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g e n t l e r S o u n d e s q u i r e

respite
Poppy red cushions
sunlight stumbles
across a wide angle
window gazing in
as streams of town
twist pass in hazy
currents

Kitchen is busy
steam and the murmur
of action
Number 4
and green tea
I sip at the tiny cup
and taste the soy
bitter tang of rice
and pork
The leather jacket
creaking
elbows resting on
the formica
In the semi darkness
I feel the cave of
a world at my back
A painting of a dragon
in his flowing agitation
is behind me
along one wall
I feel his tension
and energy
like the wall of a wave
curled in faded woodcuts
Low talk overlaps too
the traffic and chiming
brass bells that ring
each announcement
of passing patrons
arriving and departing
They still have the Chrome
juke boxes
Thick towers of glass
for sugar....salt and pepper
A tired but once pretty
brunette in an apron asks
if My tea would like to be
topped up yet...
I nod polite..let my eyes
flicker into hers...They
are a coffee warmth
a shiver of a smile
and once the pot is
gone shes left
called for another order
for a family of two
A father and his daughter
The old uneasiness
I had lost on the curving
wild roads past ruins
of northern forgetfulness
returns
The daughter is my
daughters age
in a time Ive done well
to forget
The man looks happy
at ease chatting up
the now happy brunette
"What would U like sweetie?"
her pale arm on the
younger girls shoulder

I turn back too the window
Across the bright sunlight
street cars flicker past
people in short sleeves
summer hats
they all look alike
too me now
I can see the reflection
on the closed shop
windows across from
us...See the tail of my
soft tail...the wink of
chrome..
Its time I finish the tea
I lay my napkin across
the meal after wiping
my mouth Folded
the chopstick and
cutlery unused but
atop the appetizing
meal I barely touched
The tea is sweet and
bitter
and I pocket the
translucent fortune
cookie
Lay some bills on
the little worn plastic
tray
"Emmy" writes
fourteen dollars and
seventy nine cents
and leaves a happy
face...just the eyes
and smiling mouth
A ghost of hope
on a land of boreal
forests and lakes
and granite outcrops
The loneliness rests
on rooftops and in
the empty windows
of the condemned
apartments as I
check my bike...
I leave her a five
dollar tip...
the door bells chime
behind the laughter
of the daddy and
his girl
and Im outside
fitting the helmet
and goggles
sitting astride
the now idling
machine..pushing
it backward
enough to point
it down the street
down town and
down the highway
away from here
away from everywhere
I just want the song
of the wind
and motor
and draw of
the road
On my knuckles
riding on the
road bars
its says
SHIT LUCK

..

Editing stage: 

Comments

I read this as I would a shopping list,
you have listed so many great themes for separate poems
You forgot to string them together, in an order where you would find it easy to shop at the store.
I am confused at you lack of organised thought, it is as if you went into a café and sat there dreaming as the world passed you by.
Unusual for you to be this jumpy but on reading it again the smoke cleared and out of it came your vision and dream.
Not sure if many are up to realising the theme here.
It is growing on me and the Green tea needs a volunteer to drink yuk, sitting here smiling.
Take care Young Wolf, share the kill but let others see what it is.
Yours Ian..

.
Give critique to help keep Neopoet great.
Unconditional love to you all.
"Learn to love yourself first"
Yours as always, Ian.T, Sparrow, and Yenti

camoflauge is visual abundance of array patterns
a breaking up...an illusion too what solidity rests
beneath as sure as the bottom beneath an active
wave surface

remember telegraphs in paper teletype form
in those days they wrote full text
unlike the youth of today inventing almost a
twin language split from the grammatical
heirarchy and hold of the old imperial british
or english as it evolved from the norman
lands...
eg..."dear Johan Hex stop
tell your son Billy that his canine Lassie has been located stop
she informs Billy that Henry has falling into the cistern and requires assistance stop"

an example that makes me LOL and even lmao!

commercial and action movies have lesser and lesser
dialogue and its strung together
snippets and snaps
clickety clack

free verse will not be transferred to the future
like rhyme
but in the free verse the words must assume
a pattern of fluid dynamic in its absorption
via our eyes too our minds...
for those with sight ...and too hear aloud
for those that can hear..
comprehension is a skill that even
the deaf and dumb can master

the list ideal is like an algorythym
more then the run on
of stack

I went down and turned
on the coffee pot for a
cup of brew. It seemed
to take forever man. But
smelling that delicious tangy
aroma. I just knew it was
going to be worth the wait!

or

Down steps I descended
to the pot I turned on forever taking
time too chose
a tangy aroma
worth a wait
a powerful Brew

...

a rough idea

an example is too try to read
stuff Like
John Milton
sixteen hundred John Milton
but eventually it comes
the flow..pattern
like trying too learn morse
or a cryptic shard
Anyone remember trying
to understand shakespeare
for the first time..
try to live high on recreational
drugs..or write using booze
the patterns are skewed
its difficult

my writing is
difficult to decipher
the abstraction of
it pulled much
a streamlining
or wavelenth
that is not picked
up by most recievers

lewis carol is almost
nonsense and so is
suess but both
geniuses
there are many more

I like waltzes
I like patterns
to be able to fathom
patterns in the
most obscure
is the challenge
much of my work
gets no regard
and I do not mind
like a space
I visit
like a field of snow
freshly fallen
its quiet

I am glad U
stopped by too
comment Ian
the dream feel
is because maybe
the majority of
what is indeed
going on resides
in the many rooms
of my head
somewhere
someplace
be it what it may stop

...

author comment

It appears that you had a Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. Reading this poem of yours make me feel like a jumping frog in a wetland. Surely, your food was spiked with No.4.

Please don't you run away; just try to make your owner dinner.

xxxxx

post industrialization of america
food went industry
jobs went to more effecient plants
operated by tireless human bio bots
for nothing
their alternative was the american
alternative of post war
even our milk now comes from
offshore
the chinese have been around
as a culture for thousands of
years....they may surpass
america...

I like the analogy of leaping frog
an almost japanese visual
and its true
A friend and I were speaking
in short intel deilvery like
we were....we got tested
we are both bright intellectually
and she was writing a short
story on one of the typewriters
then...there were three I think
she said we were "jumping
island to islands" like the
myths of giants....
she is bright...working
in a top end place for
people...

Number four...because numbers
are important
in science fiction
recovery logic
etc
three sides...four sides
five sides
a cellular pattern
angles I see
four even
like the resturant
front back sides
like a story
introduction
continum
like an alley
road..
equivelant planes
formal
informal would
be a radical design
which some stories
in fiction do
and an ending

my dinner will be
oatmeal or kraft
dinner..rice...

thank U!

author comment

Another cameo that encompasses love and loss.
I found this haunting and very moving. I love the minute attention to detail, it paints such a vivid picture. Jx

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Don't forget to offer critique on poems you read.

we all are in perfect tune and there are no problems and it is boring as hell !
And we wouldn't have anything to bitch about! I love your work Esker.
I always get vivid impressions from your poems. Been thinking and hearing lots about Alt. Universes
and parallel worlds lately. I think that you see very clearly into other places and times. Thanks for sharing! ~ Gee

There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.

on admissions to hospital they hate or love me or both....in a way the reaction too both
feelings goes through the same working areas of the brain...like a port...
only because I do have connections...the top like me...Im enertaining..although to other
bright people I annoy them or scare them and probably for good reason....People that
can see things....sense things....look at the workings of the strings too the marionettes
has its hazards so I learned too be fierce..funny...laid back..out there..concerned with
the thousand yard stare an trite things that are basically unattainable and unimportant
to most....they settle back....unsettled but they go back to their routine....for the most
part Im not into destruction but system tweaking..building.....I could have been this or
that but like a pinnacle or hilltop to acquire its a hard LZ to maintain...nice view but I
would rather be on the waytrails of the ordinary...valley and village I say...I like people
even though I think a bit different then most and see things outside the box...Lah Lah
land I keep calling it and often I use imbibing materials too escape..numb.shut down
my mind which never turns off...even though I tried hobbies and meditation...countless
unsucessful relationships.....people get close....I get scared..bored...unsure because
of the no boundaries and no filter on output.....I am loved...I have met many others
like this...more brighter...more fierce..watched many just walk off the edge or into the
mists...snows...gone..either their own demise or set aside by those who would rather
have the world working in the known....When I sleep I dream....and when I am awake
the vividness sometimes is overpowering...I take medications...Ive worked hard in
my way to get a grip on just living a decent day too day....But people like me frighten
people....just because we are odd.....and attract the much more active people...for
the intel exchange ...I call it the five minute manifestos...My psych doc says shes only
seen one other dude like this...in her entire career and shes very very brilliant...
im not saying this to be bragging.....its been a difficult time to just exist....I vary in
mood and emotion so much.... for some reason I have an understanding of people
and a frustration so I tune them out....disregard them even though they give all
this intel...years later I get their meaning...but sometimes its too late.... I think that
madness is a beautiful place......but its very overpowering at times and often very
lonely.....however....Im working at being more real...all they ask....and more stable
so they know where I am...they always ask and look me in the eye how I am in the
day on the street....because often that varies......again...its interesting....
but Ive often said...I would give all this up too just fit in more and be just like most
But...a very brilliant woman I work with younger then I..and who likes me a lot..says
I would be bored....she loves me.....but I know Im all over the road to ever form
any kind of strong times with anyone......This poem is real...setting not...I dont
ride a bike but would have been able too fine....my daughter went with her mom
years ago...there was a conflict...I have many with people....I dont back down...
away they went...years later we see each other..hang out...but all that water is
a bone of contention between us.....my philosophy is that people die..leave...
change...move on and we the living must carry the torch...each new day...
on our own....might be a tough view of things....like that movie The Road..
Viggo tells his boy.."Im not going too be here forever" independence and
not Dependence was a struggle....my attachment too others is still strong..
finally getting self reliant on my own is a great new thing....even though its
late in the game.....Im happy most days now.....but that draft from the open
doors of perception always blows like a haunted house.....still....I meet enough
others like me too make it worth going through the dry spells....
and there are the mini relationships I form from those who just want too spend
time with me....make some memories and head back out there...
and I like that...One should be able to flank left and right...knowing the odds
and ratios of survival and ration ones resolve....Still......I too understand the
importance of love....having too give regardless......thank U for understanding
the view of the road my friend.....even though these works are fiction...the
reality was I lived some times...and kept going.....

thank U!

author comment

I get the same feeling with your poetry as I do looking at a great painting. There's an image, very visual - there is tremendous detail and depth and a real understanding of human nature.
I would never have known you didn't ride a bike, I live with a biker, I recognise the same open road feeling I get from Mick, when he talks of his rides.
Like a painting, there are sometimes stories within stories, avenues to go down.
There are several poets here on Neopoet who have great skill and I truly admire, you are one of them.
That sounds a bit creepy crawly, don't mean it to, just credit where it's due :-)
Jx

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Remember we are a workshop site.
Don't forget to offer critique on poems you read.

Bloody phone sent it twice.........

------------
Remember we are a workshop site.
Don't forget to offer critique on poems you read.

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