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On one gloomy evening
Neighborhood stray-paws come to prey
Backyard roosters; yapping and flapping
Pillowcase feathers sprout in the color of snow grey

Got spooked suddenly; waking slumbered bind
Still blinded by freezing disbelief; an odd sight
It was, for the dreamer lost inside his own mind
Horrible animal noise should tunnel-guide to the light

Back to the cold struggling-bound world where
Deep sleep is certainly an obvious escape place
Though trickery peaceful; nothing could hurt there
Except diffuse our aura metaphysically beyond space

Between reality and fantasy, if I'm to choose
I shall go with the latter because I don't want to
Take a rifle, resume another cycle of violence noose
Knowing one day, I could forever retire to a wonderful fantasy too
In her over-wrapping
Arm embrace
Under the yellow banana moon
My soul finds
Purity and solace
As she puts love
Medicine on my teaspoon
  
Smothered sunset sails
On her warmth
Breathe and cough
As I cast my eyes
Upon her mouthy rove
Frosty and sugary
Her impeccable love
Could coat my inexperienced
Heart twice enough

What an over-extension
Of my true self and being
She is; with a fierce body
And piercing eyes stare
That glitter like those
Little stars; still shimmering
Though from a billion yards
Away but seems so near

She had been cold as ice
For so many years
And could no longer endure
The long boring night
Come near and closer
Stay forever I plead her
So she may see where
My love lies
~
Sun drips
on leaves

not the backyard variety
but the trembling kind

the kind
that weld night-time
intermissions to
the roof of the mouth

sonnet-filled
evaporation
reveals
the timely concealment of
a very, weary
inanimate object
at the brink

just enough hip
to be woman

just enough wild
to be frontier

~
~
I felt a funeral
between the timid breaths
of ruination, we plucked
to death the melancholic florals
called time flowers,
translucent growths
with crystal hearts,
gifted them to someone else's children,
placed them around the waist
of everyone else's wives.

When plucked,
that crystal core dissolves,
emitting the light trapped within.
perpetual splendor or
the endless cycles of death?
do the normal rules
of chronology apply?

Look now! here comes
the great unwashed riot,
we live in an age of visual saturation,
where tragedy and beautiful
distractions crowd in on all sides,
clamoring for our attention.

Perhaps the dystopian premise
is part of a fiendish plan,
becoming the backdrop
to a fluttering cornucopia
of florals, each outfit paraded
in the beginning of May,
a blooming display of finery
hiding a complex
network of roots –
sponsorship deals,
brand calculations,
dedicated craftsmanship,
exposure opportunities
– beneath its pretty skirts.

~
“the voice of poetry in the conversation of mankind.”

<>
            
“Even nowadays, most of us have speeches from plays and films jangling around our heads, alongside things that have actually been said. Both contribute to what Michael Oakeshott called “the voice of poetry in the conversation of mankind.” Whether in verse or prose, there are some fictional speeches that, once heard, cannot be unheard. You find that you live with them.”
~from~
Things Worth Remembering: Nothing Is Lost Forever
By Douglas Murray 9/8/24
<>

the quote grabs the throat, a two handed grip,
but gentling, to ensure it does not go forgot,
or to the bottom the pile, or just another
never truly born, or premature to die,
guised as a drafty passing breeze,
a tickle too fickle, impersistent,
to be a poem unto itself

my thots impure, for I see, I believe,
that poetry is the conversation in all
we do have,
those that lyric wax when
one of the five big guys,
jive, sensory excited, the whiff, taste,
licks the visionary
of the need to be a completed
exegesis, a work to be telling
told

but I am old, my powers weaken daily,
the resistance training recommended,
by brain muscle, fiercer resisted

so reach for the quill,
blue lined sheet,
a cute puppy looking paper,
up for the “surprise” treat
just for extending a paw,
these humans so ease pleased,
you see,
here comes a poem
bout
poetry being bout every any,
even, the great creator struggling
to put out fresh daily,
new &  improved work,
after a six day historic period,
that demanded a poem-alll-day entity,
entitled as a sabbatical day
of rest.

Here I too rest as well,
too many conversations need starting,
fires requiring verbal refueling,
and my own voice hearing a,
“get up, get out of bed,
drag a comb across your head,”
talk, and plant those newly fallen acorns,
and let the conversations produce
giant oak trees,
and
a plenitude of poems


9/9/24
douglas murray voice of poetry lipstadt
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