Dorin Popa writes

YOUR PROFOUND LOST LOOK
 
Your failures show me
the perfection that you will
always be

I am a boat, a nutshell
on the ocean of your
panting agitated breath
and you, hardly knowing that I exist
unconsciously command me
what I should dream, what I should smell
what I should not touch

your lost mocking profound look
is the path on which
I meekly step
with trust
your deep look with tears
is the most precious reality
this sorrowful October end

your look wandering
about all the places, suddenly
turned my face away from the picture
of the decaying world
and your delicate heartbreaking steps
seem to write a new history
your failures show me
the perfection you will always be

 
Teal Morning --  Brian Cameron

June Calender shoots

Ginko leaves on sidewalk: Winter Pond, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Neal Hall writes

My Name

I have pledged allegiance to a fully mast[ed],
half flaccid flag and to the Republic which stands not,
one nation . . . indivisible . . . with liberty and justice for all. [1]

I have prayed your lord’s prayer, to your god,
made in your image . . . to deliver me from your evils,
but hollow be his name, no will for black prayers to be done [2]
on his earth nor as it is in his gated heaven.

I have given you my soul, leave me my name. [3]

After all my toils, frets and fears suffered
two scores and seventeen years;
[all] my blood, sweat and tears poured
into every valley you’ve forsaken me in,
I’ve sung . . . My country tis of thee [4] . . .
when you said sing

I have, at your twilight's last gleaming,
hailed your broad stripes and bright stars
waving over land you’ve proclaimed to be free and
home of the brave not yet brave enough
to let all men be free. [5]

I have given you my soul, leave me my name.  [6]

I believed your claim that Columbus,
with certain navigational precision
sailed west to find India sitting in the east and
discovered a continent not lost nor looking to be found;
inhabited by men not lost nor looking to be found and
he renamed them a new name, other than their own name.

I have given you my soul, leave me my name. [7]

Cause if freedom comes a calling and I have no name
to be called, how will I be freed. Leave me my name.

I believed you when you proclaimed,
Jefferson professed with loving tenderness
that ‘ her ’ rape – slave rape, plantation rape,
socioeconomic rape – was consensual.

I have believed your lie that Washington never told a lie;
that it was a civil war fought by civil men
to free uncivilized slaves that Lincoln, without fraught, presided over
so “ that this nation, could claim yet a second new birth of freedom;
a second new claim to be a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. [8]

To these yet unfinished and abandoned words and work,
I have given you my soul, leave me my name. [9].

Cause when freedom comes a calling and I have no name
to be called, how will I be freed.
I have given you my soul, leave me my name. [10]

1 Adaptation of the Pledge of Allegiance by Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), written in August 1892
2 Adaptation of Matthew 6:9-13, The Holy Bible
3 A John Proctor quote from the 1996 movie The Crucible, played by the actor Daniel Day Louis.
4 My Country Tis of Thee by Samuel Francis Smith, 1831
5 Adaptation of the U.S. National Anthem
6 A John Proctor quote from the 1996 movie The Crucible, played by the actor Daniel Day Louis.
7 A John Proctor quote from the 1996 movie The Crucible, played by the actor Daniel Day Louis.
8 Adaptation of A. Lincoln’s November 19, 1863 Gettysburg Address.
9 A John Proctor quote from the 1996 movie The Crucible, played by the actor Daniel Day Louis.
10 ibid

Lost Name -- Sohrab Crews

Arlene Corwin writes

Days Of Distraction: The List

What can they be?

They seem to go on endlessly.

Helping out a friend in need;

Finding ways to heed the need(s)

Of several needy friends in need.

Ignoring things that might be done,

Might be some fun

And useful monetarily.

Ignoring requisites of I, myself and me.

Structure: that’s one key.

Thinking practically; harmony.

Priority to me, myself and I.

Life is simple.

Roof, warmth, food -

Summed up sample of the simple,

Which gives ample time

To carry out the other,

'Other' meaning tools which further

Happiness and satisfaction.

Paying bills and buying,

Days of duty and temptation;

Stress and tension:

‘Stressed out’ grown to idiom.

What to do about this ‘dream’,

For dream it is. 

This is a list and not a scheme;

Not a plan nor stratagem. 

Read and think, find out!

The answer lies in nought but thee.

(That’s you and me).

You’ll see

               what works.

 

Ideas for a T.V. Show Episode or a Painting -- Scott Reeder