Graffiti tag

I received my National Association of Social Work renewal and put it to good use.
Wouldn't you agree? Artistically?
Apropo too.
I called them some time ago, said I'm a retiree now and have been for some time so I want to pay the retiree fee.
They replied to me: pay the retiree fee after you pay the regular fee for one year since you're a lapsed member.
Hmmm....
Don't quite see the logic in that.
I'll probably try again this year to speak to them otherwise I'll have to continue on being a lapsed member with lapsed membership.
I want to pay the retiree fee.
Pity we can't have what we need for free.
Have to pay for it all on call, pay it all
again and again everyday.
As you see I need income and being a natural whore, my skills are available for sale as most of you ascertained from a pre-ordained sale of ads aimed at higher ed.

THAT WORK THAT IS SO FINE

My painting invested
with four months of life
oil colors on canvas three feet wide
interpreting the artists’ studio

The room burnished
with earthen colors
the ceiling high and wide
represented as a clear blue sky
with clouds of varying shades
from white to grey

Using colors to reveal my feelings
inspired by my master
investigating my strengths through
his wisdom, usurping his vision

How do you get this effect or that
Make a cloud look billowy and soft
Train your hand to make an image
and still relay your feelings with
training, craft and skill?

While I shyly bowed my head, the master
declared my work showed great strides,
my growth in perspective was a triumph for him
He was astonished how I used
colors to accomplish these effects

Four months, three hours a day,
two days a week I slaved

to nurture my untrained abilities
to complete my still life

My lover was fascinated by the color,
the depth, the room where the ceiling
became a sky with no limit,
the inner space that stretched
to meet the cosmos of time

Please, my lover begged me
Give me that work that is so fine
that piece of you, your mind,
that inner space that I can claim is mine

Please give me that work that is so fine
in which you invested great
quantities of self and time
I gave him my work of art
because I believed he loved me

There came the day I stood outside his door
found that he had gone away
I stood pondering and saw nothing amiss
Then suddenly I looked up and saw

Atop the lamp post that stood outside
his door, my cherished work of art,
its insides crushed and torn,
the lamp post protruding through my blue sky,
my grey white clouds, my heart

Alas, another sad true story by Joy © 1998

more props!

Written up in the neighborhood paper, a little over 2 weeks ago and I just learned about it yesterday when 2 friends saved the blurb for me. Taken from Cala Zanoni's weekly column Neighborhood Blogwatch . She took the included quote from Turntablebluelight.com.

Dreamcatcher


Dreamcatcher is a corner of the Internet where writers, poets and dreamers explore the universe. In this posting we find Joy Leftow, the writer whose partner coined her Washington Height’s poet laureate (which gets me thinking individual neighborhoods should have poet laureates, but I digress), musing on Washington Heights as her home, comfort and place of constant change. “I still live in the area where I was born in Washington Heights,” she writes. “I wonder if it's like at the end of the galaxy where the further away you live from where you were born, the more chaos you create in the universe.”

turntablebluelight.com

Thanks for the love Carla. I'm loving it and you.

recognition -

Wonderful to have recognition for doing what you love...

This blog was listed by online colleges under 100 Great Web Sites For Poetry Lovers. I'm proud and honored, especially since they only listed 20 blogs!

Today for the first time I noticed HilariousNYC.com listed this blog and dubblex's on their blog roll. This is also a very entertaining blog. The editor first discovered DubbleX's flyer and wrote about it here.

Another surprise, found Joy's Poetry Blog on litkicks through my statcounter this instant and am dancing in my chair!

Also got an email yesterday from an online adult learning resources site that wanted to post an add in my archives under a short post titled Changes and paid me $200 for it. This particularly suits me as I am a great believer in the power of education.

This is heaven!

PSYCHIC ABILITIES, PART 2

Mother told me she descended from Moors
Said she prayed to her ancestors
to heal our sins, relieve her misery,
turn our misfortunes to joy,
for her pain to disappear, go elsewhere,
Please, ... we’ve already had more than enough of our share
She prayed her days away
Upon her bed she lay the entire month of March
until one night her soul hitched a ride on the full moon
A decade later Mom visited the day I birthed my son
Begged for forgiveness for all she’d done
in love, she said I'd understand, I have a son
We two. Her words. Farewell.
Her breath. Fresh flowers. Her scent made my heart sigh.

© 1995

PSYCHIC ABILITIES, Part 3

Jesus came to me one misty moonlit eve
arms outstretched, beckoning me
I came to him cautiously,
Jesus nodded his head, looked me in the eye
“Come to me,” he said lifting his head, “I am the way.”
I looked into his young dark Jewish face.
and nodded slowly in recognition.

Indeed! Jewish, like me? He is the one.
How apt. How compelling and ironic! For me, a Jew
to know He is the one whom still the Jews await
In response to this, a fellow Jew quoth the bible
to me; “It is foretold, Messiah will come when
peace reigns and the universe is one.”
Wisely Jesus chose to come in Chaos.

© 1995

It Takes One

On the south island sea shore of my mind
The new world order hasn’t been kind
killed six million jews, many others of us too, trillions of future denizens world wide yet they say the holocaust doesn’t exist –
tried to eliminate the rest and best of us to avoid future feuds
who’s in charge?
the annihilation never occurred - not permitted in school curriculum - they want our children to be dumb
it never was
A revolution is the answer after which we’ll have lasting peace until they set the next new world order in place – a dissertation regarding a confrontation – a fray creating disarray
Stand up for your rights! Don't give up the fight!
an ablution a solution to evolution of the pollution of human souls set us back a million years
for the dissolution of abasement
danger in darkness a sadness shadows lurk disaster dawns as the poor get poorer – the slice of the pie allotted to health and human welfare so small it can’t feed no one

Promotion of peace is my contribution to the solution – it’s the question of limitations and trepidations of our government-controlled minds
our persecution and liberation, the designation of a new world government
in whispers the sound spreads

How many presidents emerged from city slums?
They want you to believe you can be one –not a simple deed to achieve
No president descended from poverty – Lincoln’s family was propertied too
We’ve never even had a Jewish president ~ probably never will.
We’re told global warning is a conspiracy but we’re not told about conspiracy deals behind closed doors where bankers pay themselves off
Abort our mother’s insides–her hidden jewels are her organs = our resources -they claim it doesn’t affect her health

Free will or coincidence? Perverse connections or random selection
Get a grip on the order of the universe – adverse curse of transverse reverse

I thought before the new world order was a cruel joke, now I see, finally awoke
See the growing economic threat of the euro– we fret while
puppets run our government –onset of another Tibet prevails while we raise the guardrail for the rich to high tail, regale us with stories
How can we have peace without a fight for rights? They won’t just give us ours
Another large cup of java - forget I ever said this.
Promote peace friends tell me revolution is blowing in the wind
Caught in a tailwind spin, we’re blind on a work grind stabbed from behind.
Everyone knows being taxed this way is illegal and was meant for corporate America not us poor working class shmucks who can barely pay our rent.
more desperation blooms exasperation looms for our great nation needs a resolution

photo & art post

First pic is violet & dubblex collaboration.
sketched by Joy with sharpie marker from beginning to end, no pencil used.
Dubblex writing and words.
http://dubblex.blogspot.com

















All the photos below by Joy - view from her window

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