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Sam Hawkins Jun 2016
The chilly camp-like home where I was staying,
had no running water, in winter all shut down,
but had—amplitudinous electric.

I must have been thinking extra sharp that morning,
when to electric stovetop I came; soon had boiling
Cumberland Farm’s bottled water
in a copper *** with four brown eggs.

With careful timing at last I took the four eggs out
and with the heated water applying
Barbasol and razor, so I shaved.

Please take care to not spill a single drop
of soapy water into the winterized drain pipe,

I heard in my head my sage sister say.

I discarded the contents of the ***
into a snowy patch.

Good morning, and happy happy, I sang.
I hefted one oak log onto a dying fire.

Two of the four eggs I ate,
saving the last for leaner days.

So complete--eggs
and hot shave breakfast.
on the lighter side...HAheho, written about 2007
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2015
for R.A.
our northern friend*

~
one foot in two countries,
she is enjambment symbolic,
running a single stanza
without a syntactical break,
by standing simultaneous
in two neighboring cultures

causing her dear readers
from near and far,
some, like me,
from across the borderline,
considerable multifarious symptoms
of
well considered verbal confusion

this,
a gifted special talent
from
she
who straddles  
all kinds of borders
that divide
her
and
unite
her,
that
can be understood/revealed tho,
when observing the northernmost night skies

eh?

expert in modulating
extreme snowed under bay
winterized temperatures,
counterpointed by
drivingopen highways
on summer plains
where the dotted line is
all there is to see
for miles, thousandths wide

she-poet
oft goes quiet,
expelling her breath
between word roarings,
gentlest of periodic
verbal sweets

genteel
my word version for her
gentle so,
in a way that
makes gentility
deserve the nobility
inherent

that is the
work word
that always comes first
when we need to place her,
another star
in the night
flying frying
firmament

enjambment - her word

means I am
all in,
with both hands,
resting on both jambs
of an arched window
that she architects,
peering in,
Making Sure,
I have come to the right place

where she-poet
builds skylights of
northern lights,
igniting

adore her sweet
confusion,
but better yet,
her poems
of clarification
that explain all in,
why when,
we
all look up,
thru her
window exquisite
that she
meant
for us

we always first
turn our glacé glance
northwards
strangely, seeking, illogically,
but not really,
warmth
in the she-poets
northern way
For Rebecca Askew
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2020
<>

11:03 Sun Sep 20 2020
2nd Day Rosh Hashana 5781
S.I., N.Y.

when I was twenty years younger, I wrote oft introspectively,
nowadays, today, provoked by the High Holy Day, the New Year,

it is my only filter, lens, and this solitary perspective that this moment affords, permits, demands, commands, insists on,  
prepared by this confession, so that I may better return to the union of my divine spark, unify body and soul, recover my true self,
by acknowledging that I am
not beholden to anyone,
therefore, thereby,
     beholden to everyone

how inconsistently wonderful that additional experience, alive in a time of upheavals, pushes me past the first stanza, where most often, my poems, prayers, go to rest uneasy, incomplete, only to be buried alive in me.

Yet, here I am stuttering, sputtering, words that come unexpectedly!
I have reached a second stanza, with the ending well sighted, nearby. The collective, overlaid wake of each passing boat, finger pointing, a road line for following, to a larger directive, a river emptying into a great ocean, birthplace & graveyard

premature celebration as it’s weeks till I return to this poem-in-progress on a bleak week, the winterized grays have dominated, the freshness of sunlight is just an occasional peekaboo.

The larger directive now suppressed, the pilings of damp brown leaves, multi-message; funeral. mounds of good days gone to hell, the inward perspective has returned me to a deep, dark place.

(Stutter, stutter, each day asseverates solemnly with tinges of rancor, no, no, no, still no answers yet, the second and third stanzas are *******, suns of no man.)
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2019
~~

Prologue & Epilogue: How the Poem "The Truth Burden" Came to Be
2016
~~

a twisty, morning borning mystery provocation,
what means
this phraseology, this message,
somewhat comprehensible, mostly not,
tween two poets,
that early-hours-eyes
thirstly imbibe,
these sort of appealingly muddled,
frying words,
so surgically contradictory,
that stab me front and centers?

The Message:
"Poetry is a self-policing agency, enforcing nothing"

~~~
Prologue & Epilogue
~~~

his thinking part
(that part of him, the conscious confused, aching, making,
disaster initialed, abbreviatedly, summarily known as as
M.E.
reads this mystery message,
whereupon  his whole collective,
is instantly over-boarded into
a-sinking-ship-to-shore shape,
that is currently listing,
at
a wrong angle,
a head-in-hands sunk funk

his thinking part,
forced to issue from within his
snowed-in-mind,
a series of serious, ominous
low growls

it's 6:15am on a
snow trampling
Naturday Saturday,
when the Temptress No. 7,
the seventh of the
do-not-do-these-deadly sins,
all part of the  
Ten Commandments of Poetry


#7 - do not write poetry during blizzards

forces me to unsweetenly succumb,
so a fool snowplows on,
incarnating his poetic, natural conflicting notions,
modifying mere growls of
Scarlett's la-de-da pawed phases into
vocal screaming and the labored breathing,
of poetic childbirth

having roused a grumpled, rumpled,
no longer, a winterized saved-from-being-an
emotional-hibernating bear,
having called out the poet out
into the ruckus blizzard
named so eloquently
by the weather bureau as:

"The White Write-Down Blizzard"

each differentiated flake wets my tongue asking only,
create me, explicate me,
hell, just explain me,
this provoking phrase,
giving me the wordy flesh
to flesh out its meaning,
from the successful reckoning of
a pulpy heart failing,
what mean this insane theology?

"Poetry is a self-policing agency, enforcing nothing"

all to to better understand
this no man's land,
this valley of bones,
where my soul has so long resided,
this notion,
amidst the drifts
of cross currents of inbounding
snow flakes crafted,
and crafty revelation,
with unforced, unbelabored, critical
honesty

the why of this rough, hardened cogitation,
has only one answer

"because,"

i.e. to be caused,
without rhyme or reason to
rhyme and reason
a cussed must,
write!

for now residing in
the visionary Venn diagram
where words
(circle A),
and life's fibrous, porous, event driven
breathing content
(circle B),
intersect,
the land where the heated blood circulating,
pin ****** all skin,
A ∩ B
is

this wild land where there is
no rule of law,
except one,
the essence of the sanctity of
the human
poem
The poem, The Truth Burden,
was written during the great blizzard of 2016.
This is a poem is a story about how a poem comes into existence, a visceral response to a message, that begats a poem
in its
own right
David Pickell May 2018
Weathering

Yes her walls were grey
Stormslashed shingles
Paint removed in swatches
By the unceasing nor'easters

Weatherscarred wood
Fir with silverashen patina
But built squarely
Once snug
Now winterized
The house on the promontory
Struggles against the vacancy

Once wriggling children played
Chinese checkers
On a rag carpet
Too loudly
And their makers
Tipped glasses in
A gaslit greatroom

Now all's almost winter silence
As on her porch
The tornjeaned transient
With his half-cigarette
Strikes his wood match
On her platinumed fir

Which leaves a curve
Of blushing freshness
A half-heart
Reveals her new wood
Supple
Plangent
Under her disguising
Weathering
Emeka Mokeme Nov 2018
Alone here at
the corner of
my room in
Blaisdell street
in the winter
night of November,
years ago in
Minnesota,
fresh from Africa,
stuck in this
place without a
friend or family.
Almost froozed to
death by cold,
the room not
winterized and
no heater on.
The calmness and
the loneliness almost
consumed me.
I understand what
it is you are
going through.
I know exactly
what you mean.
I've been in
that place before.
When you find
yourself in a certain
place or situation.
Surrounded by people,
and yet alone.
So lonely that
i couldn't sleep.
As if attacked
by the chilling cold
penetrating through
the walls and windows.
Hands and toes,
so numb by the
colds chilling presence.
But I learned
a great lesson,
I learned how
to find warmth
in a cold place,
in a cold heart,
I learned how to
reach out to
people with my
warm heart,
to love greatly,
to give all that
I have in the
most beautiful way.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.
XnwxrMxlik Mar 2021
Those lips, that nose,
Those brown eyes,
Traditional orange gown
Could've led to my demise.
Is this how angels disguise??
When they climb down
From their crown
That lies up over seven skies.

She was so bright for my eyes
I got blinded by her light
Ever since that encounter
I chased for her attention
As if it was my birthright

Days passed, months too
But not our nights
As we winterized
Our body temperature raised
Never rushed in
Between those thick thighs
Cause I knew she had my prize
A holy *******
Just a touch with slow rub-down
Made her feel butterflies
And so, I got an angel paralyzed
Its always been our way to over-romanticize

God caught upon us
And he didn't like
My idea of love
With his beloved angel
He snitched her from me
And all I did was to watch her go helplessly
Witnessing our terminal twilight
As she ghosted me to drown in my tears of blood
As I was nothing. But her God's creation, out of the mud.

God committed a crime
When he took away my pride
God assisted a suicide
When he took away my ecstasy
The love of my life...
Michael Perry Feb 2020
THE BABE AND THE BEAR

there in the woods-with secret eyes
made aware, to the deepening dark
that is filtering in, comes a sound made  
from out of nowhere appearing,  as this
changeling; a babe swaddled, under the
encrusted outcropping of rock; placed
there in it's sanctuary, by whom, no one
knows- no matter though, as the story continues
in the silence of deepening woods cleaved by
the dew gently gathering as it falls against the rock
face-in staccato time , to create a  wordless lullaby
all the while to make the baby doze-that is
until, along comes,  a she bear- who pads
through, she sniffs for a scent, and finding one
similar yet not;  like  other scents, found there
in the wood, she sees this babe, she approaches
coming close as she dares, as her warm breath
delights the baby making it coo,  she reacts as any
mother would in the circumstance, with the instinct
to protect and defend;  this little one, out of necessity
from any outside force; so all the intruders prepare to be
put on notice as she  settles in closer, using her thick winterized
coat  as the blanket, to keep them both warm;  and the baby
looks on with love - she sighs contented, as both close their eyes

by Michael Perry

— The End —