I often post my poems “A I” - (AS IS)
Spelchek uses “R”s and I don’t
We us “H’s” instead
(we paahk R caahs in Haavaad yaad)
We’ve been known
To pitch a B itch
Mostly about those F-N Yankees
We “gawk at visitors from New Yawk”
We eat “bay gulls” for breakfast
Sprinkle “jimmies” on our ice cream
Buy our booze at the “packie”
Return all one fingered salutes
Drink from the bottle…cuz we know the bartenders
Believe that crosswalks are for sissy’s
That “cursive” is a language
Our politicians are as crooked as our roads
We will BOO the home team when they “piss us off”
Then call them WICKED PISSA when they do well
(we even have it on cups and T-shirts)
AI would unscrew itself if it had to listen to our conversations
We are who we are
DEAL WITH IT…
Someone from New York will tell ya where to go
Someone from Boston will tell you how to get there
Categories:
crosswalks, fun, humor, language,
Form: Free verse
Disorderly Conduct
Keep to the right
Keep to the right
Teachers all taught
Keep to the right
Stay on the right
While we all walk
So it’s not chaos
Crossing crosswalks
Dodging and bumping
While in the store
Now it’s all madness
No order no more
Keep to the right
Is obsolete
It went in decline
For the…me me
Keep to your right
Or to your left
It’s about order
Not politics
Stay in your lane
Stay in your lane
It was so simple
Now it’s all lame
Categories:
crosswalks, 1st grade, change, loss,
Form: Rhyme
I hear crosswalk signals in my dreams
their constant metered pace is comforting
the command to wait always a touch too brazen
they never change though
-the signals-
they give the same tired palm reading
I take the hint and wave to cars passing by
I can’t see anything but the sun
reflecting off their tinted windshields
Categories:
crosswalks, anxiety,
Form: Free verse
You can acknowledge the emptiness at the core of your being
or go crazy when the world goes crazy.
The numbers of us overwhelm,
an impending tsunami,
my hopeful eulogy about our responsibilities to each other,
2 jobs 2 hobbies,
the biomass in the crosswalks,
fears that rend and own us,
the Muslim-Judeo-Christian condition.
Your soul is immortal,
it exists outside of politics and poker. Just kidding.
Forgotten, forgiven and foregone.
A man’s ego needs no encouragement.
“I’m gonna be huge when I’m dead,” John said
last time we spoke.
Life is fine!
tough
the reward for our colossal imperfections
a back and forth game
the rivers and selfies of an empire
daily low intensity warfare
Good
a gift
not a curse
new, so let go
a veil, thin if one doesn’t believe in mystery
like all things that are forever changing but always remain the same
thriving
enjoying the passage of time
or will be good
but a dream
okey doke, short, a lazy-eyed tiger
Categories:
crosswalks, crazy, fear, life, political,
Form: Free verse
I crossed the streets at the intersections in life
There are many directions
I turned left I do wrong I sin
I turn right I'm at peace I'm at home with Jesus and God
For in my heart and spirit of mind with God
There are no need for any traffic lights
There are no need for any stop signs in heaven
When I leave my mansion to go Praise My Lord and King
I walk forward toward the crosswalks Hallelujah brings
11/12/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr ©
Categories:
crosswalks, analogy, appreciation, celebration, life,
Form: Free verse
In wonderment I walk with the day
billows blowing
noticing not,
a beginning nor an end
lost in the mist of the rain
I pause at the crosswalks
filled with children
on their way
not knowing
life from a game
smiles yield,
flowery umbrellas holding
the rain
and a world at bay
glistened eyes overcome
and I see their mothers
dreams, heartfelt nights
tireless songs of glee
intrepidity
the will amid the worry
cars turning left
moving right
no wrong in sight
the beginning to an end
they're at their end
I see youth in their eyes
glazing over moments
years/tears
it's not the end
I greet them
noticing
all that beauty
bellowing
silently from within
Categories:
crosswalks, beauty,
Form: Free verse
Kissed his student.
Punched his friend.
Accused her lover.
What if China's navy asserts control where our navy also patrols?
Should we concede the South China Sea? Not on your life! Or maybe.
Lives may be lost but so what. There's so much biomass in the
crosswalks.
Lord have mercy on my soul
Which means bring my confusion into an expressible state before it's too
late.
Sal went to jail. I belong to the loved ones. Never may the anarchic
man's thoughts be my thoughts. Not one.
It could be cancer or just a cyst
That killed Frost's considerable speck
Instead of considering its considerable intelligence.
Although bottomless ancient night stretches
From your short life forward, remember
It also stretches backward without measure.
There are few straight lines in nature and only one alternative to ageing,
so suck it up!
Suppose everything's fine and you've wasted your time wearing
sackcloth over your soul?
Start now knowing joy.
Categories:
crosswalks, age, cancer, friend, joy,
Form: Verse
Night and Forest
This june night it was brighter than my bedroom.
The silvery lit rock in the forest
Was glittering like my stickers
In my scrapbook.
The forest was dense, deeper than I could see.
The road was close by with crosswalks
And blinking lights
When someone wanted to get to the other side.
The other side had a path through the other side
Of the forest.
This night the moonlit forest
Outside my bedroom window
Picked out the croaking frogs,
Shone on their backs.
Their spikes lit up like the backs of their eyes.
Croak. croak. calling for a mate.
Their feelers left uncompromised
Yet with each beck and call
The frogs necks
Blew up big and ugly.
This night, they are alone.
This night, I sat a long time
By my window.
It was dark inside me.
It was darker behind me.
I wanted to go into the forest,
Walk with snakes moving faster
Down the path that led out.
Reaching for the long lost cries
I once shed so privately,
Not at arm's length, not there any more,
They've been swallowed up,
Sunk deep into the forest floor.
Catch a moonbeam, catch my new life.
Categories:
crosswalks, imagery,
Form: Light Verse
Theory of everything
Absolutely everything
Feast for the senses fit for a king
This is the glory of which the angels in heaven sing
The mathematics underlines the façade
Beneath which there is visage of very God
The extension of vortex goes where mind would not dare prod
Its ever increasing temporal shift by even highest beings is awed
There is a great equinox
In continuity two numbers not equal being equal is paradox
At less the outcome is the same because both end in absolute this is the equinox
Where the soul and divine crosswalks
But in the end its just echo of infinity
But for true majesty
Equinox also has a key
And in that lies its simplicity
Death’s head hawkmoth is a puzzling thing
But should it fear to the soul bring
Or is it wonderful unusual thing
As unusual as theory of everything
In simple phrase
Ultimate consciousness is that phrase
Yet its echo does amaze
Especially is no reference point positive or negative reflects ultimate in that phrase
Like death head this phrase is a curious thing
Because it reflects everything
And anything describing everything
Is divine thing
Categories:
crosswalks, butterfly, fantasy,
Form: Rhyme
Cornices, and Gargoyles with eyes turned low,
hold fast the passing in a frozen stare
as slow vapor rising from vents below
is churned by soles into thick city air.
Undeterred, the well-heeled leather bottom
wingtips fly past sandaled sloths at crosswalks
while clicking heels kick dead leaves of autumn
and wind their way through crowded city blocks.
Just above a breezy sidewalk café,
sheer fabric wafts a low-loft window sill,
two pair of empty vamps and laces lay,
removed in shameless haste and lustful will.
Beneath the sheets, a naked feet affair,
entwined, aligned, with dreamy souls laid bare.
Michael F. Lewis and Thvia Shetley
3/6/2013
Categories:
crosswalks, places, romance, urban, city,
Form: Sonnet
ANGRY MAN
I have no problem with drunks, druggies, husbands who beat their wives,
Asinine youths shouting too loudly, parents who neglect or spoil their children.
These guys make me feel good because I know it is not me,
And I feel superior : I am better than that.
I hate the guys in wheelchairs who slow me down as I walk to work;
Old ladies on crosswalks bug me, stumbling ahead of me, so I must sidestep;
Beggars on the bridge are infuriating, panhandling for small change.
The wheelies remind me that I have legs
But I waste my time sitting in armchairs watching football;
The oldies tell me that I too will be a stumbler one day
And that I am wasting my youthful energy doing pointless activities.
Beggars I really hate, for it could surely be me, easily - but for the grace of God.
I am spending my cash on trinkets, burgers, movies, and I can’t even enjoy them
Because of thinking of these guys : they make me mad as hell.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Entered in Susan Burch’s Contest “Show Me the Anger”
Categories:
crosswalks, introspection, me, me, drug,
Form: Free verse
standing in the center of this room
once shared between two
becomes one, sealed
behind pixels
clasped with cottonwood
your sundress reveals
my poem
hung across rosemary shoulders
of soft smile echoes
whispers of rain across your cheek
we walk crosswalks of brokenness
careful of ripping too much flesh
knowing at an angels moment, life is silenced
(a sigh from the assassins gun)
mirrors lie to the one who seeks identity
creases steal youth
from times mason jar;
-one last glance-
the close of a door
cannot stop the fossilized finger
that locks you away
eclipsed like a locket welded shut
(if only…
Categories:
crosswalks, lost love, love, passion
Form: Free verse