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Sam Jennings:
What’s coming must be new — must be strange and fitful, awkward and passionate. A lover rediscovering the world, confused by its tactless kisses, yet charmed, endlessly but
its dents and imperfections, its sadness and its religion,
the dimples where its ancient smile

~~~~~~~
Oh, how I unabashedly covet his words,
Oh, how I wish all lovers here,
the would be lovers,
the never~me-woulda~coulda~crying when & why,
dinged and damaged by
first or failed prior attempts,
the oft heard discouraging words,
or worse the chilled silence of ghosting

The new romanticism,
colored by technology, damaged by the quiet disappearance of
dropouts hiding behind untrue names,
hid behind blackened screens,
and loss of shame & embarrassment at and of
the sadness that pervades the religion of these days of
lesser actual romantic love

Embrace the dents and the imperfections,
avoid those who present measuring cups of their attractives listed in priority order qualifications,
indeed
realize that it is within the dimples and smiles,
most genuine.
lies the yellow brick road
to the red rubies,
adorning the crown we seek,
of good love, true love,
with all of its accompanying
imperfections
unhid inside the dings, dents,
even inside the dimples and smiles.
and your own starry scars,
for who among can free admit,
it's imperfections that are
the most inviting
to only love poets
Any typoes?
a draper is someone who creates garments or patterns by draping fabric directly onto a dress form (Wikipedia)
~~~~
I am a draper,
by trade, by nature, by instinct;
a fling of one arm across her body,
while she dreams and sleeps, rambles, mumbles,
and even convulses,
to hold her tight with two, with both,
soon grows discomforting as the blood ceases to flow,
the heat breeds unsweetened sweat,
and the snuggling impact,
is too fast subsumed by the pins and needles
numbing, deadening,
and ironical attenuation

this is my pattern,
how I address her,
how I dress her,
draping my contiguous,
drawing five fingers
upon her form,
reshaping her in her sleep,
the arm flung, there, and then
there,
to be hung,
at varied places across her body,
higher lower, above below,
but her face,
free and clear,
so not to interfere
with her sensory preceptors

and as I draw my pattern upon her skin,
her body whole,
listening her to indeterminate utterances,
to determine
which
pitter patter pattern
to which.
she feels best suited,

then,
I prepare my
invoice
for her,
for services rendered,
to present upon awakening,
demanding
in voice,
by her voice,
payment in words,
of her own chosen
amuse-bouche,

mmmm, will it be?

good morning my love?
hello you!
or just an indiscriminate
but yet,
a discriminating
sound of
having been pleasured
by unknown forces
in her deeper sleep, using her lips
to say, to hum, to sing,
a genteel unspecific
but, and yet, a
terrific,
deep from within
guttural remittance,
the sound of a delicious,

mmmmmming
greeting
a new equinoxal gale
of a refreshing fresh
birthing, fulsome
already satisfying
draping of the
day
As a child, the backyard was
my sanctuary and my
playground.
I climbed the soft
pine tree and crawled to
the top of the garage.
I stood and gazed at all the
houses and streets.
I felt rich.

My mom had a brown
jewelry box shaped like
a treasure chest.
It reminded me of
pirates and adventure.
I filled it with
football cards
gum
candy bars
family pictures, and a few
coins.

I found a small shovel
and buried it in the
backyard close to the
pine tree.
I pretended to forget
where it was.
A week or so later, I
suggested to my best friend,
Wally, that we should
search my yard for buried treasure.

Of course, we found it.
I acted surprised.
We celebrated.
All these years later,
I realize that my treasure,
then and now, is imagination.
I'm a wealthy man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Noa4ztEUFDA
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I do poetry readings from my latest books, Seedy Town Blues, It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse, and Sleep Always Calls.  They are available on Amazon.
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                  “I Pray You, Remember the Porter”

                                               -Macbeth II.ii.20-21

When I was a young husband and father
I served: on the parish council, taught CCD
Chaperoned bake sales, CYO, and youth trips
Eucharistic minister, lector, and greeter
(No one else could hand out a leaflet with such grace, such  
        elegance, such panache!)

But with age, and one by one, I let them go
This morning I asked to be recused at last
From thirty years on the lector duty list
“God’s benison go with you…”

As lector
I lost confidence in sorting out the new ways of doing things
Of being where I’m supposed to be
And moving when I’m supposed to do so
And moving where I’m supposed to do so
Carrying the lectionary without dropping it
Mounting the Altar steps without tripping
Standing in one place for more than a few minutes
Seeing the words clearly (why is the print so small?)
Wreathing the werbs without thripping over my thongue

But I’m still a greeter – I can open the door
‘Tis my appointed skill level, but ‘tis one
As Macduff did not say
No leaflets, though; that stuff’s now on the InterGossip

I smile and open the door, admire babies, help with coats
Show visitors the way to the euphemism
Tell the kids how tall they’ve grown
(You’re a senior!? Why, I remember when…)

And it’s okay.

I am blessed with honor, love, and troops of friends
(as Macbeth could not say)

Honor, love, and troops of friends

All good.

Deo gratias
In MACBETH the comical, drunk, and wholly incompetent is asking for a tip when he says, "remember the porter." For me, a memory will be better.
"Now I look for her always
I'm lost in this calling
I'm tied to the threads of some prayer
Saying, When will she summon me
When will she come to me
What must I do to prepare
When she bends to my longing
Like a willow, like a fountain
She stands in the luminous air
And the night comes on
And it's very calm
I lie in her arms she says, When I'm gone
I'll be yours, yours for a  song
"

Lyric from "Night Comes On"
by Leonard Cohen

<.
the morning comes on,
the blackbirds mark my Coming
with vociferous, unmelodic caw~cawing,
whisper a quick one line prayer
to whom, if anybody, who guardians
my soul & body combo
for one day more restoration

yes, you guessed, sitting before
the water's and landed tableau,
painter's tablet on lap,
wrapped my fav big ugly brown bathrobe,
coffee in my right, left pointer finger doing all the work,
of rat~tat~tap,
shedding my *****'s contents

yes, again, wish you were here, too
especially those who are long past their expiration date,
who I failed in ways inexcusable,
but don't linger for the heart reminders me,
probability states, I-won't have to wait too much shorter,
my due date unspecified, but we all knownow it ain't in the
far distant future
~
all this buys a way of introduction,
please consider yourself fully induction,
get you a pillow, and we both admire the movie
soundtrack of the goodly good of a stiff breeze welcoming us,
the bird empire gone quiet mostly, but the dutiful osprey parent,
wanders, floating, eyes by practice sharpened, for their are babes in
the nest that possess needs that must be attended to, for that is their
calling,

mine?

if it be your will to let me spill,
a moment the same, yet so wonderfully
different, sharing this day in all its specificity
have learned from its predecessors of thousand millions what
combinatory natural excesses it is duty bound to present us with,
for this I suspect, be my calling, waking to be an official greeter of
the miracle we so casually call good morning,
to be burdened in this manner, writing mad hatter style
of all the varied and variegated sensational sensoria overload,
I accept,
the anxious urgency of burning~some need
to capture every detail, without fail, to satisfy our
mutuality of wondrous awe that we have all arrived
in the same place, identical when's and where's here,
but no answer have I as to the Why, nary a clue, but here
I end, this poem dies, its calling  fulfilled,
and I am lesser for it, poorer too,
am disgorged, expunged,
having given, forgiven,
but low on excuses,
all I can, is that my
calling to, calling from, has
both been answered and filled,
leaving me satisfiably
pleasured, satiated

and called,
yours for a poem
.>


silver beach
Sun Aug 24
writing songs sans artifice,
that grow better different,
different better,
the lyrics of a man growing older,
insides out, featuring his slips, all showing,
eyes squinting from hard lifestyle experience,
taking on wearied shades of beige yellowing,
a tanned blackness, time edits them, so now,
they sound the same but holier,
from the hazing of hazards
one builds for and by himself,
drilling & extracting the spit-shine of
all that all is fine,
but liquor & cat's paw black shoe polish
just can't quite cover 'em up (2),
the stabbing itch each of the every time
one quests and questions
his ego,
always another test…

why would I ever want that?

his fingers create tinkling at rapido pace,
tinkling an arrhythmia of rhymes
previously perviously (1) unseen,
self exploration, that we all realize
is an unforgiving, never ending,
source of melodic crying out loud;
and when the sensual, arrayed pleasures,
begin to bore
holes of no important consequence,
the querys~to~self get even harder
to explicate what they intimate,
who they implicate,
which parts of you,
failed to answer satisfactorily…

why would I want want that
forever?
(1)
Perviousness refers to the ability of a material to allow fluids to pass through. Pervious surfaces include porous pavement and asphalt. Unlike regular pavement, which is impermeable and creates water runoff, pervious pavement allows rainwater to filter through the surface and into the ground
(2)
https://www.google.com/search?q=cat%27s+paw+shoe+black+polish&sca_esv=ec9e5a722f530583&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS1169US1169&hl=en-US&sxsrf=AE3TifNnqbBcvvGAf8A75ME-01M_C2ofQg:1754156528053&udm=2&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgt_Cl1uyOAxU3k4kEHbPEKU4Q7Al6BAgSEAM&biw=1366&bih=969&dpr=2
lush.

one of those words,
whose sounds conjures
but does not onomatopoeia
like chirp or oink.

the irony is rich for me,
in the sunroom, with others,
no one speaking
and it is a harmonious sound,
the quietude,
indoors, outdoors,
is a good thick, rich and plush,
invisible & unbearable, but
like soft, spreadable butter,

…the quietude is the
hush and hug of lush…
<>
"And then one day you came back home
You were a creature all in rapture
You had the key to your soul
And you did open that day you came back to the garden

The olden summer breeze was blowin' on your face
The light of God was shinin' on your countenance divine
And you were a violet colour as you
Sat beside your father and your mother in the garden

The summer breeze was blowin' on your face
Within your violet you treasure your summery words
And as the shiver from my neck down to my spine
Ignited me in daylight and nature in the garden"

In the Garden,
song by by Van Morrison
<>
This touches me deep in the chest cavity,
the palpitations of its internalizing echoing cavitations,
a warning, go slow, choose your words wise and
accrue, the mood,
for the ache of creating, hurts, fevers me

for I am but steps away from the garden,
and its violet hues infused with fresh sunrising golden hazes,
with kindly warmth, with warming kindnesses,
touches,
caresses my shoulders, begs me to stop crying,
overcome, for I am overcome, eyes dropping wetting droplets,
for find myself at the intersection,
interlocking crossroads
where perfect perfection
begins and must
meet its natural endings

thoughts of capture, retentions, preservations,
all impossibilities, challenges,
see me, begging itinerant
muses
in the neighborhood
to guide my hand, teach me newsome words,
mine feel so old, so unworthy of this moment,
hearing me solicit their
Treasure of Summery
Words
but they won't,
excusing themselves,
that this in particular human has exercised, exorcised,
all the tools in his ever diminishing capacity,
time insufficient to learn a new calculus of
addition

and bid me calm my heaving chest,
seize my tears, just add them to the brackish salted waters steps
awaiting away

live in this moment
live within this poem,
revisit it frequent,
weep no more,
your stilling heart weakened,
take fast what is given now,
and be contented,
your treasury chest is full,
overflowing with this summary of
summery



but I am not, cannot…

7:48:am
jul 22
Grace at the table
<>e
Grace is at the table
sitting quietly
observing, contemplating, collating
She
is shapely & invisible,
inviting, inspiring, intriguing,
absorbing her fill of each of us,
asking no questions, for we tell all,
and all tell,
for her visage is comely, pleasingly, despite
her transparency

Wistful Smile
Single Tear,
Grace
Is At
The Table

come partake,
of
Grace
for she
will follow you
everywhere
take her home,
ask her to stay,
invite her to stay,
you will be pleased, by pleasing her,
indeed,
She will spread her
embracing wings, sheltering, protecting,
for when Grace is at the table,
She is everywhere,
Inside Out
Outside In.
and there is no

The End
july 2025
~for Rob Rutledge!~
<>
too oft we do not invest
Sensation
in the under-appreciated,
in the singular,
oneword
all that is needed,  all that is required to
freely steal the breath away, and
you stand up and shake your
head, nay,
your entirety,
smiling at the fulsome perfection of

simplicity
(The oneword?)
Beautiful

Sunday
July 20th
6:36 am
In the sunroom
<>
Simplicity
Yup my name is truly nathaniel
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