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~
Ladies-in-waiting
reflecting on
a fragile state of mind

precarious creatures, these
hunters of coal
that outlines both
eyes and words

black paint for blue girls,
they pray in a circle
for their queen's wedding night
to be one of celebratory rapture

deep into the looking glass
they peer for a sign,
a soul, a stigma,
but cannot see
beyond their own glib faces

a universe ago they
caparisoned as pixies
in sunflower corsets,
twirling in a centrifugal forest

tonight in eclipse,
in their all-together,
they merely wear masks
of their former selves

the firelight dramatically shifts
in bacchanalia pratfall
--the oblong menace
of their smiles, fingers and navels
dancing to the age of Sideria

~
 Apr 29
Carlo C Gomez
It must be dark
out here in the cold penumbra,
where mile after mile
no one smiles,

dots and loops,
dots and loops,
a kind of blissful nullity,
beautiful and pointless,

wearing at the edges
it almost stings,
seclusion unraveling
at the underground in us all,

aubade aberrations abound,
challenging the orthodoxy
of the troublesome
morning road,

but should this near-life experience
hydroplane toward
another mineshaft, it helps to know
less is less, not more.
 Apr 14
Nat Lipstadt
East River: The Many Calories in Water and Words**

this weighty obsession, counting the energy
consumed and disbursed,
to be lean but not mean,
traverses into its third year

a late start does not forgive
over Forty years of transgressions, that damage,
sustained and in part irreversible,
yet I awake this Sunday morn,
all quiet on the East Side front, observing the East River flows
on the surface, contented and uncontested,
strongly bound for faraway Oceans unknown, and it tickles my
imagination that the rain from the nearby Adirondack and Catskills mountains might soon be quenching thy flora, fauna and your parched throats, confirming and conforming our connection and threading our interwoven tapestries, our unified aqueduct, carrying
with more than poetic words, but poetic water!

this notion sustains in multiple manners, and I deep drink the calm and the power as if it were,
for it is,
a daily vitamin,
calorie free,
God  delivers

Delivering
us with
its contained and contentented potency,
to all
in equal dosage

and now the script finished,
the water imbibed,
this baptized, scripture loving
mind and body
as/is
wholly holy
refreshed,
as are we,
my friend

8:38AM
April 14, 2024
by the East River
 Apr 10
Unpolished Ink
My cathartic heart
threw away the finished leaves of bitter autumn's burning
I brewed myself a loving cup, made sweeter by my learning
tansy, bay with chamomile, bright meadow flowers to sip
tastes better far than poison found upon your lips
 Apr 10
Max Neumann
Prayer of an empty room
In a gap of the forgotten
For the love of ancient dust
Living in my fibers
Under my skin
Where the building ends
Till kingdom come

I came to pray
Cause live is a riddle
From words of greed and guilt
I started solving this riddle
A little boy
Chewing on a pen
Looking through the window
At a grey garden
Colorful birds were singing
In the boy's language

This moment passed
So I'm praying
For forgiveness
I'm asking sincerely

For honesty
For freedom
For love
A Prayer
 Apr 8
guy scutellaro
her seductive voice
and a forbidden love


the black and white photo:

2 men smiling

gaberdine coats and hobnailed boots

the delighted dance in their eyes
the intriguing puzzle

finely woven into their subtle smiles
of wind and lightning and snow

they have heard
the goddess of the sky
and she beckons,
COME

her beauty, cold and captivating
snow and vanishing hopes
and into the silence of no turning back

for king and country
climb high or die


the black and white photo

2 men
smiling


2 men smiling
about something
few men
will ever know

2 men disappearing in the clouds.
 Mar 26
Carlo C Gomez
~
Belonging to Eden,
the garden of
inescapable pleasure.

Prepare to fall again
for the pretty things.

The desire to preserve life
lies at the root.

The way of flowers
--let them beckon and bloom--
sincerely upright,
vessels for memories,
methods of communicating
with distant versions of yourself,
a conversation that could
drift into tears or laughter,
personal revelation
or total silence,
depending on the mood.

If only time and thought
could be as perfectly
arranged as flowers.

~
 Mar 8
guy scutellaro
flannel shirt and torn blue jeans
she always held her cards close
to her fragile heart
her wild heart

(a heart not for me)

and she fades into a cold wind
whitens into snowflakes
and wild infatuation

i'm faded

the torn page
from a list of lovers
broken and sad

my love is moonlight and mare's tails

the night's stars
shot full of lost tomorrows
 Feb 26
Carlo C Gomez
Life is war,
my hands are hypnagogic,
so far from refuge.

The purgatory salesman,
an enemy with antlers,
speaks in hostile slogans:
create, destroy, rebuild, repeat.

My friend coma,
blunted and paranoid,
has lost her vital signs.

But Television says differently,
calls this an elegant demise,
you touch the screen
like you're touching God.

The immortal world
I'm hoping to collide with
is beautiful and closed to resistance.

But there are cracks in everything,
the snowglobe army
granular and brittle,
the constant uncertainty
of your universe
becomes a hiding game.

Take me with you
my halation angel,
to migration salvation.

We made our history
into mythology,
a mass of disconnected facts,
the stars may be dead,
yet, we're here
and we've stopped time.

Tonight I'm breaking
through the gates,
tonight I can see around corners,
suddenly, forever makes sense.
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