More Poetry

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Let Go
‍The world’s touch has changed, for me
That part of reality in wait
Its time arrived to occupy my thoughts.
The careful shelter common, of thinking light
Has been invaded, unexpected

Death, was always more than a tale
But so far off, with the unlikeliness (for the ones I loved) of jail
But now, in somewhat shock, somewhat surprise
I see that time, has arrived
What’s in front, now compromised

How few times left it seems
(I asked for your agreement)
Is it likely we’ll share our stories
We’ll (face to face) remind ourselves of our shelved glories

How time compressed it stalks
How much less to go we’ll take
How much left there is to know
How left set aside stamped ‘no’.

With seeming unreason
Gone concepts, sight and season
Gone all memory banks
Matter no longer lived one of human rank

Let go

‍Tried to See Your Face
Two years and a half and I see ya
Your face so bright and beauty clear
A week it stayed within, pictured right
Then it was a fight
To make it just right reappear

Tried to see your face

‍
‍
Paper Heart
I just see her name
And all that stuff inside activates
And in coming down I admire
The power she can flash inside me
Like flames from a fire

Of her story
Look, it’s more than one can contain
I’ll try to do it justice, not bore ya
Without a clue as to where to start,
It’s not my place to entertain

It was a bit like breaking up this time
Though that was something for real
So farback
That it all seemed a discovery of some new kind
The aftermath perhaps akin to
Time following a heart attack

More Fifties Gone
‍And I got 5 hours of Fifties Left
Sittin at Gate A1, Waitin’
That’s what’s most of that decade
Waitin'. Waitin'. The feelin' of decay

But now it’slight, bright, bright
And I got problems sleepin’, the largest undelight
Except to catch that mirror, see my sight
When tired out, let’s say it’s no delight

The Last Few Hours of Fifties
I noticed it at 22, a.m. was 2
Had an idea what I’d do
To Yuma I flew, or expected
Somewhere in there I’d sleep, right now rejected

But really dejected, not completely
Not, in fact the idea of preciousness had hold ‘me
In superstition perhaps time was pregnant
Born at the end of fifties too
What little left of 59 would play out gently.

Even the sound of sixty seemed.. scary
Fifties played out as if waiting and debated
Dangerously broken cast about
At times, the best, found my gifts expound
A brand new town

And now I’m left to wonder what’s on tap
For sixties I wish success, as dense as luck will pack
Dull fact in note only sober’s helping slap
Rather chopped up looking back

In the 22 of hours ahead
I know will mirror the time until I’m dead
The happy darkness, the alive of now
The grinding lack of sleep ahead
The tedious struggling wait outs
The packing still to do the things I can’t get out of
The planning out of clothes to wear
The figuring out what part I want to play out
The ticket bought locked in overall direction
The maybe I’ll meet my love of all
After the reality love deserves inspection
The promise given of a gift just after
When I turn, the expecting something after
The mess I see around me being the old young things have scattered
And the not a thought of midnight next a very old man
Seems would be simple to imagine
But to which my mind by other focus
Won’t until I’m near there of all deception bend
Part of me seems young, I’m glad there
‍
‍
When

What if I’m wrong, alright
I can’t just say bring it on
What if I’m right, all right, how nice
Now that, I’ll be inclined, belong, be strong

When, I say when
I’ll spit it out in time
Like a mother hen
You ain’t gonna mind
‍
Piece it together, will ya
Leave that story line to me
‍

‍
‍What’s Next

When I think of you and me most deeply
There is only you and me
Everyone else disappears completely

I can’t help but think that way
A dozen times a day

What’s next, honey. What’s next?

Could I foresee when I was young, my mind repeating
Thought this way
A liar’s story, a trajectory uncommon
Invaded patiently, as years collected
Until all other possibilities, revealed as fleeting, love rejected

What’s next honey. What’s next.

Now the past, sitting like something stacked
Beg the questions large and unrelaxed
Of how much longer’s left, this but the middle of looking back?
Or am I reflecting now the most I’ll ever
To darkest possibilities one reacts

What’s next honey. What’s next.
Live it as if it is forever
I developed a habit of with you in between
Until I die, or lose my memory

‍Black Bread Binge

‍Burbling briskly because beautifully baked
black bread bingeing bad behavior
begins by believing big bite be best

‍
Oh You Thing

‍You skallyway, you creature
You soft shorn tonsured testament!
Terrible you are, fractured in reason
By some rare fault of thought
Some simple known dangers blocked
From which you’ve ignored of recognition
Continue to sit in wait
To lowly emerge on schedules uncertain
And depress the assumptions common
We have of what to expect from one another

‍In a Hurry

A pack of words wandered by
Far more time needed to judge wise.
The instinct won to let them fly
And let go another chance to be measured right

‍
‍Truly

If you found a way to win
Or simply getting in
To the extent that makes you glow
Also lies in wait to make missing low

‍Madness
‍I’m madder about you
More than ever

‍
Spear Aftermath

Once in, in one play
Many more that much
The spear put in has its way
Makes you of its touch

Rock harder to see
Dissolved hidden except away from me
It’s all that I know
Or it’s all that comes out
(In sound I mean)

Allows room to grow
Toss caution and doubt
This age that I am
The spear did not see

O to be young and glam
Who’d not agree?
Not me
I think not him

But what do I know
So long ago
That spear burrowed in
And gave to us all

A strike, a strike of that spear
That pictured the best
And of man what befalls
Tall and here and gone
‍
Like him, we too
OK perhaps less
Some day will be gone, like this
All alike, but not yet

Putting English in thrust
The spear’s might all depends
Yet of those of the Bear
Show different lives well enough

If in the right hands it is given
And read right given passion
At least in our days
The spear still has its fortunate way
To make quiet reaction

We’ve given up spears
At least that’s what one might think
So hard to follow,
So hard to follow.

But once again, we’ll never know
What time will examine
Except to observe
Like him, in our own way it’s much we do
Go on with our lives, and at time marvel
How incredibly strange and wide
So much to carve out

Then set it aside
Go on with our day
But once thrust in to degree
In places we can’t see
Without we’d survive and just fine
If that’s the right word
But why not add, look at that?

That’s all that it was I suppose
A blow more a glance
That quietly sticks
More than inevitable miss

With words that fly past
At incredible speed
Say take what you will
By showing differences large
Perhaps gave us view large
That said difference kill

If you understand words spoken
Hey, family unbroken

Leave it as this

Backyard
‍
An ailing fact that’s not to be debated
It comes down to who is hated
A measured tone, a roiling globe
A pleasure sweet, a strong relief

Why, we would cast ourselves
In matching marching tracks
In all directions delved
And backed up all with facts
‍
Cut it back
Again, and again, and again
And again. Cut it back

Anticipation, satisfaction
Badly born of boiled impatience
Dreamy ephemeral reactions
Conformed into our sidling agents
‍
Cut it back
   Again, and again, and again
   And again. Cut it back

Not matter how many times
The grass grows back
That grass ground down
Has a way to know, how to react

Cut it back
   Again, and again, and again
   And again. Cut it back

Catch your cabbage, creature!
Takes joycey out, oh duckies!

‍
‍‍Mysterious

It's all mysterious
All
All of it, mysterious

Crawl, time crawl
Mysterious
Tall and small, mysterious

End and start
Mysterious
Enjoy and part, mysterious

Alive mystery
Mysterious
To see and breath, mystery

Be in memory, called history
Mystery
Next now makes more of me, mystery

So much says, you’ll never know
All behind this mystery
I try, I’ve, I’m trying, to just, let it go

Let it flow

Skin Wrap Ride
‍
He just keeps on lookin’ round him
In a way where everything’s a sign
He keeps on lookin’ at what’s coming at him
Hopin’ one will hit him just right

Eighty something round the sun
He figures he’s got time yet to know
What’s curious relief and his own form of fun
Or hope to become the famous face
That figured where we go

What one cannot know
He hopefully won’t ignore
Round and rounds he goes
Like all that have come and gone before

It’s not like there’s regret
Not a once recalls having voice in the choice
In just one mode to be what’s next
All boils down to that indescription
In knocking through the noise

Like skin that covers the works inside
We’re travelers on the outside
Denied of view of important sights
That might allow a better take
On why we’re on this ride



Fleeting Feature
‍
‍We have company
On this fleeting street
We share the journey
By the draw that had us meet

The electricity that lingers
Emotion crafted out from fingers
Nights that light and swallow
Sounds astounding right
‍
Alight in the head
Through to morning
After smiling off to bed
Feeling glory

And once faded away
In minor counts of day
Is over to lap up time
Wondering what seems now a never mind

Company
   On Fleeting Street
   Ecstasy
   Turned low to memory

Wanting back again
Soft recipe of pain
Until it feeds once more in vain
Fleeting ever creature

Getting Get Along Wrong

There’s not a one of us
That doesn’t believe in something strange

Not one not on this bus
All masters, on call, as logic rearrange

Curl of lips on each that say
An exception that I am!
By Christ can’t we
Get Along! Get Along!
‍
So simple and only I can see it
We just get along!

The Tinker
‍
Ya tinker, not you, he said
He’s a man whose got a handle as his right
And a purpose that’s far beyond me to fathom
What’s mighty, and what’s delight

But then I’m just a flatterer
At least I was
Lately I’ve forgotten how
Engaged in other matters

Loosely I’d cat myself as changed
I find it stealthy and disturbing
Taking note of thinking rearranged
To say there’s no going back… too early

Chugging through a day
But the bearded empty glass
Is how I have to make my way
To avoid the making of me, an ass

By the time I count to ten
By days at first then months
All that’s memorized divide again
This caring crying dunce

Planet 9

Let’s find Planet 9
Just found is Farout
And ones of it’s kind

It’s not like I’ll go there
It’s just on my mind

Stuff of considerable size
Depends on perspective
Atom’s got lots of room inside

When I was young, Pluto was
The last of nine, now eight
Kinda simple, great

Now if all opens up
And how we find
So much says shut up
Don’t pontificate
On what’s come of late

In a way you know what’s coming next
Something dull of tomorrow
That today blows your mind

Deadly Virus Form of Words

“I don’t like them, here on Earth”, he Heydrisized.
“Those beggars, tramps and gypsies,
Nomads, whores, and grumblers,
Drunks, brawlers, traffic offenders,
Psychopaths and swindlers.
Segregate, humiliate
And finally exterminate.”

No deadly virus form of words
Can be destroyed
In time forgot perhaps

But in horror so great
The worst of all demands
To be identified, to inoculate
To quarantine those phrases

One hopes the horror
Also documented is enough
To keep them there, those words
In sickly hospital prison

And however the walls defended
From those who would so ever lightly
Without a whiff of pain
Extract them

In doing so, themselves become
Infectors
In the greatest of all outrages

‍Joyce’y Choice
‍(with phrases from James Joyce)

What a Joyce-y choice
To have gone to the dogs a touch
For no bloomin’ reason at all
Except the attach of glass it took.
Took all the bits of stuff put by
And left his looks a-crook.

‍Burglar

Hey you, Burglarer
You sandwich of excuses
You probably have a habit
Mustard face
Take the must away, and
  You’re what’s left

Tried to take my mode of transportation
As if you cared
It will ketchup to you
Tomato pasty face
Track suited monkey

It’ll ketchup to you
Burglar man
You’re mind’s a jumpin rabbit
As you carry on your habit

If with it you got away..
I’d get myself another
A car can’t care
But I’ll never quite recover
After you, I’m ready for another

‍The Better Leave

The call came slow
This judge away
Breathing in
June turned one day

Wishes lost
By tired luck
She hadn’t drawn
Away from much

I’m small
In ice
Frozen all
I’m tryin’ to see
Why this is gone

The call came slow
This journey done
Breathe in March
June is done

By these wishes
By this luck
Hadn’t drawn away
At all

I’m small
In ice
Frozen all
In tryin’ to see
The best is gone

‍SadderMaker

He’s made of missin’ pieces
Devoid of crucial matter
Grey bit that will scatter
Speaks in voices he believes in

Not one to be repeated
So much he’s revealed affected
Falls in to be endured
Dictator’s list cares not arrested

Sadder maker look at me
Tell me what kind of stealer
Takes a thing one needs
Without a sense of feeling

To say I want to fox about
This topic that your drum voice shouts
I can’t ignore the distance
That we need more than Einstein to fix

Sadder maker, make me
Twist in ways like wire in the wind
And all the faults and famous lines
Fly screaming, etched out where they’ve been

Give a Chance to Hell Blindedness

Big Blanket Stuff
That’s what you’re into
Who’s not?

Everywhere you go
Someone’s got a big
Big idea they stick to

Some small like
I gotta get up in the morning
That’s soft

Or give me all that money
Cause something says
I shouldn’t like you
Be like you is better

Give something a chance
And then close
Your mind to …

Every situation where
That adds up
To disaster

‍Best Worst Friend

Something about best friend
Being also this one’s worst enemy
Lies in wait
To tell me what to do

Then I comply and wait
Wondering why I’m in no place
So I sit and sulk and think
Until I change my way

And wait for you
To do again what you do so well
Is pull me off the path I’m goin’
And landing myself in hell

Nothing to Love

I sent nothing to Love
No birthday wishes or hello holiday
What a way to know
Just the way it’s going to go
From now until the day
When all this darkness has gone away

‍Bits

Some secrets, they don’t exist
At all, like tragedies unknown,
What would have beens,
Have no place in time, no home.

A hurt leaves in its arch, often
A wish to be remembered.
More than kissing perhaps
If only it were as rarely tendered.

Speaking out collision is
Faulty named potion
Unseemly taking over
In time reveals what oughts were set in motion.

That other one and others
That share the space inside
That cannot hear the shouts I send
About what are parallel to lies

Of wild tales, vaguely lit
Scenes and fables in full belief
Not standing in the way
In bits we go, spells of sorcerers I seek

Windows

Some miracles, in sorry fact
Need at best be managed
Some are one in a sea
Like most

Some live silently in honor
Or somewhat so
But when near taken
We know

Just where they stand
Near all the rest
We do what we never dare
Compare

And to ourselves
We know
How unfair it is
It would be
If they’re the ones
To go

**********************

I know such a one
And what little I know
Is enough

To be specially hurt
And specially touched

As specially fit
As she is

As an example
Of our potential

From start to finish
It strikes us

And she described to us the now
For her as well

Until it turned to silence
And we wait

To hear if through efforts
She is saved

Not able to imagine
What’s next

Neither in anticipation
Or imagination

Allowing through her example
To dwell upon

The effects of what
Comes next

***********************

And in fact, it was of cancer
This matter

Along with her
This great example
Of one built right
— Of divine we’re all —
But her divinely right
As is more in her, not less

************************

Perhaps I knew her less
Because I’m not more
To me she conveyed
Confidence and kindness

She had a path
She knew to go
To make the most
Of her stronger gifts

All the good she did
I don’t have to imagine

I know, because
For me

Nothing more was needed
Than this

*************************

And now, we wait to find
What the universe has in mind

Whether in design
It will take this miracle
From here, cut short
What more is for her

Fight!

That extra bit we stand
To have that somehow
She’s on edge of losing

What can one make
Of it

Except to be taken
Where it will take us

And hope that in knowing
How much we love living
By knowing how much
We know what value’s
There through her

Perhaps this can’t be,
— What seems —
This once then nevermore

In fact the better answer
Sits right there
In front of each of every
Outstretched face

That as there as are children
(And I would point out
If she had some, not knowing)

That in them is all that’s
Needed. Or any children.

In them, is to live again
No less

Never exactly, accurately
The same
We live again

We live again

And every miracle
Like her the most of kind
Is lost and replaced
By another
Who can be told
“Live like this one"
There lived an example
Because to this you will be measured

By others who knew her
And by her example
Have measured themselves
And did so

Because we knew by instinct
That to do so would open
Within ourselves, windows

‍Collection of Poems:
A Bit of What is Given,
or The Bite of What is Given
Jeff Bell, April 2019
jeff@jeffbell.biz‍