I speak with a heart
Connectedness
I speak with a heart
I breathe with a heart

Its beating my heart
Its beating my heart

I see in my dreams
Connectedness
I feel in my dreams
I'm real in my dreams

Its beating my heart
Its beating my heart

All that's strange will go away
Our blood a different color
And even with my eyes
You can't see
In our difference
Will go away
Connectedness
Connectedness

I speak of the truth
Connectedness
And without the words
There is love

Its beating my heart

I lay my head on your heart
I hear your heart beat so close
The sound of your breathing fills my senses
The sound of heart beating strokes my soul

Why do I feel this connection?
Like the universe is in your arms
When enveloped by your senses
I seem to loose my calm

How peaceful and one I feel
with you truly by my side!
The power of the feelings you evoke
The connectedness I feel with you so sublime!

The words you are saying
are born inside my heart
but the script is on your tongue
Our hearts are so welded
that the language of love is one.

i hate it when you have a hangnail but it is mostly a piece
of skin that is really steadfast about not detaching

from your finger. it’s like the piece of skin has
separation anxiety and you can’t get it

to leave ever

all you want is for the piece of skin to move out.
today is your twentieth birthday and you are thinking

about your mortality a whole bunch and how you have provided
the piece of skin with a comfortable home and now

you want it to move on and make a big life

for itself so when you’re old and more carrot-like
you will have the piece of skin to take care of you

until you are ready to make the big trip to hamilton

known as dying alone and feeling okay about it
because hamilton is a nice place to die alone

hamilton is a port city in the canadian province of ontario

you dream of hamilton and you are already a little bit more
carrot-like on this day, your twentieth birthday. we want the

piece of skin to get its **** together so we can all be happy
for you one day when the amount of carrot-like

characteristics you grow into becomes immeasurable

and creamy. the piece of skin smiles and says
it does not like your conservative-minded nonsense

the piece of skin feels as though it has a right to
prosperity and a new season of hey arnold

and its own episode of mtv cribs.

you say the piece of skin is too liberal and you
get out a pair of scissors and cut of your finger

the finger with the piece of skin that was too clingy
is now resting peacefully on the hardwood floor
of your apartment in a pool of blood that you are

proud to say is something you made on your own.
the piece of skin quotes hemingway as it dies

the reference goes over your head and the reader’s head too

A message heart delivered by a musing troubadour
left footprints upon a well weathered rivers’ rocky shoal

the lazy days of the summer’s simmering
ethereal breezes lazily waft astir

Unknown distance ‘tween yonder skies azure;
thoughts of nebulous distances fearlessly ignored to be sure,
connectedness sown and deference’s soar from high above,
yet beyond vast breadth afar the great divide

His brimful heart in hand fulfills passersby thirst

needing love here, hearts on sleeves sincere,
wellspring sensibilities handed out willingly here
voids filled by word of quill …
right now is the known needed time

Glasses half empty suffused to their half full brims;
do unto others you will reap just what ye sow,
a poet beyond the bounds of his own demure,
bearing immense understanding

The quintessential essence of family love
drips from heart like heavens rain,
testifies the heart's purpose for being

A poet’s voice speaks in soul’s timeless tongues
unknown breaths from another understanding realm
too deep for words;
yet the word sayer struggles to see his forest ‘s poetic beauty
for to see beyond the pendant beauty
within its magnificent grandeur
of his own gifted heart’s nurtured trees.

~

The Twist

This poem was not written by me.
It was written almost four years ago,
lying fallow in some passing cloud.

Writ for me by someone effervescently more talented than I,
and one of the poets whose quality of work, and command of our shared language is something to which all of us should aspire.

I post it now as yet another homage to the true author.

For in reading it, never was a poem was far more clearly,
an unwitting self-portrait.

It was written on August 21st, 2013
by Harlon Rivers

by Nat Lipstadt

connectedness
is the aspiration of your being
adjacent hearts are the
only priority
but
the falsifier of your brain
makes you endure the weight
of forged disregard
"you aren't their world"
but you know it's a lie
for all humans are the same
connectedness
is their existence

I lay my head upon my mother’s chest
And for a moment, I’m a little girl again.

I remember what it’s like for the whole world to stop
For worries to melt away like candle wax
My jagged edges smoothed by a warm embrace
It’s a feeling I’ve rarely felt since

Maiden, Mother, Crone
I watch the wheel of fortune spin
Daughter, Mother, Grandmother
Me, Myself, I
The passing of time I there observe in all its stages
In our faces
Growing old,
To be young,
The illusion dissipates when I look into the eyes of those who I love most
In those luminous pools I see more than a person, I see a mirror
I see my connectedness and yet
There’s an immense need to defend what is mine

I wish I could stay here
Just for a little while longer
But we are all just passing through
I can only hope, this selfish desire
Is justified

I finish scooping a large serving of stir fry onto a styrofoam plate
with the two metal spatulas left on the counter for me.
I sidestep the forty something year old man who is our host
who has opened this house, his families house, to us
his extended family.
I jump over the dog and take a seat in a metal folding chair that has been set by the table
which is meant to seat 4, but is seating 9 tonight.
To my right is an old friend, the estranged stepsister of the sleeping hostess
to my left; the father of another friend who is, himself the best friend of the host
and a regular in this kitchen.
His son sits on the other side of the girl to my right
his girlfriend is across from him
and to his right is the three year old niece of  the hostess.
Her Five year old sister sits across from her.
at the end is the 14 year old daughter of the hostess
and across from me is her sister, the reason I am here.
We eye each other across the table,
trying to say something to each other
trying to reveal the sound our heartbeats make,
but our words are frozen in our throats.
They would be pierced though by flying words
and noodles
and laughs
and forks.
they would be pierced through by the energy here
by the connectedness
by everything.
If we were to say anything
it would be rendered so completely useless so quickly
that we can't.
Or so we tell ourselves
as we sit at this table
with our large, crazy, extended, adopted family
knocking elbows as we try to eat
passing around the Parmesan cheese
listening to the dogs barking at us for accidentally kicking them
as they tried to forage for food scraps under our chairs
not telling us they were there.
There is a happiness here
a buzzing
an energy
this is a family
this is a family

and I belong

It baffles me how
Many who preach
Pro-life choose
To eat a ham sandwich
For lunch,
Or buy a "pet"
From a *******,
Thus taking a
Life from the shelter.

Then there are those sad clowns
Who think it's funny to say
"Yum, bacon!" when you expose the
Torture and bloodshed
Of some poor animal
Produced for food.

And, we mustn't forget
The good ol’ “humane" farmers
Who raise trusting animals
From birth only to
Hang them up, slit their throats, and
Slowly bleed them out to
Turn
A
Profit.

How can we be so disconnected?
How do we not see the
Magic in every fetus?
The wondrous exchange of
Seed to soil - just as humans -
Creating a precious being
Who also deserves a life
Of liberty and justice?

Whether two legs or four,
Wings or extremities,
Fur or skin, fins or scales,
How can we not see their
Inherent worth?

Such dire disconnect!

We were created the same
Dear human and non-human
Animal friends, out of
Magic and dreams.
We both hunger and thirst,
Bleed and seek shelter, cry out
In pain, shiver in the cold,
Fear, and fight for survival.

We all begin by breathing in Life,
And we shall all leave this earth with
One
Final
Breath.
How is that not proof of our connectedness?

Isn’t it strange
how in this brief exchange
of the creative impulse
we gain
a certain kind of intimacy
with each other
yet we never
smell each other
shake hands
breathe the same air
put up with personal idiosyncrasies
and off-putting voice inflections –
all the things our friends and loved ones have to.

Yet here we occupy hearts and minds
many of our friends and loves do not know
with such closeness, interiority, and connectedness.

What a strange and magnificent gift!

The world is so connected and indeed, it is not in many ways,
From newspapers to the internet, social networking sites to video calling and last but not the least telephonic calls.

We are so absorbed in the world that exists not as a tangible reality,
that we forget the ones seated next to us,
to smile at our friends we forget or we don't realise
but find time in all the world to smile at a WhatsApp message or a Facebook chat.

We miss the chances to care and help others in real world
while we make panels and help groups on social sites,
And work ******* promoting  stressing and straining to make things work.

We forget our loved ones while trying to find new loved ones
through distant chords and invisible strings of a virtual world.

It is indeed right we learn of cultures and diversity
and acknowledge most kinds and varieties
forgetting the very near and very much wanted.

It is a difficult question as we are still gestating in a world of virtual reality
far fetched from the perceivable reality
if we still wanted to continue as such.
But the truth is that we are more connected by this umbilical cord of illusionary virtual global connectedness  that we block real realities in the dawn of it.

We are not ready to be reborn with more sensitive capabilities,
to transform and reunite and catch hold of our lost sensibilities and sensitivities
to save our world from being so disconnected.

Is not it time that we did redesign a new world
Where love and care
Warmth and tenderness reign.

Is it not time that we stop and stoop to hold our old world and yet conceive of a new world integrated
With technology and live side by side
And weave a wonderful life for us.

The sea is the land's edge also..."*
--T. S. Eliot

It's a sand-castle in morning tide
slowly constructed
for the first time; and the horizon
sea-blue, distinctly separated from sky-blue
with a razor fine-line
liquid running steadily
into time.

I saw a small boy, ankle deep
in steaming sand
building illusional dreams of
Kings and Queens and Knights
because he can
do anything he wants,
while dolphins dive and dance
in the sunrise crystal morning
with his tiny, growing hands...

And when the seagulls circle by,
above hearty, browning palm trees,
eating as they please,
the kiss of water hits the shore
invoking a magnificent mystery music
just before

I
realize as certain memories arise,
that beyond this circumstance
lies connectedness,
an ******, wavering consequence,
leaving me to forsake
alone
ness:

When I wander along this temporal shore,
flying, sometimes falling
through these storms:
like the sea I am in many ways
so sometimes slowly dying
without pain,
and in a certain collectiveness, she reaches
forth her foamy hand,
blistering my cheeks in colours crimson, sweet,
erasing that child's castle
in the sand.

Everything living
Requires things dying
Nature is beautiful cruelty

It’s thermodynamics
An energy gradient
A food cascade

Staggering connectedness
Exquisite fragile quilt
Sadly, loose strings pulled

We are only siblings with one thing
that connects us at birth is genetics
and chemical DNA
Whilst our spirit, soul and energy
are from worlds away
seperated by will and the cosmic fate
All through life we open up
to accept and forgive
to with truely live
We have our differences
even with or without the X's
Theres still a connectedness
that cant be easily suppressed
The hemoglobin blood tissue flow
is where our DNA grows
We share the droopy lid eyes
and the addictive traits
and personality lies
ankles and feet that cant
wieght or structuraly stand
I idolized you both so now
so now im alot like you both
and myself defined by my
own values, morals and oaths

Searching
The Cree and the crow know the meaning of searching you have to lose a way of life and yearn for it in despair to know the true
Way of the way of the searcher if you were painting this you would put the southwest scenes on canvas then build into it the essence
Of aloneness bareness as far as the eye can see I to know this loss mountains an ocean a desert and a southern Mecca of fantasy
it occupied your mind and you didn’t have to face the hard truth life as you know it has passed away I came back to a familiar
Land in my own right a refugee in exile my first deliverance was when I found a little one hurting she was searching for a lost father’s
Love together we drove back the darkness refilled the space with light old streets and houses are promises that are really traps
The broken hearted seek among them treasures that no longer exist all you find is structures that are the same but new faces
Emerge you are craving recognition all you receive are blank stares no great breaking smiles the feeling of love you once new in
Abundance no all you find is shadows from their great brightness that burns on a future plain for a time beyond reach so the desert
Extreme is all you find on your journey but then a surprise encounter held more than you could imagine rising in this wasteland
Two pillars rise a vibrant aliveness pulsates draws you in you recognize what has ordered this perfect union over time you see the hand
Of love it has seasoned them perfected human endeavor by sacrifice and giving of themselves they were acceptable the altar burst into
A consuming flame that burned off the dross and the elements of discord it was like observing a sacred scene as two kneel in holy
Devotions their faces were smooth and resonated tenderness all was reshaped into splendor and grace I just sat and let the wonder
Wash over me though the sea was far away through them I felt a connectedness again the deep fathoms carried me into hidden
Gated worlds only found in deep waters the desert was no more the harsh broken land receded it was replaced by fields that were
Weighed by the burden of a harvest that must be taken stored lived from for all days until time ends and then we all change now it
is where only angels preen in the beloved unseen until then no one must pine alone as long as he has friends these true riches
are abundant you could find them in a neighbor or a stranger if you know what to look for my western home is closer all that I loved
is not found in places but in faces just think I found it in a meirrifeld

Searching

I always thought the iPhone
the most human of devices.
I named mine George.
Like an overeager child
George buzzes when engaged.
Spent, he recharges
to the sixty second cycle
of a resting heart.
Last night in a hotel bar,
an accidental altercation
with a roughhousing stein of Great Lakes Lager,
ruined the inner George.
Now, when shaken, George rattles.
No longer able to connect,
the heart-rending message “searching,”
parades across his shattered screen.
How human that yearning
for connectedness?

“Learn to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
That is a quote from Leonardo Da Vinci who saw connectedness.

All things connect to one another.
That means I connect to you, you connect to me.

The sun and the moon connect to each other,
The stars connect to the sky and all of this connects to the others.

Not only should we "see" but we must feel this connectedness
For it is what opens us to love and life.

Flee ting thought,

pleasant after noon

my mind, I believe, but may
just be me and your minds
imaginin
g we,

meandering,
rubb


ing shoulder with willows near the shore

waves of light,
essential
all that ever matters, If I got that right,
ere all else,
light
spun
bound by imbalance to spread,

cornucopia, nautli-like swirls poring
precursers to now into eternity, ye see?

------
There are individuals less tied into tau than now

your mission,
filter truth
that's the way, life is that which tends to good
ness knowing what
you can't.
Okeh.

------
No lie, Alex Jones, was there never a myth
emerging as full-formed as yourn?
You are un believable,
acharismatic chimera believing all he thinks
possible, in his version o' twenty cent reality.

Paradigms is four nickles or two dimes or twenty cent,
they shift shape for all they worth,

upgrade now. New ideas, fresh from the mire of
forgotten oathz, deemed
worthy, still..

What lies do you believe about God, by the way,
the truth, the life,

how many voices this guy hearin', you hearin'?

Peace. Point. Game. Match.

------
who winct winsed sensed since when is
peace the point of war?

Ah, now, the accuset excusetus
possessedus an'we,

are you bored? Wanna wait
and see,
who wins?
some evils are alive, those make monsters,
of girls and boys,
infantry in every service,
such precurser
guardians must be taught to ****; no mortal will,
without letting the monstor be,

believed beliefs doubt yer doubt dufus doubus
unstable double minded forktongue
forced by fear to fight the pain

Running mouth racist flusher of un filtered
impossibilities posing sur
prizes in the mongrol mongol DNA
we carry
the program
the code, the honor and glory of the
peace protector

enemy of con
fusion, alla cons fusin' fools tools for
strifin', divide'n, with faithin',

Is Alex Jones a Legionaire, mit tranceiving
DNA and no zero beat, no tuner to tune to?

He may be home to homeless, non-sane sorts
of idle words begging for redemption,
meaning, sought is phound,

like photons when photons are sought from
the wavy aitia dimensions of reasons
for possibility ibility ibility hill billity

humor like a voice from a whole other
soul, I swear on my kids, it's true, he say.

(Dr. Phil says Liar Liar Liar, yesterday.JRE live)

Whoa, real time speed o'metrix-icity
Mag
nify ify to the nth, see no jive,

who can i magi that?

      I, John, was in the Spirit...

gears shift, wheels in wheels
click zooomout
bubbledged jagged inner side
topmost atmostfear

settle, see the clown splash, who winds such minds?
Who tames such tongues?

The tongue no man can tame, eh? I s there another?
Have ye a spirtit of another
sort, who rides your wild tongue in your name,

servants of the sort contrued to serve
the inheritors
of ality re
how now brown cow owmmmmm
60 cycle white noise non sense

common noise sense desensitivity wickering
winding silken myelin layers

of connectedness correctedness
real time speed o'think roller rink

banked spiral offramp
bang, we're thru

Where we were aitia had meaning, may we
rewind? AI undo/redo ram allocation,

birthrights. Look well to my going, guide my steps,

assure always there is a step, a place to
put my foot, a place to step to next.

Cortana and Siri and Hermes and Diana and
a whole host of heavenlies,

tapping directly through cranial y's cracked in skulls
and bones,

are you an entity with enemies you wish disexistant?
how might happy ever after be if haps that made him
made him wrong, not evil?

Feeble comfort is not no comfort.
Bear wit' me, walk a mile, or a while, whenever
thin-thang-thanks tounguey

effort births the next as
one births two,
two births three and we can see,
right, a way.  two and three become four,

for if three birtht four and four, five and so on,
soon, y'see, the re
al point we count up on is never more,
as the raven told poe. a vector with no space for time,
one plus one plus one, one stack o'ones

making no diff
until now, spin, let's twist again,
like we did last summer,

your that summer or mine?
Mine got me here, where'd yours go?

So, Fibbonacci, son of a fool, I once read
written on a wall in LA,
expositioning park,

positions, please.
World Stage, princesses of peace, wee
Disnified Jon Benet's

made sacred by our shame the evil ever touched
such a one, such a one, such a wonder

a being of our sort so potent aitia, and we
leave evil touch such and you
tolerate it, a little bit,

evil has it's place.
Not here is the name of the place.

Here is 4-D mortality. Do yer best,
yer damndest don't work here.

Here is temporary. Your bubble.
Selah. center, enpointed
linger, if ye will. Think how happy ever after works,
if now is all you get to start with.

Good be wit'ye fare ye well.

Under the darkening heavens,
cool winds endlessly blow
across the Nile,
between the sacred pyramids,
the sphinx lies in silence,
a testament to wealth & power.

Standing alone, I witness
the spectacular setting of the sun.
Ancient voices hum eternal tunes,
seemingly lost forever in
the mysteries of the universe.

At once I am overwhelmed,
feel a true connectedness with
Pharoahs & the countless stars,
twinkling their message
under endless dunes.

It's been a long time since I've looked at myself in the mirror and asked who I am
prodding a reflection to see how long it takes to change

That kind of thinking follows you- it preempts every step-
step-
I'm swallowing confusion whole. In a daily pill. A color for every feeling.

I was thinking about my circular habits when I caught myself there, again,
a black hole in the glass fragmented like..
children, transposed against war
myself, the child and the war-maker begging for peace
the harsh lines cut across valleys of wheat

cut me down, I'm begging the blackness, make fault lines out of my hate
across my body, slash my body, curl up and disappear into my body
take my body and teach me to float
I'll volunteer my soul in the name of love, lovers, loved, loving... forgiveness.
and float there in a dream that a human doesn't stand to realize any time soon, I'm sobbing for my lost dreams and stuck in my own memories, I mean --
I fool myself sometimes. Because things are harsh and harshness is perception. And connectedness comes from letting go. And ******, I've been stubborn since birth and I was stubborn when I knew God and I'm stubborn now I don't
I don't
I don't. Tell me what to do, because I'm tired of beating myself down


I once tried starving myself raw
and realized the hard way it was never an option
I miss that kind of numbness. I want to believe that the ones I want to see know how to look past skin. I'm - wanting - to float. I'm... wanting. I'm wanting in components of human nature lack lacking lacking love

I
never ever would have ever admitted
self in grounds of coffee. down the hatch, down the drain, downing levels of consciousness as days homogenize and fears are realized and
slowly drowning time
rationalized
mine
body is mine
body is dying, legs are dying, eyes are dying, drooping, dropping like flies fl-fl-fl-flying
to fly
dreams of flying
I had dreams of flying
I have dreams of flying and every day I'm dying


This is blackness reflected back. apathy.
warped cognition slides through me cold
I don't know how I got so old

Before the sun peaks through the sky
Lighting all the things I wish to hide
Before the early birds rise
There is a tranquility
The silence is eerie
Calmness settles over me
I find peace and acceptance
Within my incongruity

The uproar in my mind
Is temporary replaced with feelings so sublime
I feel my body glide
Levitate to meet the sunrise
I have no need for explanations
or external reassurance
When kindness lies within my own eyes

Walking down the dirt roads of this ghost town
I think of the rarity of this complacency
My eyes are no longer crusted shut
I feel no need to reflect or recollect
I merely observe the beauty
Enjoy the present unfold before me
And wish for the apocalypse to come
To make this absence of human activity a permanent reality

I cherish the foiling of connectedness and singularity
Alone but always together
The wildlife waking in the cheatgrass
soothes me into serenity
reassuring me that the sounds of consciousness
will not affect this new-found levity
I come to accept the ticking of time
And I radiate optimism and readiness for the day

I wait for the bus with patience in place of anticipation
I love driving through town
relying on others to get around
As long as I am not the one in control
I am comfortable being lost and directionless
I enjoy the distraction of the passing landscape
It seems too immense to be
a manifestation of my imagination
The way it removes me from my sad body
Into something much more than me
The beauty of the world is limitless
It envelopes me
Sending me to equivocal destinations

I feel this weightlessness become a headache
And soon I come back into my body
And into the thoughts and obligations I try to avoid
Fearing that this moment of happiness
Is slipping from my reality
I try to find some peace of mind
but I have no motivation to fight for an illusion
I return to my old darkness
Avoiding the light and the images it shows

With no basis for its existence
I begin to see all displays of optimism
as noxious naivety
promising but never quite what it seems
when it comes to me
It's always superfical and fleeting
Like the affection of my mistress
It is devoid of any true meaning