§

12:03AM  Frieday
May 15th
my deadline missed,
but what is three minutes,
but empty pride...
Manhattan Island

#lfp #leftfootpoet #have #you #reckond #whitmancollection #ww

Jun 2020

lmnsinner

she just shakes her head

she just shakes her head

she meets me on the street-corner, me from work, she from dance,
in the grayling dusk of a thank god it’s a freedom Friday night,
I greet her with words semi-adventurous -

“come with me, few errands to run, keep me in good company”

to the candy store we go for to purchase my weekend eve
lottery tickets and blow-pop lollipops, just in case some
kids appear, a surprise omen as they come
trick-or-treating just before Thanksgiving

the Bangladeshi candyman calls out a long prayer
in his native Bangla

she asks “what’s that he’s saying?”

“Oh, just wishing us a pleasant Sabbath and
may his gods smile upon our good lottery fortune”

she just shakes her head, from side to side

emerging from the store, walking home in the
now doubly ***** darkly dusk,
a set of white teeth from a passing shadow-man says to me
“you’re home late and have a great weekend,”

she asks, “who is that?”

“why,” I reply, “that is our very own personal postal carrier’

she says:
“he delivers mail to ten thousand people all in buildings tall,
yet knows your name, your face,
where you buy your lottery tickets,
your coming and going hours,
how came that to be”

but waits not for an answer
she just shakes her head, from side to side

I show her my secret entrance to our apartment house,
the fast route to collect our mail, dry cleaning in one fell swoop
a secret door, secret elevator taking us directly to our apartment

a secret elevator which is under the direction of
Bimal from Nepal,
who I greet in Nepalese, (my tutor)
I, asking after Brian and Bryce, his 100% American boys

now she says nothing, but before our door, as I go key digging,
she just shakes her head, from side to side

later she says:

“let’s order in, apprise me of your expertise,
some exotic fare from Manhattans First Avenue,
known for its aphrodisiacal powers
afterwards,
you must tell me each dishes name,
in its tongue’s nativity,
but much, much later,”

and as she speaks, grinning,
she sticks out her tongue,
while she just shakes her head,
but this time,

up
and
down

11/17/18
nyc
mostly a true story, mostly

#shakes #her #head #lmnsinner

Jun 2020

Mark Upright

My Name is Mark Upright

my father had a
sense of humor,
and high hopes
for his first born son.

almost named me
Short ‘n Sweet,
cause that is how
most like life.

thot about calling me,
*******,
cause that is what
most deserve to be told.

but he didn’t want
no blowback, so he he
stuck me with this name,
Mark Upright.

all I gotta say is this
and it’s short & sweet:

Dad, take note,

*******,

my *******,

for you, see it,

marked upright.

#markupright

Jun 2020

Joel M Frye

Whose woods these are I do not know

Once upon a rhyme I had belief
my life contained some wisdom to be shared
with those around me. So my soul was bared
to spare my readers pain, perhaps some grief,
or offer up examples good and bad.
Foot by foot the path was measured out
upon a trail of no uncertain doubt
until the sacred truth would be forbade.
On walking down this road none cared to take
the woods throw shadows, light and dark alike
upon new mornings, nights of memories.
This too, this too shall pass. On this I'll stake
what life remains, in hope in time to strike
a trail through all the vague uncertainties.

Only half as smart as I think I am, and half as dumb as I act.

Jun 2020

Nat Lipstadt

once again the fog draws me in (Why Should You Care?)

once again the fog draws me in,
speaking fog soft,
“of me, of me, you must,”
so write-birthing,
I am mustered out,
permissioned,
commissioned,
so ordered.

This fog is personal, in your face, changing by
masking/unmasking street and bay, slow burning,
this one, revealing a tableau, like a theater curtain
rising to audience applause for the set before them,
so unexpected, eye-delighting, pleasuring perspective.

why should you care? what matters this to you?

your fog likely little different, in the Cascades,
Everest, the California coastline morning burning off,
not costing anyone’s life, the Blue Ridges smoking meats,
the Quatse River saying, follow me to the Alaska glaciers,
(in the Midwest, some states, use rivers as boundaries,
so they like the fog to keep the ‘neighbors’ on the other side),
the twin Ghats, or mourning steam rising from the Ganges,
or the Zambales Mountains, guarding Manila Bay entrance,

all mine, here too, so slow retreating, gifting a quiet, wider
bay vista tween two islands, one Long, one sheltered.

so wrong, it matters so, none beyond compare!

these mountain or river comparison, white or gray,
listen friend, look closer, see my face, my words
fogging your soul’s view, full of carryover affection,
so deep, they borrow West Virginia coal miner~heroes
to dig it out, a different kind of mining,
but,
nonetheless,
mine.

so it is here, I see your multi-colored faces like
light flickers shedding clarity to these troubled times,
troubled waters, saying here we are, we are!

we here, outside your window, on waters calming,
see us dancing, but it’s so hard for me spot you in
the mists, for mine eyes are clouded, misted over too,
glasses fogged now, **** these **** tears.

8:53am
Jun 18th
Year of the Mask
You know where...

“
Eugene O'Neill

“The fog was where I wanted to be. Halfway down the path you can’t see this house. You’d never know it was here. Or any of the other places down the avenue. I couldn’t see but a few feet ahead. I didn’t meet a soul. Everything looked and sounded unreal. Nothing was what it is. That’s what I wanted—to be alone with myself in another world where truth is untrue and life can hide from itself. Out beyond the harbor, where the road runs along the beach, I even lost the feeling of being on land. The fog and the sea seemed part of each other. It was like walking on the bottom of the sea. As if I had drowned long ago. As if I was the ghost belonging to the fog, and the fog was the ghost of the sea. It felt ****** peaceful to be nothing more than a ghost within a ghost.”

― Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night

#lipstadt #island #fog #vista #should #care