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Nat Lipstadt Jul 18
<>
it’s not even 6am, restless night, or wrestled night, ain’t much difference, see the **** geese on the water’s edge, I dutifully slip out of bed, awakening no one, dutifully slide in to my slip-on sneakers, grab the white umbrella next to the front door, dutifully, steadily, my first chore of the day, walk deliberately (and carefully) to make them get them get heck away, into the sound, and to cease polluting the grass where children may play…

standing at the waters edge, task finished, the sky commands examination, there is within the cumulus textured, multi-pastel, thick curdled pastiche cloud banks, overhanging the world as far as one can see, a substantive hole appearing in the sky revealing a blue heaven….what one believes, prefers should be, but what is, in fact,
not a…given and we are a but, partly cloudy day, a partly clouded observant person…

this reminds me that there are holes in all places, everywhere, in my disturbed sleep,  where I spend hours of triangulating in dreams, what I cannot pin down:

who I am, what I am, my purpose on earth, though I know where
I am, though not even, most critically, why I am…

is this a poem?

this thoughtful cursed query sits behind my eyes, frontally lobed, perpetually asking, judging me, these words, repetitiously heard,
one is not fooled,
it is a simple self-evaluation test, only an ask,
what are my justifications, ma raison d'être,
(reason for being) which is an amuse, for I discover

in French, ‘reason for being,’
is a feminine word,
(qui en Français,
c'est un mot féminin…)
and that makes me smile,
for I’m a woman-centric man

(I have no gender confusion,
this is not one of the holes
to which I refer)

perhaps it is, or, perhaps it is a rambunctious rambling of no worth, for no answers are obtained, given, deduced, and holes, skyward and inward are deep, none delimited by neither bottom or a top, just widening gaps and gapes in my existence…and answers are not
forthcoming…

<>

5:50am
Thursday July 18
Year Two Thousand and Twenty Four
5tar Jul 2011
Do you remember the first piece?
Did it wrap around wrists, a Twist or Curb
hug fingers or hang round your neck holding on 
for silver or gold?
Maybe it was gunshot through ear lobes 
hot blood rush, diamond studs sit in until 
body heals and holes held open stay open
for hoops and dangles 
Is it worth your face in gold?

Does he bling too, that black boyfriend?
Is he Bead or Box or Byzantine chain
blazing bronze or phat platinum
Did you two star gaze for long
at rocks and stones and coins
stunned and dazed in all that tomfoolery?
Did you ever put his glitter on
and how long did that ice last
before melting down to a memory?

What would it mean to leave the house naked
no sequinned cloak covering 
no shiny ear lobed shimmering's 
no solid gold hood hangings
wearing just your skin to hold yourself in?
Cloth does not count, it is matterless– 
would you be worth your face without gold?
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2021
A mirror will suffice, no doubt.
The high furrowed forehead,
The heavy-lidded Asian eyes,
The long-lobed Indian ears.
Brown skin beginning to spot,
Of an age to bore and be bored.
I turn away, knowing too well
My face, my expression
For all seasons, my half-smile.

Birds flit about the feeder,
The dog days wane, and I
Observe the jitters of leaves
And the pallor of the ice-blue beyond.
I read to find inspiration. I write
To restore candor to the mind.
There are raindrops on the window,
And a peregrine wind gusts on the grass.
I think of my old red flannel shirt,
The one I threw away in July.
I would like to pat the warm belly of a
Beagle or the hand of a handsome woman.
I look ahead to cheese and wine,
And a bit of Bach, perhaps,
Or Schumann on the bow of Yo-Yo Ma.

I see the mountains as I saw them
When my heart was young.
But were they not a deeper blue,
shimmering under the fluency of skies
Radiant with crystal light? Across the way
The yellow land lies out, and standing stones
Form distant islands in the field of time.
here is a stillness on this perfect world,
And I am content to settle in its hold.
I turn inward on a wall of books.
They are old friends, even those that
Have dislodged my dreams. One by one
They have shaped the thing I am.

These are the days that swarm
Into the shadows of legend. I ponder.
And when the image on the glass
Is refracted into the prisms of the past
I shall remember: my parents speaking
Quietly in a warm familiar room, and
I bend to redeem an errant, broken doll.
My little daughter, her eyes brimming
With love, beholds the ember of my soul.
There is the rattle of a teacup, and
At the window and among the vines,
The whir of a hummingbird’s wings.
In the blue evening, in another room,
There is the faint laughter of ghosts,
And in a tarnished silver frame, the
likeness of a boy who bears my name.
A Benign Self-Portrait
N. Scott Momaday - 1934-

suggested to me by M. Gebbie to be shared
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2015
psychonalyse what's mechanised, don't mechanise what's worth psychonalasysis, not mechanised by uniformity to prove a theory true: avoid mechanisation via the analogue theory that encompasses both freudian and jungian starting-points... psychoanalyse ex machina... don't psychoanalyse ex ego / ex deus... you'll only get machina ex placebo... theory and patent drugs to craft the perfect zombie.*

some might reflect on the title and say... ‘amateur’ psychiatry...
it’s good by defenition... what i do with my cat...
he’s still has the enthusiasm of a skier / skater,
imitating a marathon with his paws against the glass:
it’s going nowhere.
so do the nearest thing he can understand
that’s a noun, and adjective, a pronoun a verb...
his meow... his senses are orchestrated, unlike ours...
he is in equilibrium with the outside world,
there’s no inside world to speak of,
the door handle has a thumb attached to it...
he can’t differentiate like we can...
standing on the hind legs he’s almost half a meter tall...
he can’t understand the world through the onomatopoeia
i’ll write to feed a sense of sight...
we’re less able, being confiscated by the letterings
to grow blind and deaf...
he tries to enter the kitchen via the living room,
i re-assure him doing a re- tactic
of imitation crouch...
if he sees this like a repeated sunrise he will be fed by calm...
so again the optical parallelism counter intuitive in the algebraic x...
one eye and the upside down...
two eyes working together and the perceptive cross-eyed missed...
then coming along the cross-eyed perception drunk and blurry...
and we have a problem understanding synchronisation...
when eyes synchronise they synchronise from the realm of the sea,
underwater eyesight i guess...
a bit like the dreamworld fable of wanting birds’ wings
but lost in terms of eyesight where
the highly evolved have their eyes front-lobed...
staring right at you...
conquering the birds’ beak with soft cartilage, avoiding
horse-blinders and cranium architecture to aim sideways...
cats eye fronted, dogs eyes fronted... man’s eyes fronted
to allow the actor his stage and the audience its rotten cabbage.
i can psychoanalyse the cat
keeping him comfortable by repeating a mundane action
of crouching and standing straight till it becomes sunrise for him...
but i can’t theorise an impersonal unit of each man known as ego / scalpel
to testify a use of the impersonal scalpel on the personal unit that each man is
his own as worthwhile;
i can cut the whiskers of the cat if that helps - and tell you about it.
Jonny Angel Sep 2014
I want to slip
deep inside
your wonderful brain,
to unleash your creative mind
& stimulate your lobed-walls.

I want to create
a sweet friction
with your lovely cortex
& build a synapses
of unbelievable dimensions,
to flood your receptors
with my emitter,
flow my strong current
into your throbbing pulse,
again & again.
Graff1980 Jan 2019
When I have time to think,
when the dark thoughts
are hailing me
like Starfleet academy
across the universe
of my undermine;

In the dark regions
of my dreams
where legions
of thought demons
come rumbling in,
there is a red wave,
a reservoir of pain
reserved for the perturbed
parts of my overactive brain.

When the melancholia music plays,
switch flipped to repeat
as I listen to the beat
of my heart’s history,

I remember all that
was given to me,
the bits I took for granite
chipped rocks eroded
connections no longer
able to be loaded
because they are just
echoes of binary encoded
in my overloaded
grief molded
dual lobed
computing *****.
Robert meacham Apr 2021
The House on the Hill
The state of Oklahoma is known for its frigid winters and December 1968 is no exception.
I anticipate seeing the old farmhouse again. Memories of a little boy six years of age in the same mind of a young man of 23 lures me back, even though the house is no longer occupied by my grandparents. Those memories have affected me. The love, hard work, and family ties in the house effectively shaped my mind on what matters in life.
As I drive up the winding dirt road, I can see the house in the distance. It looks lonely and cold. The windshield wipers swoosh away the windblown snow. The house looks like a portrait in my windshield. The memories rush in.
I get out of my car and step backward as I wipe the melting snowflakes from my eyes. I’m overdue for this, I thought as I approach the house.
The steps are strong but graying with the traces of times impressions on every board. The top of the deck and railings which wrap around the entire front porch holds the falling snow. The rod iron bench is still there waiting to welcome someone. I remember sitting there with my grandparents talking about their hopes and dreams for the farm. I wanted to be a part of those dreams but life took me away. And I suppose that is what draws me back.
The screen to the front door still shrieks when I open it. I anticipate opening the door to an empty house.  Each room, painted pale with time, project traces where pictures once hung. I didn’t expect to hear unclear whispers coming from behind the walls. Who is trying to tell me something? The voices come in stronger and distinctly and then reminds me to whom they’re addressing. I guess memories have voices too, endearing and comforting.  
I enter the room I hold closest to my heart, my old room. It seems so much smaller than I remember but I guess my world was smaller back then except the view out the window is as large and beautiful as I remember.
The promise of winter already covers the land like a silken silvery blanket.  As I look out the window, I can see the once bright red barn towering over the property. My boyhood lookout is high in the loft where I kept watch on the horses and cattle and hoping to get a glimpse of a coyote or the mighty black bear. The window is just a foretaste of the property and I am must go out back. As I step out on the back porch gazing out over the land, the pageantry of its beauty is breathtaking.
The 525 acres are stippled with white oak, red maple, elm, and redbud trees. My favorite is the white oak because their blue-green, lobed leaves become burgundy in autumn and remain on the trees over the winter. And their straight trunks reach high in the sky in majestic fashion. My grandmother’s favorite is the redbud, a much smaller tree that parades bright pinkish-red flowers at the first sign of spring.
Several song birds are resting among four oak trees while piping their winter songs, each taking their turn in composed concert. Their plumage displays a variety of brilliant dyes and I wish I were an artist to capture their poetical presence on canvas.
In the distance, the Ouachita Mountains appear as a blur, e.g., its peaks are hazy and the range lines seem to fade away. I squint my eyes to enable me to see farther and more clear through the shield of gray snow clouds. The more I squint the further I am able to visualize this beautiful mountain. The mountains run east and west, an oddity, since most mountains run north and south.
The mountains were original home to the Ouachita Tribe, according to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, the name comes from the French transliteration of the Caddo word Washita, meaning “good hunting grounds.”
Bison and elk once found habitat in the Ouachita Mountains, but since been extirpated. The elusive black bear still roams the mountains. Today, you can find an abundance of white-tailed deer, coyote, and other common temperate forest animals.
I can hear the tales of yesteryear drumming in my mind, the ceremonial cadences are strikingly beautiful, sending chills up my spine.
Days end is approaching as the clouds and snow hides the dewy dim that begins to blanket the earth. Silence fills the air until night birds begin singing their solemn hymns but I can still hear the snowflakes falling, resting on the grounds and back porch. I cannot imagine a greater gift given me than the love of my grandparents.  And I shall keep them safely tucked away in my heart and soul.
I walk away knowing that this time I will return in a few days to stay.
I love you Samantha and George.
Tim Jan 2021
Slow-going wheels roll further
Slow men walk the earth chewing french fries
Slow night diminish slow, with an embarked illusion
Slow me, drinking slow, from the bottle that no shining fear dive deep down
With ******* my life dangles, my hands weak and wildered
With somebody in my mind, I slowly, subconciously **** myself
Somebody betrays somebody, denies her name, or his
Denies the carnaval-looking blur of a dreadful pain
Carnavals, haven’t been to carnavals for years, but I know how they dismay
I’m aware of myself at some degree, it satisfies me for I can look up and stray
I’m aware of the passion of my source of pain, yet I don’t know
It makes me shiver like an aimless stone
Pain walks upon the geography

Slow rhymes mask my voice through an unwalked scenery
Slow songs hit my soul like the smell of gasoline, each night, tonight
Tonight I struggle to find my bed in guilt of missing one more day, being loss of control on one more chance
One more glance, I prayed my dandy days to be, yet I don’t believe
And I don’t trust in anything that I admire, that I’ve never had, tonight especially
My abilities burn, burn, burn to a crimson coldness, I can neither get cold nor freeze
Every dismal day has something to teach, but I’m stone deaf and blind since the birth of my criminal being
Said that I’m one old tryer, one slow man that died earlier, living via senses
I’m breathing for nothing, as I sensed, at least that’s a good thing I guess
Tonight, I’m breathing my own graceless dirt, I’m breathing someone that will become me of some other kind
Pain barks its all greed

I was told of slow massacres of liberty, and I saw it with my bare eyes
I was told of slow tensions that could shape an affair from my fears of love, but I didn’t mind until the time I got clipsed to the iron bars as I tossed to someone’s wall
I got clipsed to myself all along the snipers’ castles where the mushrooms just fix to die, the point I always teased myself
There’s always been slow approachings to a mind’s eye felony
There’s always been a slow matter of time to catch the agony of others’ existence, even when I appreciated with someone that didn’t mean to mean good, or meant to be fine
Decades sewed blisters on my elbows, knees, my manhood, my ******* manhood
And my functional sides started not to make a beneficial man out of me, it’s clear tonight
I see a barroom right across the buildings in front, it boils with such huge river of crowds, but I don’t really want to walk there because of pain
It pours my skin down to the ground like as an axe shaving me off me
The air’s already blue now, blue as a kidnapped kid’s wishes from the little circle of life
I’m blue but I can’t get mixed up to the airwaves as long as I try to sharpen myself
I try to sharpen myself with the most lobed piece of stick, and this causes everything I abandoned to be a nightmare in my sleep, and my daytime ramblings, and it causes a killing pain
Pain disregards

Slow strings of reality judder this up that down, clang all the faith one man has once althrough his wasted life
Slow links of chain drags the cruelty from the claws of a cryptic eastward state
There’s no boundries through from everything I know to nothing I don’t know
Idols and spooned clowns look the same, sleeves of lies put them onto an act and they resurrect on my small buzzing TV
Everything can make a man commit suicide, as far as all I’ve learned from life
As far as I can teach, amountless glasses of whiskey solves that if someone looks for an easy way out
To get away from the streetlamps that targeted you, to brick up some brand new shelter against the interrogations, to be on the lam, to run, slowly
To leave the other sycophants on the midway, to break some glasses, to craft some endless rebellion, are the other options I guess
To bless someone that don’t even care, and then the lifelong heart attacks...
I don’t pay to much to my custody of survival, I have my own property on this sphere
I can pull out some dignity, as I have it on my mind, and this just gives men like me pain
Pain doesn’t tell much these days, it just attacks and attaches and grabs me by taking firm steps towards my bones
The unbreakable threads of my shadows push me to same pathetic nosedives, tonight I feel it intensively, befriending with pain
Pain, it speaks my eulogy
Slow pain, it wrecks my fantasies
Satsih Verma Apr 2018
After centuries of reverie―
a dream breaks, falls
like a mirror in ink, splintering
into thousand thoughts. Somewhere
words start flying.

Oh god!
your feet of clay are crumbling.
I wanted to write a new script
on your body,
slashing my wrists.

How much the truth was
lying? Ask the shades alluding
to moon. Patchy and opaque
in forest of maple, I was counting
the red-lobed leaves.

Your eyes were telling a
soulful tale. On beach were
sitting some youngmen in a row in orange jump
suits waiting to meet
their gods.
Yours truly, (i.e. I) quickly
became hypnagogic afore
subsequently segueing soundly
into autohypnosis booklore,
while binge reading courtesy

regarding aptitude chore
treasure trove books galore
five dollars as many
paginated fictitious stories ('bout deplore
hubble basket cases) fit into authorized bag
infernal challenge sifting evermore

alum skid more or less
bending and reaching skyhigh
toe tilly (*******
what the heel) footsore
compromising writing, rather heretofore
indulging insatiable knowledge

(surpassing narcotic fix),
the world wide web hide ignore
engrossed various and sundry
enchanting, kickstarting, and revelling - bonjour
dear reader buzzfeeding...

Till chief hankering
(regarding appeasing passionate
word loving aficionado,
albeit temporarily ceased
(think intellectual fancy feast)

getting imagination (mine) linkedin
outspeeding lightning greased
experiencing cerebral capacity increased
virtual make believe
terra incognita leased.

insatiable jabberwocky yen
countless hours elapsed when
inconvenient wont head sleep
wracked courtesy (bowling) ten

pins nabbed mettlesome ambulation
often found me - hen (pecked) hex pen
sieve dishabille scattered brained brute
somnambulant analogous awake burning ken
kindled smoldering cognitive tinder even...

Chilly cooling off, where
temporal lobed hiatus taken
beefing portfolio in effort to scare
back poetic proclivity despite near
severe withdrawal symptoms
reacquainting novelty here
with effort to jog capacity
to craft poem quite aware...

Unsuspecting readers breathed
sigh of relief interim joker I went absent
posting trademark gobbledygook,
now unnamed fool rushes in,
where angels fear to tread - nay cent

return of native son unequivocally, pinterestingly
digitally... afore written dive versification
brandishing said as unsung literary event
psalm time sacrilegious Jew bull gent
bringing entertainment intent
to thee anonymous

analogously, humorously, and parenthetically
lamely affecting (i.e. poorly emulating)
Shakespearean belles lettres,
perhaps coronavirus pathogen
t'will cut me down, whereby

microbial size Clark Kent,
whoops twas Lois Lane I meant
to empower one meek and obedient
primate even during
but, and, or conjunctive
rutting season quiescent.
sandra wyllie May 23
you stood tall and so strong
from green to red as my thong
raining down your brown capped nuts
gray rats chasing them just like a putz

Year after year
I lay in a bed of rope and cornflower cotton
my youngest son for mother's day had gotten
under your pointed lobed canopy
with a glass of strawberry wine, so happily

Year after year
the scratching of claws
the jay and robin applause
Downy woodpecker drills
such laugh and some thrills

Year after year
you shed your emerald coat
leaves dance in the air as they float
to the soft ground
covering it in a carpet of brown

— The End —