“And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, ‘I have been a stranger in a strange land.'” King James Bible, Exodus 2:22
something foreign, today’s rain
rat-tat-tating the roof and windows,
ping-ponging the sidewalk below
in rhythms oddly dissonant
the trees seem foreign too in their
huddles against the wind and damp,
abandoned by birds and squirrels
and even by the children at play
in a moment dark will fall with its
ghostly and pockmarked moon,
i’ll see its face without a smile and
sad, yet i won’t frown in this rain,
in this alien and hollow place,
though sojurner and stranger am i
© 2019, poem, Jamie Dedes; Photo credit ~ George Hogan, Public Domain Pictures.net
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
I think everyone has had those moments when they feel like “a stranger in a strange land.” The triggers for that perseption are probably varied. Maybe weird weather, a new landscape, a relocation, or a new house or apartment. I have a friend who says he thinks that after his birth he was sent home from the hospital with the wrong parents, so out-of-place does he feel in the context of family. Has that happened to you, that sense of being a sojurner in an alien environment? What precipitated the experience? How did it feel? Was it a passing thing or does the sensation remain with you still?
Please share your thoughts and experiences in your own poetry on this theme, stranger in a strange land.
NEW RULES
- please submit your poem/s by pasting them into the comments section and not by sharing a link
- please submit poems only, no photos, illustrations, essays, stories, or other prose
Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not be published.
IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.
Deadline: Monday, July 1 by 8 pm Pacific Daylight Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, checkThe Time Zone Converter.
Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you.
You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
ABOUT
Recent in digital publications:
* Four poems , I Am Not a Silent Poet
* Remembering Mom, HerStry
* Three poems, Levure littéraire
Upcoming in digital publications:
* Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review
* From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems)
A mostly bed-bound poet, writer, former columnist and the former associate editor of a regional employment newspaper, my work has been featured widely in print and digital publications including: Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta/ Phor(e) /Play, The Compass Rose and California Woman. I run The Poet by Day, a curated info hub for poets and writers. I founded The Bardo Group/Beguines, a vitual literary community and publisher of The BeZineof which I am the founding and managing editor.
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Hello Jamie,
Here’s my seventh response:
Strangers And Pilgrims On The
earth. My first avowed intent
to be a pilgrim. I’ll not relent,
each breath a step, an oar in watery graves
pushes against the unremembered waves
“How can you go abroad fighting for strangers?”
I am a thankful passenger.
I see the bright and hollow sky
I ride the how, what, where and why
to reach the final breath, final shore,
Nothing new here, stolen words restore
ancient thought and image, rearrange
the mundane to confront raw rage,
at the lights lit on the headland brighter
with each exhalation my body lighter
as the last place we embarked
gets darker and darker and darker.
(From my collection “Port Of Souls”, Alien Buddha Press, 2018)
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my seventh response:
Strangers And Pilgrims On The
earth. My first avowed intent
to be a pilgrim. I’ll not relent,
each breath a step, an oar in watery graves
pushes against the unremembered waves
“How can you go abroad fighting for strangers?”
I am a thankful passenger.
I see the bright and hollow sky
I ride the how, what, where and why
to reach the final breath, final shore,
Nothing new here, stolen words restore
ancient thought and image, rearrange
the mundane to confront raw rage,
at the lights lit on the headland brighter
with each exhalation my body lighter
as the last place we embarked
gets darker and darker and darker.
(From my collection “Port Of Souls”, Alien Buddha Press, 2018)
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Hello Jamie! This was a hard one to write for me. So many feelings about this!! Below is a “surface” poem I wrote – meaning one that I felt comfortable sharing only because it wasn’t “too deep”. Those deeper poems I might have to post at a later date. This prompt definitely brought up a lot of thoughts and feelings! Thank you for pushing and promoting!
“What it’s like for an Asian woman to live in a predominantly White community” – A Villanelle
Whenever I enter a place
My insides search to belong
I cannot see my face
Can I take up this space?
There’s times that I’ve been wrong
And need to leave a place
Those times I’ve felt displaced
An unwanted tagalong
I paste a smile on my face
I try to handle it with grace
So the discomfort won’t prolong
When I need to stay at a place
But why can’t you embrace
The me inside that’s strong
Can you look beyond my face?
I will not be erased
I’m not one of the throng
I cannot leave this place
I cannot change my face
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❤😢
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Relate. 😦
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I LEAPT FROM THE WOMB
You brought me in hard
distancing me from the
start a cold memory
You brought me in hard
A child left alone
Crying for its mother,
You brought me in hard
I was yellow, black haired
You turned me away
You brought me in hard
No loving touches, no soft
murmuring moments.
You brought me in hard
I forever seek comfort
warily afraid.
Soon there were only cries
at night unanswered
disguised by a starlight
serenade from a radio
Rhapsody soothing my blues
Bethoven’s 5th
Op.67:1. Allegro con brio
Ravel: Pavanne for an infant
Defunte
absorbing the lesson
unintentionally taught
engraved in memory
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Jen – beautifully, heartbreakingly written. The lesson unintentionally taught….❤️❤️
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Thank you Irma ❤❤
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Thank you Irma ❤💕
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“The Service Revolver”
(Raanana, May 22, 2009)
Sixty-six pounds of snarling anger
In the only path to safety
For six pounds of cold fear.
A chain squeezes suddenly around the honey-colored throat
And the anger moves on,
At first reluctantly, and then
Loping along at a goodly pace
Wet nostrils flared and quivering,
Ready to sift and scoop up
Anything of taste or interest
Along the dark and lamp-lit way.
Walking my dog Daisy
Whose name belies her vigor and strength
Barely controlled by a pact initialed
But never formally ratified,
She leads me through the valley of my loneliness
Which I measure in the scrape and echo
Of footsteps having no place to go.
Walking under an archway of sparse leaved bracken
And thick limbs of eucalyptus
Thoughts swarm around us
In no particular rhyme or meter,
Like the personal black hole
Pulling me towards an eventual horizon
In gossamer strands of infinity,
And another: at what point in our lives
Does it become reasonable
To contemplate suicide,
To feel the coolness and weight of one’s service revolver
Against the weight of continuing to be?
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“Bookstore”
(Raanana, May 30, 2015)
So this book walks into a store.
It’s dark inside after the bright sunlight of outdoors.
There are shelves upon shelves of books,
Their backs facing him impermeably.
He spots The Great Gatsby chatting up
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
In a particularly umbrous corner
And moves on into the darkness.
A thin volume sitting by herself
Catches his attention.
He sits down next to her unobtrusively,
Trying to be a fait accompli
Before the fait has been accompli.
He looks at her more than just a glance.
Haven’t I read you before, he ventures.
I wouldn’t think so, she closes his book on him.
Why wouldn’t you think so?
Because books don’t read other books, she says.
Only humans do.
Have you been read by humans? he asks.
Yes, actually, by quite a few, she answers smugly.
I’m sorry for not recognizing you,
He says softly after a while.
May I ask your name?
I’m the unabridged journals of sylvia plath, she says,
But you may call me unabridged.
I’d prefer to call you Sylvia if you don’t mind.
Haven’t you heard of me?
Almost everyone who’s anyone has.
Well, no.
Books can’t read, remember?
So you don’t know my story? she asks.
It ended in a scrumptious but silly suicide.
Don’t feel bad, she consoles him.
I guess I only know my own story, he says sadly.
They both are quiet,
Absorbing the ambiance of the musty old bookstore
For a long time.
So what’s your name, she asks brightly.
I’m The Uncollected Works of Mike Stone,
But you can call me Mike, he says.
I’d rather call you uncollected,
She says with a deficit of attention.
There is another long silence
That roars rather deafeningly.
After a while he suggests
It is getting terribly stuffy here.
Why don’t we go out into the sunlight?
She says you go ahead,
I’ll join you in just a moment.
He gets up and walks to the door,
Opens it and steps out
Into the fresh air.
He looks around him
At the shiver of tree leaves
In the thin breeze
Hopefully
Somewhat.
Time passes
As it is wont to do
But no Sylvia.
He opens the door,
Walks once more into the darkness,
And finds the thin volume of her,
Another volume beside her now,
The Great Gatsby, he thinks.
He walks outside
Once more into the sunlight
Crosses the street
Into the small garden
Made quiet by the wrought iron
Fence and gate bounding it.
He sits down on a bench
Facing the tree he had noticed
Just outside the bookstore
For the longest time
Until a young girl
Freckle-faced, he thinks,
Sits down beside him
And picks him up,
Amazed at her good luck.
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This one brought a smile to my face! A happy ending!
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Thank you for your kind words 🙂
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“Memories of Strangers”
(Raanana, October 19, 2013)
Autumn crisp as crackling leaves
Slakes the thirst of summer with its rains.
Clouds portentous in their dreaming
And the tangy sweetness of green-skinned clementines.
The streets and sidewalks beside the coffee houses
Are washed and the posters on the kiosks are cleansed
The bitter coffee in the smudged glass
Slows scalding the fingers and the lips.
You sit two tables away from me
Reading a dog-eared book of poetry.
You look up, I look away,
And are unaware you are in my poem.
You will remember the first day of autumn
And I’ll remember you.
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“The Ticket”
(Raanana, November 19, 2017)
Do you know what kills me,
What really kills me?
All that beauty in this world,
That shocking totally unexpected beauty
One right after the other
Everywhere you look
Even when you’re not looking
Morning afternoon and night
Right next to you and far as you can see,
You just want to stand near it
Feel its warmth, hear its loveliness
Touch it just barely, hold it hard and long
Smell its sweet pungence, taste its tang,
But you can’t because you don’t speak its language
And you don’t have the coin to buy a ticket
To pass through that gate.
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“Captive Audience”
(Raanana, December 21, 2016)
I watch you through the cage bars,
Stupid creatures pointing, throwing popcorn,
Pulling faces and taunting
From distances you think are safe,
If you think at all.
We are a captive audience,
I am the captive
And you are the audience,
But sometimes I imagine
I am also the audience.
At night after the Parc Zoologique de Paris is closed,
My imagination slips through the bars,
Floods over the iron entrance gate,
Walks through the empty Avenue Daumesnil
To the Rue de Seine and looks through
The windows of the Alcazar
Where you sit daintily cutting a slice of meat
With your little finger poised heavenward
Your teeth too dull and weak to tear the flesh apart.
No wonder you’re afraid of me –
You know my spirit can’t be caged.
Only one of you imagines me
Walking in your empty streets at night
And he sits alone at a small table
By the smudged glass window
With a pen and dog-eared notebook,
Only he imagines me uncaged.
Toward dawn I tire of you and your empty streets.
I slip back over the iron gates
Through the bars and close myself
In the dreamless sleep of tigers burning bright.
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The imagery here….haunting…❤️
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Thanks 🙏
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“Every Man Is an Island”
(Raanana, May 28, 2016)
Alas the words of Donne
No man is an island
His words are done.
No longer breathed or thought
For every man is an island
Universe whose stars spiral
Slowly without purpose
Nobody served by them
With a gravity that keeps meaning
The knell of our tolling bell
From crossing its horizons.
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“A Delicate Balance”
(Raanana, April 18, 2019)
I open the window beside my desk
To let in the breeze and children’s noise.
I take a sip of bitter coffee, cold already.
The dog comes in, as always,
And rubs black jowls against the bedspread.
There is a certain music loneliness makes
That gives rise to the thought that
Being alone is a delicate balance
Between solitude and loneliness,
The one, a turning inward,
To let the soul guide one’s hand,
To hear the Muse’s whispered words;
The other, an inability to turn outward,
To touch or be touched,
A hell we call forlorn,
A death in life
That beckons Death’s enfolding.
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♥️
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Your words are so profound! Being alone is a delicate balance….
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Thank you!
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Hi Jamie,
I’m sorry to read that you are mostly bed-ridden these days. You and your poems deserve to be outside in an eternally gentle summer with butterflies and other sentient beings preceding you on your path. Just a wish from an old poet.
Here are a few of my poems, hopefully on theme.
Mike
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Thank you for your kind words, Mike. Fortunately I am a writer not an athlete. 😂 I can still pound a keyboard. 👏👍😀 Thanks for sharing your wonderful poems as well. 💛
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Once Again…
once again a cold mist surrounds ,
once again quietude deafens the
senses, how soon the wheel comes
full circle, how soon music is silenced-
where have all the musicians gone?
so many walked the garden paths,smiled
at colored fragrances, but once, wheeled
past the rows of pansies,frail they looked
but happy, placed in the soil, enriched,
where have all the gardeners gone?
with all alike, the daffodils and carnations
all green stemmed, all in a row,all trees
brown and green all a dense shady forest
all grass a velvet blanket ,spread for rest
where have all the green forests gone?
all clouds grey dark thick soft and white,
all carry water,drop raindrops, shade,change
shapes,all birds fly and nest,all nightingales
sing, all distances vanish with friendship and love
where have all the happy birds gone ?
migrations immigrations borders barriers
bayonets bullets boundaries blasts
protests partitions partings patrols pellets
separated segregated sold sunk swept
where have all the good promises gone?
once again I a stranger, in time, in silence
no bell rings, no more will it, so I need not
wait nor hope nor smile,distances do return
they are ever present,only the sojourn ends-
where have all the peace makers gone?
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Aaron
when our palms met
that balmy Chinatown night
a little lost canary
from the corner pet shop
sang a melancholic cord
switching his little face
from right to left
he looked at me
and flew away
i had fallen in love
the kind of love
that makes you scrutinize
your breath your weight and even your thoughts
the kind where
you leave your beloved
friends pets and dishes
behind just to think about him
the kind of love
that makes you check your phone
fifty times at two in the morning
you know the kind you lose
your soul to in the encasing darkness
and nothing feels the same
distilled death and i churn my spirit
but you danced with me
for a few years
you are no longer Aaron
i am no longer me
i don’t recognize my smile
its erased forever in your cusp
my heart has melted away in your hypocrisy
my common sense buried under your peach tree
and Aaron he no longer lives here
and i don’t recognize
the song of the canary anymore
peace from LA thanks for the opportunity
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Thank you Respected Jamie Ji
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All the world is a foreign state
hate growing at a faster rate
reasons unknown, unshared
unexplained or is it just fate
I, a stranger to myself, more
today, passing a routine sojourn
in moonlight while it stays, am
not surprised nor feel betrayed,
unseen unknown stranger still
are relationships, travelers are
companions momentary, smile
go, each to his own destination
what respect is shown what love
expressed in soul and spirit stays
invisible, unfelt, vanishes in a void
silently as it reaches, soul’s inlays
Foreign is the birthplace unknown
enemy occupied, singled out in a
class of younger age, in a college
of a different faith,segregated
alienated in culture caste and
creed, better it is to be romantic,
turn to nature in a forest, be the
ever green tree, gifting fruit in
return for stones, shades cool
protect weak bones comfort
hug sing and cover, listen
assure never to desert or fool
All the world is a foreign land
All people living like strangers
All here for a purpose, a duty
All life a brief stay,a short sojourn
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Thank You Respected Jamie Ji
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Once, as a girl, I met grass and sky on my way.
Since then, with each year, I’m longing to come closer
To their fresh smell and enveloping vastness.
There’s a thin border of questions between us
About undercurrents and the wind,
About the things I only feel
They come to me in strangest shapes
How can I recognize them.
Will they recognize me?
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aLioNKa, don’t forget to send your brief bio and a photo for inclusion next Tuesday since this is your first time participating. Thank you!
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It should be sent to thepoetbyday@gmail.com
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Thank you so much for accepting me!
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Thank you so much for accepting me!
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Much he tried. He kept his eyes, “May be that time is coming soon”
Brown grass. Dry lips.
She knew what he meant when
he said *refugee*
I watched a smile.
Sojourner and stranger, a poem make to next trip.
INFILTRATE
Much he tried. He kept his eyes:
Border wall ….yeah
One thing, that (he) would never hurt.
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Pali, don’t forget to send your brief bio and a photo for inclusion next Tuesday since it is the first time you are participating in Wednesday Writing Prompt. It should go to thepoetbyday@gmail.com
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Matthew 27:45-50 21st Century King James Version (KJ21)
45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
The sixth hour
He opened the door and walked in
in the familiar room.
Stranger.
Talking to him is meaningless.
He has no words.
There are only eyes.
Or flights.
You will not understand it.
The sixth hour has come.
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::other fridays::
are good here, while some are not.
not here or other places. we
listen to the news and wonder
at all the things that happen.
we wonder why, and why, and why
repeated.
yet no one answers with a comment
or a hash tag.
reacting seems to be a new thing
now.
the bear sleeps, while we do
not.
sbm.
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#rr
it is with difficulty i write this.
the bear was correct, yet he
is not the only one in the village.
i met another yesterday.
it is with difficulty as the keyboards
stick, while others have no empathy
how deep it goes.
many have drowned, drowned
dead.
sbm.
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:: another country::
we came from another country,
have another accent.
we spent quite a lot
of money, the card
worked.
we all wear socks.
sbm.
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my sixth response:
Beside Yourself
If you could be beside yourself,
grab the ectoplasmic umbilical
and emerge as a space cadet
on the seat beside you,
appear as a stranger who sits
down, invades your space,
for whom you politely make space,
smile quickly and absorb
yourself in your phone,
a book, a tablet,
and pray the unknown
doesn’t speak to you,
then the realisation,
that all your hesitancy
movement, smile, absorption
has been sharply mirrored
by them and you ask yourself,
are they taking the piss,
are they the one who stabbed
your wife, raped your children,
set fire to your home and sat
on the wall outside to see it burn?
And see a cord between both of you,
and wonder if you touch it,
would it get their unwanted attention.
How could you cut it and have done
with this uncalled-for connection?
And wish you still had the knife.
(From my chapbook “The Spermbot Blues”, OpPress, 2017)
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my fifth response:
Our Massacre
Always portray the killer as deranged,
abnormal, an aberration of society.
Their actions are not those of us
ordinary decent folk, though we arm
ourselves to the teeth with the same
firepower we are reasonable.
Their geography is not ours. We must
distance ourselves. This person
is not an old friend, a neighbour.
They are a stranger who acts
strangely. We must stress, though often
this behaviour is rare, an anomaly.
We do not know this person
who kills our friends and neighbours.
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my fourth response:
Insecurity Is Life
Taught how to spam, phish and hack at school.
Make sure your private details are sold on
to companies you’ve never heard of. Take money
from strangers accounts as they take cash from yours.
Privacy is a crime. Troll other’s social media
as they troll yours. Locking doors and windows
is forbidden. Transparency is paramount.
Let strangers use your home, car and food
as you use theirs. This is a life of trust,
but accidents happen and your life maybe broken.
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my third response:
How Much
time has it been?
Has it been
so much time?
I have left me.
No, he has left me.
No, they have left me.
I’m single, aren’t I?
I feel I’m single.
Are you here
for a date?
Are we staying long?
Do I have a room?
This is my house.
Is this my house?
I recognise that furniture.
It’s mine. Have we just
moved in ? Why do you
make me confused?
Forty two years
and now he’s left me.
Twenty six years
we’ve lived here.
I thought we’d just
moved in. I don’t
want strangers
in my house.
Eyeing up my furniture.
Carers are strangers.
I don’t know who
everyone is.
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my second response:
A Fact Losing
mission.
Somebody sent me out
to collect something somehow
somewhere.
over a rainbow. I stand
in a street I knew once
I am sure. It is familiar.
I can’t understand why.
A list of things is on a piece of paper.
It certainly is my piece of paper.
No one else is holding it.
The hand writing is unfamiliar.
Somebody wrote this.
I want to ask passers by,
but I do not know them.
They are strangers, even more
than the writing on the paper.
I want to cry.
I don’t feel safe.
Where is safe?
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My Strangers
are friends who haven’t been estranged yet.
All my mates are strangers.
I keep them at a distance.
Chat to them in third person.
Internet on my mobile tells me
when I’ve to give them best wishes
for a special occasion like anniversaries.
They inspire closeness and loyalty.
I can trust them.
They know me.
What I eat, sup.
laugh at.
Strangers are more intimate than friends.
(From my chapbook “A World Where”, Nixes Mate Press, 2017)
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my first response:
My Strangers (From “A World Where” chapbook)
are friends who haven’t been estranged yet.
All my mates are strangers.
I keep them at a distance.
Chat to them in third person.
Internet on my mobile tells me
when I’ve to give them best wishes
for a special occasion like anniversaries.
They inspire closeness and loyalty.
I can trust them.
They know me.
What I eat, sup.
laugh at.
Strangers are more intimate than friends.
(From my chapbook “A World Where”, Nixes Mate Press, 2017)
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