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brandychanning Nov 2023
informed him, time for us to mitosis split

we be like half-torn pieces of paper
towel, ripped  poorly from the roller,
edged raggedy, mishap misshapen
torn~apart
mismatched

he was standing on one leg when he
was informed, confronted, he retired to
the challenge of savasana, the corpse pose,
before speaking:

we are splitting our baby, product multiple
of the joining of our intertwining, a lessening,
and how can we give that up?

very Solomony of you, my torn report, not wittily,
which paused him from talking without thinking,
till he accumulated his perspicacious perspective,
informing me in his kindly lord of manor tone,
wisdomy superiority, advising me Brandy fierce,
that more appropriate, better than my selection
would be substituting his version more refined:

Solomonic
an actual word,

and i heard the sound of paper towel being  
torn into many little pieces, and smiled with
end-of-poem finale,

exactly

because he was so wrong for being right
one last time



brandy
Solomonic
adjective
Sol·​o·​mon·​ic ˌsä-lə-ˈmä-nik

: marked by notable wisdom, reasonableness, or discretion especially under trying circumstances
brandychanning Nov 2023
tired of being myself
as a body

pursued, desired, mis perceived by the shell that just
happened to be given me on heaven’s assembly line,
so I will rewrite my new words and turn to where the
light is brightest

and the marbled of saddest is interwixted


brandy
  Nov 2023 brandychanning
Nat Lipstadt
Write like you have already Run out of time…
(what do you want for breakfast?)


the despair heats my wearied blood to near a freezing temp,
and the Hamilton song lyric, fresh on my mind,
haunts my soul, with a modified tense-ion,
running becomes also~ran, already now, is a past tense,
gonna get me a weapon, other than words
cause I want the
satisfaction of taking some murderer~haters down

anyway, future is now past tense revisiting,
and you think can still make a difference, but
optimism ain’t my forte, could be a
genetic POV curse,
a refresher course

BUT it’s past time,

used to worry, still do, that my grandkids
in a decade or less, would not have running,
potable water, electricity for a couple
hours a day, as we transition to a
new world the visionary~isms haven’t
prepared a **** for

and words are cheaper now
than they have ever been,

and the freedom to hate gonna be
added to the new constitution with a
new Bill of Rights revised, approved list,
got no illusions that ‘no preservation’ of
my kind will be a top ten item item

now I worry about the useful idiots, believers in
“extermination of the vermin”
are revisiting  this world, and laugh at the ‘evidence’
that it can’t happen here, and/or anywhere, because
those who call for my destruction are celebrating in
rallies from sea to shining sea, yeah, not that sea,
not the one they chanting ‘bout, no doubt, they’ll
extend the boundless vision
to get us all,
once and for all,
and  please don’t tell me I’m
overreaching
cause war and organized ****** is ONLY
just the same as
politics by another name,
and. your view, let’s **** a jew,
is protected speech,
and land of the free will soon have a whole
new meaning for political,
as on free of people like me…

so let’s go about our day, intensely discussing the NFL,
and it’s never to early to talk about summer plans and
air plane tickets just so hard to get, forget about getting a plumber,
and a now memory resurfaces
of visiting a synagogue in Rome
in the 1980’s and seeing the machine gun toting carabinieri
standing guard outside and swastikas on Parisian bustops
and what an idiot I’ve been thinking the future will be like
the recent past, but weight of ancient Idée Fixe
of  five thousands years duration
and when asked
what do I want for breakfast,
and other
newly pointless questions,
my response
is on point:


don’t give a ***
8:54am
Mon Nov 13 2023
moving on
brandychanning Nov 2023
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph
from Warning:When I am an Old Woman I shall wear purple (Profile 2021)
  Nov 2023 brandychanning
Nat Lipstadt
Hey Yalie, Diurnal Rituals Yield the Best Poetry

A Yalie jogs before dawn, her senses being exercised,
semi-aware there’s layered poetry out there and it must
be retrieved, for the eyes observe the diurnal arousing of the day,
and this too, must be recorded, part of the ordered duties of living, as the skin cells shed sweat droplets and
words of living, parcels of breathing, a diary of notations,
to educate the brain in ways and things that
professors cannot teach…

every sense operative, interactive, sound off neurotic synapses,
are acrackling, as you lay out the day ahead, calendar and
assignment checks, but the senses don’t care
about that
trivial minutiae of living

nope
the words are now coming fast and you hope your best that
you will retain, retrain the memory to savor save, those
combos of images encapsulated in new word combinations,
that are yours alone, unique, proving to no one but
yourself, that education, science et. al. is a seeded embryo &
you the valedictorian of birth commencement ceremony

so put them trainers on,
and by dawning daylight you are awondering,
now becoming a pondering, and the
question never spoke aloud but oft posed,
is this, this is,
this is why I exist,
and
my identity?

I am an institution in my own right,
in my own write.


Saturday Nov 4
8:01am
nyc
  Nov 2023 brandychanning
spysgrandson
in the long lingering shadows of last light
the trees do not complain or put up a fight
to keep their dark companions at bay
or cling clumsily to the waning day
the grass will neither wither nor whine
nor ask the hidden orb to continue to shine
but for creatures who wander through incandescent haze
and speak boldly of the passage of days
the long shadows are measured with fear
for a certain number of them make a “year”
and unlike the eternal sea from whence we came
or grass and myriad other things we could name
we hide among shadows when they grow
and beg their source to once again glow
on account of you:

she says: do you know you often smile when, day dream dozing?

me says: on account of you

she says: c’mon sweet talking man, ain’t gonna fall for that hooey!

me says: hooey, phooey, on account of you

she says: nah, you writing poetry, no fooling me no more!

me says: on account of you

she says: I bet you got one of your girl friends singing to you, through
those wireless earbuds, doncha? who is it this time? a Sara or Joni?


me says: on account of you.

she says: you think big shot, you can multitask b.s. me? doing three things
at the same time!


me says: on account of you

she says: on account of you, I’m seriously ******, you don’t tell me anymore
sweet lies and alibis, probably writing an ode to one of your poetry gf babes!


me says: on account of you, can’t count no more, how many love poems in my lifetime written, and this one too, going out to you, charged to my tab, you babe,
are my account, my accountant, my accounting....
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