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Dark Dream May 2021
I’ll take your gleanings
Anything that you show
Laughter is my medicine
So I’ll catch what you throw

I sought for understanding
In words that you spoke
There was usage in denial
And whimsy in your joke

I knock on your door
While standing by your side
Searching for answers
Within your moodish tide

When you reach out
I shift my perspective
Putting thoughts in the grave
To appear I’m receptive

I keep some of me hidden
Because I’m frightened of you
You can render those gleanings
Then leave without a clue

Will you awaken me again
Or cast me to pasture
As you seek greener fields
For another to capture

But take your gleanings
Anything that you give
Put it in my heart
So that I might live
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2016
alliteration intervening invasion,
a bed-throned life journey summarily unasked for, reviewing

follow behind the collected beaming seams,
to the discolored end-of-a-whiting rainbow of writings

sack in hand, sack'd yet surfeiting,
gleaning the falling bits,
inventoried stories, the poor and the glorious

light droppings,
stir'd and stor'd in hopsack bag,
woven intervals of clashing fabrics

trilogy of
me, myself and I,
following falling, trailing, failing flalings

cross currenting, swirling,
disheartened chest heaving cursing
if only, a mite more sipping
of courage everlasting

here a memory,
there a visionary,
happy haunting,
glaceing eye dreams

keepsakes of a life
modesty and poorly lived
error prone, choices weak,
father confessor to the supremity of oneself

played safety first,
thirst quenching
with the unsatisfying yellowed bursts
of "it could be worse"

but these stuffing,
gleanings of a life,
uprighted night, declining days, admixture of son and moon,
women's flashing eyes inviting
happy danger and ending disaster inevitability

this sifted treasure chest
of self-selected retained
cursings and blessings,
the measuring cup of a tragedy
well acted, quantifiable pathos superb aplenty

a play veined with comedic relief,
a Falstaff for every Hal,
compare and contrast
your essays on the container storage
of dusted cells morning-mourning

summarizing gleams gleaned from a life well....dissatisfaction satisfied...truth in poetry
Brent Kincaid Apr 2016
Pop top rings and coffee cups
Were dropped across the sound
Of paper screams from campaign mails
Discarded on the ground.
A splash of spray paint lettering
Spelled "Bobby Loves Marie"
And left a message of its fate
For passing friends to see.

And the children asked their elders
Questions of their brothers
Of things that seemed to matter
Of things they had to know.
Are these the gleanings,
Forgotten in-betweenings,
The measure of our meanings
As we come and go?

Two girls passed the masterpiece
And walked away enraged
They guessed about the artist
His parents and his age.
A sailor and a merchant passed
And argued as they walked
Of rising unemployment
And the hopelessness of talk.

And the children asked their elders
Questions of their brothers
Of things that seemed to matter
Of things they had to know.
Are these the gleanings,
Forgotten in-betweenings,
The measure of our meanings
As we come and go?

The lady rolled her window up,
The chauffeur changed her tire
As Bobby sprayed her limousine
For rich men to admire.
Later in her drawing room,
Her husband called her down.
"A lady has no business in
The ***** part of town."

And the children asked their elders
Questions of their brothers
Of things that seemed to matter
Of things they had to know.
Are these the gleanings,
Forgotten in-betweenings,
The measure of our meanings
As we come and go?
Lee Oct 2016
Today I knew my life so far
has been a mouse in the grass hiding.
There have been times I dared to cross
a patch of open ground
Where the sun fell on my so brightly
or the rain so softly
that I could not bear to be so radiant.
I have been hiding in my grass-stalk world,
and calling it living.

But now I know
I am the larger self as well as the small
I am the conciousness of rock and swamp,
of fire, eagle, mouse, and grass-stalk,
of all the great abundant earth.

I know through me she sings, creates, loves, grieves
when i hid in the grass I hid from myself.
I know my grief is deep.

I listen to Elders who know how to welcome their grief
They know when they hold it
grief is one face of deep, healing love.

The gleanings of a hiding mouse cannot meet my needs
for life's sweetness, its peace, pleasures, and joy.
This small hoard of treasures cannot compare
to expressing the gifts I am given to share.

The plans I scratched into the dust will fade .  .  .
I can shrug away the straps that hold me to what was
and release the baked clay banks ahead
The first gift I can give in any moment
is to be there.
J Allen Bertsch Aug 2011
******. why. how i try.
and fail. time after time.
the losers. they pass me by.
Pathetic. Uphill climb.

******. lies. alibis.
they fade. so do the dice.
you losers. have you no eyes?
Consumer. Don’t think twice.

chance.. lost me. so too fate.
tethered. some other place.
some losers. i cannot hate.
Platonic. Win the race.
onlylovepoetry Oct 2017
"Who writes poems like these?"

She, Miss Patty,
from Missouree? Missouruh?
asks me this question
round about a year ago,
after eavesdropping on an open poem line,
about a conversation,
a dialectic chat between me and the big guy in the sky^

(yeah, him, the magic marker Maker, who graffitis our lives only in
ink that just never goes away, cannot be erased,
talkin' bout this 'n that, ending, in a request from him for a
love poem personal (denied, fyi))

my answer:

come, sit for awhile, in poet's nook, upon soft pillows for our
tired sighs born in chests with a different kind
of breast cancer.
and upon these tough worn Adirondack chairs hard,
by the bay, we shall coverse in alternating verses

if too hot, the poetry's temperature.
we'll slow drift to the sun room of lace curtains and
heated suicide poems,
and after cool drinks
we'll observe the water, the rabbits, the cacophony low
of all the noisier creatures asking the trees and the
shuckling cappuccino frothy leaves
where did all those poets come from?
~
so to the question at hand and heart,

Who writes poems like these?

answers scarce, confessions plenty,
evasions conjured,
but tried, tired, and true, indeed
always ask myself, my sole troop,
that very same question every time,
the brain chimes poem time

'tis a truth, sort of, for the question is
asked by me, so oft,
should I, would I,
dare deflect the inflect of the eyes who cannot lie
and write a poem like this,
knowing it ends always only in tears,
or quit while ahead,
while my heart is slow beating,
and the pounding is temporarily,
halftime shelved

when
I ride the bus, open the kitbag,
find messages so privy
with and from the other poets,
(it is a privilege to be so councillor entrusted,)
picking up the gleaming gleanings of
fellow earth-extraordinaires,
reading the tales of the mad lunar lovers,
each of whom believe the moon has been following
only, each of them individually,
from childhood

when
exercising the muscle memories of love and ache
when watching the little gestures of my babies, my loved ones,
clues to who they are,
clues to who they will be.
after I am not

but let me be measured for measure by this:
Who writes poems like these?

well, after every writ complete,
weep and weep, if not laugh uproariously,
for though the question earnest, and I too,
never ever let adulthood interfere
with actions of my eyes, my mouth, my gut,
they all, masters now of me,
forcing me to write with abandon reckless and yet,
slicing off choicer cuts of me, carefully crafted, into
word etchings, painted water colors coming from the body's oils,
for my ration of rationality
has left town
for the summer, following the little drummer
boy,
perhaps, for the (double meaning) good

this each, a parcel of me, writing beguiling amuse bouches
of cache and cant, of poodles who speak human,
long legs in bed, high heels attached, conversations with moons,
crying to my lovers, I am a little boy, so needy,
and then the left foot turns to face
any and all gods who permit their names to be abused
for muddying murdering purposes,
as if we, all humans, all poets, were playthings,
bowling pins and not poets of some, any, the, way,
coming from the place
to where we all speak words, in our differing dialects,
accepting the blessings & curses thereof,
words but never fists

have I answered the question?

suspect not,
cause I am the suspect prime
in the crime
of low poetry
and high mis-demeanors,
and the authorities have been asking me the question for a lot longer than you, but no longer than one peculiar man,
Who writes poems like these?*
and they haven't caught me yet
and I haven't quite caught
the plain answer
Oh, how the caged bird sings...
From the nest made of  fallen earrings, flattened rings, and tangled wiring.
Is there a difference between a cage and a nest?
Is a home a shelter or a prison?
I guess it just depends on who has access to the door.

Are you tired of boxes or tired of moving?
My nomadic experience provides definition to previous gleanings.
Death Row is still living, while Hobo Bo yearns for the meaning.
Feed the dog first and then get your filling.
Expanding your consciousness, but how far are you willing?
Your pupils can only expand so much before your eyes are nothing but black holes with no floors or ceilings.

How old is this feeling?
Your camera lens will fracture if you don't stop twisting.
Pretty soon you won't be able to view anything.  
Your tree houses how many rings?
Did you really free yourself or is the cage just disappearing?
How close can you get to flying without batting your wings?
How close to the sun can you fly be before frying? What good does that bring? Let freedom ring.

So sing, little bird, sing your song of searing madness.
Whether I'm shackled to this perch or flying in circles out in a clearing,
As long as I'm listening to these same sweet melodies there is nothing to be fearing,
For I'm listening to the most beautiful song that I can ever remember hearing.
A bird lives a simple life, and in the end that is what is most endearing.
Sing freedom, sing.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2022
7:00am
Shelter Island,
Sat Sep10

on the south west edge of the isle,
the slowrise sunrise just behind the trees,
so early day yet, no full frontal of a sun
bathing to wake up woman, babes asleeping, but the
animals know exactly this hours early
perfection.

indeed, the crazy squirrels are random
hither and dithering in spurts of energy,
only stopping to observe a viewing of the humans
nest~resting through the glass doors with their
inquisitive, self-possessed, bedside reckless manner,
perfected.

the suns pealing gleaming gleanings picks
out any shiny reflective surface that enhances
its low-rise greeting, with a chorale of living objects
singing “Hallelujah orb, what’s in store for us today,”
river~bay, wake-less, its becalming, marbling surface, again,
perfected.

me?

I’m mugged by the perfection intersection of
my eyes-scape, first coffee, the holy quietude, only
the regular soft breaths beside, lend a counterpoint
to these thoughts and the litany of chores the iCal happily, annoyingly,  prematurely but with certainty lists, resistance (Walk!)
perfectly ok.

ok not to move an inch, watching this daily movie rerun,
that energizes hope, a contemporary localized contented without the
humdrum of blaring headlines, talking heads, and the
infiltration of the guilty unfulfilled responsibilities demanding a due,
then heavens signal me, Donovan, earbud singing Colors, confirmed
perfectly ok!


Yellow is the color of my true love's hair
In the mornin', when we rise
In the mornin', when we rise
That's the time, that's the time
I love the best

Middle Class Feb 2015
When the clocks grew silent,
Mellow abiotic laws swept away with the evening's wind
The light hit the hills with the softest envy
And the grass sat content between our toes

What became of the twilight gleanings
Pangea evaded you like the sheepish fox
Were the pieces arranged, devoid of meaning?
Trembled hands settled and stilled.

If the clover grew to touch the sun
The lonely ground sank to feel the core
And the trees whispered to the birds
Would it be a puzzle at all?
Satsih Verma Jan 2017
Autumn moon―
in full grace. I have
come out to say hello.

*

Everything was in
order. A stunned silence.
The cuckoo gives a long call.

*

Long ago, such
was the night. I
wrote my first poem.

*

My innocence,
intact― I still feel
my stupidity.
WordWerks May 2017
what gives your life real meaning?
at the top, i bet it is friends.
what else could give life such gleanings?
neither health nor fancy playpens?
but, while husbands name their wives
as their "bestie", why do wives name
other women as friends?
I had heard the foghorn of my loneliness;
And heard it again, as its whisper of an echo bounced off the wall behind me

I had grown so skillful,
An artist in giving small things around me mouths to speak, and eyelids to blink, languidly...
Keeping company with puzzles and rain puddles,
And giving each piece a sensible place in our misshapen realm

Trying to place the puddles,
I observed the feminine qualities of the gentle dips in the landscape,
One being their proclivity for mollifying such a tumultuous force as weather

I watched as the many depressions of the earth wept,
The looming Nimbostratus filling them wholly, the downpour continuous;
And found it fitting to think that each puddle held its place as a notable fragment in the jigsaw of a swamp that was beginning to form in my backyard.

In that moment, I suppose it was my place to be forming a thought about that swamp
And how I could compare it, in all its watery pieces, to something else in some poetic way.
Word by word,
Carefully,
So I could write it down on paper later.
Michael R Burch Feb 2020
Я вас любил ("I Loved You")

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837) was a Russian poet, playwright and novelist. He has been called Russia's greatest poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. These are my modern English translations of Pushkin poems, epigrams and quotes …

I Loved You
by Alexander Pushkin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I loved you once … perhaps I love you still …
perhaps such erratic flickerings remain.
But please don’t let my feelings trouble you;
I do not wish to cause you further pain.

I loved you … thus the hopelessness I knew …
the jealousy, the shyness and the pain,
resulted in my hope that somehow you
might find the grace to fall in love again.

2.
I loved you … perhaps I love you still …
perhaps for a while such emotions may remain.
But please don’t let my feelings trouble you;
I do not wish to cause you further pain.

I loved you … thus the hopelessness I knew …
The jealousy, the diffidence, the pain
resulted in two hearts so wholly true
the gods might grant us leave to love again.

3.
I loved you once, and love might still be living,
its fading flame concealed within my core,
But please don't let this fill you with misgiving:
I do not want to hurt you anymore.

In hopeless, silent love I nearly perished:
It made me jealous, and it scared me too.
But now I pray that someday you’ll be cherished
By someone who will love you as I do.

The original Russian poem:

Я вас любил: любовь еще, быть может,
В душе моей угасла не совсем;
Но пусть она вас больше не тревожит;
Я не хочу печалить вас ничем.
Я вас любил безмолвно, безнадежно,
То робостью, то ревностью томим;
Я вас любил так искренно, так нежно,
Как дай вам бог любимой быть другим.



Friendship
by Alexander Pushkin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What's “friendship”? The hangover's daze,
The mild aftermath of outrage,
Exchanges in a wounded ego’s haze,
The humiliation of patronage.



I Outlasted Every Desire
by Alexander Pushkin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I outlasted every desire;
for I and my dreams had to part.
Now grief alone is left, entire,
from gleanings of a barren heart.
The maelstroms of Fate
have left my erstwhile laurel stripped;
thus I live alone without a mate
and face my end, thus, ill-equipped.
Thus on a naked tree-limb, shorn
by relentless winter's furious chill,
a single leaf, too lately born,
unseasonal, lies trembling still.



Untitled

I've lived to embalm my desires,
for my golden dreams to corrode to rust;
now all that's left are banked fires
that leave my heart ashen dust.
—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Struck down by the cruel winds of Fate,
my quaint springtime blooms disappear.
Now lonely and sad, I await
Winter’s wail that the end-time draws near.
—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Habit is Heaven's tame redress:
it tugs down the skirts of Happiness.
—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Till, conquered by gusts of cold air,
as Winter approaches, I find,
on a branch that is otherwise bare,
trembling, a leaf left behind.
—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Whom to love, to trust and treasure,
who won’t betray us in the end?
Whose kindest thoughts will measure
our words as we intend?
—Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Then came a moment of realization:
I looked again and you were there,
a fleeting glimpse of perfection,
of all that’s exquisite and rare.
—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I want to understand you,
I study your obscurities.
—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Never despise the translator, he's the courier of civilization.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Never despise the translator, he's the courier/connector/relay/conduit/Pony Express of civilization.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My whole life was covenanted to this meeting with you…—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I was not put here to entertain Tsars.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fear no insult, seek no crown, receive flattery and slander with equal indifference, and never argue with a fool.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Better ten thousand unrealized dreams than never to have dreamed at all.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If only you knew the inferno within, which I attempt to tamp down with reason!—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The less we love women, the easier they are to charm.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As poetry requires inspiration, so does geometry.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ecstasy is a glass full of tea melting a sugar cube.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unrequited love is not an affront but an incentive to excel next time.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Moral maxims are most useful when nothing else can excuse our failures.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Write for pleasure, publish for perks.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Write for pleasure, publish for pay/pelf/perks/plenty/plenitude/prosperity.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An elevating illusion’s more enlightening than innumerable low truths.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Better an exalting illusion than ten thousand truths.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As long as I live in one heart, I remain immortal.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As long as I live in one heart, my memory’s immortal.—Alexander Pushkin, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Russia, Russian, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, modern English translation, regret, remorse
These are my modern English translations of poems by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, as well as epigrams and quotes.
Glacier May 2019
sometimes i wonder how you are
i dress myself in spy fatigues as i twist my mouth
you're laughing, bright. you bleed the aura of apollo and you are ensconced by fiery legs, moscato-stained lips, bejeweled smiles
nothing could yank your lyre from you
you expose rows of teeth as you coil and
you laugh. i see the hurt in your eyes in the seconds before you blink

i wonder if you've forgotten to rest them, just as i have
i wonder if that hair of yours is lovingly tussled
or usurped
under infinite gleanings of your own manic hands
when liquid barbiturate tears roll from your eyes and make house in your ears
when the darkness of your room softly suffocates you
and you pretend that it is me

i wonder if i've destroyed you and it
takes the opulence of an entire faerie festival to turn your racing head
to wrench your furrowed brow away from the
slight dip in the passenger seat
where i once occupied
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2019
listening at Mass, searching for meaning
    after the harvest, the poor find the gleanings
            music is mystery, silence unseening…


                          I try
                 to be attentive.
its not unlike humanity to seek answers. we look toward our largest, most near satelite and; well nothing--at least until a few decades ago. Nothing more could be done than to gaze at its surface and ponder the texture and deformations of its outer most layer. we have, since, spent billions of dollars to, in my best aproximation, spend a few hours there trapsing around on it. to smash a golf ball a little bit farther than one could on their best day on the green.

the stories contained herein, are little more than testaments of how individuals, without golf clubs let alone space craft, have sought the same relationship with foriegn textures.

and, while these inner-efforts have been as costly as those toward our moon, and that their gleanings have been equally fleeting, and the fact that their experiences provide more questons than answers, it remains that, just like our excursions toward a spinning rock, the dabblings of psychonauts are just as much an undertaking of a serious narrative--whether personal or univeral.
and here we find ourselves half-way understood, and even less understanding searching for a narrative. yes, and now, the narrative may even be abandoned in search of it, as DiVinci would have never imagined the telescope without first dreaming to travel amongst the stars.
may these entries be only a comma in a Proustian sentactical excursion. a pause amidst a thought still forming. a psychological hypothesis, equally ready to be both further tested or discarded.
it may have begun
Maria 6d
You don't like new acid jazz.
It's exotic, non-native flow.
It's like a traveler, dressed for show,
With a silk neckscarf as topaz.

You don't bear the style mixture.
It's like a slapdash of free spheres.
And no need to gather then down the years.
It'll be-all a needless fixture.

You don't accept circumlocutions,
Allegories and hidden meanings.
Quotations, accents and other symbols -
These are unnecessary gleanings.

You know, you're unbearably stubborn
You can't stand any fancy guessing.
You're far from a beauty of word expressing.
Sorry, but you're monotone.
I sometimes feel genuinely sorry for such monotone people.
Thank you for reading! 💖

— The End —