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Nat Lipstadt Oct 2017
all I've learned from love


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for the fedora man, 10/29/17 10:34am

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another song done me wrong on a Sunday morn,
so much due to do, a list not for compilation/publication,
including poems promised and weighty deadlines overdue,
for its tedium would still be lbs. heavy in weightless space

instead a lyric plucks my attention, of course beeping,
insistent chirping a chorus of, write me right now,
immédiatement dans son français de Montréal,
this is the item that needs to be list topping,
now whispering a messenger-angel name dropping
a request formal from the fedora man dressed in black

all I've learned from love,  
a listing doomed to comprehensible incompletion,
a listing to the right as new reasons in-come
constantly from the left, each heart beat a
remarkable reminder that the list grows longer

every day, the repeating seasons, proffer suggestions,
disguised as a newly revised ten commandments,
obedience to which is a wish list for
attaining grace

all I've learned from love is its duality, essential quality,
a human single cannot attain the commingling required
for the visioning a peak season of life colorful,
its sad corollary, leaves falling exposing the body bare-****** of the soul linear alone

all I've learned from love is its shining skin is an agreed upon
indefinable nature, other than we all recognize how our
definition personal exists in that Ven diagrams space where
our circles intersect, when A breaks the skin of B, creating
{A,B}

all I've learned from love is without it no matter what
somewhere inside is a desperation pocket that is
an inquisitive irritant, a brain burr, a pea under the mattress,
a high and mighty 1% of disarmament incompetence that rules the imbalanced balance of my bottom line on the top of my head

all I've learned from love that it appears on its own timetable,
in surprising trains and planes and baseball games, sitting
alone in a theater or in front of a Rubens, on crazy disastrous
first dates in foreign countries at cafes or non gender
specific bathrooms amidst alternating currents of
this is crazy and this is infinite and ever so sobering
wondrous possible


all I've learned from love is it never shoots straight,
but will always end in a holy bullseye


*Tout ce que j'ai appris de l'amour, c'est qu'elle ne tire jamais directement,
mais se terminera toujours dans une sainte bullseye
Left Foot Poet Mar 2018
cellphone to heart, mobile to immobile, electric dead to living

you know that sleep and I are but passing acquaintances,
when it drops in, to heavy my lids, it is through a cracked window slivered, just enough for a Pan boy to grab me and away me to Almost Neverland

when the alarms sound that it’s sleepy time,
(quite like that quiet verse)
no time to delist the “those pre-shluffy to do things,”
cell drop upon my chest, like an open mic,
then the raging observatory tapestry begins!

the cell lies directly above my ventricular chamber,
and communication is live, the brain cutoff switch, well, cutoff

all manner of imps, devils, rejected poems, angels and
Greek gods and some Indian as well, stand in line for to make
free calls via a beating human message call center, utilizing my friends and family verizon plan to register complaints,
close out unfinished biz, or just contact, friends, family or other
mischievous imps or even you, in other time zone worlds

though my brain may not interfere, like the CIA, it records all
conversations and give me a list of new poem titles, notions, stories glories and wrenching heartbreaking heartbreak,
requiring “fleshing out” when I awake from my three fingers
of scotch, glass eye tears drops made me drunk,

damning this transmigration chorus of voices that offer up a treasure of divine humankind’s hopes and travails,
and the occasional call on the divine’s 1-800 confession line,
hear it all, my chewing out by one particular god of mine who does not suffer my criticisms well of his ungodly actions, nope not sweetly and

when else would he dare contact me, except when no edgewise
words of mine can appear to contradict his mealy mouth excuses

did you musty misty mistake  my poems  as the product of
the miracle water wages of my imaginary inspiration,
no, not, from the replaying of your desperate exclamations,
the cancerous shrieks of loss and prickly investiture of the aesthetics of soft whispers and solitary foot treads,
that is where my insanity is bred, and tumbling s-words, sworn

don’t consider it eavesdropping as there is no signed rental agreement, consider this unfair warning, if you should secret use my cellular line, your everything is now ******,
your genetic material is materialistic mine and my poems yours,
this bittersweet sentiment is a measure of our bloods commingling,
your tears and impish silliness, are shiny hidden within mine

somehow I feel compelled to state this unique statistic:

I love you

4:47pm on 3/11

who writes poems like this?
silly old boys with gray hair, standing on one left leg.  but you knew that, right?
[Greek: Mellonta  sauta’]

These things are in the future.

Sophocles—’Antig.’

‘Una.’

“Born again?”

‘Monos.’

Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, “born again.” These were
the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long
pondered, rejecting the explanations of the priesthood,
until Death itself resolved for me the secret.

‘Una.’

Death!

‘Monos.’

How strangely, sweet Una, you echo my words! I
observe, too, a vacillation in your step, a joyous
inquietude in your eyes. You are confused and oppressed by
the majestic novelty of the Life Eternal. Yes, it was of
Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds that word
which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts,
throwing a mildew upon all pleasures!

‘Una.’

Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How often,
Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its
nature! How mysteriously did it act as a check to human
bliss, saying unto it, “thus far, and no farther!” That
earnest mutual love, my own Monos, which burned within our
bosoms, how vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy
in its first upspringing that our happiness would strengthen
with its strength! Alas, as it grew, so grew in our hearts
the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying to separate
us forever! Thus in time it became painful to love. Hate
would have been mercy then.

‘Monos’.

Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una—mine, mine
forever now!

‘Una’.

But the memory of past sorrow, is it not present joy? I have
much to say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I
burn to know the incidents of your own passage through the
dark Valley and Shadow.

‘Monos’.

And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in
vain? I will be minute in relating all, but at what point
shall the weird narrative begin?

‘Una’.

At what point?

‘Monos’.

You have said.

‘Una’.

Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the
propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say,
then, commence with the moment of life’s cessation—but
commence with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having
abandoned you, you sank into a breathless and motionless
torpor, and I pressed down your pallid eyelids with the
passionate fingers of love.

‘Monos’.

One word first, my Una, in regard to man’s general condition
at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise
among our forefathers—wise in fact, although not in
the world’s esteem—had ventured to doubt the propriety
of the term “improvement,” as applied to the progress of our
civilization. There were periods in each of the five or six
centuries immediately preceding our dissolution when arose
some vigorous intellect, boldly contending for those
principles whose truth appears now, to our disenfranchised
reason, so utterly obvious —principles which should
have taught our race to submit to the guidance of the
natural laws rather than attempt their control. At long
intervals some master-minds appeared, looking upon each
advance in practical science as a retrogradation in the true
utility. Occasionally the poetic intellect—that
intellect which we now feel to have been the most exalted of
all—since those truths which to us were of the most
enduring importance could only be reached by that analogy
which speaks in proof-tones to the imagination alone,
and to the unaided reason bears no weight—occasionally
did this poetic intellect proceed a step farther in the
evolving of the vague idea of the philosophic, and find in
the mystic parable that tells of the tree of knowledge, and
of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct
intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant
condition of his soul. And these men—the poets—
living and perishing amid the scorn of the
“utilitarians”—of rough pedants, who arrogated to
themselves a title which could have been properly applied
only to the scorned—these men, the poets, pondered
piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the ancient days when our
wants were not more simple than our enjoyments were
keen—days when mirth was a word unknown, so
solemnly deep-toned was happiness—holy, august, and
blissful days, blue rivers ran undammed, between hills
unhewn, into far forest solitudes, primeval, odorous, and
unexplored. Yet these noble exceptions from the general
misrule served but to strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we
had fallen upon the most evil of all our evil days. The
great “movement”—that was the cant term—went on:
a diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art—the
Arts—arose supreme, and once enthroned, cast chains
upon the intellect which had elevated them to power. Man,
because he could not but acknowledge the majesty of Nature,
fell into childish exultation at his acquired and still-
increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked
a God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over
him. As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder,
he grew infected with system, and with abstraction. He
enwrapped himself in generalities. Among other odd ideas,
that of universal equality gained ground; and in the face of
analogy and of God—in despite of the loud warning
voice of the laws of gradation so visibly pervading
all things in Earth and Heaven—wild attempts at an
omniprevalent Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang
necessarily from the leading evil, Knowledge. Man could not
both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking cities arose,
innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of
furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the
ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una,
even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-
fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that
we had worked out our own destruction in the ******* of
our taste, or rather in the blind neglect of its
culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this crisis
that taste alone—that faculty which, holding a middle
position between the pure intellect and the moral sense,
could never safely have been disregarded—it was now
that taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty, to
Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure contemplative
spirit and majestic intuition of Plato! Alas for the [Greek:
mousichae]  which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient
education for the soul! Alas for him and for it!—since
both were most desperately needed, when both were most
entirely forgotten or despised. Pascal, a philosopher whom
we both love, has said, how truly!—”Que tout notre
raisonnement se reduit a ceder au sentiment;” and it is
not impossible that the sentiment of the natural, had time
permitted it, would have regained its old ascendency over
the harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing
was not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of
knowledge, the old age of the world drew near. This the mass
of mankind saw not, or, living lustily although unhappily,
affected not to see. But, for myself, the Earth’s records
had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of
highest civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of our Fate
from comparison of China the simple and enduring, with
Assyria the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with
Nubia, more crafty than either, the turbulent mother of all
Arts. In the history of these regions I met with a ray from
the Future. The individual artificialities of the three
latter were local diseases of the Earth, and in their
individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied;
but for the infected world at large I could anticipate no
regeneration save in death. That man, as a race, should not
become extinct, I saw that he must be “born again.”

And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our
spirits, daily, in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we
discoursed of the days to come, when the Art-scarred surface
of the Earth, having undergone that purification which alone
could efface its rectangular obscenities, should clothe
itself anew in the verdure and the mountain-slopes and the
smiling waters of Paradise, and be rendered at length a fit
dwelling-place for man:—for man the
Death-purged—for man to whose now exalted intellect
there should be poison in knowledge no more—for the
redeemed, regenerated, blissful, and now immortal, but still
for the material, man.

‘Una’.

Well do I remember these conversations, dear Monos; but the
epoch of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we
believed, and as the corruption you indicate did surely
warrant us in believing. Men lived; and died individually.
You yourself sickened, and passed into the grave; and
thither your constant Una speedily followed you. And though
the century which has since elapsed, and whose conclusion
brings up together once more, tortured our slumbering senses
with no impatience of duration, yet my Monos, it was a
century still.

‘Monos’.

Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity. Unquestionably,
it was in the Earth’s dotage that I died. Wearied at heart
with anxieties which had their origin in the general turmoil
and decay, I succumbed to the fierce fever. After some few
days of pain, and many of dreamy delirium replete with
ecstasy, the manifestations of which you mistook for pain,
while I longed but was impotent to undeceive you—after
some days there came upon me, as you have said, a breathless
and motionless torpor; and this was termed Death by
those who stood around me.

Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of
sentience. It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the
extreme quiescence of him, who, having slumbered long and
profoundly, lying motionless and fully prostrate in a mid-
summer noon, begins to steal slowly back into consciousness,
through the mere sufficiency of his sleep, and without being
awakened by external disturbances.

I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had
ceased to beat. Volition had not departed, but was
powerless. The senses were unusually active, although
eccentrically so—assuming often each other’s functions
at random. The taste and the smell were inextricably
confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal and intense.
The rose-water with which your tenderness had moistened my
lips to the last, affected me with sweet fancies of
flowers—fantastic flowers, far more lovely than any of
the old Earth, but whose prototypes we have here blooming
around us. The eye-lids, transparent and bloodless, offered
no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in
abeyance, the ***** could not roll in their sockets—
but all objects within the range of the visual hemisphere
were seen with more or less distinctness; the rays which
fell upon the external retina, or into the corner of the
eye, producing a more vivid effect than those which struck
the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former instance,
this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only
as sound—sound sweet or discordant as the
matters presenting themselves at my side were light or dark
in shade—curved or angular in outline. The hearing, at
the same time, although excited in degree, was not irregular
in action—estimating real sounds with an extravagance
of precision, not less than of sensibility. Touch had
undergone a modification more peculiar. Its impressions were
tardily received, but pertinaciously retained, and resulted
always in the highest physical pleasure. Thus the pressure
of your sweet fingers upon my eyelids, at first only
recognized through vision, at length, long after their
removal, filled my whole being with a sensual delight
immeasurable. I say with a sensual delight. All my
perceptions were purely sensual. The materials furnished the
passive brain by the senses were not in the least degree
wrought into shape by the deceased understanding. Of pain
there was some little; of pleasure there was much; but of
moral pain or pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs
floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences, and
were appreciated in their every variation of sad tone; but
they were soft musical sounds and no more; they conveyed to
the extinct reason no intimation of the sorrows which gave
them birth; while large and constant tears which fell upon
my face, telling the bystanders of a heart which broke,
thrilled every fibre of my frame with ecstasy alone. And
this was in truth the Death of which these bystanders
spoke reverently, in low whispers—you, sweet Una,
gaspingly, with loud cries.

They attired me for the coffin—three or four dark
figures which flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed
the direct line of my vision they affected me as forms;
but upon passing to my side their images impressed me
with the idea of shrieks, groans, and, other dismal
expressions of terror, of horror, or of woe. You alone,
habited in a white robe, passed in all directions musically
about.

The day waned; and, as its light faded away, I became
possessed by a vague uneasiness—an anxiety such as the
sleeper feels when sad real sounds fall continuously within
his ear—low distant bell-tones, solemn, at long but
equal intervals, and commingling with melancholy dreams.
Night arrived; and with its shadows a heavy discomfort. It
oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some dull weight,
and was palpable. There was also a moaning sound, not unlike
the distant reverberation of surf, but more continuous,
which, beginning with the first twilight, had grown in
strength with the darkness. Suddenly lights were brought
into the rooms, and this reverberation became forthwith
interrupted into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound,
but less dreary and less distinct. The ponderous oppression
was in a great measure relieved; and, issuing from the flame
of each lamp (for there were many), there flowed unbrokenly
into my ears a strain of melodious monotone. And when now,
dear Una, approaching the bed upon which I lay outstretched,
you sat gently by my side, breathing odor from your sweet
lips, and pressing them upon my brow, there arose
tremulously within my *****, and mingling with the merely
physical sensations which circumstances had called forth, a
something akin to sentiment itself—a feeling that,
half appreciating, half responded to your earnest love and
sorrow; but this feeling took no root in the pulseless
heart, and seemed indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and
faded quickly away, first into extreme quiescence, and then
into a purely sensual pleasure as before.

And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses,
there appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all
perfect. In its exercise I found a wild delight—yet a
delight still physical, inasmuch as the understanding had in
it no part. Motion in the animal frame had fully ceased. No
muscle quivered; no nerve thrilled; no artery throbbed. But
there seemed to have sprung up in the brain that of
which no words could convey to the merely human intelligence
even an indistinct conception. Let me term it a mental
pendulous pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of man’s
abstract idea of Time. By the absolute equalization
of this movement—or of such as this—had the
cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves been adjusted. By
its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon the
mantel, and of the watches of the attendants. Their tickings
came sonorously to my ears. The slightest deviations from
the true proportion—and these deviations were
omniprevalent—affected me just as violations of
abstract truth were wont on earth to affect the moral sense.
Although no two of the timepieces in the chamber struck the
individual seconds accurately together, yet I had no
difficulty in holding steadily in mind the tones, and the
respective momentary errors of each. And this—this
keen, perfect self-existing sentiment of
duration—this sentiment existing (as man could
not possibly have conceived it to exist) independently of
any succession of events—this idea—this sixth
sense, upspringing from the ashes of the rest, was the first
obvious and certain step of the intemporal soul upon the
threshold of the temporal eternity.

It was midnight; and you still sat by my side. All others
had departed from the chamber of Death. They had deposited
me in the coffin. The lamps burned flickeringly; for this I
knew by the tremulousness of the monotonous strains. But
suddenly these strains diminished in distinctness and in
volume. Finally they ceased. The perfume in my nostrils died
aw
onlylovepoetry Aug 2019
the cherry blossom accord/equation

”perfumers use aromachemicals to recreate a cherry blossom accord...(an accord is a scent made up of individual aromachemicals, that when combined, create a harmonious blend where none of the individual ingredients are able to be detected on their own).”

the odor of our lustful eyes,

the sweat, a unique commingling,
a sheen of salted oils body bathing,

crushed green petals of peaches,
crumbled together with the softy fuzz shavings,
the sediment of aromatic fruit juices drippings

our blending bottled in our brains,
none other would recognize but we,
to too two smell each other through and over
floors, concourses, cities, disparate distances

our ingredients secreted (secret),
our flavors cell secreted (secreting)
the world’s silly tittering aroma inserted,
our sparking fingertips touching
add a bush burning burnt odiferous

we seat across from each other in an airport
plastic restaraunt and everyone asks out loudly,
what is that smell, feed me that, taste me that,
as we are irradiating the atmosphere,
as we renegotiate our cherry blossom accord,
fresh signatures, updated, harmony of harmonies, notarized

she smiles, I joke, winking,
we must continue
to meet like this,
the fireworks of we,
of us,
to-gather to-gether,
a getting of giving,
she answers:

take me home and
bathe me in love,
give our bodies shelter
from the world outside,
beside a new spice
have I uncovered,
this will require some
discussion+exploration,
the quantity to be added,
the when, and the how!


what is this new ingredient?
asking puzzled and aroused,
she laughs
(a spice already included),
why it’s called
only love poetry






8/23/19 4:55pm
Disjoining this coterie
dissolves it's fragments
in Unison

Dispersal to all borders
with hasty charge
Contracted to bide

Consenting inside a concord
Of Visceral culpability
to Re-Integrate

Incontrovertibly
Bob B Nov 2018
For what would be a change of pace,
Check out this unusual place:
Persecuted groups came to create
A place where they could discriminate.
1840s gold rush dreams
Preceded years of get-rich schemes.
Nutty religious cults explore
End-time prophecies galore.
Believe whatever if that's your conviction,
Even if your "facts" are fiction.
You can construct your own reality;
"Whatever goes" is gaining vitality.
Anti-intellectualism
Accompanies attacks on secularism.
Fewer people think it's not odd
For leaders to wait for messages from God.
Satan's causing natural disasters,
For he's out to get us, according to some pastors.
Hustlers hustle the hustled, you see:
Religious theatricality.
Snake oil is sold for a quick fix;
Someone always has a bag of tricks.
Charismatic visionaries
Hope their income never varies.
Though P.T. Barnum is gone, we can say
That humbuggery is here to stay.
Homeopathic cures are widespread.
Devious mediums talk to the dead.
Scare tactics of foreign "invasions"
Keep popping up on numerous occasions.
Some have rewritten the history of the South.
Fake news spread by cyber "word of mouth."
Commingling entertainment and news--
Called "infotainment"--can spread one's views.
Acting out your fantasy makes you feel
That fantasy--NOT reality--is real.
People are duped by made-up scares.
The "National Enquirer" peddles its wares.
Cosmetic surgery transforms features.
People are abducted by strange space creatures.
The fantasy industry proliferates:
Fox News infects all fifty states.
Prosperity-gospel preachers are abounding,
Hoping their spiritual interest is compounding.
The war on the devil is not metaphorical,
For scripture, some say, can't be allegorical.
There are always the paranoid ones
Who fear the confiscation of guns.
Groups attempt to change the rules
So creationism can be taught in the schools.
Anti-establishment's becoming the norm;
Mistrust of experts is taking greater form.
Lies don't matter as long as you
FEEL that what someone says is true.
Some fear "invaders" crossing the border;
Others fear a scary New World Order.
Distrust places the media on trial
And fosters climate change denial.
Some say vaccines do great harm
And GMO foods are cause for alarm.
They say gun laws will only provide
Guns to "bad guys" with something to hide;
That regulations on any level
Of finances are the work of the devil.
A con-man leader will always keep spinning
The fantasy that with him we'll be winning.
That fake news is harmful and only distracts
People entitled to making up facts.
Voter fraud's still the talk of the Right;
Conspiracy theories keep coming to light.
Con artists boldly state:
Conversion therapy makes you straight.
If an alternate universe is in demand,
Then WELCOME, ALL, TO FANTASYLAND!

-by Bob B (11-12-18)

°Inspired by Kurt Andersen's "Fantasyland: How America
Went Haywire"
K Balachandran Feb 2016
Pure in it's gleaming marble white
a rare conch shell, well formed,
with 'reverse turning spiral',*
he holds, in both palms with reverence
closer to his naked chest, where
his beating caged heart tries to create
echoes, as if it, in an unknown
mysterious way, represents
a myth entwine him with pure nature.
An intriguing remains, retrieved,
from the accumulated deep sea secrets,
where still his memories vaguely roam
in another life, as a creature of the deeps.
The conch he is aware, hides tender notes
that bridles air, water and fire, cosmic ripples
prods him subtly to accelerate  his quest,
a swim towards the maelstrom of inner core,
commingling with the music cosmos conducts
every moment, with it's billion piece orchestra grand.

She is a flame burning in clarified butter,
his consort,her eyes reflect a concurrent spirit,
both her palms she bring together ,makes a lotus thus
and a red blooming lotus is nestled between palms.
Her lotus speaks of  fecundity,from which flows love and life
generations, descend find succor, in the gentle fragrance,
and warmth, the lotus, protects, even at the midst of a freeze.
Her eyes are blissfully half closed immersed in the fragrance
wafting in the air spreading in waves far and wide.
Conch shell with reverse turning spiral--Magical, mystical properties are attributed to such conch shells that are rare..
"Though to my feathers in the wet,
I have stood here from break of day.
I have not found a thing to eat,
For only ******* comes my way.
Am I to live on lebeen-lone?'
Muttered the old crane of Gort.
"For all my pains on lebeen-lone?'
King Guaire walked amid his court
The palace-yard and river-side
And there to three old beggars said,
"You that have wandered far and wide
Can ravel out what's in my head.
Do men who least desire get most,
Or get the most who most desire?'
A beggar said, "They get the most
Whom man or devil cannot tire,
And what could make their muscles taut
Unless desire had made them so?'
But Guaire laughed with secret thought,
"If that be true as it seems true,
One of you three is a rich man,
For he shall have a thousand pounds
Who is first asleep, if but he can
Sleep before the third noon sounds."
And thereon, merry as a bird
With his old thoughts, King Guaire went
From river-side and palace-yard
And left them to their argument.
"And if I win,' one beggar said,
'Though I am old I shall persuade
A pretty girl to share my bed';
The second:  "I shall learn a trade';
The third:  "I'll hurry' to the course
Among the other gentlemen,
And lay it all upon a horse';
The second:  "I have thought again:
A farmer has more dignity.'
One to another sighed and cried:
The exorbitant dreams of beggary.
That idleness had borne to pride,
Sang through their teeth from noon to noon;
And when the sccond twilight brought
The frenzy of the beggars' moon
None closed his blood-shot eyes but sought
To keep his fellows from their sleep;
All shouted till their anger grew
And they were whirling in a heap.
They mauled and bit the whole night through;
They mauled and bit till the day shone;
They mauled and bit through all that day
And till another night had gone,
Or if they made a moment's stay
They sat upon their heels to rail,,
And when old Guaire came and stood
Before the three to end this tale,
They were commingling lice and blood
"Time's up,' he cried, and all the three
With blood-shot eyes upon him stared.
"Time's up,' he eried, and all the three
Fell down upon the dust and snored.
1
I
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

       II
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.

       III
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

       IV
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?-"
There is not any haunt of prophesy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

       V
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.-"
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

       VI
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river banks
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning ***** we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

       VII
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in **** on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

       VIII
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.-"
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.
Meagan Moore Oct 2016
Ultimately, language will be replaced by subtleties.
The amplified magnitude of your true essence commingling amidst another's - unbounded and effortless.
Parallel perspectives - instinctive and raw
Each quark and quirk facing the void
Evoking recognition of confidence wrought amidst the entwined advent of your ability to manifest emergent and fresh.
Hewn vibrationally in the full spectrum of presence,  we lightly upon wave form.
All aspects of life require wave forms. Light, voice, thought, pulse, etc. This poem entreats upon such thoughts.
Andrew Rymill May 2015
The Knees
never forget
the prayers
at the stairs
of memory.

In the afterlife
an erstwhile
lover
flys forever
like a crane
in the limited spaces
of my heart.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2021
10,000 steps to a poem

<~>
walk to save my visions, my subterfuge-self, trying to
encapsulate the moments, seconds of nano-instances of a
tableau of histories, of actions becoming interactions,
a physical mitosis, ground into one human paste of word-cells
by a singular mortar and pestle that more than blends, but condenses

walk in Whitman’s footsteps, prowl old cobbled
streets seeing them anew, listening to the patois
of each skyward pathway, a commingling of
catechisms, Tefilot, Salah, Stuti Karana, into a stampede becoming a tornado funnel of a multivariate alphabets singularity - a prayer|poem returning to birth-mother

rush homeward desperate to retain the holy mess of verbal music,
before aged eyes release the visions, into a heavenly lost but found
depot of single lefty gloves, snatches and refrains, hymnals, phrases,
10,000 preservation band steps keeping but scraps, weeping
for the so much lost, yet blessing-uttering thankful for this one,
to a one


who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to
this moment, to this season.


4/4/21
1:50pm
~writ by night, daylight born~
Passover/ Easter Sunday
Nat Lipstadt May 2017
~~
The Trial of His Worthiness 2017

for betterdays, explorer of my complaints to the heavens,
and Patty, who asks,
who writes like this...answers from an old man




~~~
the 2017 baptism yesterday, by calendar dictate,
to my park, nature's commune, the poet wills himself to be
forcibly removed from city, greeted in solemn robes of blue/green,
by the triumvirate of bay, animals and flora & trees interlocking,
who stand in judgement of the humans interloping off-islanders
summer internees

to the double entendre dock removed,
so the bay, the Chief Justice, now a bit hard of hearing,
from the thunder and lighting of cymbal and drum crackling of the winter waves clashing, can hear my deposition clearer

the chief prosecutor, the tallest tree, wraps her branches,
around my legs, my feet, my heart, my head, not to restrain,
but to listen to my internals to adjudge the electrocardiogram
veracity of my words, a natural lie detector machine

the animals requested and sequestered to jury service,
large and small, from forest, the beneath-the-deck rabbits,
all learned in the human language, after 5 centuries of
less than social *******

put to me queries only I could answer

why have you returned?

humanity wearing me so, come to nature that knows only natural laws where existence is primary, good and evil are undefined and premeditation of ****** for no purpose of one's own kind is rare

will you write of us as in years as past?

will write of the commingling taffy of your
salt waters and my salt tears,
taking of your oxygen gifts, returning my dioxides,
both of us sharing the munificence of a warm sun goddess,
will plant my irises and kiss your cherry blossom leaves,
will step aside, over the ant mounds, harming nothing living,
for rightful life is not accorded by precedence or size
or your chosen version of a holy book


will you play for us your human music?

contrapuntal canons, adagios of Barber, Adele & Dudamel,
"a song for you"by the master Charles, some by the
poet Cohen, and even of a Rocky Raccoon, and for our kids,
a tale of a Yellow Submarine and the Dr.'s Mississippi Mud,
dash of Joni's pure voice, Eva Cassidy's unreal, none better,
rock to Elvis, Beethoven, Mozart and the Zombies,
**** deer demand Pavarotti (who knew)

all but  a chocolate sauce for a sundae of your own air strings,
waves baying, rabbits madly dashing, and birds texting,
the bellows of trombone honking of the
s-hit and run Canadian geese,
multi colored seagull's violin-like protestation squeaks of
'feed me human,
my survival share of the catch'


the tree limbs released, to now stroke my skin, pat my head,
the ants perform an arabesque, the gossipy fish come to the surface as
his Honor, Justice Bay, pronounces my sentencing term:

come,
stay with us warmed and welcomed,
shaded in our attentive embrace human
and of us
be a witness deposed, testified,
of our true nature

go,
to your unattended, impatiently waiting, Adrionack throne, go,
(once of us, a living tree departed)
observe and record, without distortion and human bias,
as you have so oft in years past,
tho mere eye-blinks to us,
life and death and preservation can coexist in a harmony

perhaps your infant species may learn from nature & beasts,
that bounty well fair shared is what humans call
the worthiness of living
~~~~
5/28/17 11:09
Joel M Frye Sep 2016
We're talking
put up a hand
to stop a hurricane
futile here,
folks.
Two days past trying
while listening
to Hermine's tails
lashing at the windows,
I reach deep
into a well of emptiness
for a lost bucket
of words
filled with dusted
dried feelings,
the rope frayed
to snapping.
A thirst to heal
will lead me to drill
elsewhere,
thirsting for the tears
commingling with rain,
the tears that burst
from a stone-crag heart
in artesian splendor.
Still drilling.
Andreas Simic Apr 2022
Like thousands of soldiers in parachutes
they come out of the winter sky

One by one hitting the pavement
to claim victory for the season now unfolding

At first they are vanquished almost instantly
a price paid for those leading the charge

However as they begin to accumulate and cluster
a formidable foe is being created

Inch by inch, foot by foot, a fortress is being built
one that can be transformed into an igloo for shelter if needed

Soon the landscape will be covered by a heavy white blanket
left unattended it will run amok overwhelming all

As plummeting temperatures assault those not ready
once open lakes and river pathways no longer escape routes

A battering ram of inclement weather hampering travel
imprisoning those caught unaware of its fury

Snow drifts form obstructing passageways
entrapping those not prepared with an escape route

Waiting out the enemy a defensive strategy now in use
As it surrounds you on all sides building an oppressing presence

High winds and frostbite commingling in the air
that will dominate at the end of the day

Beauty or beast
The conflict yet to be decided.

Andreas Simic ©
There is nothing like the first day of winter snowfall and this poem celebrates and vilifies that which is yet to come.
Butch Decatoria Jun 2016
Oh Gravitas,
dearest vineyard Spring
Avalon mists and quietude
on high Everest summit's
clarity

Oh winsome lover
how all your breezes kissing
cool on my young island skin
     learning in my wild solitude
     away from the lassitude
of desperate pangs of impoverished men
families of mine...

Why is it, in the crickets' strings
as they lull the day beyond
as the blood orange bruises to blues
and shadows to ocher
     the char on murdered campfires
     once full of dance, charismatic
     surfaces of twilight seas
why is it the only tinsil and sparkle
the coconuts know
     silver and neon golden
spirit fingers
and as I squat
early evening relieving myself
commingling with starlit you:
   
    My soft hush of song
Palm leaves and mangroves, indigo
invisible fingers strumming
the humidity like harps
     wind gusts, the bush, cavorts ...

summers without but all open windows

How close we were then
when I ran lonely in toddler ******
and all around me
your Gaia fairies in the brine
and precipitations...

(misty breath of crashing beaches
waves constant partcipation)

Without language I learned by you
ate the sour leaves and red peppers
stealing pan de sal in windows
     obvious village gifts for the sprites
that I believed I'd become,
     without fear or ingrained social dread
no anger, nor words making up
the links of invisible chains
to keep me within their boxes...

I understood
without diction
You were and are the loveliest
vision ever I've seen
ever I awed
at first sight / all of you/ around me
all mine
a pulse in my heart...

I wipe my *** with smooth papaya leaves
now that the night has conquered
the high ceiling
now the wonder twinkling
clearer now
your jewelry treasures of stars
dangling on a darker face as beautiful
as the heat of it bright
during the days / your face...

Oh love, even as a shadow
in the abyss of midnight,
in chill evenings,
I am the blaze of the fires,
a rustle through the brush
     a yipping cub
     snarling at playing
a Lion

All yours, My Goddess
I would keep you dearest to me
and prevent any danger
from any that would destroy or harm
the vary face of our world
its bountiful's : your loving
nature / life

How close we are
and ever will be
even in man's mechanisms of impending
war
even 'til the very end
together in the fires we raise
with the mornings praise
and in finale I will descend
take the fall
For you

Life of my life,
myself for you as sacrifice
just say when...
I'll be your champion
and best-est friend

(Against the horizon's backdrop
a shadow of a small boy
is shadow-boxing the emptiness around him)


I am Lamb and Lion.
P.S. I Love You.                
                                Sincerely - your Champion
Onoma Feb 2015
Downriver...crystalline ventricles
gurgling, bedded stones believe
rest--greenhorn's hymnal.
Land kept at your sides, passed
and passing, love's dicast.
Gushed alter of the wayfarer,
perfect turn of phrase--spurred onward
gravity's lane.
A commingling smoke of candle and
incense--bird's parallel, lucid Coming...
divined gauge.
Euphoric to be had of earth,
overflow at rain's touch.
Errant yonder, solvent sketch...
at-long-last's monotone declarative.
Soul's minutiae in plain, downriver...
downriver...downriver.
JP Goss Mar 2015
For Kara--

I was an idle mind miles out at the wheel, just combustion
On a road.  The borderlands
Lose their sense of place and aim
Just skirting the middle space with no face or claim to
Dauphin, Lebanon, or Lancaster.
I’ve given my love to any of the three
One is in memories and
One is in late, and
One is where I graciously keep moored
The threads of my rebirth.

These signs are riddled in bullet holes, their figures
Come to semblance of entangles, brilliant in brunette
And a gaze, reluctant ever to be caught,
I wouldn’t wish to go back
If she could be remade from bones, copse, and sunlight
Through auric clouds of mayflies.

But, the illusion scatters, and in its lack,
I do find her, much more real than ever
She is what keeps me settled in the several fawning hours
And though weak from sleep she’s the very victory of a single breathe
I start my day believing in, that she’s a spirit,
There’s this life of hers inside the countryside
Like winds who speak in sweetened tones, mild
In mockery and bewilderment, the very grip of control
Has her fingers playing palmistry, pretending magic
Distorting the sad matter of earth, her very being is a song
That to lose or to grieve my lonely way
I, to Mt. Hope, find clear direction back.

Fall in love with Lancaster girls and they can break your heart
They'll have you already like rolling hills and city lights,
And she is the entire scene commingling
Where it ought, that summer aura of hers
Is a blessing just so hard to bear,
For stories are not so wearing on me, they are easier to believe.
I no longer need to pretend
That airplanes are shooting stars
When there’s no need for wishing to a home
Where the heart is anymore; there is the
Hand that leads me everywhere,
Back to the miles of shimmering land
Where one hears always sighs of content
And rests easy in disbelief.
Sedoo Ashivor Oct 2015
Her excited nerves are tingling
He met her on the sanded pier
Their hungry hearts are mingling

His pocket keys are jingling
He carries good luck everywhere
Her excited nerves are tingling

While they sipped cups of singling
He said words she wanted to hear
Their hungry hearts are mingling

They danced and went swingling
Everyone saw both of them there
Her excited nerves are tingling

He bent low, whispering, ingling
Silencing all of her lingering fear
Their hungry hearts are mingling

Today, their lives are commingling
It's a truth they can't wait to share
Her excited nerves are tingling
Their hungry hearts are mingling.
My first attempt at this style. I hope to do better next time :-)
K Mae Jul 2012
Miracle of this morning:
Sun commingling with green !
I see.
Piano keys are dreams that illude me.
The sounds are so sensual, clacks that mock the gentle twinge of a note.
Like guitar strings plucked just so, sound as the weeping of stars.
Light that seems to melt away from its whole leaving a void.
I feel as though the world has become so much easier to hear.
The silence from indoors is a perpetual energy that feeds us.
Keeps us safe.
Yet the ecstasy of light on a dark night seems to call to us.
The blur of a grey black in the night sky that meshes so well with street lights.

The winter calls clarity to our eyes,
and the world seems to stand still while snowflakes move past our frozen bodies.
And each flake catches the bouncing particulates of a glimmer, making the air crisp.
Like the sound of ivory tickling the soft ridges of oxygen in our ears.
Commingling with the illusion of light behind our eyes.

And the foot prints in the snow,
foot prints searching for the morning glances of a sunrise from dew drops that are months away. They seem so lost.

As lost as unwritten notes to a beautiful mind.

As lost as a concerto performed in an empty hall.
-P.S.
Nat Lipstadt May 2016
inspired by TC Tolbert's poem, ""Dear Melissa"*

                                        ~~~

joined skin cells shed and shredded,
two bodies, a compositoy,
an experiment in the temporary,
now, lost under lock and key, at a secure depository,
remote, undisclosed location,
kept unheated in a dark cool place
to preserve their combinatory
slow, half-life decaying oratory

the body is never an accident,
even though we mostly are,
accidental tourists, two collision-prone comets,
lark, rambling rambunctious adventurers,
on a half-day tour only,
leaving behind commingling blinking dust vapor trails,
 emissions of a tour bus journey rerouted
                                                            while under orbit sail

some cells, microscopic, preserved digitally,
aged to imperfection, thrash my eyes,
making me speak in tongues I do not recognize,
but fluently possess, no wonder there,
the memory place fairly empty,
room aplenty for passerby's and the imagery
                                                         ­ of the vaguest of dearly departed

skin is not the only mot shed,
                                                       sloughing of woeful words, shelled

                    
                                     ~~~


Dear Melissa
TC Tolbert

a curve billed thrasher
is cleaning its beak on the ground—
we are closer now than ever—sitting
in shadow—I never want to scare
anyone—not really—I have a friend
who loves people who come out
suddenly—in the dark—
                                          pleasure
is the same distance as pain from here—
that’s my skin on your sweater—both hands
stripped now—I know I am someone
to you I am entirely—practicing
Spanish on the computer—gesturing to
the neighbor instead of speaking—
                                          to sharpen
the body is never an accident— someone
I know I am not—letters are inseparable
from loss—moving what can be still
moved—one is sweeping the mouth—
what ever isn’t skin—take it off—
“Melissa is the name of the young woman I once was and while it’s true that she never left me, I often wonder if I left her. This poem is one way of saying thank you, Melissa, for being a body my death could die into.”
—TC Tolbert


TC Tolbert is the author of Gephyromania (Ahsahta Press, 2014). S/he teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Oregon State University-Cascades and lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Time and Wind raced the wallowing skies,
speeding past spiraling leaves,
glorying triumphal in veiled in lies,
an interminable pursuance of meandering
through mystical myths of life
lopsided and rustical in guise,
hung up on the horizon gates;

"I'm no confluence for commingling
for opposites merged with binds"
There are unsaid truths. Sometimes they are what we know the most.
Dune not be bashful, grumpy, leery
   or any other contemporary dwarf man
even countless less well known dwarves
   (that never got a chance
   to play a bit part) such as wham

bam
thank you ma'am
linkedin with emergence
   of Internet and poetry slam
opportunities availed by Uncle Sam

which characters (albeit fiction)
   nonetheless, helped spawn a quiet yet free
   global, radically riotous,
   totally tubular transformation

   affecting a societal and human specie
but not credited contributing
   to paradigm seismic shift that garnered tree
mend us plenti fully birthed,
   impacted and transformed how wii

(more particularly many gifted minds)
   bridged geographical distance
(encompassing all four corners
   of the Earth) to enhance

what came to be called the world wide web,
   digital strong armed lance
information super high,  "Cyber Revolution",
   etc allowing  one to prance

and essentially transcend reality to brook
   commanding, commingling, communicating, hook
   line and sinker, et cetera
   with an excellent access and out look
reaching the most distant cranny and nook.

This (bit a bing chitty bang)
   manifestation toward
exponentially faster processing capacities
   more powerful than pen or sword
(based on principles of Moore’s Law), reward
electronically solidifying
   binary unification swiftly tail lord

engenders greater dependence and reliance
   figuratively shrinking the drinking gourd
allowing far flung aliens, family,
   friends, et cetera to ford

great distances via sophisticated electronics
   courtesy of super smart mother board
enabling ever more complex
   electronic contrivances
   the generic **** Sapien gibbon could afford.

Analogous to Medieval Age
this quiet ***** riot creation
   vis a vis Internet did un cage
actual overcoming physical barriers
   ushered Hall mark gauge
marked by Computer/Digital Age odyssey),

   especially sharing pixillated page
at light speed, where the ordinary individual
   could keep in contact )
   albeit with every now and again
   a bit torrent rage

and in some instances tapping
   smarts of a preschooler considered a sage
which kindergarten lad/lass
   commandeered a handsome wage

whereat the parental figure did cajole, wheedle or beg
their wealthy progeny promising
   son/ daughter of a healthy nest egg
stored money in Swiss bank accounts or hollow leg
perhaps christened jpeg
or if an avid weekly reader of Moby **** Queequeg

who felt incorporeal storied power
   of Herman Melville as zen unseen aid
instructing hypothetic rich kid to drop out of school
   before his/her first grade
coz of all the money he/she made

which affected modus operandi rendered obsolete
   child worker laws
   and no sweat of brow getting paid
people used bitcoin (or other online currency)
   additionally making purchases
   with scant keystrokes to complete a trade.

As with any major dramatically novel scheme
light bulb idea scribbled on napkin
   scrap of paper
   via cheesy or whipped cream
originating as a flash in the pan
   aha eureka moment, or dream

as rough blue print subsequently
   underwent beta testing,
   before declaring pc innovation supreme
whereby outstanding persons in the tech industry
   clamored to join Kidde team.

Whether seventh day add vent
   hissed or other religious creed
powerful binary processing
   impacted near
   earth shaking incarnation indeed
and ramifications in all walks
   and talks of life sought expert need.

Coven chanting children murmured Luddites be ******!

Thus spake Zarathustra (cue the opening scene
from Planet of the Apes)
   upon witnessing as if king or queen
(in reality father or mother)
   didst get immediately

   dethroned thus, increasing mean
average positive
   effects on society, especially lean
microchip i.e. integrated circuitry

   miniaturization "green"
technology (and eventual
   attendant affordable price)
   viz said trappings

   unleashed upon global market
   invited absolute zero dust, a must clean
as a whistle work space,
   and manufacturers laboratory be microbe free
   hermetically sealed vacuumed "clean".

Countless portable machines
   unbeknownst soon epithet florid hack
   coining impromptu called cyber crime
especially as majority proportion of population
   didst purchase these dime,

a doze in countless "end users"
   snapped up these smart machines
   excitedly keyed away indifferent to gunk
on unwashed hands
   plus bits of food particles

   eventually caking hardware with grime
(eventually necessitating technician
   charging gobs of moolah
   sans to unstitch in time.

Gooey glop getting suctioned out
   technicians venting expletives
   emphasized obvious
   NO FOOD OR DRINK rule to abide
cuz suctioning tower

   or laptop presented vulnerability
   plus unforeseen downfall against fried
food and greasy hands ended up hide
ding in hardest to reach locale
   on circuit board no matter how expert pried

yelling out gratitude
   to geek squad member helping
   before he/she went out side door
eagerly awaiting

   remotely controlled self driving vehicle
   transporting techie guru home
   to an obscure gated destination,
   an uninterrupted distant, yet pleasant ride.

eventually amateurs encouraged
   to tinker like an apprenticed tailor
   akin as raw troubleshooting recruit
   oft playfully feigned to be soldier spy

pretending to repair bowel of computer
   when in truth visiting supposed shadowing dark side
   which lined illegal benefits of labor saving devices),
the sound of silence
(written on the subway walls)

though heretics opposing
   latest technology and felt sinister chill
(just ask Punxsutawney Phil),
the Internet ranks as greatest dog sent rill

lee where wiz kids ranked
   chatting killer apps with grateful dead
   information superhighway as heavenly manna
   with artificial intelligence street cred
since introduction of white bread
and powdered milk biscuits baked by Ahmed.
Dr Peter Lim Sep 2015
TEN  HAIKU

1

Far away
long ago
only memories and feelings now.

2  
Worn-out books
on neglected bookshelf
I remember my school-days.

3  
Winter night in Melbourne
hastening feet
muffled coughs.

4  
Depth of night
she stands under the street-lamp
for whom is she waiting?

5
Last tram from the city
a manuscript
of sad and tired faces.

6  
Moonlit night
lovers look at the moon and stars
  fishermen watch their nets.



      7

      The old man looks at the sky
       heaving a deep sigh
       the kids call ‘Grandpa, full moon tonight!’


8    
        Violin strains drifting
        in the night  commingling  
        with the sighing of the winds.

9      
       I was writing a poem
       a tiny bird was pecking on my window
       I forgot my words.

10    

        The last winter leaves
        scatter on the wet ground
        the crows step on them and fly away
-
Adult Alternative Poem

not for the young, reserved just for the young, just at heart,
your skin, face, crinkled, for smiling is you resting face positivity,
you daily existence free of punctuation, no separation,
your body tilted, falling forward, only direction the chest understands

your words sewn on tapestry of silence, yet voices never stilled,
fingertips spark on command when touch is earnest, casual, fierce,
Bublé, Sting, Daughtry, Allison and Adele, ****** tears commingling,
read her your love poetry & her chest breathing, your oxygen tube

easy to be an adult when the alternatives are all
proximity discoverable, nearness constant, distance an irrelevancy,
age just another construct and love, an ageless deconstruction+
unfinished reconstruction, adult alternative channel, our only playlist
Jonny Angel Mar 2014
You certainly make me granite,
emboldened with steel
& I know I make you tingle!

O darling, how can
the commingling of
sensuous-words
consummate our
perfect date & not allow us
to become masters
of a lonelier fate,
pray tell?
She loves enormously
the very last demeanor of desolate sun,

the way stars undergoes the distance
and all the tussle they had with moon,

She faith not in earth,
not those peeps which appears famish right after having regale,

She wail not at funerals now
for god has whispered truth
and kept her arouse
from seven lethally sleep,

The way she perforated and annihilated his heart,
The way she gave her clangers the name of freedom,
The way she opted the arms of her paramour and made him watch that in the downpour of October,
The way she sheered without any au- revoir and burned him breathing,

he loved anyway,

That night was black
the sky was plenary,
the moon was serene,
under the aged tree,
her hand over his chest, starkers
they were slumbering, commingling two soul,
that was the final night,
that was their final powwow,

After that night ' My mom kept continue the yarn',
there was no her and no he,

Before any toughie comes in my cerebrum she ended it saying ,

"She shot his head
And cut her vein
for they mastered their devotion
they conquered their fate
when they found them under the pines
blood was everything that left "
Eileen Prunster Mar 2012
if you take ***
out of the equation

areourexchangese m p t yormeaninglesschatter?

or a commingling of ideas

energy sparks

we are
of the earth

but we are also of the heavens
thinking about celibacy
John Prophet Dec 2018
Echoes!
Faint echoes
abound.
Ghosts in
the ether.
Faint, subtle.
Barely discernible.
Information
never lost
yet
nearly so.
The void,
filled with
echoes,
forever.
Echoes of
once was.
Echoes filled
with civilizations
noise.
Filled with
essence,
filled with
history.
Stories
of civilizations.
All that ever
was, just echoes.
Echoes filled
with ethos,
filled with
poems,
filled with
aspersions,
filled with each
civilizations
essence.
All they
represented.
Gone now!
Passing like
ghost ships.
Ghost ships
in the
night.
Echoes
passing thru
echoes.
Commingling.
Meeting!
Ghosts, meeting
ghosts deep
in the void!
Exchanging,
yet
never to
have met
at all.
green as eyes
drinking from emerald caves
the color of rusted gems are dancing in your face
i keep getting distracted by the longing in your voice
poetry keeps me hungry
poetry wakes me up
forever trusting my intuition
i seek heavy water for keeping our daughters safe
i serve muscles and nerves in a stew
the returning few are worthy of bone broth
your strength is several miles high
your fame is conveniently shy
i am arguably thine
reflect and revive
however you strive
i support you
all is said and done
now get dressed by the fire
go forth in glory and don’t forget to inspire
in between sensations
there is a pause all for you
how your hair smells
and what are you waiting for
your breath is commingling with the ocean
forever immersed in the moistness of the dawn
i am shirtless and perspiring
juicy mountains determine
our fall from heaven's grace
a gladness that i chased you
for once you were bitten
i could never be happy without you by my side
retrieve the dimples from my cheeks
dress the dog in cotton tunics
release the poison of the world
and dance with me in forgotten fields of lavender
the secrets are no longer kept
what was spoken in neglect is now there forever
i hear that one is only a disguise for another
David W Clare Oct 2016
By: David W. Clare

...where the down trodden trade in
their woes for more ***** and dope, for those with no hope...

Junkies, drunkies and the hapless disenfranchised **** of humanity enjoy commingling in the material ruins of rusted up tools

Unable to shed their grief to falsely find relief investing in the misery of others...

Stolen junk for sale!

A sickening menagerie garbage pit of doom

A sad room of mental midgets as they fidget like neurotic goons...

The hideous merchant recoils your offer in jest

Might one suggest avoid the crap trap of broken barbarism...

Saws, wrenches and shovels to merely dig ones pitiful self a deeper pit of derision

A better decision?

Goodwill stores are there to empower the solution whilst the lowly pawn shop sadly empowers the pollution...

(C) in perpetuity all rights reserved by the author

(P) FilmNoirWorks

--
Goodwill stores are fantastic!
Jonny Angel Sep 2014
I would lick the ground
you walk on,
would never want to miss
a single drop
of our commingling.
So sacred,
this blend,
I kiss your lips with.
Michaela May 2016
It came tumbling
My heart
And you caught it
Didn't know it could
Find a home
In comfortable silence
(most of the time)
And reverent observance of southwestern mountain ranges
crimson with the sun's waining blood
Your hand was elegant and kind as it reached out for mine
The most guileless beckoning  to succumb
To our spiritual commingling and the beginning of us
blunt deadly weapons of mass destruction
electrify, fracture, and
jeopardize **** Sapiens
species (and entire biosphere)
continuity rent asunder

doomsday declared (nuclear winter
gallows humor spelt
with eternal snow day)
dystopian authors outflanked
nuclear fallout wreaks worst

rocky horror picture
effected upon mankind
global (worldwide)
big screen radioactive
wee ***** weber webbing

materiel severely seared
sepsis poisons deoxyribo
nucleic acid future generations
organic fiber cursed
simultaneous single simulcast

broadcast airs live after Royal Wedding
audience participation demanded
bumping ugly fleshless
formed fruitless fatal fumes
anomalies all – blinded

******* begotten bemoan
brethren brood
brutal burnt offerings
crackling, snapping,
and popping surreal muck

shapeless liquified populace
sloshing helter skelter
quests slither towards
aimless destination
bone a fied skeleton crews cruise

crying cretins creep cavalierly
crepuscular cratered city
cruel mushroom clouds
cloaked croaking cellophane charred

cancerous clumps career,
clomp continuously
chaos charts choking climate
cold comfort commanded collusion
commander in chief concurred

crumpled coveted constitution credo
crass conceit communicated
cooly came clean concerning
consensual ****** cavort
crazy cream craving characterized

condoned combined crunching
crotch crab free **** -
****** free crux
contractual commingling
cashiered coverup

chic chica chick
cigerette chewing
clutched cocked club
choked chicken concluded
das capitol business

before he returned
to regularly broadcast program
the sea son finale
last chapter of human race

no winners, nor survivors
bleak contaminated Earth gasping
heaving jackknifed lost
nonpareil planet reduced to vapor!
Jamie L Cantore Nov 2014
She sat across from me
many years away she did seem
Time and Space still commingling
and once thought by me to be conspiring
to keep us a world apart.


Helpless was I in speech,
or naught had I the words to speak,
to this angel amongst the millions, one individually unique.
A falling star from the heavens, shrinking as she streaked
across the sky in many diadems, singing like an Old World lark.


Might I drink of your glass where it is sparkling,
I brought myself to ask finally.
The kinetic bubbles are tickling
the senses with emotions so sweet
as they pop under my nose sprightly
in the candlelight that is shining
thru the unfurled dark.

Instead she offered me her eyes innocently,
two clear craters full of life indeed,
they danced in the dim moonlight that evening
and revealed a guiltless smile within me
upon the release from Grief that she was offering
as an escape from my conservative soul now set free.
Thru Space and Time is now flying
Cupid's hurled dart.

— The End —