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Espresso manic Sep 2019
The genie inside the bowl
told me of his lowest day eighteen fortnights ago.
The day he did not feel like a genie.
He awoke yet his eyes cried for the return of rest.
The one wish he could not concede
plagued his mind.
He did not know
how. He could not bend
the rules of time
to fulfill the most human
desire which is to wish
to never have to wish
that the present day
was not a bad day.

Like the transaction
between a poker dealer
and the man with no fear
in his eyes,
we barter with life on a cyclical game of poker.
Sometimes the house wins,
and it hurts like a thumb tacker.
A pair 2s is so inconsequential against
life happening.
No genie can stand in the way
of life happening.

The genie in the bowl
told me to make the most of this low day
happening, go on a stroll,
to take care of myself
and recognize that today is just a bad day.
Perhaps tomorrow will be better,
in the meantime get some sleep
and to try again tomorrow.
The genie in the bowl did give me a wish. Now I know how to recognize a bad day.
Not a literal genie.
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2014
Please retain this document as proof of your induction.**


you are an inductee,
part of the tinkering crew,
high giving, high fiving
globally is your locally!

we know where you live,
Google mapped and sleep kid-napped from under that
shady radiata pine tree

more than sufficient,
your poetic revelations,
to know the you and the where-hereabouts of the
lives you handle with
wondrous word-care.

care taken, if you want hide deep,
but to late for thee and our world,
your name on the roster
of poets by night,
tinkers, soldiers, and some who tailor
poems bespoke for the ones who
dare not reveal their true (s)elves
in the words they write.

but you do.

so the
ticK tocK
(never forgot the Special K)
of your clock
synchro us
so too late,
we can call you anonymous,
if that be your preferential suffice,

If that makes you happy.

but what we need to know,
already planted by you,
in our soiled heart,
growing steadily cotton-higher.

When you are ready,
you will dispense with
your leafy nom de plume,
tell us what we don't need to know,
tell us what we already knew,
three boxes checked,
you are
poet, wife and mother,
suffice suffice suffice
the three stripes thrice
sewn on your skin,
inductee into the army of the
fly-by-night,
word~tinkers

guess you can say,
you are a tacker now,
tacked onto this crew,
watching over its
individuals,
therefore, say no more,
but write
a poem a day,
that, your tinkering dues.

— The End —