Wow! I'm verklempt!

I can't believe it! I am so pleased surprised and proud. My poetry blog - where you are right now- is listed in the 100 Great Web Sites for Poetry Lovers published by Online Colleges!

Please go and check it. I think you'll enjoy the variety included here, something for everyone!
Lists online sites for lovers of classical poetry, contemporary, war poetry, writing tips & tools - the how to's hammers and nails, where to go for support and sharing,
follow twitter feeds to poetry
and last but not least ...
us hard-assed working determined bloggers
who write because we're driven to it
we don't know what else to do or how to do anything else
it's not a choice
it's like a love affair you don't want to have
when you meet someone and feel your uterus pull
and you evaluate
how you came to be where you are and then consider where to go
i isolate
turn my soul into a poem
can't isolate yourself from everything I say turning into a poem without me wanting it to be
it's me doing my famous brown rice honey pudding and prolifically spitting and writing lines while cooking
I can't help it - i didn't ask to be a poet - it asked to be me
I can't separate myself from me and so
ultimately now matter where I go
I can only be me

and now I've turned an advertisement into a celebration of poetry
have no doubts about it
it's a love affair I share

LOVE AND LIFE INTERSPERSED

A bird flew across the slate gray sky
fluttered gently by my sight
then suddenly soared into a dive
behind lush green velvet vines

You’re allowed to say you love me if you do
And you don’t have to say it if you do
but you can’t say it if you don’t mean it
Love and life interspersed

The sky is turning a brighter blue
Another woman’s watching you
Don’t send her any mental messages
To further her designs

By now it should be obvious
who it is you’re really with
Awake, waiting on your call
a stagnant threat presides

Pregnant behind these thoughts
maybe it’s just too late
no one person can do it all
Today I didn’t see the sunrise

The sky turned fluorescent blue
the moon, a silver glowing crescent
they appear a fantasy
drawn from fountain pen ink

Look quickly to the horizon
Now, see that same bird hovering

© 1993

WHO’S A JEW

All Jews Are liberals and communists I’ve heard
I cud tell you my parents were communists
but what good would that do, it wasn’t true
they weren’t even very liberal
Not either one of them, I could tell
you all about them, and it’s all very sad
and no one wants to keep hearing how bad
it was anymore anyway, i mean what’s the point
Get over it, we’ve all been there done that

Although I’m not a typical Jew
and other jews don’t recognize my Jewishness
still I’m jewish through and through

My mother bragged she was descended
from a long line of philanthropists
and rabbis, her family permitted
her to learn the skill of bookkeeping
because she was supposed to be an old maid
instead she fell in love, and married my Dad
and so really, all she ever did
was care for and raise us four children
She struggled as much as she could
after the trials & tribulations of her cancer

My father was a violin player who at age 11
was forced to be a pharmacist’s apprentice
and his claim to fame was thrown away
so he could help support his family
My dad played his violin under an angel’s gaze
the notes were pure, sweet and desolate
Portraying his spirit longing for escape

Dad was a dreamer when he met mom
and charmed her into marrying him
Her family disowned her then and sat shiva
An orthodox Jew doesn’t marry a man
Who’s been married before and had a son
Even if he is a Jew too

So in spite of my being a full
blooded Jew on both sides
and growing up going with Mom
to synagogue and hearing all the prayers
on every one of the big holidays
and listening to all the yiddish euphemisms

I don’t know much about being a Jewess
since I’ve always hung with Schvartzes
and all the other goyim and such,
who seem to like having me around
most times, anyway, more than my own kind

All non Jews always consider me Jewish
and wish me “Mozel Tov” in my ventures
while fellow Jews just look at me strangely
It’s now become a theme in my life

©Joy Leftow 2006

HIS WOODEN SHACK

I sat in a wooden shack
in a chair of wood,
at a wooden table
and thinking of wood

In the middle of some undetermined
location somewhere on half an island
in the middle of no-where
where we would know anyway

I simply picked up the book
that sat right there on the wooden
table, like me, it sat
speaking, reaching out to me

I turned to the page inspirationally
all about how he felt about me
He grabbed the book from my hand
realizing I knew
he was upset that I knew that he was

still involved in thinking of me
So you ask, is he happy, content?
No he’s a certifiable alcoholic
lost in dreams of the man he used to be

before he got lost in these
nightmares that came before
dawn became dusk, then again
Nevermore quoth the raven

But it was just the same as before
and more of the same old values
which had held him prisoner for decades
Indeed, now it was clearly a pattern

I wish I could help him improve
make life a little bit better,
Reviewing his past is strange
and doesn’t change his future



© Joy Leftow 2005

Getting up

dubblex on the flex by violetwrites

OPPOSITES ATTRACT

Most didn’t see Carmen as pretty
with her big framed self,
but I saw her as pretty
Her lips were slim and shapely
Radiant dark brown almond eyes
danced with amber lights
Her words were a river of throaty
melodic blues, she was beautiful

I listened contentedly, submerged
in her words cascading over me
Eyes rich, pleasant to stare into
not fat, big and tall,
she stood 6 feet 2,
Some mighta’ called her husky
She had dark brown frizzy hair -
In those days - they said ‘kinky’,
her face was soft and oval

Carmen was Nuyorican in 1963
before the word had been invented
a Puerto Rican New Yorker

I stared into her pools of liquid irises
while we rambled on,
sharing, baring our secrets
selfishly, selflessly and eloquently

Carmen had high cheekbones
a sweet engaging smile with a
big fro creating a halo
She seduced gay men
Back in the day Carmen was my best friend

Both of us were outcasts
She didn’t fit in with her kind
I didn’t fit with mine
We hit it off - hung together,
no boundaries anywhere
We sure made a strange pair

MISGUIDED LOVE

Things were different when I was young
and looking for love I met Harry Darmenjion,
the actor who went out to the west coast who
was offered a contract by a major motion
picture production house which he refused
screaming at them that he wasn’t a sell out
and they didn’t understand his artistry

I didn’t understand any of this,
the only explanation is he must’ve been high
I found it amazing that he could get an appointment
at all, All I could fathom is that
his family had money, and money is connection
It was all crazy anyway because instead
of making it with his talents
he was a stoned out drug fiend,
busy emulating Bob Dylan, singing his songs,
getting together with friends
using heroin, and plucking a guitar

None of it made sense to me
He ceaselessly pursued me until he got me
he had a small dick, so conquering females
was very important
after which he lost interest

Later on Bob from England reminded me of Harry
He too had a small dick and was very theatrical
he’d pull my head gently back by my hair
and kiss me long and deeply
he was very similar to Harry
except there were no drugs
just asthma and emotional weaknesses
which he used to control his lovers

Tarot Card Readings

Available for $20 by Pay Pal
experienced and accurate

Call me ms blues tonight ~ Bluetry #18

Blues and jazz play a blue soul cruise inside my head 

day after day those blues play like a sensei screenplay, 

a gateway to John Coltrane 

Eyes closed I watch him riffing ~ up and down the scale he goes, the quartet flowing – 

I join making it a quintet – we’re rolling on Soultrane 

McCoy Tyner, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman – 

jazzy blues drifting into the sunset 

I wish I could relent - an ascent to another world 

my intent bent on a scent, a new advent, a dent in the rent, 

I’m totally pent up, tormented and spent, 100 percent 

I depend on an upward trend 

these blues feel my heart penned into a new poem 

send me off the deep end, all I can spend 

Amy Winehouse went back to black I stayed where I am - same jack shit 

Stack those blues up for a snack attack I’m taken aback ~ 

that wooden shack – a lilac, a payback 

Those blues blowing off into the distance - their cadence feels my sadness 

Chords extend I make amends it’s rosh hashanah 2009 … transcend the outcome, 

it’s a godsend, I dread bloodshed while I dream my life away 

I downplay doomsday building in my head 

Conceiving a notion I make a motion to idealize the commotion 

I sit and visualize the resolution hallucinate formulate and sublimate 

Words so profound they keep me spellbound 

I can’t hear where they end and I begin ~ words turn me inside out 

Burn some rocket fuel, don’t drool it’s too cruel, 

destiny is not a coincidence of scrutiny 

There’s no escaping the blue’s impending energy 

I fend them off daily only to feel them revived again and again 

They’re making new hearts these days from clay reborn I want a new one – 

I stand in sunshine yet rain falls on my head 

Everyone merry I’ll take the next ferry try to catch up to you 

got to get out of the cold my life’s not on hold 

I’m singing the blues until I fold 

old time jazz, that razz tazz blues 

I’m gonna get bankrolled lo and behold 

coast a while to labile– send me another mango, 

it’s a new lifestyle Introduce me to myself 

I’ll have my way with fate 

I’m ms blues to you from now until I say I do 

Rock them blues back, 

like a kudzu they infuse me and abuse me, 

reduce me and seduce me I ain’t looking for an excuse, 

don’t confuse me like a weeping spruce 

I can’t give up the fight love’s light in sight this night, 

I recite in stage fright another back bite 

Luddite go fly a kite 

Put my soul on a hook and draw a needle through it 

My blues rip through me 

Singing the blues under a translucent snow-white moonlight

 I ignore my plight in musical delight 

Blues on steadfast order of rewrites - 

My trays too full of holiday blues 

A pure Semite emerging like a sprite from a cu⋅mu⋅lo⋅ nim⋅bus 

nonplussed by genius at twilight igniting like phosphorescent pyrite 

I’m torn in two call me ms blues tonight

difficult shmificult how bad can it get

October issue will be coming out soon but probably not the first of October. I'm doing the best I can while the world keeps crumbling around me. Gone to shit! I'm scrambling to keep this Cartier going but it takes several hours per day.
I am also trying to get together my column for the October issue. I plan to review and write up a phone interview with John Yamrus and you can bet you'll see it here too as well as Birthdays of Poets and Blogcritics.com!

On another note, if anyone would like to buy A Spot Of Bleach and Other Poems & Prose, for 10 bucks plus $3 shipping give me a shout and send through pay pal to violetwrites@nyc.rr.com. They make great holiday gifts.

Don't forget to visit dubblex diaries.

Yamrus' style and humor inspired me to come up with the following little write.

In reverie of john yamrus permit me to say

I’ve put up with my fair share of despair and let me downs -some hard - some easier
It’s all the same, my disappointment about disparaging remarks about my pink hair. It’s gone and faded from bright red I admit
to hearing insults from important poets known on the scene about my poetry not being “real” poetry
My poetry is not authentic; it’s eccentric
I don’t know how you can get more real than me
My poetry is me and then some more
It has room for me and you in store
You find yourselves in here, inside a poem
Be careful what you say round me
I will quote you
in a poem
It’s no good to say I should delay
You say you pray I won’t consider putting your words in a poem even though you know that’s what I do
repeat after me – I forbid you to put this in a poem
so if it’s not goose for the gander stop feeding me
Give me some respect for what I do
I spill my blood and guts for you
I receive letters from people who read what I write
I received one today from a very nice girl.
She said she’s sorry for my life, she feels so sad for me, she’s just glad she’s not here where I am, she wouldn’t know what to do if she stood here where I stand in my shoes
She doesn’t know anyone who’s had it this bad
She just don’t know how I manage to survive a life this sad
I told her suicide’s a waste of time
I spend my energy writing poetry
She said you suck at poetry
You can’t write “real” poetry anyway
You think I’m pulling your leg?
Then whose leg am I pulling -
Mine?
Damn if I had my legs pulled a little maybe I wouldn’t feel this hip pain so bad
So I’m an old fool who writes poetry –
What did you say you do?