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Third Mate Third Nov 2014
is this craft
that chose you,
not defined by millimeters,
precision absolute,
curvatures, so eye pleasing
they demonstrate
no tolerance
for tolerance
of the
ordinary

the skill of words,
too, cut so fine,
find the
extraordinary within,
refine, refine, refine,
shave away the trite,
the reused, discard,
instant recognition,
unusable

cut new cuts,
thy spirit tolling,
thy soul trolling
anew
is thy
toolings earth sourced
from and of the
ever better,
ever closer,
always newer

make thy own designs,
faithfully execute
the new born original,
by elevating,
with the tools
in you, provide us,
by illuminating

no thing machined,
can ever be as fine
as the originality
that requires
soft spoken definition
in new ways,
heart and hand
guild crafted

when God designed the Connecticut
autumnal leaves,
overriding the summers's single green, good
but not miraculous, insufficient,
when contrasted with the
shades of red, yellow,
purple, black, orange, pink,
magenta, blue and brown
of newly fallen
words and worlds

in the season of change

write me a tool
so elegant, so complex,
so refined and yet so simple,
that its point will force no choice,
but engrave gasps of pleasure upon
my faltering eyes,
my slowing heart,
my exhausted limbs,
and make me
live again
through your
finest creativity

heat heat heat
burn to look beyond
For Joe
Let
long lusted to write a work
of which
on the top of the screwtop
poem wine bottle
was writ
"Let"

I know, no denying,
better artistes
have done it,
so you counsel

let it be,

but can't,
no letting
go of what has
emboldened me,
taken hold of me,
the infinite possibilities of
Let

within me,
endless storage,
a room for you to
let

me keep safe keep quiet
whatever you need,
that stuff you don't want
but can't yet disown,
the ashamed,
the not ready to be released,
the best work not ready quite,
a fine tuning required,
even secrets most intimate

let
me be your safe keeper,
until you need a safecracker
to let what you need to
let
go,
go free when
the letting is good

let
let be your verb,
your object,
don't matter to me

let
us escape,
to a better place

let
us through,
pass onto level next

let
me,
rent me, use me, I am
property tangible

let
me contract you, let me a poem,
give me the work I've commissioned
and let it please

let
us know the truth, the truth of you

let!
me see you truly!
let!
us go together!
let!
us try it,
let us be an us!

let

all the lets in our blood boil,

let
us make a list and
let
it become the goodly best

and yes,

let
it be,
the end-let possibilities!
What?

well don't be shocked,
it's genetic coded,
drilling for dimples

my parents did it
to me,
down the food chain,
for a millennium,
Baby Boomers, Millennials,
Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z
it will be done forever,
auto-naturally

place the pointer finger
gently upon each cheek,
commence so soft
digging, twisting for
the oil of human smiles,
the reward, astonishing!

a shocking discovery
made this morn!

you can do it too
"going up the stairs,"
to Grandmas, Nana's,
if you catch them,
and with extra care spent,
soft so soft when
they are
just waking up,
when their inner kid
is sleepy showing


drill a dimple,
drill, baby, drill,
if your baby/is
six or sixty,
at any age,
kissing an
unexpected smile,
most worthwhile!
Lord:

no bequest requested.
no grant, no teach,
no need or greed asked
just a hey listen up,
if your attention is elsewhere

this is an
all-on-my-own
prayer that
my eyes only utter,
my tongue,
self-silenced,
can only watch
and must approve

in fact,
this is more
of a post
than a prayer,
updating you
on the state
of what we Earth temporaries
call the heart, mind, soul
and even our,
your-designed
crafted carrier,
my body

Mine enemies call me
cursed, embittered,
they are right - but fools,
they are
so much more than wrong,
for in this they err grievous,
for they cannot see their own
bile provisioning their end

ask for no interference
from the sidelines
neither from the
sapphire mother sky
that raised me up gloriously
this morning

nor the emerald earth
that this day
both gives and gets
common bounty
gives me sustenance,
as much spiritual
as grained cereal delights

lest you think this
just one more
me-centric rants,
let us recall this prayer,
is his very own,
prayer of gratitude

woman's head
rests on my chest,
her blonde highlights,
highlight our bed
and our
life

take and tuck her tresses
from eyes and forehead,
gentle them into place,
behind her ear,
and my hand journeys on
to the skin,
flesh of her backbone,
where my fingers
spread wide,
five messengers unique,
advising all of the 120 provinces of her
heart, mind, soul and body,
she is my beloved,
and I pray,
I am hers

learning still to
live with my means,
such as they are,
sometime mean,
sometimes extraordinaire

even this skill,
to express

is a gratitude
that though
comes and goes
like summer breezes
that as now we pray,
cools my AM coffee
while studying the
patterned mystery
of the bay's
Ave Maria waves
from that
dock-by-his-name

where my heart, mind, soul
drink wet inspiration
from the still-oak-tree'd-strong-surfaced waters,
the blue glue of
our common delighted,
uncommon existence

this skill,
at this moment mine,
to share and
not to keep,
for have I not,
been blessed,
by comrades-in-arms
that kneel beside me,
asking, imploring
to be stronger yet,
for their sakes,
for them!
I pray for
best they-can-muster
sustenance of peace
of heart, mind, soul
and body

here now,
my shills,
my failing skills
cannot help express
in new ways,
a gratitude
that has a shapeless shape,
no measurement app enabled
for their comfort,
our comfort,
best grasped as
an unbounded divinity,
how so I wish I could pray for them better


focus this prayer
on the good ones,
who so greatly honor us
with a greater-than-a-creator,
gift glorious of
friendship

this walnut crack'd shell,
this container ship of
heart, mind, soul,
here there,
a few leaks sprung,
no nicotine patches
to cover

this dented car,
this dented body,
new dent every day
from only-you-know-where
still gets me there,

but
other than taking care better,
it plods along and houses
the rearrangement of this prayer's words,
and that is what is called
plenty good enough,
self-sufficient

prayers that are too long
go to the back of line,
so here we be,
but here we do not wait!


for prayers of gratitude
are instantaneous fulfilled,
and thus granted even before
they are completed
the love I feel for all of the people, friends and poets in my life that give me
their best, their perspective...they know who they are..
7:32am on the dock by the bay, another blessing for which I don't have the words but keep on trying...they are..see below...
PostScript -  the pleasure of your affection for this writ, palpable and heart pounding but it only reflects the spirit that working wordsmiths share in loving camaraderie so deep in the hidden roots of this place. For which I swear I will never to cease to write upon this favorite optic topic a loving challenge...very humbly do I thank you
Three time this year,
tragedy my addiction,
will meet up with proffered poor Lear
and his fate, product of vile offspring,
for when he speaks to me,
he be the reminder, of the pain
tenderly tendered by one's own children

“And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
So long as we can say 'This is the worst.”


But where is my truest
brother king,
Henry V, the five,
his eloquence of brotherhood I hear once a day

"From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile
This day shall gentle his condition"


Let me die this way,
companioned and brother championed,
let me not go down into my grave,
grey haired and betrayed by my own *****
a story, a long strange poem, and a thank-you note of a sort
~~~~~~

swords and verbs,
subjects and nouns,
participles and particles,
participants of past and futures
transitive and intransitive,
none can get pen-rooted,
sic transit gloria verborum eius
(fleetingly passes the glory of his words)

slow or swift, overhead, all unobtainable,
from the atmosphere unpluckable,
no deposit, no return, no po-ahem,
only a sad sonata denominated,
Air on the E(mpty) String continuous playing

likely something is a brewing,
clock internal clocking,
but no talking, just tic tocking,
ideas stumblebum in and out,
inebriated, fuzzy speeches,
don't reach out to touch or savor 'em,
those weird words were made for walking,
not for retrieval, sorting, storing, and
subsequent lots of
some assembly needed...
poetic conceiving...not

perhaps they are disfigured?
important but disguised?
definitely not credos and codas,
mission statements, definitions,
nah...not me, unimportant amateur passerby,
my only "laurels" come to
die at holiday time,
lariats to lasso, tether and then brownout,
a wintry green,
gone to nether garbage cans, timely and expediently,
per a calendar deadline

but an overheard conversation
on Eighth Avenue,
a ******-onto latched-onto,
undid this parlous state of
an evenhanded hypnotic flatlining,
a perilous mind,
infected with no-inspiration

"Why I do not share,  
or publish on the Internet," she said,
"what I write is so
precious to me that
the thought of it,
orphaned and drowned
amidst the unending pixels,
water-falling words
into ocean trenches,
unborn, yet ignominiously dead
just the same,
at the same instant,
an unbearable pain,
childbirth and death,
all in one, unthinkable!"


"Publish" he begged her,
"too good are you
to deny this world of this,
the world needs it proofs,
you are a proof!"


stunned by an emotive slap,
I knew kinetically,
I too must have,
proofs,
of me,
worthy of presentation,
if only,
to prove worthy of
your time and thus
prove to myself
my very own existence,
even derision decisive,
is an extant proof of sorts...
~~~~~~~

My Proofs

having come so far,
task so vast,
bedeviled and bewildered,
I am the face I have seen
in photos and mirrors,
but how can I stake my claim
to be more than just a
passing fancy virtual reality?

you cannot bite me,
though willing do I tender
my body for your impression
upon my body permanent

you cannot caress my lips,
though oft imagined it,
the multiplicity tender of that dream,
makes the would-be reality of it,
pale with a shame of insufficiency

bleed and wept poetry for the unity us,
so hard, so oft, so free,
my tablet machine
human tear-tracked and deep red scarred,
the Apple Geniuses,
when they see me coming,
whisper it's him, Poet-man,
who made an
iPad into a tissue
that cannot be repaired/replaced,
and run away and hide

have I not confessed enough my colorful sins,
but alas, all you can see is blackened dots of crimes
hosted upon a white background
of pleadings for forgiveness,
i's dotted with rejection slips,
t's crossed with painful slivers
of writings crucified by me,
therefore, for the grace of god in man,
they died unnamed and lived only briefly

perhaps if you saw a man by my name
on your television, you would say
"****, that is/was him, it cannot be denied,"
but you cannot be sure, imposter,
what must I do, to make the evening news,
and claim existence, therefore I am!

I cannot say with certainty,
am more then a running-around,
neurons and electrons colliding,
a mess of sub-atomic particles
invisible and in periodic possession of a flavor
of the god factor or Einstein's hanky

but if you come to my city,
I can give you a location,
a centralized park, a wooden fruit-box stand,
at an end corner,
(cause corners end well)
where a man stands and recites
and sorta sounds like what's his name

if you want to be sure it is that one,
look for teeth marks on his body,
reading out loud from a tablet unique,
alternating stanzas with Siri
his spiteful spitfire editor and sometime fan,
the box upon he stands transported
grapes from California, oranges from Florida,
can't be sure, the stickers rain washed away,
and if he weeping as he chants,
odds are it could be me,
I mean him...

to be sure you must place gentle a finger
or your lips across, upon his,
if electrons you sense and taste,
and yours they embrace
as naturally as if they were waiting

just for you,
you can almost be sure,
don't ask his name, unnecessary,
for he will face you with these words:


*"Thank you, Thank you!
you are my proof..."
a story, a long poem, and a thank-you note
to one who is known as
Jara Fan,
from Saskatchewan,
writ as an attempted proof of our actualized mutual existence
beyond
mere pixelation
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