You woke me up
Tugging on my mind,
Swimming around.
I saw your eddies,
Before I fell asleep,
But you refused to bite.
So, now here we are,
Hook line and sinker,
You, 'idea fish' circling.
If I dangle the bait
Will I catch you,
You stinker?

We strut up and down the page.
Our poems are all the rage.
Our advice is more than sage
As we prance on poetry's stage.

Everyone reads our words, now.
Parades are given in city and town
To make our offspring proud.
Such a thing could happen.  How?

Yet, everybody surely knows
For neither fancy poems nor proses
Was such glory never shown!
When with a **** I am shaken.  O, woe,

For I suddenly am awakened.

The poetry of life, like a big dog, sinks
It's teeth into you and shakes you.
Bitten to the bone you are infected.

No poet is dead
If the poet is read.
Between life and death
There is a reality
Beyond reality, it seems.
Poets live on
If only in a reader's dreams.

“As no one can live without inhaling and exhaling, no one can live without feeling and expressing. The life of expression is how the heart breathes and how our spirit grows in the life that carries it.”

- Mark Nepo

Our need for Expression!
We long for expression.
It is a human desire.

Poetry is Expression in its rawness.
Poetry is the passing of feelings
From one human heart to another.

To be a poet is to believe in life
And in expression.
To be a poet one must not be greedy

Be the one who doles out sweets to share.

Listen to the slow blooming of these words
Unhurried in their ink soaking into paper,

Like flesh consuming and being consumed,
Like water drowning and being drowned.

They rush in, yet slowly are moving forward
Wrapping the brain in cellophane to smother.

It will decay and the rot will feed, be fed,
As the words and our brains grow anew.

We strut up and down the page.
Our poems are all the rage.
Our advice is more than sage
As we prance on poetry's stage.

Everyone reads our words, now.
Parades are given in city and town
To make our offspring proud.
Such a thing could happen.  How?

Yet, everybody surely knows
For neither fancy poems nor proses
Was such glory never shown!
When with a **** I am shaken.  Woe,

For I suddenly am awakened.

Have any of you ever heard of or purchased a Poet's Market?  It's a wonderful resource for serious poets.  Search for Poet's Market, the 34th edition, which is the 2021 version.  I'm not sure what the latest version is.  However, an older copy will give you much valuable information and many of the same markets out there for poetry.

The poignancy of grief
Reaches deep
Down into a soul
Seeking answers to understand,

The search to know.

This fondness for 'lonely',
Desired desolate places, in grief,
Become a symbol of utter desolation
Of a soul so hurt it resides in total ruin

Absent of humankind.

A taste upon my lips
Fears of poison's bitter
realized

Just as forked tongues
Are cleaved in dualities
flicker

Thoughts gather
Like drops of venom
glimmering

You are a tightly
Coiled serpent who
lingers

Poised to strike a bite
At my forever-heart
wounded

I was done for
The moment I saw
danger

Never mind that
Lovely snake come
strike

A slow poison
Will eek into flesh
dying

Touch my lips
With your fervent
mouth

Taste what I taste
Poison upon my tongue
waits

Let us die
From the sweet
poison

Together

In the land of the midnight sun
You whispered to me, "Come."
And so, I followed you.

Winter was full of darkness
Compensated with beauty.  Fires
Burned bright and warmed hearts.

Summer was filled up with the sun
Under the many clear blue skies,
There were long days spent in fun.

To see millions of stars fill up the sky,
To feel the first rays of a long-lost sun,
You can understand worshipful ones

Who stand in twilight,
Truly the most beautiful light of all
With or without snow.

When I see you my heart is full as it expands.
It bursts open like an overripe pomegranate.
And I flush with heat as you touch my hand.
My emotions spill out like the ruby-red seeds
Dropping from opened fruit.  Sweet the taste,
As I feed you pieces of heart from my own hand.

The small pond
By the early light
Of the dawn
Sparks in my heart
A grateful spark

Light begins
And glows upon
Hearts of us all
Human, beast, frog
Down by the pond

In an early light of dawn

We give and give of ourselves.
Without thought or reservations,

Without hesitation,
- we give.

In giving we are loving, deeply
As we drink from the well of life.

It is our inner strength that allows
- this caring.

Caring for others certainly, but
- first for ourselves.

That is where the gift lies,
- and that is how

We get our power back.

cognition
conversation
wonder
brilliant shine
glitteringly white
transfigured
transfixed
conversion
startling light
resurrection

"I am still listening" (not really, I only cued in on that phrase,
"Are you listening?")

Mama wants me to lodge something in my brain,
that much is clear.  But for the life of me, where would I put it?

If she only knew the vast Smithsonian within my head!
I always was a precocious child.

Poor, stupid, and
Preferably Dead

Squashed like bugs
You’re no longer a drain

Their pockets bulge
While you become a husk

Problem solved

Like a mist
He dissipated
Like a whisper faded
I breathe in where
He used to be
With even that
I am sustained

I have never looked at the world
From this angle before.

I have long sat and watched the world
But never have known

The things you've shown me, taught me
From the beauty of your throat.

Your black heart will rot in your chest
And worms will eat your body;
Your name will be whispered in hushed tones
By mouths too ashamed to give it full voice.

Can you feel it?
It started some years ago,
This bloat and rot.
And it is about to infect us all
With its putrid mass.
For you cannot put back
The fetid tissues in the corpse.

Quasars
2 stars
Tied together
In space
Bound
Orbits

Six months on, and hundreds of offspring later,
She is much too languid to even move.

The listless queen bee is stung repeatedly;
Her own children have seemingly turned on her.

Once good and dead she is tossed from the nest.
Merciless? Or mercy killing?

I will leave you to decide.

The quiet ache of love
Beneath the bandage
Putrefies unless cleansed
That covered wound, which
Never healed from lack

Soft and warm, a quiet storm
Quiet as when flowers talk at break of dawn, break of dawn
A power source of tender force
Generatin', radiatin', turnin' me on, turnin' me on

Oh, you short circuit all my nerves
Promising electric pains
You touch me and suddenly there's rainbow rings

Quiet storm blowing
Through my life, oh
Quiet storm blowing
Through my life, oh blow, baby

Oh, when you sigh, we can ride
A butterfly caught up in a hurricane, hurricane
Lucky me, I'm glad I'm free
Suddenly I'm caught up in your summer rain

oh, shower me with your sweet love
I will bathe in every drop
Through all the seasons
Let it pour and never stop

Quiet storm blowing
Through my life, through my life
You're just like a quiet storm blowing
Through my life, through my life, through my life
through my life, through my life

Blowin', blowin', blowin', blowin'
Ah, through my life
Oh

Hail soft storms of loving me
Let them play on my desires
Kiss me softly
Let your lightenin' light my fire

Quiet storm blowing
Through my life, through my life
You're just like a quiet storm blowing (blowing, blowing)
Through my life, through my life

Quiet storm blowing
Through my life
Quiet storm blowing (Oh, yeah)
Through my life

Oh

Shower me with your sweet love
I will bathe in ever drop
Through all the seasons
Let it pour and never stop

Quiet storm blowing
Through my life, through my life
You're just like a quiet storm (blowing)
Warm and tender, through my life (oh through my life)

Quiet storm, you're blowing
Through my life, through my life, through my life
Quiet storm blowing
Through my life

Blow, baby
Blow, baby
Blow, baby
Blow, baby

Oh yeah, quiet storm
yeah, quiet storm
Blow, baby
Blow, baby
Blow, baby

(I lost a dear friend, yesterday.)

It is cloudy and
It is dreary on this day.

And why should it not be?

Although temporary,
You have gone away.

So, hide Sun, behind dark clouds
Until the sky and those left behind

Finish shedding our tears.

You rambler, brier bush, spreading outward
Seeking to entangle my leg in a thorny grasp.
To your pleasure, you try reaching wide crossing a thigh.

What sick joy is held at the sight of tiny red dots of blood
Which sting up and down my limbs?
Yet, I have the last word, so to speak, as I reach.

Gingerly, deftly, reaching in I get what I seek
Then let your purple blood run down my mouth!

Had I been older
And you younger
I would have fallen
For you like bricks
Tumbling into the heart

In the stiff northern breeze
Leaves are blowing from the trees
And gathering at our feet.

-A lovely time of the year.

Hot chocolate in hand we climb
A pile nearby to sit and enjoy our treat.
I recite my wintery rhymes.

-A cozy scene with you.

You say they are "so sweet."
A dagger to the heart of a poet.
Oh, happy dagger your pain?  I know it.

-Reality's brutal strike!

But sitting there with you,
Even for the moment, life feels complete.
Even if you are not truly bright.

-It takes a poet to understand a poet.

(A little ditty for the friend which we all have.)
Je t'aime,
Yet again!
No, no, no
This time it's real
She says,
Yet again!

Roethke said
That deep in the roots of flowers
Sunlight is kept. It is their sweet secret.
Truly we will reap what we sow, thus
Make your garden filled with light & love.

Some whom you feel you knew so well
Fade from the mind, in time.  Why?
Who forgot first?  
They once were real.

Time taken is time gone,
Only the memories linger on,
And remain there in the brain's folds
Even though we become old

Let them flash before your eyes
Long before time for you to die
Grab them like the precious gems
That they are, reclaimed

Hot
Like a summer rain
Which sizzles
When it strikes
Heated pavement
Dripping wet
We step out
Of the water
Honeydew
And watermelon
Dribbling
Down our mouths
Going down
An orange sun
Hangs briefly
Then dips
Beneath
The horizon
Heat is quivering
Across the grass
You brush aside
The damp clump
Of hair stuck
To my cheek
And it is mouth
On mouth, again

An un-dam-able tide
Cafeteria Christians
Blowing on the embers

Uncomfortable truths
I grieved the fall long
Before the step to the edge

The monkey has a monkey
Which rides its own back
Really?  W.W.J.D.?

What about you?

Bully: one habitually cruel to others who are weaker
Justice: the process or result of using laws to fairly judge and punish crimes and criminals
Police: 1) to control and keep order in (an area) by the use of police or military force 2) to control (something) by making sure that rules and regulations are being followed

Either side -

It is not your job to punish.  Please, remember that.

How does renewal often begin?
With deconstructing.

I can't stop the feeling.
I'm breathing it in.
I'm mending already.

And I am ready to begin
Again.

She rested upon his words.
Conversation-lips slip
Beneath to touch the
The painful realities of her
Loveless comforts.

The world was never real
To her.

She rested upon his strengths.
Restraining sinew knew
Of warmth, he offered up
To touch, to hold within her,
The leaps and bounds hope.

And,
This world was never so real.

Out in the field near our cabin
I see little tracks in the snow
Leading to the edge of the tree line.

We follow.  Loving the smell of pine
I run my hand through the branches
Snapping a twig to capture the scent.

When we are home, sitting by the fire,
I will say, "Here is the memory of trees
And of our trek.  Smell."

And, you will take my hand in yours,
Gently raise it to your nose; then we will love
Amidst the memory of pines.

Remember the adoring eyes
Of some little boy or girl
Who looked up to you?

How'd that feel now that it's gone?
Knowledge is like a time machine.
With it you can change your history.

You can go back, you can get it, again.

Mouth on mouth
Resuscitating
Pounding chest
Breathing for you
Until pale skin
And all is lost

Sudden spark
Then faint pink
Tiny thumping
Vigor renewed
Again I breathe
For you

Love,
Like some dove
On wing high above;
It is a weightless drug,
These feathers, which I hug
And I rise

Ever dancing, keeping time;
We are born with rhythm,

We were born to rhyme.
We come from the womb

Already much equipped
To just get to it 'n let 'er rip!

Getting to the other side feels pretty good
Let love rule

Slowmo though fast enough at present
Lifts love up

We will join hand in hand
Loosening hate

Rise with me

He was secretly gay
I don’t care one way
Or the other.  Brother!

But he’s the one who
Set himself up as
The judge of morality

All the while he knew
He was completely past
Having to live in reality

All the boys and men
That power can control
At will are never set free.

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I wish that I could climb up on a roof
On a spring day
And lie
In the shade of a tree

What a refugee that use to be
Just me
And the quietness
Of the day
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His words wrapped around my very bones
Their underpinning became fragile
And began to crack and crumble

Just as the empty shell of an egg brakes apart
With a sudden thwack

His words stabbed deep into my heart and back
Like some black worm gnawing at the roots
The plant we grew together withers and dies

Dropped from the same tree
Within the same orchard
The nuts soon cracked open
And out they popped
Dried and shriveled up
The fruitage which carries
The same DNA of the tree
The meat inside is rotten
Eating it is very bitter
And all who do eventually
Die from salacious lies.

The celestial saltshaker sprinkles
The night sky spreading its contents
Across the cosmos with brilliant specks.

And, if the timing is right, you can see
The hazy belt stretching across the sky
That starry, dusty core of our Milky Way.