I Sing The Blues For You Today

I want to do poetry like Billy Holiday singing the blues
I want to do poetry like Ella Fitzgerald
I want to be me singing my holiday blues
Billie’s songs are poetry so fine it makes me think I’m her doing rhyme
Thoughts about Billie make me go off line, hook line & sinker; she puts me back in time
I sing to my lover, I want to make your poetry mine because you spout rhymes
Observing my life become an unending grocery list of things to get done
Your life or mine, yours is on my mind - the list of to dos keeps growing exponentially
Number 1, try out a mattress, 2, buy it, 3, buy new locks to keep someone out number 4, find someone to install it, make 10 million calls. Keep writing lists. What did you say? How many sessions, any lessons in storage? Will the Divine power of intervention help?
I don’t want to bore you with the details and derail you from my song.
Damn, wonder if I’ll ever see Willa Dean again– oh man, you know the women I mean
Kept her head wrapped up like an African Queen with her creamy coffee looking self.
Willa said the secret to good potato salad is to go heavy on the mayo
Willa Dean days, they’re all in a haze now. I was so high back then.
The memory lingers, listening & watching while she told stories. She’d whisper, her voice barely a breeze, tell me about her lovers, say, “I’m gonna get me some.” … I’d get confused & asked, did she mean her husband or lover. Willa’d have dinner waiting when her husband got tired of driving a cab & came home to rest. She’d show me wilted lettuce and bring it back to life telling me about her lovers, drugs, & children while making potato salad.
I thought - she’s a woman of many talents, a stoned cold junkie and a working mom combined
The nose that knows, her preference was coke, good moist coke at a good right price too on the upper - upper west side in Washington Heights, 162nd street to be exact
Willa had class & style combined; she took me to dress models at the Ritz one time. Got paid for it too. It was such a pleasure to do. I even got a pair of designer gloves out of it.
People accepted Willa everywhere we went –
Willa was friends with a famous New York jazzman and his wife, a New York City teacher. We were at jazzman’s apartment, small tight crowded living room upper west side 90’s.
Willa’s friend sat across from me staring at my big breasts. I can see how tight your muscles are.
Let me massage you she said aggressively
hurting me so bad physically we had an argument instead.
Passing through hundreds of lives so many colors
Let me take you back to what we share - strivings for love – wanting to go somewhere –
Wanting to discover who we really are ~
see ourselves through the eyes of others and – finally see who we really are.
Extend this power to the umpteenth degree. We still wonder who they think we are ~
Uncover recover to turn to return to who we want to be
Dreams are reality - stop thinking, dreams are the color of my true love’s hair
Beyond the color of my true love’s hair, his dreads caress my bare hands
A whole-years grocery list pressed into a foggy mist of autumn red
turns bright chartreuse before bleakly the list dissolves before my eyes
True colors make my heart sneeze amidst a perpetual mist of violet-blues
a dream more real than a memory


I realize many people don't have time to stay so I wanted to take this poem, the first of the bluetry series and put it up front for people to see.

© December 2008

MAYBE I’LL JUST SUICIDE OUT

Maria tells me, “He’s a chancre sore in my life.
He’s probably with some other woman anyway.
I gotta get outta this depression
I put on 20 more pounds I can’t seem to shed
Maybe I’ll just suicide out”
She’s sobbing and she’s crazy.
“He’s not home yet and it’s half past ten.
He said he’d be here at five.” God damn!
What a scene! She’s screamin’ at him.
He’s drinkin heavy. Tells her, “Get Lost!”
She finally gets him out the bar door, home to the waiting bed.
“He has a hard on,” she cries, “but he won’t fuck me.”

Peter says, “It’s the way Maria’s shaped by nature or fate.”
“Look at those two,” I say to her, “playing with their fruits.
That guy with that girl got his hand on the other girl’s butt.”
“She’s just no good,” Maria says, mad, hands on her hips.
“She’s messing with some other girl’s man.”
I say “You just feel bad cause you’re thinking
of your man messing with some other woman.”
“Maybe I’ll just go for a pedicure,” she says,
“get my hair blown out straight. I wanna lose that 20 pounds.
I’m so upset I sold my gold watch for 5 bucks worth of crack
Maybe I’ll just suicide out.”

“I need to call him, see if he’s at home.
I gots to be with him right now. Otherwise I’ll die.”
Maria goes in my room. She uses the phone
All private like in hope and pain,
Almost like a prayer
“Write about me,” she says, “bout me and my man.
We’re talking just like poetry, you know.”
“Yes, I know. It’s all poetry you know.
Your outfit’s perfect, coordinated so well.”
“Thank you very much. I think I’ll have another go.
Or maybe I’ll just suicide out”

© 1993

new book review posted - hey o!

Review of Yamrus’ latest book New And Selected Poems, reviewed by Joy Leftow is up at bookstove.com.
I hope you'll visit and even if you don't want to read at least click on it as I will get paid pennies for each hit. Please come back and let me know whether or not you like it. I think you'll like it because Yamrus' poetry is hysterically funny. I plan to post the interview shortly too. After I read his book and laughed all over the planet, ... ok - only my little small universe - I wrote and asked was he up for a phone interview, and you know how us sluts are, anything for attention.

Folks, peeps, whatever - go and take a look and let me know if you enjoyed.

Mwah! That's me throwing you a big wet one!

MEXICAN DELIGHT

Simmering sun
Suspended at the world’s edge
smooth as gilded iridescent silk
On la montanas de Isla Mujeres
Staring at Mexico’s sun set behind her
Like a man behind a woman
he sits behind her mainland

The sea glistening with day’s last rays
flamboyant neon colors
slowly sinking from view
An immense fluorescent ball
Radiant orange, scintillating fuchsia
like my tunic of cross woven silk

We savor the hues with delight
feast upon this sight tonight
It will never be this again,
not exactly like this moment
in time with each other even if
we were together again watching
another luminous setting sun ...

Beseeched by his eyes
Absorbing the sun’s ripening glow
before mellowing occurs
And all is gone


© 1993 This poem has been published 6 times so far and I don't consider it one of my best but it's nothing to sneeze at either.

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