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 Jun 2020 Acme
Nat Lipstadt
”Well, my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not comin' on.
I'm just payin' my rent every day in the Tower of Song”

Leonard Cohen lyric from The Tower of Song


§§§

this lyric hits, it’s a ten fingered cheeky ****** marking,
fits like a new white t-shirt, clean~perfect in every aspect,
I’ve just changed song to poetry, so nobody’s complaining

axiomatic, slept less a than three shambolic hours last nite,
don’t ask what I was doing or even a simple why, even the
vultures grew tired, helplessly hoping for solutions to start appearing

water pressure ok, poem spigot strong but the words desiccated,
it’s time to revisit roots, back to where I’ve come-begun, bury losses,
seek no consideration, write in isolation, a-quiet niche, a shhh! beach

my silent reverie owns me and the angels, biggest fans, just can’t
get enough, know their faith is strong, never proofing reads required,
content to wait till find my lost chords, comforts of only fresh truths

so arrivederci, until we meet again, when cadences have resumed,
rolling in unbroken, won’t need other’s words recirculating my blood,
till my slip sliding over, direction from arrows stabbing new openings

rented a storage unit in nearby woods, empty shelves greet ya with a
‘ready, willing, and able,’  many open arms looking for fulfilling, a job, that don’t even pay minimum wage, but the benefits are just fan-tastic


So:
should you spot a man ungainly wrought,
weighted down by a harpoon cross, resting,
‘pon on his cursed Cain-marked back, fingertips,
you need not move to the other side, or hide,
'tis only a make-believe poet, no longer believing,
with his recording device, seizing your rhapsodies
to rhyme with his own collected artifacts, your crinkly
smiles are his meat, his metier, his chosen career,
to be again a comfort caresser of your illusions into
a shapely sculpture of words be-loved, keeping-worthy,
tokens of a reexamined self worth, a new girth, leaner,
a celebration for the keeping, dug up with pail and shovel,
a best left hid on his treasured island, in a treasure chest, only his new-no-good-best-most-satisfying-new-no-good-best-mystifying-sati­sfying-cursing-muses-who-got-two-knee-on-my-soul-I’m-
howling...
­
Monday Jun 1, 2020
self-explanatory but if you don’t get it, then:

“there is no “better” in poetry

mine yours theirs, alive or not,

just gasps tears and blood
whimsical smiles and isles
cuts and burns of pained revelations,
hidden in fog,
that words try to delete away,
through the shrouded mists of
human tissues,
unconstrained by the
bounded shape
of the human cell,
our first, our own
self-imposed jail”
 Jun 2020 Acme
Nat Lipstadt
<>

“These are really the thoughts of all men, in all ages and lands,
they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by WALT WHITMAN

                                                      ­­      §§§

exactly, for if not to mystify and to demystify,
why do we write, opine large, secretly confessing,
what is know to all soto voice in the chamber of secrets
that lies between the brains four chambered ventricles,
that leads to a Grand Canal through which flow riddles,
all these thoughts, yours, mine, and overlapping crazy

solitary, they merge within the river of combination,
then known to all, colloquially named Ours, then too,
answers arrive in the scrivening, when each plain to see,
once the riddle posed, the answer is freed to exposure,
like veins blue to red, when oxygenated, our mysteries,
all colors, untied, there is but one color, reddened blood

these thoughts, become yours, more than mine, for
in the taking is the additive chemical that enhances,
making the distance closed to only closed, here I pause,
fearful, I hesitate, you do not understand, sunshine can
blind any man, sickness humble any body, we are alike
in commonality, more than different, we are all riddled

and next to nothing is everything, all worth knowing,
you, write my poetry, as I write of you with breathless
ease and comfort, for the thoughts of all men in all
ages and lands, are original to where our eyes espy
each other, where our lips kiss to cross, cross to kiss,
what is the what, this simplicity, the great difference


                                                    ­   §§§§§


Fri. May 15
Manhattan Island,
Isle of Man
10:26am
 Jun 2020 Acme
Nat Lipstadt
~for the mothers, and for her~

§§§


this utterance emits itself, without poetic supervision,
like so many of its predecessors, a passing remark
transmogrifies to an exercise of praise, of humility, love

this is for her, of the nameless arms of forces that fasten
safety pins to our clothes, reminder to us that we are
loved and to come home safely so she, the little ship may rest easy

she, a homing boat, in a small slip resting, preferring
no changeover  to a mighty and powerful dreadnought sent to do
a search & rescue mission for young ones, babes who lose their way

but we know the truth, the heart of the matter, this one, writ,
for her and her and her and her and you, the countless ones,
mighty armada of the mothers, God’s flesh and blood, a steeled navy

they suffer whatever it takes, but never defeat, for they know,
the heart engine fires never cease, never forget, indeed the word
never not in their lexicon, only forever and forevermore

§§§§§

Mon May 4
9:42
in anno autem coronavirus plaga/ in the first year of the plague
from the heart of the epicenter / ex corde in epicenter
 Jun 2020 Acme
Nat Lipstadt
A dream, then god‘s interspersing jealous pleading indecipherable.

The  combinatorial explosion makes us into god-like humans,

when we grasp that simplicity is the greatest complexity,

the surges, the mastering urges, the blending melding gradations,

gods dream of our holy bodies encompassing, its said ingredients.


fly child!

the horizon line approaching, it’s either a goal or boundary, or both,

where endings blending make us immortal for a few minutes,

when the good Holy Ghost says, “me and we, ain’t no difference,”

hot fever, leads to raging calm, euphoria transition to believing,

where the god inroads, visibly interfere in invisible dreams, pixies pixelating fine granular,

dreaming my skin,  kin to prayering, my knees touching clouds,

lying on mounds of red soil, my eyes sewn shut and yet,

I see all perfectly, for the dream of god, is what we are...

~

7:15am
Jan. 31, the year of 2020 visionary
 Jun 2020 Acme
Logan Robertson
For almost 2 days, now, I have been wondering what has been going on.

I can't upvote and comment on poems, and most poems that I see posted have no view counts.

By now one would have hoped that the fallen would gotten back on their feet.

I just wish there was a voice out there, somewhere, instead of speculating.

Logan Robertson

6/02/20
Update-Today marks the sixth day of being in the dark. The lump in my throat has gotten bigger. I
feel choked and can't swallow the wheels falling off
of this site. Some poem submissions appear to be normal, some not. I just tried reposting Elliot's and Darrel Langstrom's last poems which are very foretelling of where we are today and I hit a snag. My hands, now, are up in the air and I don't like that feeling.
 Jun 2020 Acme
Elizabeth Squires
the queen is always
very busy
breeding
and seldom takes a
rest from her
seeding

if she didn't keep
producing more
bees
there would be few
to pollinate the
trees

her tireless efforts are
rarely if ever given a
thought
yet without her fecundity
no honey could be
bought  

we human beings should
offer our praise to the
queen
as she's never ceases her work
on the propagation
scene
 Jun 2020 Acme
Francie Lynch
You say you won't cry
(and you know I know why),
But you will.
When memory reminds you
Of our life and thrills,
Our talks of love
In the park on the hill.
Our fear for our children,
Our love for each one,
Our love for each other
Before our love was gone.
You say you won't cry,
But you know you will.
Simple, repetitive wording.
 Jun 2020 Acme
Vaampyrae
These Days
 Jun 2020 Acme
Vaampyrae
I wake up everyday to the sight of the New Normal
Open my ears to the sounds of the news
A black man killed before he could breathe
A child bombed before he could eat
And I think
What is normal?
What is rest?
What is hope?

Normalcy doesn’t sound normal these days
Rest doesn’t sound restful these days
Hope doesn’t sound hopeful these days
And I wish they did anyway

I wish writing, making art, cooking,
playing games, short naps, or social media
Were enough to make us forget about
Restless civilizations
These days
Heartless politicians
These days
Senseless discrimination
These days
The failures of the system
These days

I sit with my heart on my hand
Comprehending nothing at all
These days
While chaos all around us ensues
These days
And months seem to go by as quickly as they can
Yet nothing seems to change
Racism is still racism
War is still war
Hate is still hate
These days

And yet we’ve just realized
These days
How much we valued other days
And there’s no longer any returning to
Those days
Cause if it took us a pandemic to realize
How much we’ve failed those who needed us the most
On days
We’ve looked past reality
Just to see what we wanted to see
And believe what we wanted to believe in
That we chose right
That we’d never be able to fear going out
Since we’ve kept ourselves inside our social bubbles
That kept us from seeing
That everyone else had always been suffering
Before these days
I’d rather have
These days

So what is normalcy?
What is rest?
What is hope
To those who couldn’t afford to have those in the first place?

But I’d like to think that we haven’t completely forgotten
Those days
I’d like to think there will be better days
Where we’ll finally be able to settle down all our differences
That we won’t differentiate black from white
That we’ll finally know wrong from right
And we’ll see that days
Are not just days
But everyday struggles for many to live
In a world that hates living so much

So don't just wish these days
Instead help these days
So that others may be able to live their days too
And not just you
Today.
(Another spoken word poem I rushed to submit)

Let's be there for each other, and let's get through this together.

05/16/2021

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