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 Oct 2015 Thomas Newlove
Q
Love is, I think, adjusting for time zones
Before sending any tweet.

'Q
12/7/13
 Oct 2015 Thomas Newlove
Chuck
A movie date with
The woman I dreamed for. Yes,
This is Forty, Love.
If you want my thoughts
In a non-poetic form
Follow my twitter.
http://twitter.com/knightvowel
Homework, thou art a most wearisome ghost
Who doth chivy and harry my frail bones
To their shatterment, to amuse the host
But I shall not delight them with great tones
Of fear and agony, nay; with homework,
I shall blast the fearsome foundation flat
And though my heart bids me to papers shirk,
Quiet strength am I, and never fearing
What mere letter or stroke may do to me
For I have but one desire: to learn
And to become the best that I can be
While for homework no sense I yet discern.
What shall tear me down from where I now stand?
Only homework, which I cannot remand.
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
  But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
  And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
  To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
  Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
  If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
 Oct 2015 Thomas Newlove
Matt
There is a woman
Named Sumina
Who is from Kathmandu

Hope you have a good day
Your poetry is beautiful
And so are you
Without question you are the worst thing that has ever happened to my poetry
I am tripping over syllables and breaking consonants
Knocking over languages I once kept locked away in safe quarters
Each time I try to speak these meticulously knit together units of expression my throat closes up like clenched fist and I feel myself choking on my words
You have changed my way of writing, using teeth and tongue to articulate words, my way of going about my day
I find myself skipping meals as if it will somehow make me feel less empty because lately things in my head are just not making much sense but I convince myself they are reasonable
They often never are
And I can tell you that I'm sorry
I can at least write my apologies bleeding out all over the page
Scribbling red letters onto this worn out notebook paper
I keep you trapped inside my head like a little kid traps a caterpillar in the palm of their hands
And maybe I was just holding you back from becoming something even more beautiful than you already are
I'm sorry for letting my selfish ambitions override your pleas to escape your grip
I have never been very good at telling someone that I love them but I love you
I want to memorize your laugh and store it in my mind, so I can bring it out and listen to it on a bad day
I want your hand prints to be imprinted on my body, the smell of your cologne on the shirt you like best on me
I want you to hold me like you hold your cigarettes
I would not mind sitting down and studying you for hours with my eyes and hands
I would not mind experiencing the foreign feel of your skin underneath my fingertips
I want to count every shade of color in your eyes and sew it into a dress
I want to pour all of your thoughts into a wine glass and sip it slowly, taking in each one
Becoming slowly intoxicated by your dreams, your fears of the dark, your plans for the future
You are a vision of evacuating a burning building but going back inside to gather the possessions you love too much to let burn
You are the ray of sunshine that greets a flower who had already said goodbye to its roots, giving it life again
You are the unopened bottle of whiskey that sits in my kitchen cabinet in case you ever want to stop by because I know it's your favorite
You are the map that keeps me from getting lose in places I have never adventured
You are the destination I've been looking for
You are the slow breathing I feel when I look at the moon
You are the morning coffee that wakes the cells in my brain
You are the only truth in my allusion
You are a lot of things but you are not mine
And in the midst of this hurricane I am still searching for pages on the ground
I want to keep writing about you
After even broken pencil, ripped sheet of paper, slammed fist to desk
There are very few things I know for sure
I know that every day is twenty four hours closer to you
I know that I have a special skill of feeling nothing when I should and feeling everything when I shouldn’t
I know that the only place I ever felt lost was in his arms
I know that you can't go back to yesterday's dawn by adding another verse to an old song
And I know that I can't speak for what I haven't bled over
But I have bled for love, for loss, the staggering feeling of loneliness
You came in like a winter wind and I breathed you in as if I was about to go underwater
You are the reason I always wear my seatbelt
You are the love songs I write when everyone else is asleep
You are the sound of rain on Sunday mornings
You give me hope for better days
You have taught me to believe in myself
You have made me want to love again
Without question you are the worst thing that has ever happened to my poetry
But in a way you are also the best thing that has ever happened to me
i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"

   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"

so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"

i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"

before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"

   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."

and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried
 Sep 2015 Thomas Newlove
ThePoet
I can't handle
another death,
leaving me out here
lost and alone

I can't handle
another mourn,
leaving me lifeless
as a hollow stone

I can't handle
another grievance,
letting you go to
a world unknown

Because to save
your precious life,
I would give infinite
deaths of my own

©
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