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  Nov 2023 Where Shelter
Sally A Bayan
🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🌹💐🌷


Doves and roses are sought
when hurtful, tempestuous thoughts
flood and create lumps in the throat,
the urge...the surge grow stronger,
much to write...we grab pen...paper,
suddenly......we are "there,"
in that comfortable nook...where,

We create fictional love scenes,
or...relive tremulous experiences
of blazing lava flows, souls despondent
driven by disastrous rains, by discontent,
or, of souls cherishing rare times, serene,
a lake, warm sun...calm coffee moments;
all these become messages conveyed
they're the carbon dioxide we exhale;

Verses are afloat above our heads
until they're written.....and read.

Both old poets and newcomers
come up with stuff...funny or bizarre,
some readers relate...epiphanies occur.
isn't that what really matters?

No kings or queens in prose or poetry.
some came first, others came later.
surely, both want to write...to share.
in God's eyes, no one is above the other.

::::::::::::::

Copyright Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
November 27, 2023
  Nov 2023 Where Shelter
Nat Lipstadt
Unreality: Thanksgiving Miami Style

It is 70 degrees, afternoon,
sunny Miami winter style.
Nike shorts, flip flops,
polo shirt white,
music, pandora, and
no place he
needs to be.

the collected works and
worries, left behind,
the boy, and he is taking
it to the limit,
wanting a day of no cares,
one more time.

yet, recollecting, writing
impertent, dissatisfied,
no reason, none that I can
irrationally explain.

previous night,
my eyes have
seen the
second-coming.

everybody smiles
happy, looking fit,
tight black dresses
the law of the land.
food flows like wine,
wine flows like water.

lose track of the numbers,
glasses of Cortese di Gavi,
cold and white refilled
in the Miami heat,
exactly, how old am I,
and where
my eyes should
not be staring,
bodies intended
to maim,
after they
**** you.

it is a long-short tale,
how it came to be,
that I am living thanksgiving
in the unreality of Miami style.

was supposed be at the
head of the table carving,
giving secret tastes to
numerous grandchildren,
multiple dogs,
defrosting after the
Macy's Day Parade.
my children, their
kith and kin.
that was supposed to be
my New York reality,
at the head of the table.

divorce, monkey wrench,
I am in a different state,
a different table, a
welcome bystander,
but her love,
my love,
has brought me,
to unseasonal places,
higher and higher,
where I am welcomed
as her man.

not a bad unreality,
but still someone has torn
off a piece of me,
a tasty combo of
sad and guilt,
that I ******* up,
which is why this
writing is my re-righting
the ship of perspective.

maybe I am dreaming
of what was never,
could have been,
should of been,
kidding myself, with an idyll,
the unreality of an idol,
though I vague recollect,
there were meals like that.

think this is my fourth trip here,
sort of, almost a tradition.
BobbyDylan, he reminds
what that woman,
done for me,
been doing to me.

"I was in another lifetime
one of toil and blood,
when blackness was a virtue
and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness
a creature void of form.

"Come in" she said
"I'll give you shelter
from the storm".


so she did,
a new reality born.
so semi-sad poem, but
happy thanks to give,
for this day,
new family
embracing, and I am
recollecting,
read somewhere,
you cannot be thankful
for having,
only for giving.

Thanksgiving

Not
Thanks-having
Thanks-receiving

New Reality: Thanksgiving Miami Style.
  Nov 2023 Where Shelter
Nat Lipstadt
an all purpose cleaner response to the

how-ya-doing-question,

as my vibe unmistakable;
the hatred in the world directed at
MY PEOPLE,
is inexplicable, beyond reason,
a hatred raw and pure in the
tiny places we humans hide it, lest
our ancient linkage to an unreasoned,
embarrassing emotion, be revealed

but now revealed it is reveled,
as the freedom to despise is a
valued thing

is an ancient scar, now freshly wounded
and the two thousand year old accumulated, callused,
surrounding wafer thin, layered upon layer of
tissue,
wiped away
in utter disbelief
cleansed,
a different kind of impure clean,
“like” an ethnic cleansing,
traceless, whisked away in a wink of moment,
a goner.

like hope, prior sentient optimism
sentenced to life imprisonment and
this sentence, and this very sentence!
written finally understanding that it is
a punishment
far worse than the quick relief of death.

c’mon, how about a few “fukk you jew”
cri de coeur, heartfelt, genuine, pointless
hate

no, not I, no, not me,
spare me the pithy comments,
the pointless sympathy, glistening
like evaporating water droplets
before disappearing, I ask myself,
not
why they hate, why it persists,
for this I understand and accept
the foulness of what we are capable of is,

beloved,

as a secret pleasure, now secreted in torrents.

no, I ask myself,

why do I write poetry,

for it is as pointless as
the hatred directed at me,
from birth, till death,
and ever after,
the humanity of poetry
just another fraud

another reason
why this man cries in the bathroom,^
not from any shape of shame,

because poetry is pointless
in times of hatred, and now we
know, recognize, it is always
somewhere, nearby, always
present and prescient,
pointless hatred,
itching to be pointed at me,
makes for
pointless poetry.


To whom shall I point my poetry?
  Nov 2023 Where Shelter
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
  Nov 2023 Where Shelter
Nat Lipstadt
~ one more for patty m. ~

slept late after dancing with my devils, from,
from the wee, until a pealing pearl from the Earl of Dawn,
recovering from an intrusion~invasion~brain~regurgitation,
and it’s nearly 9am, sipping my first cuppa Hawaiian,
& woke to a repost of a ten year old wondering plea(1)

makes me think “This old thing,” poem, like a fav
frock/suit that still drapes perfectly, and yet draws the
***** admiration and drippy drawling yummy compliments,
gracefully, gratefully demurred with them three words,
& it’s 8:39am, Bruce pitching in with “Born in the USA”

recipe for a new thank u Gawd poem to make room for
a fast~break diet for an old man with a rebuilt ticker, this
very emission~transmission of a verbal politesse writ going
some where, cooked on a medium slow burner fueling dressed up seeds of heartfelt appreciation made of ancient oat grasses

birthing a poem~child of thanks to the Lawd for one more day,
opportunity, the five sense’s delivery gratitude and gratifications, and the desire to intertwine the sights, music, a crisp blue November Sky, the need to bleed brew these words into a fulfilling,
second moment mug, for the pearls and Earls

of poetic humans


10:01am
Thu Nov 2 2023
(1) Do You Know Why Men Cry in the Bathroom?
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