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 Jan 2018 Left Foot Poet
bex
Oh, Winter...
She says, “Come hither...”

She is an alluring *****
with her pure and virginal whites,
chaste as an egg.  Mm hmm.

Her flash frosts,
her intricate, fleeting diamonds,
her dew when she warms
drips and drops into ******* spears...
She pulls you in.

She pulls on you,
draws you,
milks you to the core.

She whispers “Come hither...”
in her squalls,
but she leaves only shells.
Such small feathered things,
stiffened and dead,
touched by Winter’s hand.

But she is beautiful,
and you...
You can not help yourself.
sacred silence hangs on angel wings
blessing, watching over wakened night
fluttering on the screen, drawn to the light of
consciousness, the truth of darkened mornings.
strong, alone, remotely flipping through the
channels of the restless bar-room soul
charles bukowski, angry, drunk and droll;
pavement wisdom yanked inside, renewed and
resurrected.  rolling stone lays open,
having sprung the latent-night messiahs
preaching to insomniacal choir.
cryptic muse's recipe for coping:
be consumed, entombed, re-wombed by
worshiping and feeding written fire.
Mind, like a deciduous forest
has lost all its foliage,
all leaves torn away
by the autumnal blasts

The brain where great schemes were concocted
is now an abyss where spiders sway
It is bare – dismally barren
of all memories – sweet and sour
Like a kite afloat in the boundless sky
moving nowhere, but as the wind directs,
cut out from the past, turned from the present
with the future yet to surge from the abyss
or like serpents intertwining,    
hissing in turmoil within the brain,
unable to sense the gusty blast,
or hear the whispering air,
dead to sounds that disturb,
deaf to songs that soothe,
like a phantom he moves weird,
drifting far away
to a space and time impenetrable  
with nothing to make the mind agog
or depress it to let out a sigh.

Loitering on roads without hurrying feet
with no bliss coming on the way
to run or hasten to embrace
or fear to be missed sore
passing through dark labyrinthine tunnels
forever barred with no exit
churned in oblivion, oblivious of all,
he remains a spectral facsimile
of his onetime self
plummeting into a black hole

The pulse of a heart beat
is all that keeps him alive,  
all else is dead…… !  
with dreary nights ahead
that shall not know another morrow
Only others can throw a little light in the dark lives of its hapless victims!

(With a heart heavy with gratitude, let me acknowledge my poet friend -  Kim Johanna Baker who gave sunshine to my poem who has thus honored me several times !)
You must be this tall
To ride this ride
The man clangs you in
And the ride begins

There is a bar holding you back
As clanging gears strange you up
And up and up
Clackety-clack

Apex of apostasy
Seeing clearly
Holding on for dear life
As the real ride begins
~

had i not known wrong
i had been the lesser man
had i not sung winter’s song
i had known no warmth to gain
had i never tasted blood
i failed to see fragility
and had i not these understood
life’s tenderness was lost to me.

~

*post script.

for Pradip who shared the only muse these words were wanting on this special holy-day. please read SJR's gorgeous post, but then see Pradip’s after-words here: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2246391/gratitude/

Epiphany: January 6th https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)
 Jan 2018 Left Foot Poet
Chloe
Love is letting them wear your fuzzy socks because their feet are cold.
Love is going to get ice cream at 3:00 in the morning because they had a craving for a hot fudge sundae.
Love is making sure all of the blanket are even before you get into bed because they can't sleep if they're not.
Love is sleeping with the fan on even though you hate the noise.
Love is watching the same TV show with them even though they've watched it a million times.
Love is falling asleep to the sound of their snoring.
Love is waking up to their messy hair and naked face and still thinking they're the most beautiful person in the world.
Love is when being with that person feels like coming home.
Love is being someone's home.
Here's what I'll collect of us:
1. Your hand holding my nine year old one,
2. small and uncertain
3. small and growing
4. You waking up before the rest of the world
5. The sound of you raking fallen brittle palm fronds and leaves
6. Feeding the dogs
7. Turning the cornmeal for them in the massive ***
8. Your rare smiles
9. The smell of Old Spice
10. Filling the shopping cart with whatever I wanted
11. My too-tiny hands clasping about the cart and pushing it along with you
12. Us scouring the aisles for Eggo's waffles and my favorite brand of banana chips
13. My nine year old self sitting on your lap while you dozed off
14. Our conversations about politics and the current state of the world
15. Our long conversations
16. Our long conversations about your youth
17. Me hearing your story about how you cared for yourself from 15 years old for the 105th time
18. Me never getting tired of hearing about that story
19. Your rare smiles reaching your eyes
20. The softness of your hair as I stroke your head now
21. Sitting by your bedside and being comforted by your soft breath as you sleep
22. Sitting by your bedside remembering my childhood with you
23. The long summers in your house with grandma and my cousin
24. The long summers in your house on the island
25. The long summers back home--back in your home country
26. Your hand holding my nine year old one,
27. small and uncertain
28. small and growing
29. You waking up before the rest of the world
30. You going to sleep after everyone else
31. Your hand holding mine.
32.   Your breath.
33.   The softness and steadiness of your breath.
A list poem dedicated to my 90-year-old grandfather as he battles prostate cancer. I love him and respect him with all my heart. There are so many other memories that I will cherish and hold onto, like most recently, my trip with him to Niagara Falls. These are just a few that I can fondly recall from childhood. He's essentially the father I never had.
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