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Drab Oct 14
Praise the loser.
Mock the winner.

Wait a few years.
Do the opposite.

Repeat nothing.
Except your mistakes.

Or accept your mistakes.
And do them again.
NOTE - redundant
Poetoftheway Aug 13
there are thousands who know me,
the now me ~
too well…
an idea-phrase that stankles (rankles and stings),
for though my goal is a gaol to hideaway within,
betray myself too oft with my fingerprints upon the
cheeks of all I hold dear…

in that summer breeze you feel
tickling the hairs upon the back of thy neck like a
surprised,
unsirpassed
sunrise,
exactly like a lover who loves reminding you that love is the unexpected kiss upon said neck that weakens
you with pleasuring, and that,
a steady stream of surprises,
is the greatest loving,
treat of all…like that
morning miracle mystery
of a fresh baked
still bakery warm,
croissant
that tickles the taste buds
upon the tongue that tickles the
hairs on the back of your neck..

every croissant kissing butter fragrance,
the aroma of every day for
me knowing,
you moaning
and the fragrance
we together
create
Malia May 6
i wish i was a
better daughter
for you.
i wish i knew
what it would do
to you.
i wish i wasn’t
so afraid
and i wish i never
stayed
in that orphanage
where i barely left
my crib like a
cage.

i wish i grew up
before today
because now it is
much
too late.
Keah Jones Jun 2023
She is now all elbows and bird limbs
Eating her ever smaller
Hearing her cry in the night ****** nails on a chalk board
I want to hold her help her
Be the rescue swimmer in her ocean of tears
Holding for I am soft
Her daughter no fine specimen
A coward
A softy
Not once did she hold me
In seventh grade when I had my first kiss and he broke up with me for the girl with blonde hair and bangs
She said I was just too young
In eighth grade I fell in lust with a high school boy for the first time and ended it when I got bored but not before I gave him what i thought symbolized love.
I didn't tell her
In 9th grade I fell in love with a boy that would never be able to love me the way I wanted him to. But I stayed  for four years until I couldn't find any more of myself to break off and give to him.
She told me I would get over it.
I have a mother who the world made cold
And she had a daughter that felt too much
who she taught feeling was a waste of time
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2023
(and I cannot live
from with-out)

<>
a poem in appreciation to Rossella Di Paolo

<>

I, too:
          - am an embryonic work in progress,
well into my seventh decade, with no ending in sight


                                I too,    
live in the house of poetry, the address likely differs,
but suspect the innards of the houses differs little,
the decor,  quite similar

         - my house shrewdly requests a rethinking,
                                    noting, it lives my artifice,

with in & with out

Then, we are a We:
                                  
          - my cavities house her, She, Poetry is of Ruth (1) born,

          - Poetry, She, reminds me, ”whither thou goest, I will go”


This duality:
          - where the haunting of words providential,
             emanate, both inhabiting & inhibits my breathing
              She, a fearsome creature, a fearful-something,
for it tears me and shreds tears its demands be wrung
from with in to with out

She, Poetry:
          - leaves me gaping, hollow, fills me with
            depressurizing boreholes exposed to the elements  of
            externalities of an admixed atmospheres, that nature demands             be refilled, fresh in, stale out,
for which the artifice trick is knowing which is which

when Poetry’s  birthing:
          - chest pounds, heart-rate beats heavy metal,
            abdomen contracts, there then, no languid in my language,
            no help untangling the alpha-bet jumbling,
            product of the screams of pushing,
squeezing it forth

you’re hoping to quick-catch newly formed combinations,
for if you fail, a poem
noisily crashes to and through the floorboard cracks,
where poetry’s chaotic glinting etes
maliciously glimmer~winks at me
with a sarcastic thank you

“ah, too bad, another creation stillborn,
gone to rest, biting the nether dust,
without hope of resuscitation…”*

just another unfinished work in progress

periodically
a survivor clean caught, transcribed, edited to be finished,
amniotic fluids cleared,
poem resurrected
blessed with eternal life,
readied to be shared and delivered,
affirmed

and you say to no one and to everyone:

this poem will be our poem,
wither it goes, ascending, descending,
all live in the house of poets,
one house,
many apartments,
each poem a god,
and
my God will be our God,
your God, my God,
in the House of Poetry
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4717212/leave-if-you-can-ii-by-rossella-di-paolo/

(1) And Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

——
Leave if You Can II


I live in the house of poetry.
I ascend her stairs slowly
and leap back down.
I sit in the chair of poetry,
sleep in her bed, eat from her plate.
Poetry has windows
through which mornings and afternoons
fall, and how well she suspends a teardrop
how well she blows until I tumble / With this
I mean to say that
one basket brings
both wounds and bandages.  
I love poetry so much that sometimes I think
I don’t love her / She looks at me,
inclines her head and keeps knitting
poetry.
As always, I’ll be the bigger person.
But how to say it / How to tell her
I want to leave / honestly I want to
fry my asparagus…
I see her coming near
with her bottle of oil
and crazed skillet.
I see her,
her little bundle of asparagus
slipping out her sleeve.
Ah her freshness / her chaotic glint
and the way she approaches with relentless meter.  
I surrender / I surrender always because I live
in the house of poetry / because I ascend
the stairs of poetry
and also because
I come back down.

    — Translated by Lisa Allen Ortiz & Sara Daniele Rivera
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2022
Few people know how to take a walk. The qualities are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good silence,
and nothing too much.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

<>

A late-in-life walker, the words above resonate in my mind,
with a check, check, check, check and a voluble ding, reading

and nothing too much”

many a poem mine labored, birthed arrhythmically walking,
eyes see verses, verses fill the mouth, mind desperate as
the feet unceasingly trod round new corners, new visions,
Emerson’s words remind my well worn weary path daily renewed, a vocabulary child re-newborn, and how to keep all this forever,
until tomorrow, and nothing is everything all too much carried over

and nothing too much”

speaks to an openness in every orifice, be prepared scout-boy,
to adapt to nothing too much as hours earlier now recalled are ancient history, mind staggers at the minuscule differences tween yesterday and this exact moment in this exact place that has been reimagined, deserving of recording, notating, and my desperation struggle to
semi-successfully delineate, report, on all these
mini-magnificent miracles countenanced, overwhelms…

the brain furnaces/furnishes a thousand thoughts, a million worries,
slew of infinity-sized emotions like love of children, so it’s confusing to window-peeking  strangers watching for the walking man with tears pockmarking his cheeks, unaware that his each stride is a story, a unique grace forward and too, backwards, history mine, reviewed, graded, and the comfortable shoes, the old sagging clothes well worn and beloved, fit like gloves, whispering in the good silence,
a lamb sacrifice to the

good silence,
“human, your foibles and deeds, admixture of
blood inherited, a morality crafted by ancestors,
so the next step is
alway$

and nothing too much”* and everything…

Sat Dec10 2023
Shell Beach, Central Park, in my mind, and nothing is perfect
There's freedom to-
and freedom from,
Freedom to run from anyone.
Free from the darkness; a schorching sun till
Freedom's light warms everyone.

Freedom from judgment, how endlessly unfair-
Free from the consciousness,
Blissfully unaware.
Freedom from judgment's unblinking glare & Free,
without expectation's care.

Free to do
And freely undone
Free to run from
My Dear Poet Aug 2021
One night
before I went to bed
while dusting my books
One by one
counting the ones
I had read
I came across
a book from you
I had it all along
I wish I knew

Chapters I never gleamed
Pages I’d never seen
About places
I’d never been
Experiences I never had
Things I never heard
and to add to that
a bookmark
with your name
and a blue bird

And out slipped
a photo of me
As I flipped
the cover to see
The title
And there was you
You fell out
from the book too

Two photos torn
separated by scorn
placed in pages of a book
Between the worn covers
were torn lovers
and It never dawned
for me to ever look
All stories end but some end
without the help of fate.
We need to open our eyes
and read the signs before it’s too late.
Rob-bigfoot Aug 2021
Statuesque, cocooned in a living-goat of many colours,
Fastened by multi-hued cloven hooves,
‘Approach without fear, do not listen to rumours’
‘I am learned in lore and wisdom, a parting gift from the Elves’

I nervously approach, what shall I call you?
‘Name? so many, but call me Mother Earth’
‘I am the embodiment of all that is pure and true’
‘The virtue of flora and faunae from their living-birth’

You knew Elves! I am full of envy and wonder!
‘Yes, for many years, hundreds by your measure’
I once thought I caught a glimpse, made me shudder!
‘Do not try too hard! their spell is dangerous treasure’

Surely not! they are renowned for their kindness,
‘No! the danger lies in your malign-heart’
All I want is a quick peek, I have faith in their goodness,
‘Very well, come back tomorrow, go it is getting dark’

Sunrise beckons, into the woods I eagerly creep,
‘Do your parents know you are here?’
No! they have eyes only for my baby brother! makes me weep!
‘Step into the light, and see what will appear’

Imagine my surprise, before me my sobbing parents,
‘They are distraught, thinking you have been spirited away’
But, I haven’t! I only desire a few moments,
‘Even a brief visit will condemn you to be forever lost and astray’

‘What you see is their perpetual abjection’
‘Your jealousy is corrosive and spells mortal danger’
‘There is a hard choice, Elves and no way back, or their salvation’
‘You forget the intense glow of their love around your manger’

© Rob perspiring-poet
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