Poetry

Poetry

By on • ( Leave a comment )
  • Every – francEYE
  • I Love My Homies – Mary Getlein
  • Breaking Through – Jim Smith
  • Untitled – Hillary Kaye
  • Bummer ? Summer – paul tanck
  • Venice Fog – Frank T. Rios
  • Living Life Amused – Cameron Prior

——————————————-

 
Every
 
By francEYE
 
cover that covers me sleeping has a story, every
one but maybe one of them. The bottom one’s a quilt
I bought at Henshey’s (Henshey’s!  Gone now.  The local
department store where I went when I first came to town,
no money in my pocket, no i.d., to buy
a baby-carriage for the baby-sitting job I had.
The clerk took a check. “You look” she said
“like an honest woman.” The check 
didn’t bounce but they wouldn’t
do that at Sears).  I bought it because the colors
matched the desert tans of golds of the afghan
my grandmother’d crocheted fifty years before
and I still had.  That’s gone now to moths
but the quilt
remains to remind me. On top of that there’s 
a sleeping bag but Im not sure
of its story; I had one that Mary Ann gave me but
this may not be it. When I grasp it though and pull it up
I think of the one I brought to Los Angeles in 1963; I was
skinny then and could zip it around me
on top of the bed
In the furnished room on Vermont
and someone took up a collection
because word got around
that I couldn’t afford to buy sheets & blankets but the 
fact was I could but I was too lazy
I was too lazy to want to make my be in the morning or
launder the sheets. Then over that’s the white
one Skye left when she died; she left it to keep me warm,
Skye who used always to ask me
what I really wanted most and give it to me
for my birthday. Oh Skye.  Skye it chokes me to think of 
but whose down-filled blanket I love
to pull up to my chin. That’s at home; when I go
to my daughter’s there used to be heaps 
of quilts made for her by people we knew. Now
instead there are feathers and feathers keeping me
warm no matter how cold the night
because she doesn’t keep
the heat on all night
the way I do but their story is more of care; 
feathers or not the heavy quilts are more
than I can lift but she
puts them there for me and makes sure
Im cozy under them. And I dream
Under all these stories,
and don’t remember 
my dreams.

 ————

I Love My Homies
 
By Mary Getlein
 
I saw him on the corner of Lincoln and Venice
Hey Bubba!
I love Bubba, 
he always makes me laugh.
He gives me a big hug with a big smile “to go”
“I just got out of jail,” he says
“Oh yeah, good!” I say.
We’re crossing the street now
He goes: “I ain’t got nothin”
But he’s smiling, he’s home
“Hey, are you hungry?” I say
“Shit yeah, I ain’t eat nothin all day”
Well, I have a big chunk of corn bread
and a bag of “vegan” cookies from a Whole Foods donation –
I thrust the bag at him
He took it greatefully, hopefully, as he looks in the bag
“Alright! Thanks Mary!” he says
I go: “God is good, my brother!”
as I ride away, on my bike, he yells,
“God is good, my sister!”
I smiled all the way to the Beachhead meeting
It’s who you love – you know –
and a dirty face and dirty clothes don’t 
hide the fact that you’re my friend
We’ve shared sunsets and stories and laughs
and smokes, and free food and free smiles!
We will be here, forever, because we are
already living in Bliss –
Where all are one and one is God
Where Art is Love is God is Love is Art!
Where Love is, will always Be – Blessed Be
 
———-
Breaking Through
By Jim Smith
Here it comes again
that old feeling
that a breakthrough is near
layers of ego and fear
falling away
You triggered it
when I looked into your eyes
and fell into your soul
such power swallowed me whole
but you didn’t know it happened
Have you ever had an epiphany?
Do you know the real from the fake?
Have you ever been shaken by the light?
Have you ever had a ghost in your sight?
Do you want to float in the sky?
We’ll go for a swim
inside the black lagoon 
We’ll eat mushrooms and berries
and dance with the fairies 
Close your eyes and watch the sparks
Venice, we have cognition.
All engines are firing.
We’re on our way to the moon and the stars
with a short stop on Mars.
Cuidado! Don’t look back or you’ll fall.
 
———–
 
They have taken my life
devoured me like a well cooked steak
with as much interest in me as they have in the cow.
They regard my dreams as inconveniences (if they regard them at all)
getting in the way of progress that ever receding horizon.
Soon I will be gone and the relief will palatable.
Another one bites the dust.
 
– Hillary Kaye
 
———–
 
Bummer ? Summer
How do we see the summer?
From our high guard-tower local wisdom.
Will it perpetrate last year’s gloom
Robbing us of our God-given-rights to a full-blown sunny So. Cal. summer!
> god damn it
Why, I remember Venetian summers, when everyone literally hit the beach,
Both days every weekend all season long.
It was always sunny…
The hippie nude beach – the recent surf bonanza –
But what will this summer hold?
The constant morning greyness suddenly breaking
Into summer gloriousness
Or eternal sunshine of the Venice kind!
I THINK SO!…
Anyway, I’m still sitting here on my perch, watching the sun ultimately go down.
And it seems ok for summer by me…
– paul tanck
 
———-
Venice Fog
By Frank T. Rios
The fog rolls in
everything disappears
over the broken child
I’m left alone
turning my back
to the world
looking for the poem
in the fog
the fog
makes it impossible
to see
She tells me
to make it up
a large bird
lands by
looks sad
tells me to hop on
i do
& see beneath me
written in the sand
“your luck has been
completely changed today”
I have no idea
what this means
I think of home
& softness & my lady
in Orlando
the bird lands me
the beach is empty
the fog thicker
I heard it began 
with Abbot Kinney
a vision to invent
as i do
all the birds 
sit quiet
as i turn in
& disappear
inside one.
 
———-
 
Living Life Amused
Artists about time
Them about them
Living in life’s rhyme
Not to be condemned
Living Life Amused
– Cameron Prior
 

Categories: Poetry