my familiar

[Whitebird Sings]

i sit
i wait
i listen
for my familiar

memories
made just this morning
seem distant
and close all at once

i shut my eyes
tight,
i concentrate my everything on you

i want to believe
that if i think about you
long enough
and
hard enough
-- you’ll feel me
and i’ll feel you back

and we’ll keep each other warm this way

for now

[judih]

i know that you can feed me
you've done it before
a simple word and a look
and the sky changes hue
it's you
channelling miracles in a single bound
hurtling past obstacles with a shrug

no magic perfumes or spells
it's in the way you plant yourself on earth
grow dynamically with the trees
you shade me from midday sunblind
you cover me from midnight chill

i only have to sit with you
and all will be well

[lenny]

I like the way you employ the word 'familiar' here and your juxtaposition of 'distant' and 'close'. I am not familiar with how this board works yet so hope I'm not out of line when I say that I would omit a lot of the personal pronoun 'I''s. They detract from the flow of the read for me. For example, the second and third usages omitted would give more attention and power to the words 'wait' and 'listen'. The other one I would omit is the one before 'concentrate', as it is already implied. Redundancy, or lack thereof can often make the difference between a good poem and a very good poem. But please, again, forgive me if I am out of line here. These are only my opinions. I like the sentiment expressed herein very much. Nice poem!

Be well,

lenny

[Whitebird Sings]

i want the truth
~ nothing else will do.
recognizing that everyone's version may differ,
and taking my ego out of the equation,
i am open to it.

i reread what i wrote without so many "i's"
and now have insights into lenny.
someone lovely who flows, who melds
nice.
very nice.

i am in the throes of a new crush
and was attempting exaggeration
and my place in it.

in life as with poems
flow is better.
you reminded me of that.

thank you for taking my poem
and making it flow...

[lenny]

Whew! Thank you for taking it in the spirit in which it was intended, and for the compliment too. Smile.

Be well,

lenny

[Whitebird Sings]

...and then there's j
and her reply

i have sat with it for days
letting it settle on my heart

needing it

grateful for the love of such a friend as this
wondering how i could be so fortunate

xo
WB

[judih]

(sending kiss)

[craig moore]

a kiss perhaps
flies around the
world

looking for a cheek
that needs a pair
of lips

cept this is only a
etheric kiss
sent as a breath

of possibility
from some imaginary
union of body and soul

i in my daydream
of a butterfly
transformed into a kiss

have yet still
a Kafka wish
that a kiss of life

will always exist
when kisses
drift in a shapeshift

[judih]

hologram surrounds the cheek
anti-sound leaves non-stick lips stuck
a kiss to be

[lenny]

kiss bliss sprouts new shoots,
entwines with vine embrace,
warm gaze soaks roots.

lenny

[Whitebird Sings]

not
the way
you send the kiss,
but the way it lands
tells
who you are,

tells
whether
you
are my familiar
or you belong to somewhere else.

tells whether to hold on
or let go.

should listen.

wish i did.
hoping there's a next time.

[stilltrucking]

I am the kiss of death
I am an enlightened fool
But one day
If I stay true to
Myself
I will never be bored again.
I will be G*d's own fool

I me me mine
My cross
my fate
my life
my words
my way
me and my familiar
on the good bodhi road

[stilltrucking]

my familiar life

[~K]

boredom is
the devils back yard
following you home

its what
I miss about you

that will not let me
remember what I
would trade my world for

[stilltrucking]

In the devils back yard
Boredom is self-satisfaction
"...the most deadly of the passions: inert self-satisfaction. It is from such places as the villa where this woman lives that boredom spreads out over the world."
Published as Moravia and the Worm of Consciousness
Partisan Review winter 1962

"that will not let me
remember what I
would trade my world for"

I would trade my world
for the innocence of a child