"Welcome to Brooklyn"

Welcome to Brooklyn
Don't let the door
Hit you where the sun won't shine
We didn't invite you here in the first place
We don't want to hear you whine
Pay your parking tickets
And any other fines
We feel like putting on you
If that's not enough
We'll think of some others
All we know is you owe
Us our just due
The city runs on everyone's misery
Without it no feather in our cap
Our reputation precedes us greatly
We're the city that dishes out the crap
Millions are spent convincing people
To visit us because it's so fine
Once we got you in our vice grip
What is yours belongs to us so don't whine
Spend your money then get the hell out
There's millions more just like you
Who will innocently visit our waiting jaws
To pay us what we feel is due

~Moses~
© 2010 Moses Lestz - All Rights Reserved

"Parliament Hill Fields"

Parliament Hill Fields

On this bald hill the new year hones its edge.
Faceless and pale as china
The round sky goes on minding its business.
Your absence is inconspicuous;
Nobody can tell what I lack.

Gulls have threaded the river's mud bed back
To this crest of grass. Inland, they argue,
Settling and stirring like blown paper
Or the hands of an invalid. The wan
Sun manages to strike such tin glints

From the linked ponds that my eyes wince
And brim; the city melts like sugar.
A crocodile of small girls
Knotting and stopping, ill-assorted, in blue uniforms,
Opens to swallow me. I'm a stone, a stick,

One child drops a barrette of pink plastic;
None of them seem to notice.
Their shrill, gravelly gossip's funneled off.
Now silence after silence offers itself.
The wind stops my breath like a bandage.

Southward, over Kentish Town, an ashen smudge
Swaddles roof and tree.
It could be a snowfield or a cloudbank.
I suppose it's pointless to think of you at all.
Already your doll grip lets go.

The tumulus, even at noon, guards its black shadow:
You know me less constant,
Ghost of a leaf, ghost of a bird.
I circle the writhen trees. I am too happy.
These faithful dark-boughed cypresses

Brood, rooted in their heaped losses.
Your cry fades like the cry of a gnat.
I lose sight of you on your blind journey,
While the heath grass glitters and the spindling rivulets
Unspool and spend themselves. My mind runs with them,

Pooling in heel-prints, fumbling pebble and stem.
The day empties its images
Like a cup or a room. The moon's crook whitens,
Thin as the skin seaming a scar.
Now, on the nursery wall,

The blue night plants, the little pale blue hill
In your sister's birthday picture start to glow.
The orange pompons, the Egyptian papyrus
Light up. Each rabbit-eared
Blue shrub behind the glass

Exhales an indigo nimbus,
A sort of cellophane balloon.
The old dregs, the old difficulties take me to wife.
Gulls stiffen to their chill vigil in the drafty half-light;
I enter the lit house.

~Sylvia Plath~

"Chapters"

A magpie sits upon the railing
Watching a smattering of crows
Howling in the midst
In the fog upon the ship
An ocean engulfs it
With loneliness in the dream
Odd as this all may seem
In the journey
Of never ending chapters
In life that approaches
Heavy hearts
Cautious ways
My folding hands await
Accepting what comes forth
It is the journey of a lifetime
Upon the moving ship
Trudging onwards in this ocean
Such thoughts overwhelm
In greater numbers than plankton
Much farther than what is seen

~Moses~
© 2010 Moses Lestz - All Rights Reserved

"Thine Eyes"

Many times misunderstanding
Conversation was sought
Looking past searching eyes
Into a gray horizon
With no after thought
Contemplating the dead silence
In the aftermath of passion
Holding out my hands
Not able to catch the pain
With an open heart searching
In a place that can't contain
What is it about thine eyes
That search the abyss so deeply

~Moses~
© 2010 Moses Lestz - All Rights Reserved

"Visual Toy"

This memento within my hands
Which sustains me in my cage
Self inflicted wounds
Upon my heart in rage
Inner convulsion
Conceived revulsion
A barrier which divides
Within the realm of creation
In which my rage abides
Inner wall of sanctum
Upon such floors
In dingy lit corridors
I yield to the animal that calls
Yet this small token remains
Behind such broken dreams
Of these self constructed walls

~Moses~
© 2010 Moses Lestz - All Rights Reserved

"Solitary Flight"

Envious fog in the bayou gazes
Curling feathers caress the air
Pursuing imagined foes
While fleeing unseen ghosts
A never ending journey
Under star lit skies
Its call which echoes wildly
Defying the rising moon
Into the glare of its lonely eye

~Moses~
© 2010 Moses Lestz - All Rights Reserved

"Hurt"

I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt

I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
upon my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stains of time
the feelings disappear
you are someone else
I am still right here

what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt

I will let you down
I will make you hurt

if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

"Midnight Calling"

Abandoned farms
Such places decay in the silence
Feint cries of the starving fox
Piercing arrows that fall
Amongst the tall pines
Under jealous skies peering
Far from the asphalt jungles
Corrugated doors of steel
Once locked down
Are as closed eyes slumbering
Condensation upon the concrete
Serve as the artificial tears
Banging within the hollows
As if to represent thunder in some way
Only magnifies the madness
I am sure the skies there are just as blue
The sun is just as bright
The stars and moon shine as always
But I am the wandering man
Returning to the abandoned place
Yet it calls out in the still night
The rhythmic tantrum of tires upon the road
Painted lines upon the road pass by quickly
In the night
Its keen pull upon my heart strings
As though it were a tugging of the reins upon a steed
So is the hart upon the grassy plains
Whose desire to return to the safety of its den
Just one single tear falls upon my cheek
As I fight back the tremendous flow
From within
They are not tears of sadness
Bur rather in anticipation of the spark
Which ignites the flicker within the flame

~Moses Lestz~
© 2010 Moses Lestz - All Rights Reserved

"Silent Calling"

A hand reaches out
Grasping for moonbeams
Like silent memories
From out of the past
Within the mind as if
Yesterday seems only
A thought away
Beyond such horizons
Searching the memories
Elusive ghosts
Clinging to the innermost
Recesses of the mind
There is a certain lonliness
Only the essence remains
Imagination of the laughter
Great words that were spoken
Words of wisdom
Yet it was taken for granted
Passing through my hands
Falling unto the earth
Like a great puzzle
Attempting to pick up the pieces
It sometimes eludes capture
Fading away
Dancing moonbeams
Teasing upon the water
Causing me to return once again
In search of the memories
That inhabit within

~Moses~
© 2010 Moses Lestz - All Rights Reserved

"Waiting in Thought"

I have waited for thee
Pondering in reflection
By the waters edge
In the cool autumn breeze
As wings of birds
Carry my hopes across
Such darkened skies
Which kneel towards me
Glancing upon my cheek
In gesture of a gentle kiss
Melting into my heart
In the essence of time
My eyes seek
Looking for reassurance
Deep in my mind
I already know
My wait for you is in earnest
Yet this day belongs to me

~Moses~
© 2010 Moses Lestz - All Rights Reserved