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10th st '65

10/18/2014

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I was fresh off the boat (although it was an airplane)
discovered that the Bowery had moved up to our doorstep
each day three boozehounds staked their spot by sitting on the sidewalk
against the wall just catty-corner facing by the drug store
I used to watch the inebriated triangle play out their sexy games
as she, the Bowery Belle,  stretched out her raddled legs
and flirted bottles from one hand to another
while teasing her two raptured rivaling beaux
I watched them from my window while I meekly ironed his shirts
    (we did that in those days, we wives of Jimmy Porters 
    before we looked back, furious, in our own anger later)
I watched while “Dialing for Dollars” brought me old-fashioned movies
starring Claude Raines with the four blonde sisters Lane.

But sometimes I played truant down to Seymour Krim’s apartment
where once there was this party
   (I had my first puff there, joint fat as a cheroot;
    we Brits upstairs were strictly whiskey drinkers)
 and, as I now remember, quite suddenly this sparky man burst in
 so full of joy that all his words cascaded into and crammed both my ears
 for he had just discovered
    (after years of tuning in the mind mathematically to first conceive and then to calculate)
 the precise vibrations of the airs which predicate
 the music of the spheres ......
 the planet’s chords were now so ringing through his being
 that even perturbations in Pluto could not, and never would, disturb
 those harmonies he heard
 whatever he was on, what did it matter
 that night his eyes (and both of mine)
 were singing ......

As I look back at this, I see these days a very different kind of altered state
I know that tenth street duplex must be gentrified by rent now past compare
I mourn the passing of much penniless art we all accomplished back in those old days
some of us still bear witness that the dialing for dollars we see all around us now
can still be vanquished by we artists who persist writing our poems,  painting pictures    
creating currency that will not lose cost-value when the Koch-stocked market crashes
as, one of these fine days, I bet my bottom dollar that eventually it will.


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quest for dignity

10/18/2014

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  They changed the name
but hard to change the mind
the horror and the stigma seems mind set
 even now
when drugs can cure completely in two years
 no sign of a deformity in sight
 the very word
 indelibly ringing with the warning bells
 embedded in our language as a curse
 means that to be a “leper” is to be outcast

“Who did sin,
the person, or his parents?”
 there’s the blame
 some ghastly dirty own-fault must be causing the disease
 this deeply-seated Bible attitude ensures a sense of
 shame
 as if this is a punishment for some disgraceful act
 so that the sufferer is deserving to be shunned.
 Finding a cure for prejudice like this may prove
 more hard than curing leprosy itself.

World-wide, before there was a cure at all
 it was the missionaries who offered love and care;
 my father ran the Leper-Home in Mandalay,
 and then, like Father Damien, contracted the disease.
 When I retraced his steps some years ago
 among his fellow patients, boys then, old men now
 a famous Tamil poet  Mister Arunchalem
 blind, with a noble bearing, swathed in emerald green
 ecites in singing tones a prayer-like poem of his own;
 the Maestro, former military man, bore his disfigurement with upright poise
 My family saw my illness as a blight
 on family honour” he tells me
 How will your sisters ever now be wed, with such a brother?”;
 hese men had spent their lives there in the chronic ward -
 My father, thankfully, was spared that fate, was cured.

Even today, once diagnosis is confirmed
comes with it dread and fear of being disowned;
 the bacillus in the bloodstream can be quite subdued
the drugs completely cure the body, but
“Will anybody ever want to touch me now?”
 is what the heart thinks :
 Jessie, from Brazil, was crying, crying , and she said
 “I thought my family won’t come near me after this;
 by miracle, the doctor gave me a huge hug -
 if I live two hundred years I never will forget that hug -
 it reassured me I’m still human,
 now I’m not afraid”.

 We have been through a prejudice like this, with AIDS:
 the fears, the slurs, the myths, the pain, the bravery of spirit
 the need for touch, embraces, love
for understanding this is just an illness like another
 “Hansen’s disease” redeeming the old name 
 no judgment, just compassion -
 I celebrate the quest for dignity and respect
 for those who have endured the worst and kept their pride;
 I honour the quest for dignity and respect among the many still
 who live with leprosy
 as patients, who are confident of cure
 as doctors, working to put an end to leprosy forever
 trying to kill the stigma that still
 clings ...


Elizabeth  Shepherd  -  Hot  Poets  -  May 6th  2014

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impromptu 2

10/18/2014

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wordplay, this playground of poetry
  hide and seek, we are all here on a treasure hunt
  to find the exact right word we need to bandy
  this evening words are tantalizing floating in the air around us
  snatch them, catch them, catch them if you can
  if you can't catch them, coin them
  make up your own, fall under Shakespeare's spell
  when feelings can be deftly captured and released in living language
  then our poems coax our hearts out of their shell.

Elizabeth Shepherd   4/ 15/ 2014

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impromptu 1

10/18/2014

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 they say the bees are in trouble
      dying out
  then how can the flowers survive
  without pollen winged from one petal and stamen to another?

  they say poets are in trouble
      dying out
  then how can we mortals survive
  without being pollenated with words speaking from heart to heart?

  tonight my heart is like a probiscus
  probing sustenance from other poets' hearts
  as together we create a buzz for poetry.


Elizabeth Shepherd   
4/8/2014
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