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ryn  Mar 2015
This Smile
ryn Mar 2015
This smile that makes your day...
This undaunted smile that seem to say.
Show me yours too so we both could play,
On a plane where everything is fine...
Everything's okay...

This smile that reaches out to you...
With nothing but invisible arms.
Caresses your eyes and draws you in.
Entices you with the sweetest charms.

Whispers you tales of a brightly lit future;
Where we're trapped in dance with each other...
Supporting...
Leading...
Lifting and,
Seducing one another...

Let the music ring clear,.
Over the thumping of our heartbeats...
Aggressively segmenting, framing the dance into seconds that would elapse.
Like two duelists entranced into committing tender jousts and retreats.

But know that...
This smile screams only lies.
For it is but a routine mask.
So well worn and adequately rehearsed...
You'd never see the need to ask.

Instead you'd just allow yourself be taken,
To a place where the tide gently beats...
Upon the shore our two ailing hearts.
A place where earth and sky would meet.

When in fact,
It hides the turmoil and agitation.
Guarding the storm that brews incessantly.
Continuously threatening
To breach this shared sanctity with me.

A haven would've then be erected.
That very instant we allowed...
This dance of smiles
From time of first contact to the time we bowed.

This smile... Only took a second
To paint a peaceful picture upon my face.
Free from the pressures building behind my pursed lips.
Just take this smile so that in that second,
We could get lost in the promise of a heavenly place...
laura Oct 2018
but no friends and no invitations
from weaker, lesser duelists
three thousand on a mtg deck
like the true king of dueling

i watch the nerdom go down
you lost to somebody
who spent twenty dollars on his deck
and i laugh anyways like it means a thing
Nat Lipstadt  Jan 2014
S.S.O.S.
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
love love me do
the reply, of course,
feed me tea and oranges
that come all the way from china,
meet by the river,
meet me by the marketplace,
meet me at
the railway station,
we'll pretend to be
strangers in the same compartment,
long lost
combat buddies,
exchanging SOS's,
duelists hidden in plain site,
you'll say I like that tune,
the reply, of course,
it's a memory I haven't had yet,
it's sad and it's sweet,
someday, I'll know it complete,
when I wear an older women's clothes

puzzled,
he will try to be impressive,
trading rhymes for freedom,
verses of hearses mourning distance,
but there are no secrets
the eyes can keep,
or others cannot read,
and if freedom is longing,
then these children are free,
not at last, but to long.

They are the
children of the morning
leaning out of windows,
looking for love,
will they lean that way forever?

there are twenty eight new moons
in the month approaching.

there is a reason for every day,
plus one.

sand castles get washed away,
but
dreams of waves and days
yet to come,
continuous and connected,
the cells and words
that transverse water bodies
built from the long lasting kind of
defiance,
the kind that states as its premise:

love can and should,
perhaps even,
will,
conquer the spaces
between the letters of their
exchanges and trade
whole words for
actions.

but what do I know, little,
for I am but an observer,
a driftwood beetle from another ocean,
a linesman of a different kind,
who only know how to hum
on a long distance line,
a single tune,
she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,
an eavesdropper of their voices
that are neither muted,
nor common.
Apologies to Leonard Cohen, Bill Joel, The Beatles, Glen Campbell and Nat Lipstadt, and one or two others who are nameless, from whom I plagiarized shamelessly, for inspiration.

In popular usage, SOS became associated with such phrases as "save our ship", "save our souls" and "send out succour". These may be regarded as mnemonics, but SOS does not actually stand for anything and is not an abbreviation, acronym or initialism.
Amy Grindhouse Feb 2014
Droplets of a black swan's fever sweats
coat purplish nightmare blisters
Reminds me of nights before
I forced my eyes to sometimes drift
through broken down envy telescopes
opening pathways to fissured late night ruptures
Blotting out black plague garlic mask threats
no one left to speak ill of these mass grave
injuries
Our blight flag battle standards set for
miserable whiskey soaked duelists trudging through the snow
past careless crossroad wasps' nest dissection
a Glasgow smile cut in a hostile makeover struggle  
makes for uneasy amends
when my copper cable pirate princess
holds the offending knife
pulled across like a dishwater blonde's drag on a last fix
I know I'm hard to follow but no one else
will take the torrential reigns
to leads us home but bitterly so
Who do we end up with in heaven
if no one likes us now?
D  May 2014
This Old Heart
D May 2014
this old heart
wasn’t always so old,
it once was young and
tenderfoot,
wandering through days and
seeking regalement at night.

this old heart
rarely defeated it’s angst,
clenching fists at duelists
only with intentions of
defeasance,
never relegating the significance
of the win but focusing on the
sacking in a loss.

this old heart
played board games with
his sister on snow days after
laying out paths in the white dust
with an orange saucer
while chasing a laughter
only the belly could muster.

this old heart
was once a boy,
with hair like the white hot sun
on an August afternoon,
with bronze skin running about the grass,
chasing an aging brown dog with a ball
in it’s mouth.

this old heart
was once a boy, yes,
but remains no longer.

this old heart grows weary now.
this old heart bears weight.
this old heart stopped asking questions.
this old heart doesn’t laugh.
this old heart has no dog.
this old heart gets lost in the dark
whiling staring into the blinding sun.
Michael R Burch Mar 2020
“Duellem” (The Duel)
by Charles Baudelaire
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Two combatants charged!
                                             Their fearsome swords
brightened the air with fiery sparks and blood.
Their clashing blades
                                      clinked odd serenades
reminding us: youth’s inspired by overloud love.

But now their blades lie broken, like our hearts!
Still, our savage teeth and talon-like fingernails
can do more damage than the deadliest sword
when lovers lash about with such natural flails.

In a deep ravine haunted by lynxes and panthers,
our heroes roll around in a cozy embrace,
leaving their blood to redden the colorless branches.
This abyss is pure hell; our friends occupy the place.

Come, let us sport and spurt here, cruel Amazon;
let our hatred’s ardor never be over and done!

Keywords/Tags: Baudelaire, translation, French, duel, combatants, duelists, swords, sparks, blood, blades, hearts, teeth, blood, talons, lynxes, panthers, abyss, hell, Amazon, hatred, ardor, furor, passion, fury, anger

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