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Bryce Jun 2018
Gliding deftly along the city street
rolling quick and constantly
onward to some unknown scene,
some backward park in the nighttime
smoke curling from these
parted lips, moist and inviting
calling me somewhere I've never seen.

New day, new night
new feelings, rage in delight
fill me with your hilarious entropy,
knock my quarks into the next century,
will you please?

Now you're smoking the pipe and all at once you are free
between you and me, this smoke is thicker and sticks
like glue,
wispy and dreamy and the world spins and calls Toltec
telephone company can't pay me for all those calls collected
and rendered obsolete
Sun god dead as that silly calendar meme

Amaterasu,
and Imma tell you
these ladies in the picnic table
buried alive for boxed lunch and god's brunch
Jesus ******* Christ
and a indelible roster of good guys,
to which we all must strive to live and die
behind,
never moving forward
chasing our tails like a sick dog
under the jasmine runner between the decades-old tanbark
imported from overseas
dead trees
dead canine
and oh isn't it just divine?

You see it, pretty lady.
I can see it hiding behind your eyes
the things you don't tell the others because you're afraid
if they found out,
you'd be crucified.

Well honey I hate to inform,
With KGB efficiency that these love-a-dumbs
aint Methuselah,
they'll be dead!
long before your flood of tears tears me from the land
ballistas me across the great expanse to some strange Ararat
of the eastern seaboard,
or maybe wash me deep along the 80
into the desert sands and tiles
on a leaky cell phone screen
desperately trying to dial home on low battery,
realizing all this was one big deferred dream,
baking in the sun and shriveling
oh well, back to the grindstone-- all those lies plucked your nose,
gotta cut it back to size,
'else your soul it'll outgrow

Don't worry honey bee
It hasn't happened to me,
and We know with calcuable mathematical truth
that it'll never happen to you.
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
then I am wearing black suit,
white shirt, black tie,
pockets full of tissues,
most crumpled, mostly used,
like my spirits

If it's 2pm,
I am in Augusta,
in a baptist church,
a nice jewish boy,
fixing his askewed tie,
doing what
The Lord commanded of him

If it's 2pm,
I am in Augusta,
sunny and 72 Farenheit,
inside of me its a different forecast,
y'all decide the condition,
the condition I'm in

I'm in the way back row,
humming so softly,
me and Johnny C.
nobody hears,
nobody cares,

She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold wind moans
In a long black veil she cries over my bones

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave where the night winds wail
Nobody knows, no and nobody sees
Nobody knows but me


nobody knows, I am there,
nobody sees, nobody believes,
but god only knows I am here

my spirit taken here
unasked, unaided, unabated
did not have to fly,
the ship that was to take me,
busted on the rocks

for
the words that are used
to get the ship confused
will not be understood as they’re spoken
for the chains of the sea
will have busted in the night,
will be buried at
the bottom of the ocean


still
If it's 2pm,
I am in Augusta,
at a funeral,
my words gone silent,
even store bought stock phrases,
so sorry for your loss,
not for sale, all gone, all aloft,
all sold out on
this Sabbath day

If it's 2pm,
I am in Augusta,
in some form of which
not readily acquainted,
my new context a riddle,
never knew this morphosis
till now, until
it was needed,
all on that day

If it's 2:45pm
can't understand
all these people standing
over me, and the sidewalk
taste in my my mouth

it appears I appeared
on east 57th street
in my New York City,
it appears I appeared
to have
fainted dead away,
asking me not where how or when,
only why,
and I have no answers for
them or me or anybody who dare asks
a quest,
commencing and ending in
why

must have been the heat,
but decide then and there
maybe go visit
my Jordan and
my grand children
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Black_Veil_(song)

http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/when-ship-comes

2:00pm for Maria
Cecil Miller Dec 2015
It was All Hollow's Eve.  

From all around people were coming to the south eastern seaboard to pay homage to the full moon, and beseech the moon to bless them in the upcoming harvest season.

As was customary, the people brought their bongos to attract the attention of the moon. The drummers settled across the length of the beach in many little groups and began drumming their rituals. They drummed for many reasons.

To this ceremony came a young boy.
He was a quiet boy from a tribe of very meager means. He did not have with him a bongo, ornate and with a bold resounding rhythmic thump. All he had to bring to the ceremony was a single tiny bell and a sounding rod with which to strike it. The bell, when struck, would render a soft, high pitched ring.

The boy knew it was a drum circle and not a bell circle, but he wanted to be a part of the evenings events.

The sun was beginning to set and the drummers had begun.

The boy with the bell joined a group of drummers who drummed to ask the moon that the breeze would be cool and gentle, instead of savage and destructive. The boy was feeling the rhythm, and when he felt he was found the place, struck the bell with the sounding rod.

The drummers stopped drumming. One of the drummers, an older boy around the outside of the circle shooed the young boy with the bell away from the group.

The young boy felt sorry. He hoped he had not been to much of a disturbance to the circle. He walked down the beach a little way. The faintest sparkling of a few stars could begin to be noticed in the sky. The sun had nearly set.

Another circle of drummers drummed so that the moon would intercede with the vast ocean and ask that the tide be gentle instead of large and destructive to the crops in the field.

The small boy liked the rhythm made by the various hands rapping on the tight skins and the sides of the bongos. He could hear in his mind how his bell might fit in with this rhythm. He was patient. He waited. When he felt it was just the right place, the boy struck his bell with the sounding rod.

The drumming ceased. Many drummers scowled at the young boy with the bell from a far off village. One of the drummers waved for the boy to go away from this circle. He pouted a little and left.

The boy did not mean to cause a disturbance. He had only wanted to join the ceremony.

The sun had long since set. The moon and stars illuminated the sky like a silvery blanket. The boy felt the love that was on the beach deep in his chest. He began to smile.

The boy was drawn in by the rhythms of another circle of drummers who were drumming to ask the moon that the crops be plentiful with fruit, the goats to yield plenty of milk, and the chickens many eggs.

The boy thought he might try one last time to find a place for his soft, highly pitched bell tone. He was hopeful because a few of the drummers were rapping and shaking beaded pottery. Surely this circle would be open enough to allow the boy with the bell to join in and help beseech the moon.

He waited and listened. When he felt that he had found the right place in this rhythm, the young boy struck the bell with the sounding rod.

Once again, the drummers stopped. A man wearing a frown pointed sternly with an outstretched muscled arm and sent the boy further down the beach where there were no more circles of drummers.

His head hung low, and with nobody around to see, the young boy with the bell who had been sent away from all the drumming circles on the beach let heavy and hot tears roll down his face and drip from his round cheeks.

"Do not cry, Young One, " the boy heard a soft voice say.

The boy took a breath and the raised his head. Standing before him was a woman in silver robes fettered with strands of fiber shimmered like stardust. A soft mist surrounded her.

"The tone of your bell was most pleasing to me because it was possessed of a sincere gentleness and simplicity that was unique among a multitude of sounds that all bore a similarity to each other. By the time they reach the heavens, they are all the same.

Because your bell was different, it got my attention.

Because you rang your bell with the first circle of drummers, the wind will be gentle. Because you rang your bell with the second circle of drummers, the ocean will be calm. Because you rang your bell at the third circle of drummers, the crops and livestock will produce a plentitude."

The young boy could barely believe what the beautiful woman had said. She seemed to be cloudy through his lingering tears. The boy brought his palms to his face to wipe them from his eyes. When he looked back up to see her clearly, she was gone.

The round full moon was brightly shining in the midnight sky.
This is an original short story. I got the idea on my first night I moved to Miami on South Beach in 1999. There was a young adult latin male who kept going to the different circles and sounding a bell, trying to find his place in the various rhythms ,but getting scowled at by some people, so that part is mostly true. The rest is from my imagination. The bell and the sounding rod are metaphores for the boy's love and hope. It is prose, rather than verse. I wanted to capture a feel kind of like The Velveteen Rabbit, my favorite children's story. I hope you enjoy it. Many of the elements are mystical and poetic. I retain the ownership and all legal rights to this story. Written on 12-15-2015
what's the matter lady
moon is always waning
smile fragrant paining

grind those whitewashed tombstones
into a fine dust and blow it my eye
so i might cry
over you
and the distance
and have it be half hearted
but still textbook lacrimosa
Wednesday May 2014
Summer raining on the Eastern seaboard
I liked you better before November, personally

There are metal shards floating in this bathwater
Their own tiny islands of pain
A mirror in shards face up on the floor
Guess that is just another 7 years of bad luck

Pennies are dropping into the bathtub
Copper going plink plink plink
Tiny rivulets running their paths

That's just the sound of my lifeline going down the drain, again
Smells like metal and tastes like pain
Red river gushing from my veins

Locked door trying to staunch the flow of secrets
Head swimming to the tile floor
clink clink clink

Scars these days open so easily
Like the Raven said, Nevermore
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
Cusp

Once I wrote these words:

Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.

The cool air rushes in,
Stirring the inside stew of:
Infected grime, shameful desires,
Secrets that should not have been exposed,
The ***** stuff of about your life
that you alone know exists.

Contact with the atmosphere makes
Self-pity dies, blue blood turn red,
The TNT tightness explodes,
Ashamed, you have only one escape hatch.

Now, you are ready to write.

(http://hellopoetry.com/poem/now-you-are-ready-to-write/)

so here I am, hands on my chest,
so unready, incapable of writing,

the battle site changed,
sledding to the top of my head,
moved northwards, mush, mush.

just don't have what's required
to melt that mush open,
just don't have the anymore
to finish this Iditarod race
called my Idiot life.

nobody knows the silences
kept in my treasure box.
nobody knows the nail-beds
slept, bloodied, by this
mthrfking depression,
unexpectedly returned to sender,
unable now,
to write, free and clear.

suffused, this words reappears,
you don't get it, the twilight twinkies
below laughing, twinkling,
middle ******* me,
so not suffused,
nah nah nah nah
you don't got it,
you got nothing.

the words supply, torn and  tired
reappears, now escapee prisoners
before flatlining, crashing
as I am currently 20,000 feet over
somewhere above the Eastern Seaboard;

we may land smooth,
but not in any groove
that fits me anymore.

Here's the sorest, sorriest laugh,
what you are about to read
was eons ago born, and today
birthed.

Happy M.F'ing  Birthday #0
don't even, can't complain fresh,
reusing unused words that never got
devoured, so now, used up too,
like me.

cut by thicket's branches
(that in their defense, maim only to self-protect)
calluses of experience
not enough to survive
what is now needed,
new chapters required.

choruses of repetitive choirs fresh,
inspire but land on surfaces
heart-hardened by fear contagion.

who will know and
who will care and who
will make them all go away,
but me...

so touch my self,  
reminder to self is emailed,
beat the odds so man-many times,
one more time, what's the big deal?


fresh differences,
maybe,

words that are new
not in my vocabulary,
maybe.

Struggle, long lived,
is the status quo,
** **, don't you know,
nobody tole ya?

world's axis is tilted
you can fall off
a familiar horse,
get off course,
so east easy
a gravitational force so subtle,
clueless you're drowning
till the riptide
has liberated your
pockets possessions,
pathetic borrowings
of unoriginal thoughts
you thought you actually owned!
now you realize
new inspirational how to books
keep getting writ,
published for experienced suckers
like you.

so here at the pointed cusp
a crescent shaped tangent,
lines crossed, intersection of a curveball
turning inwards, retracing prior paths,
familiar but tho the forecasts predict
being on the cusp of something,
crystal ball reveals nothing at all.

I fold the little have learned
into a handkerchief
folded three times over,
tied cusp to cusp
with a trefoil knot,
which while
mathematically correct,  
is too easy as my hanky is almost empty
and hobo heart journey scary is thinking
done.
Cusp:

point, apex: as
a :  a point of transition (as from one historical period to the next) :  
turning point; also :  edge, verge
b :  either horn of a crescent moon
c :  a fixed point on a mathematical curve at which a point tracing the curve would exactly reverse its direction of motion
d :  an ornamental pointed projection formed by or arising from the intersection of two arcs or foils
e (1) :  a point on the grinding surface of a tooth (2) :  a fold or flap of a cardiac valve
dan hinton Jun 2012
For Lucinda*

I tightened my bandana
On my sun-kissed skin
I rubbed my three-day beard
God, I need a shave
God, I was going god knows where
I thought I was heading for old El Paso
As I picked my pack from the floor
But I stopped as I started for the door.
Life is just empty
When you’re walking alone.
So wherever you’re going, girl
I want to go there with you.
I sit there and watch you sleep
So innocent and so peaceful.
Last night’s cherry lipstick
Last night’s Vanilla *****
You gave me the freedom to stay; Lucinda
I could ramble a thousand miles
But what Good would it do?
I’d still hurt in the old familiar way
I’d just be sweating
I could go coast to coast, seaboard to seaboard
And never find the light
But the light’s right here, in your eyes,
You gave me the freedom to stay.
I sit on the bed and just look
Look at you in awe
What’s the point in chasing a falling star?
When the light’s in your heart
Why keep on running, when here you are?
I could ramble a thousand miles
And never see the light in your eyes again.
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2014
return voyage,
window seat,
trapped but nonetheless neat,
the views anticipated,
the route, north/south,
Eastern Seaboard, on the right,
don't need no GPS,
just a flotation-in-case device
under my **** cheeks

the local barge pilot
sent back to port,
now, the pilot~poetry commander  
in charge,
now piloting
this body, this ship,
over interstate global waters

my censorship overridden,
watching words flower,
in a daze of self-formation,
my input,
torn-out by force,
brain clamped,
seceded unwillingly from the
united state of the brain~body
of my republic

off to the far right
thru white haze,
the coastline, pointing,
an arrow head directing,
homeward bound

see further the water's edge,
wide but still bounded
by a somewhere-out-there horizon,
a glazed vanilla cloud bank
demarcating the end of the world,
for surely,
this cloud line thickened
over shadowed by
rainbow shades of only blue,
for this is where the cartoon sign is
perma-posted,
the one that appears always saying
The End!

beneath a complexity too much to explain,
lies a jigsaw puzzle incapable of ever being
disassembled and reassembled,
so fine are the parts and pieces,
of this land

roads like capillaries,
over and through fall earthy browns,
connecting mini homes,
an occasional clustering,
all set down scattershot,
randomness of guard-posts
over endless cultivations,
some linear, most not,
but all irregular,
as if the toy designer,
drew a landscape with
intent to cause or replicate
human madness at its tiniest,
its finest

periodically, the sea
invades the land, net casting,
subdividing naturally
the subdivisions human,
into islands and lines
of rivers so bent and curlicued,
they too,
cannot be conked,
their single hair straightened

where I am I so do not know,
guesses are hazardous,
so I make one,
Virginia perhaps?

Of course, I am incorrect.

from my perch in seat 12F,
I see a noon-day moon, halved,
observing me and vice versa,
sneaky uncensored notions
periodically sneak in,
causing poetic commotions

does the moon write like me
of what it sees,
or it is an inured sophisticate,
the daily astounding of earth's
mysteries innate, just commonplace,
a regular, serialized TV show?

below clouds cumulus, cumulative,
the kinds superhero's rest upon,
a white blanketed shelf of
fluff obscures the land,
the irony for those flying above this
delish
most relished,
blue skies above me,
a white wonder of
fuzzy cotton ball
underneath me,
which to those hapless earth creatures
is just
but,
another cloudy day

all is lost.

the captain speaks,
descent imminent,
control soon to be
returned to the
fool in seat 12F
the guy that did not write this poem,
but that other fool,
some dumb doppelgänger thinking,
a vista was his and
needed sharing

soon he will be concreted,
his flesh moved like a chess pawn
gliding in and on mass machines,
to move his essence to a specified
confinement cell,
from which
this essay will be reviewed,
wonderment,  who,
who riposted this travelogue
while his hands were tied and bound

for only an innocent can be so
wildly moved, wilderness bewildered,
natural emotions run ramped
from ends to endless,
only hopefuls see horizons,
and what lies above
cloudy grey ceilings,
while below,
in land of
asphalt green and work,
where bills due, obligations a must,
responsibilities that crush,
and so

his innocence is shelved,
wonder is a child's task,
not his,
his are chosen by
clock and calendar,
and flying is an excuse,
to get away,
not a place to get to...

and he wonders who wrote this eloquey,
while he observes rows of rows of
single family homes,
tall buildings and a Brooklyn Bridge,
a Central Park and even his home,
hard upon the East River,
while landing,
finally,
he espys

this place,
this isle,
Manhattan

it  is his brick and mortar,
the stuff of what and where
he lives,
like everyone else,


*on just another cloudy day
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/961704/a-prayerpoem-of-air-turbulence-and-thanksgiving/
A Prayer~Poem: Of Air, Turbulence and Thanksgiving
another Thanksgiving,
another voyage in the rareified
l'air au-dessus,
the air above,
next to, amidst
the satisfying but untouchable still,
the gray-white of the clouds of which we so oft
exclaim, and always fail,
to do justice by

this time the
turbulence
within
compulsion beating
compels this thanksgiving addition
to the compilation of airplane poems

the pointer finger tapping
out this journey's record,
a priori, gold leafed,
added, inscribed,
on the priory wall
of other journeys,
even before
it was conceptually written

the pointer finger tapping
upon your own chest,
calming the beating turbulence
ever present, a giving present
to me,
red wrapped

no whining!

I promise myself,
to promise you,
cause if this be,
the best poem
I ever write
(why not, could it not be this one?)

a small prayer shawl supplication,
shall not be marred,
with plaints and requests,
visions and incisions,
the beseeching distaste of
be and re quests,
this one simple,
even, and as always,
a tad odd like me

I am just an ordinary Joe,
flying over the middle,
the country, the real one,
no megabytes
amidst the real,
a few hundred other supplicants,
gaily glad on a mostly
head-phoned, protected silent passage,
over water, land, rivers, and family clans,
all engaged and presaged by
calendal X marked to make ,
a Mecca trip,
a Jerusalem western walled, holy mount,
which ironically is for me is
direction relative,
that bastion of flesh and sinners,
the city of tan men
and salt pillared women,
the City of Miami

whoa, real turbulence
makes the typos egregious, plentiful,
and the body sways,
left to rightly,
the poem is compulsed
urgent flown to completion
(amazing the shaking and the stirring,
to the point of locating the airbag)
perhaps, he thinks, someone in this
airy residence doe not want this prayer
finished

enough.

"The Prayer~Poem of Seat 25D"

Dear Deity of Whatever Name:

We humans peculiar to some places,
set aside a day, this week
for being superlative,
for looking inward and do
quiet summary addition,
employing organs,
as many as necessary,
noses and toeses external,
organs invisible internal,
a counting to make,
to number what we are,
isolating the better reasons,
why our existence justified

we do it in
foolish human ways,
as is our nature,
human and fools interchangeably
one and the same

So this one man counts
his words, ever careful,
ever plentiful,
and utters grace,
the Bene and the Blessing,
quiet inside,
his fellow airplane passengers
holy unawares,
that he is praying for them
simply saying this

May each one pause,
even for a second,
and collect the moment,
understanding,
that thankful is a
but half a notion,
incomplete unless
it is given
away to another,
by making it
selfless



in the air over the Georgia/Florida border
Seat 25c
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2014
Our Verse into Psalm

"who massages our words
into a masterpiece,
our verse into psalm..."

sourced from a dialogue one year ago: http://hellopoetry.com/poem/548741/the-contriving-is-all-that-remains/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
humbling words,
just now discovered,
a reflection invitation,
commenced and ended,
an essay of simple facts

two topics theme,
revealing a man's evolution

a confession oft repeated,
he writes too much, (used to)
a readily apparent truth

but when the self-soul-peering
hits bottom,
forced to reflect
back and up, and around,
acknowledging self is a four letter word,
a poking from reviewing
a year ago gone prior scribbled response,
leads to a conclusion
to answer his puzzlement

easy acknowledges
he has prior peaked,
certified and certifiable,
his best words gone by,
bye and bye,
so how now antiquated,
this tiresome task
of endless interior internal examination,
once more
he asks of himself
the Psalmist's question (121:1)


"I lift my eyes up to the mountains:
From whence shall my help come?


from you,
y'all

my poems are now and will be
just stories told,
stories of you

of a lost wedding ring,
of a young woman's striving
to answer her most essential question,
reflections on being four years old,
on Eastern Seaboard geography
Thanksgiving Day air turbulence,
a young woman's sobriety celebrated,
her poetry, richer and health effused,
of lovers who cannot ever be,
of jobs lost and freedom gained,
physical pain that knows only
the optics of poetic relief to salve,
aching and unrequited awed and flawed love
that has no remedy defusing,
older schemers, puppy love rediscoverers,
of special young men
who see by their nature,
far better into
nature's window that answers the human soul,
children foreign born, here & passed,
whom I have never met, but,
who are poems
dearest in my breast,
as if, no,
as they are mine own...

and on and on

could travel and travail,
but the clickety clock says
bread to be earned,
wistfulness hour over,
all that's need is a conclusive,
one octave,
a summarizing single note,
a lady last rinsing of the soul

your stories are my psalms,
your heartache and triumphs
my masterpieces,
thy foibles are my filament,
your stories, my revelations

turned my eyes to the mountains,
seeing only my own mountains,
that engulf and surround,
hearing a single,
simple voice answering,
it is their mountains
that deserve written attention,
and therein and thereby
can you write humbly
and walk upright
^
^Psalm 37:37
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2014
Now an annual autumnal literary festival visit
to our island redoubt,
the snow geese come honking down,
in linear formation
warning itinerant human beachcombers
of their arrival on the beach runways
of our sheltered island

This TripTik recommended diversion,
is a pleasure long anticipated by them,
seen as an intellectual rest stop,
with excellent sea snacks cuisined,
flying down the Eastern Seaboard
keeping Interstate 95 on their right,
an avian version of GPS

Our birds,
follow a minor route,
commencing in Nova Scotia,
the farthest north of all the species,
never making it to Mexico,
ending their travelogue in Georgia,
lest their true species be confused
with other kinds of Floridian snowbirds

Sit by my side they do,
one by one in assigned seats,
on the now scrawny grass blanket,
their attention span famously long,
unless a school of striped bass
seen on radar in the vicinity

I, on my Adirondack throne,
a poetry reading to intone,
with more-than-occasional audience input,
considered their right most fair

Critics one and all,
animated animal devotees of the arts,
unafraid to express their thoughts,
oft in unison or in
unharmonious John Cage
cacophonies of disagreement

Sadly, I only speak local seagull,
thus their effusive exege(e)ses and criticisms,
either damming or acclaim, indistinguishable,
their only "tell" is if
they stick around for
just one more...day...

That my poetry they did favor
was a conceit I feigned to believe,
loving their attention even if not deserved,
for in their service, and nature's too,
I am now trained to sit and wait,
a minor stitch in a famous tapestry,
for well I recall Milton's words:

*"God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.
His state is kingly;
thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
Sept. 21, 2014
J Arturo Sep 2013
the red heat at last broke across the
misshapen backs of two old crows
lifting from The Omen Tree to cast
the day's last shadow on our lengthening lawn.
and Jess turned to me stern like she'd
might well never see the sun again and said
It's in my blood, Sloan, it's rocket-bone fever
I know it and it's got right a good hold on me, too.

        rocket-bone, she says, where your legs need to "go"
        her eyes wide like each one could take off any minute
        to unknown destinations each a little fighting piece of Jess.

and I said I love you Puck but you know you're
wound right up, tighter than baling wire and no
amount of rocket fuel is gonna rip you away from me so
        guzzle up buttercup rocket-bone or no you got
        nowhere else to go and hell baby you know even the
        Titan Two Class missile herself's got a home.

because I love you Puck and I know how it goes and
if it ain't kerosene in your bloodstream it's
the president calling on the telephone
saying you've won come on down or it's
flesh eating fish in our neighbor's pool
old Gloria Whitford, mother to eleven,
who you're certain you killed in a duel.

        and I said I'm gonna take care of you Puck cuz
        you're a crazy *** ***** and full up with **** but
        baby you're still built outta rocket parts.
        and every bit of you is still a fighting piece waiting to blow
        hit every city on the eastern seaboard you rocket-bone you
        and warheads or no hell I bet the President then even would phone,

if I ever let you go.
Mark W Meehan Jan 2017
My Old Flame

My old flame, my wife!
Remember our lists of birds?
One morning last summer, I drove
by our house in Maine. It was still
on top of its hill -

Now a red ear of Indian maize
was splashed on the door.
Old Glory with thirteen stripes 
hung on a pole. The clapboard
was old-red schoolhouse red.

Inside, a new landlord,
a new wife, a new broom!
Atlantic seaboard antique shop
pewter and plunder
shone in each room.

A new frontier!
No running next door
now to phone the sheriff
for his taxi to Bath
and the State Liquor Store!

No one saw your ghostly 
imaginary lover
stare through the window
and tighten
the scarf at his throat.

Health to the new people,
health to their flag, to their old
restored house on the hill!
Everything had been swept bare,
furnished, garnished and aired.

Everything's changed for the best -
how quivering and fierce we were,
there snowbound together,
simmering like wasps
in our tent of books!

Poor ghost, old love, speak
with your old voice
of flaming insight
that kept us awake all night.
In one bed and apart,

we heard the plow
groaning up hill -
a red light, then a blue,
as it tossed off the snow
to the side of the road. 

Lowell Robert (1964). “My Old Flame” (p. 5). For the Union Dead. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY.
Have you every "discovered" a poet and wondered how you had lived so long without them? That's been my experience with Robert Lowell.
Sam Temple Jul 2015
startling images of earthquake destruction
mangled bodies strewn hitherto
charred flesh of orphaned infants
lie motionless on the partially uplifted
hospital/ monastery floor
trying to lift and remove rubble
in a desperate attempt to locate
the sobbing baby
which I can hear, but not see –
34 train cars piled
twisted metal sitting
in an oil and chemical spill
hazmat teams stare blankly
at the massive carnage
overwhelmed by the mayhem
and poisoned by their presence
within hours the first responders
have passed,
the last moments..
chocking and gurgling on their own blood
creeping up from internal damage –
wide-eyed militants stand armed
at the entrances to FEMA camps
angrily shouting and pushing American citizens
into places of detainment
while laughing about failed democracy –
night after night
I wake from terrible dreams….
Mt. Hood major eruption
ending Portland
and impacting the Columbia,
Juan De Fucca slippage
Oregon and Washington coastline in shambles
thousands dead and bodies lost,
rogue asteroid smashing headlong
into the Atlantic seaboard
leaving near ½ of our 308 million
washed away
like the Atlanteans
or the Egyptian Kings of old,
sweat coated sheets have become the norm….
nightly visitations of misshapen faces
poking and prodding,
looking at the Cascades
as harbingers of radioactive derbies
and witnessing the physical decline
of its natural inhabitants,
the ever propagandized
deadly threat of extremists
bent on killing innocents,
my tired eyes only wish for peace –
It is not kosher to refer
to oneself as a prophet or
seer or the future,
but those of you who choose
to blindly accept that everything remains
the same
will only be remembered
through songs and tales
yet unwritten –
Matt Jun 2018
33 years old
Living at the end of the world

The tribulation will begin soon
There will be war all over the globe

Massive tsunamis and earthquakes
Will strike the United States
Judgements against the wickedness
In this land

Soon the peace deal
In Israel will be completed

A Civil War in the United States
A nuclear strike by North Korea

Marshall Law
Will soon be here in the USA

Obama is the antichrist
The rfid chip technology
Hidden in Obamacare
At first the chip will be voluntary

California broken off of the west coast
Like a saltine *******
The eastern seaboard underwater

Praise the Most High Yahweh

The Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth
Has not forgotten you America
The ***** of Babylon

By the end of the year
Russia, China, North Korea
Will invade and conquer the land

The antichrist will get the nations
To negotiate peace
His world government in Jerusalem

The technology is already in place
In the rfid chip
To destroy DNA
DNA from the nephilim
Will replicate inside those
Who take the chip

Inter dimensional creatures
Demons, nephilim, rephaim
Will be coming through the portals
Opened up by CERN

Just read the book of Revelation
Given unto St. John the Divine
About 90 AD
On the Isle of Patmos

Let this holy book
Be your guide
Those of you who will be here
During the great tribulation

The first catching away
Spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15
And 1 Thessalonians 4
Will be here soon
Harpazo or as we describe it
The “catching away”

A sister in the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth
Described how the demons will have alien ships
They willing arrive with nephilim
The government will encourage people
To go up into the ships
These people will receive the mark
These people will have black eyes
And will spend eternity in the lake of fire

The Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth
Has his chariot
This sister in the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth described
Around the same time
Of the sixth seal
When stars fall from the sky
When the sun turns black
When the moon is blood red

The Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth
Will gather together those 144,000 sealed
They will receive glorified bodies while on earth
They will be taken to the wilderness
To train under the protection of a guardian angel

The Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth told this sister
That He must go gather “the clusters of the vine of the earth”
The angels have gathered together the other faithful Christians
They will be taken to where the first fruits of the 12 tribes of Israel
The 144,000 sealed are training

They train to work during the tribulation
To destroy and rebuke demons, nephilim, and rephaim

These two groups are taken up to be with
Jesus Christ of Nazareth in heaven

The tribulation saints will be crucified, tortured, and beheaded
They will not deny their faith
In the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth
They will not take the mark of the beast
Or bow down to the image of the beast
They will preach and spread the gospel
Of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth
They will keep the commandments
Of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth

So put down the video games
Repent unto the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth
If you have not
For He loves you
His precious and holy blood cannot die
A sample was taken by Ron Wyatt
The blood was examined
It contains 23 X chromosomes from the ****** Mary
And one Y chromosome from God Almighty Yahweh

Read your Bible and turn from sin
We are in approximately the last 7 years
Before this earth is totally destroyed

There will be a restored new earth
And that holy city
The city of the new Jerusalem
Will descend out of heaven
And be placed on this new earth

You won’t want to miss the 1,000 year reign
With the Lord Jesus Christ on the new earth.
The Lord Jesus Christ is supreme ruler
On the new earth
Praise the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth
For his enduring love, mercy, forgiveness, and righteous judgements

Francis is the false prophet
The one with the black eyes
Barack Obama is the antichrist
They both will be forever in the lake of fire

Satan will be released after 1,000 years to gather an army
To come against the people of the Most High Yahweh God
He will fail, because he has been a liar and a loser
From the beginning
It was his pride that resulted in his fall
Satan will spend an eternity in the lake of fire
You do not want to join him there

The Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth
Will bring His army
Clothed in fine linen
White and clean
To take back Jerusalem
At the battle of Armageddon

The armies of the antichrist will be defeated

Jesus Christ of Nazareth is Lord of heaven and Lord of earth
Jesus Christ of Nazareth is Lord of the new heaven
And Lord of the new earth

Jesus Christ of Nazareth
Is Lord of Lords and King of Kings
Julie Grenness Nov 2018
It's all quiet on the Eastern seaboard today,
As we pause for a century of Armistice Days,
Can any armed conflict pave the way,
For the peace on Earth for which we pray?
To the Anzacs upstairs we give a wave,
Our tribute to our young troops so brave,
We hear ghosts of cannons roar asunder,
Today we all stop to wonder,
We'll never know what they went through,
To make a future for me and you,
Red poppies are flowering again,
The silent bloom of a lost generation,
So we pause for a century of Armistice Days,
Let's hope for peace to be our way,
Yes, it's all quiet on the Eastern seaboard today,
"Thank you" is what we'd really like to say!
A tribute, feedback welcome.
Tom McCone Apr 2013
you spun silk across the skyline as the frail sun
spilt, onto the far-eastern seaboard, while those
consistent clicks fell resound and washed away
down the drain behind the blanket ran to pitch
as the clamourous small hours from city centre
disband the overcast to stillnesses and grandeur
of emptied haloes, trickling with dust, so i open
my muddied lungs and laugh; for now i know i
have kept fallin' anew all along, if i think i think
i will be alright will i make it through this night?
will it be any better, in the dawn's soft light? i'm
not
                  afraid
                                             anymore,
                                                                    though.
we were star-crossed, but for one single moment:
the sky tore wide, and all inside of your ribs, the
constellations swum where once i'd only found
doubt, inside your eyes the lights played
out melodies in time, as
dawn opened up
beneath
us.
this was meant to be my kinda-take on ellen menzies' "*this is darkness, but this is love.*" (http://hellopoetry.com/poem/this-is-darkness-but-this-is-love/), mainly for the obvious line and 'cause it's such a grand piece. uhm, yeah. idk. enjoy.
Benjamin Apr 2019
On the Eastern seaboard,
it’s just as hard to wake from
another dream where you’re drowning
as it is on the West Coast.

Some time, perhaps mid-October,
I swallowed a handful of some
unmarked happy hollow
in a bottle with a child-safety cap
I struggled to negotiate.

I crawled out of my window
to be under the canopy
of the Midwestern sun
to feel the blissful peace of some form of oblivion;

and when I didn’t wake,
when I was devoured by grave worms,
I fed the roots that bore a beautiful dogwood
which blossomed in the springtime.
Jordan Gee Aug 2020
I had went to visit some friends
some acquaintances
these people i used to know
I was a ghost in my hometown,
where no one used my given name.
they brought me in through a screen door and
sat me down in the kitchen.
their voices were like underwater sounds
they told me to be still while he said hello.
I looked down a flight of basement stairs
where bathed in a blue light like Chopin’s  no. 19 in E minor
sat a tiger burning bright.
up the stairs it bounded forth in muted strides
to the floor it pinned me under protest
in cemetery stillness it said hello.
the kitchen was an autoclave
I never asked for help.

my hometown calls to me in my sleep
like an indian death wail on a buffalo robe
so my eyes sink back into the firmament.
bathing in the predawn light
my bones are an old horse I ride,
I score one for the body then I get onto a plane
then I score one for the body and I get onto a plane
then i score one for the body as it lays dying without complaint.
kneeling before the Holy Cross by the roadside
I take note of really just how much room there is on the bed beside me
strange bedfellows are I and the space I’ve been given.
there is a queen sized outer darkness within my twin sized
gestures of self control.
the dusk is day now and the moon is the sun
and my hometown calls to me like Jericho’s Trumpet
sounding from inside the Pale.

in my hometown I am a pilgrim
I saunter towards the seaboard
where the docks hold greek columns that soar into the air
like the elephant’s legs in Salvador Dali’s “The Temptation of St. Anthony”.
nostalgia burns my throat like acids and bases
and the columns lead up to nowhere and this place isn’t
how i remember it beyond the Pale.
limping with thin soles
dragging a dull hypothalamus like a dead mule chained to my ankle
we would sit and watch our forefathers stare at the static on the TV
from their arm chairs in the dark.
we would offer them coffee and ask how their day was and they
would tell us that sometimes they feel like a lone alley cat.
It’s like my buddy's roommate when I would go to visit; always alone inside his room.
sometimes I would see him around town and say hello and notice his face and
see that he was still alone inside his room.

well, I have skin in the game and I have a reputation
and i’m attached to my non-attachment.
sometimes a subtle brand of disgust creeps in to replace my avarice
and sometimes I starve to death holding a long handled spoon
seated at Caligula’s table.
sometimes i can’t tell their maidenhood from their madness
so i hoard one for the body.
sometimes i remember the way bees will talk to each other by dancing
and how old men will tell you they’re afraid to die.
Sometimes I hand a *** a 20 and weep as I watch him fold it
into an origami crane.

while I was in town I looked up my former landlord
I held a fondness for the times when they didn’t use my given name.
I wanted to see my old room and I had kept a raven back then and
he assured me it was still around.
the room was now and attic and was much bigger than I had held it
in my memory, vast almost.
I ask the dust as it was thick upon the floor boards and something
felt abandoned in the air.
the roof was in disrepair and one whole side was nearly completely gone.
tranquil ribbons of cirrus clouds stood in the sky through the roof like
a child’s drawing.
“Is it like you remember?”, he asked.
“Way over in the corner there was a couch my brother would sometimes sit in” I replied.
I asked after my raven and he pointed to the part of the roof that still was.
from the shadows came a bird song like an irish low whistle from above the Pale.
“That doesn’t sound like him”, I said (more to myself than to my host),
“that’s an owl or something.”
https://youtu.be/fwR2bmhj0S0  listen to chopin
Jon Shierling Nov 2014
Go on then and type type type away
into the gloom of a dying Eastern seaboard,
waiting and watching for a glimpse of that
rotting corpse you call a messiah,
yes the prophet of power reeking of
stale cigarette butts and old ******.

Type type type the day away
buying your worthless flowers
and plastic ******* palm trees
as you shed pieces of your soul
like flakes of aluminum shavings
metal snowflakes trailing behind
your beat up industrial exterior.

Type type type through the sickle cell night
wallowing in the animal urge to
go dance naked round a roaring fire
and make sweet love to Anglo-Saxon girls
lost in moonlight on a bed of pine needles
only to realize that those dreams are just as
sallow and jaundiced as the *** on the
rusty iron corner that you know you
will someday be sacrificed to.

Type type type till the pink lips of sunrise
claw their way out of another shuddering dawn
to find you red eyed and drunk
screaming obscenities at the computer screen
and wondering how the dead certainty that
filled you with passion and verse the night before
could wither away into the hollow crevices
that forever wink up at you out of the
gangrenous ******* chest wound of American Dreams.
Remy Luna Jun 2016
They come in waves
Each one receding
And a fresh breaker each meeting
To lap against the seaboard
Phases,  individually different
Like seasons changing
They bring me reasons
To wish for steadier climates
Markedly too many cloudy days
And frosty iced beaches
Frigid and barren sand dunes
Glossy with the sheen of nothingness
Phases, always redundantly taunting
It cycles with the moon
As the tide rises
Deluge swelling to a riptide
A clumsy waltz, gravity and satellite
Fuller and more violent
With each movement
Threatens to deepen any second
The further it pulls
The farther the tendency creeps in
Shoreline expanding,  threshold capsizing
Each pulse a tender beat
I walk barefeet in the shallows
Timid to dare to wade too deep
Past the places I'm comfortable enough
With the feeling water against my exposed skin
And from here I can find stones to skip
Why would I trade leisure for treading
The sunset on the horizon
looks far more beautiful when
You can stand to see it
Phases, they help me remember I'm breathing
Because how can you bear to be alive
If you're not feeling
You're not truly living
I used to watch my old neighbor
Walk 3 times a day to the edge of his yard
Hands grasped behind his back
Half tucked in white shirt
Yellowed by tobacco or maybe sweat
He’d stand there hands
Holding his own hands
And wait
Just a few minutes
Then like his grey hair
Uncut and curling
He’d wind back
To his front door

Sometimes I’d sit
And watch
Joe Wilson Dec 2014
She sits alone with her ancient thoughts
she's sat till she's covered in grime
she never moves from her rocking chair
she just wiles away the time.

What does go on inside her head?
what does she really think?
the pain has made her look so sad
with eyes that rarely blink.

Her hands are hard and calloused
the cracks are etched so deep
you sense she feels some fearful hurt
but never does she weep.

Some say she's sat for thirty years
They say she loved a sailor
It's also said all hands were lost
The prey to a ghostly whaler.

That ship set sail from Mulgrave Port
With fifteen men on board
The seas were rough and wind was hard
but fin whales beckoned Nor'ard.

A listing ship in thick fog banks
the crew fell to watery graves
they now haunt the eastern seaboard
or rest beneath those stormy waves.

So the old crone will sit there forever
she knows that her man won't return
she'll sit there and rock while she's waiting
to join him when Death calls her turn.

©Joe Wilson - Lost ships...2014 (originally 1992)
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2016
why is it that at 38,000 feet above the sea, the words come steady easy?**

~~~

heart and head soundlessly conversing,
as the body southernly traversing,
along the Atlantic Seaboard latitude,
quiescent, his manners and attitude,
sure where he is physical destined,
unsure where he is living bound

this time,
his designated place,
a blue leatherette stoop,
identifiable as Seat 23C

three seats, rowed across,
four letters, aisle down,
the crossword question;
what rhymes with "don't y'all know it" -
must be that word,
poet

why is it
that at 38,000 feet
above the sea,
the words come steady easy?
almost as if, they grow excited
by their return to the angelic upper atmospheres,
from whence they fell,
to a planet where mundanity revels

nothing to say,
plenty to feel,
like I said,
the head and the heart confer,
a baby born poem emerges
bawling and crawling,
lolling and drawling,
southern style

poem does not state a particular,
direction unknown,
disposed to the philosophical,
it forms, then reforms,
stymied but satisfied ironical,
posing while reposing,
the newborn's query repitiously millennial,

why?

the answer too,
an airborne pollen perennial,

just because


march 8, 2016
somewhere between
nyc & Fla.
11:20 pm
Far moost o' me
     three score minus one year
tethered upon terra firmae where
planet Earth doth veer

(spins upon the global axis
     (tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane
     of its orbit around the sun),
terrestrial genesis (perhaps accompanied

     for Pete's sake by Gabriel
     blowing his horn) in all honesty unclear
boot more oven concern
     points to thermonuclear

and/or subnuclear
war, particularly at forefront
     of thine primate noggin
actively hypothesizing

     theoretical armageddon,
     when non plus ultra gravitates
     with e pluribus unum necessitating
     each individual to bend over

     and kiss his/her rear
goodbye unless total merciless queer
hue loss atomic fallout immediately
     incinerates e'en

     the moost savvy profiteer,
which aforementioned prognostication
     arose from overbear
ring hazy, hot and humid

     dangerous heat spell near
lee approximating insufferable
     temperature nearing triple digits
     (along Eastern Seaboard

     of United baked States
makes this human,
     an immediate convert to climate control
(though he happened tubby already)

     basking, glorifying, and luxuriating
     within delightful 60º Fahrenheit mere
really expressing gratitude for such
     creature comfort donning my

     stretched out birthday suit,
     (yet thee moost comfortable leisurewear
then thrift store "special bag
     mountain of clothes

     as mooch as Yukon sales,"
     no matter mine ill mannered
     mirrored reflection doth jeer
at such a sorry sight, and/or

     laugh reading interlinear
monologue colloquy,
     which message gleaned between lines,
and should this poem be red aloud,

     thy ******* passion linkedin
     with humming HVAC, ye would hear
courtesy hove cochlear
(hollow tube in the inner ear)
sensitive to deafening sounds...so beware!
Mike Hauser May 2015
From America's coast to coast
Along all it's cities streets
Is the country that I love
From sea to shining sea

From the beauty of the Blue Ridge
To it's vast Kentucky grass
I love the New York City sky scrapes
As much as the Rocky Mountains pass

There's no more beautiful of a sight
As the Atlantic's morning sunrise
Or standing by the Pacific
Watching as the sun says its goodbyes

I love the mystery of the Bayou
Down Louisiana way
As well as the shinning beauty of
All of Minnesota's lakes

All the way to the mountain tops of Washington
To the open sky of the Mid-West
From Chicago and its urban blues
To the jazz played in Memphis

Whether up and down the Eastern seaboard
Or along the coast out West
All that's seen in between
Nothing more and nothing less

Is more beautiful in all the world
God has truly blessed America
Home of the Brave, land of the Free
America, my country
this middle aged rue stirring ******
   haint no stranger to cold,
when dark hen stormy wintry days
   eggs hit from Arctic portal en fold
ding Atlantic Seaboard

   in a blizzard of bitterly, blindingly, and
   brutally sub zero temperatures
   from an occasional nor'easter
   fiercely gripping hold

the majority years, sans this prolific
   recalcitrant scrivener lived
   in various and sundry abode
   housed within Southeastern
   Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
   with 19* zip code,

and during my boyhood recall,
   how massive ice sheets did erode
the (then) opened expansive farmland,
   in preparation for planting time,

   where runnels of frigid water flowed
with childish cheeks exposed to glowed
after hours upon
   many a green acre got tilled and hoed

despite feeling energized and refreshed
   with arms and legs n'er fro zen
aye didst eagerly await with exuberant yen
kickstarting thy body electric

   experiencing hearthstone nook
   designed and built by Christopher Wren
after heading indoors counting fingers
   and toes to make sure, i still got ten

soon hearing the chorus of fauna,
   and floral kaleidoscope of color
   aground or taking wing
thus, upon thawing out thoughts
   drifted toward approaching spring,

the season revitalizing
   dormant natural inhabitants,
   whose excite (like mine) didst ping
announcing the debut of fecundity
nsync with screeching from the lizard king.

This Spring Equinox (i.e. man date:
   12:15 PM Tuesday,
   March twentieth two thousand eighteen)
doth rejuvenate
   inviolable hibernating animals

   and plants, and me equate
to experience sensation,
   whereby entire being does inflate
and (despite marital status),

   nonetheless envisions another gal asthma mate
no...no...no...please do not think this chap
   mean spirited and under rate
the woman (at present taking a siesta,

   and i breathe easy),
   who oft times doth henpeck, a trait
inherited many a chic hen
   (with tantalizing tail feathers)
   now (until she awakens)
   proscribing yours truly to wait

for my repast most likely ad hoc
moist ideal for any nerdy kid to knock
senseless, the worst facet of self important ****
   consisting of pop slop mock
Hungarian Goulash, a melange
   of relics from age old meals
   transformed into a petrified sawed little rock.
Despite twittering, uber
sputtering kickstarting
onset of cool weather
argh, another brief daily spate
re: forecasting blistering,
nauseating, sweltering...
ninety degree plus Fahrenheit

temperature forecast
(along eastern seaboard)
courtesy mister summer,
who will overstay his welcome
hoop fully a more seasonable
cooling trend rounds out ninth month
(according to Gregorian calendar)

I eagerly look forward
to crisp refreshing air
much more comfortable
to weather being outdoors
within/out this sequestered enclave
postage stamp size geographical area
offers respite versus metropolitan

denser population centers,
the former disappearing open space
rather disheartening, but urbanization -
purportedly the definition of progress
finds once open farmland
less than fifty years back
crumbling barns now tombstones

testimony when people
farmed the land, and lived
linkedin with rhythms of nature,
which only found courtesy said vestiges
inevitably razed (similar to boyhood home
324 Level Road) finds yours truly
brooding fast paced instant

credit karma gratification
twenty first century, which
small, medium forces at large
outfox the time tested imprimatur
i.e. latent powers planet Earth
unleashes (thank you global warming)
decrees final curtain call

**** sapiens runs rampant
wreaking havoc all points of compass
already inundated with scorching,
melting ice caps, flooding...
future generations, yet unborn
might avoid predicated on
dramatic alternatives fossil fuels

already showered Gaia
with carbon dioxide
as well other noxious poisons
though vibrant advocacy
evident among students
vocally demonstrating against
irrevocable damage, whereby environment

and countries situated
near sea level take heavy hit,
nonetheless... cautious optimism flickers
inducing mandatory one hundred eighty degree
reorientation regarding eco friendly

methodologies to lo mein, maintain,
sustain... technological civilization,
else quaint existence of thee
will be read about
in digitized history books.
David R Jul 2022
slowly, darkly,
creeps the creeper upward,
gently, softly,
seeking subject subvert,

squeezing, choking,
round and round it winds so,
clutching, grasping,
as in Hitchcock slide-show,

chloroplast it seeks,
in the silence it you speaks,
in dreaded game o' hide-and-seek,
deadly snare that slides and sneaks
binds together wild and weak
tames them unto mild and meek

deftly, smoothly,
pulls you up on seaboard,
unawares he smiles at you,
plants his tentacle deep in you,
plays on you as keyboard,
poisons inner mind-ward,
extradites your innocence,
chaste and untouched inner sense,
skillfully and neatly you are his.
BLT's Merriam-Webster Word of The Day Challenge
#extradite

Written with *The Music of the Night* [from "Phantom of the Opera"] in mind.
Wk kortas Nov 2020
i.

There isn't much light when you're inside,
Or at least in terms of natural light,
And if you're looking for a star to guide you
Through your thirty days, you're even more out of luck
Than you were getting here in the first place,
(In my case appropriating--almost-- a turkey breast
The Saturday after Thanksgiving,
Figuring no tired, overworked checkout girl
Would ever miss it; **** poor luck, nothing more)
The windows too narrow to climb out,
Too high to smash in anger or frustration.
Still, you can catch a bit of the outside world
The sky (this once, at least) more blue
Than mid-December has any right being
In this grubby, hardscrabble corner of northwest P-A,
***** old lake to the west,
Endless logged-out hills to the east,
Never-quite-boomed mill towns due south,
Up north Indian land where bootleggers and number-runners
Holed up once upon a time, the Senecas
Now having gone legit, Beach Boys and Barbara Mandrell
Fronting shell games which bear the Feds' seal of approval.
This is the Galilee to which I shortly return.

ii.

Time gets syrupy in the hole, moving slowly, lazily,
Fighting the laws of Newton and Einstein at every turn,
And when the ******* about lawyers,
The oft-repeated and off-key done-me-wrong songs
And respectful if somewhat impatient
Supplications to Jesus for speedy deliverance
Are no longer sufficient distraction,
A man begins to think and remember.
I met Easy Terry E. (so he called himself)
In the city lockup in Troy, or maybe it was Schenectady
(I have, after all, mosied up and down the Eastern Seaboard,
On both sides of the bars)
And let me tell you, for the only time in my born days
I wished these small-city holding cells had solitary,
As Terry E. not only had a chalkboard-scrape falsetto
Which constituted aggravated assault on the eardrums,
But also a predilection for non-stop yammering
About nothing and everything, punctuating his blather
With frequent high-pitched insistence
That he was a hermaphrodite,
And he would frequently taunt the guards by yowling
Baby, I got a lady's equipment down here.
Maybe you want to strip search me, honey
.
(Such high spirits led to an inevitable outcome;
I heard a jailer up in Utica decided to quiet him down
By sticking Terry's head in a toilet, the swirlie
Ending up a minute or two longer than was advisable)
But I had been able to more or less ignore him,
As to that point he'd concentrated on ******* off
Everyone in the cells with the exception of me,
But my turn came soon enough
Oh, don't worry Peter, darling, I know your type.
Different, smarter than the rest of us

He all but sang in  my direction.
Mebbe so, I grumbled, just a few fluky bad breaks
Here and there, that's all
.
Terry laughed and clapped his hands,
Poor sweet thing, a victim of that old lousy karma.
There was a philosopher

And he stopped for a moment,
Seemingly trying to pick a name from the air
(Not that he could see anything floating in front of him,
As he wore horn-rims with lenses as thick and opaque
As the headlights of a '72 Skylark.)
So you're just taking a break here until your luck turns, mmm?
I laid back against the wall,
Hands behind my head and grinned.
Yep, I replied, things are due and then some
To start going my way
.
Terry giggled once more, Well, you've got things
All figured out then!
Good, evil, right, wrong--just snapshots of the roulette wheel
In some infinitesimal sliver of time, and all we can do
Is put our chips down and hope the croupier is playing it straight.
Well, now that you've finally figured all that out,
I suspect you won't see the wrong side of the bars again
.
And with that he turned his back on me,
Paying me no mind whatsoever
Until they turned me loose the next morning
With the stern admonishment
To trouble the good citizens of the Capitol District no more,
And as I think back to that moment,
I suspect he may not have been telling the whole truth
As he saw it.

iii.

And so I will be released from this small cell
In this small red-brick building
In the midst of this equally small red-bricked town,
And I will bypass the bars
With their potential for a cheap hustle
And various types and flavors of low-hanging fruit,
And I will dispense with a seat on some sad Trailways bus,
Seeking a ride (thumb hopefully, defiantly
Pointing upward to the sky)
On the old Grand Army Highway,
Then north on the Buffalo Road
And I will clamber down the embankment
To the Kinzua Dam and, shedding socks, shoes, and clothing,
And hang the cold,
I shall wade into the water, acclimating ankles and washing feet,
The dive headlong under the water's surface
To arise cold, cleansed, ready to move onward.
B Mar 21
A very big and very dark dog,
wandering the docks of a seaboard town.
he'll leave sodden prints in a three paced jog
ready to follow waves all the way down.
He is ***** faced and bearded
like a man I used to know.
Soon he will be off to disappear and
go beneath the cover of a velvet snow.

I'll still be here
as years go by and the moon changes tides
collecting dust and years
as I wait to be your bride.
The mutt lived long and wise
I fed him bones, and he kept me warm
with wooly fur and chocolate eyes.

He was waiting for a man as well
and passed away, so peacefully
when frost first fell.
I had no idea they would bury my heart
in the backyard with him
so I will continue to sit
and to listen.
For the hustle of a broken jog
and a now grown boy
looking for a very big, and very dark dog,
a day of broken joy.
PATROCLUS Sep 2020
the eastern seaboard premieres a show,
spectators from the west are enthused and thrilled.
with the surround sounds of friction and sparks,
I hark and pay attention to the mysterious theater.

a character is full of anger and delusions;
going to and fro on the amphitheater's stage.
as the play closes to its duration, her anger intensifies.
the protagonist transforms into a menace!

a madwoman, but her act is fathomable.
she hopes for everyone to see, to realize -
the continuing abuse of the Mind.
because her act is real suffering.

the show will  be seen not just by the west;
this is the first regular performance
it's a story that is never told,
and it was supposed to be not.
but..
a show by Mother Earth

— The End —