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Steve Page Dec 2023
We are each floating, and so it is right and kind to notice and greet those floating along side us - we are each driven by the same flow to the same sea but within our own stream (some main, some minor), but all heading down and meandering, slowly slowing, unless we find resistance and find cause for rejuvenation - and of course, we do.  We all do.
Lessons in life prompted this.
Zack Ripley Dec 2023
My 500th poem, on my 9 year anniversary of writing. Perception of time.

It seems like nothing can humble you
faster than time. It affects everyone,
regardless of race, gender, or age.
And yet, it somehow feels personal
when bad things happen
depending on what stage of life we're in.
But what if it isn't time that changes us.
What if it's our perception of time
that changes us? When we're young,
time seems to move so slow.
But the older you get, all time sees to do
is go, go, go. What if we never lose
or run out of time.
What if it's the stress of living that's committing the crime of breaking us down.
melli7 Nov 2023
I contain multitudes I will
it so
multitudes more than I maybe
can contain comfortably I
seek comfort in
discomfort
Jellyfish Oct 2023
When I look at the poems from my past,
Sometimes I smile.
Then I feel mad.
The age I was, becomes so apparent to me.

The younger version of me feels some kind of, well, something.
Each time I take a trip down memory lane
It's hard to not feel something when I remember the pain.

But when I look at the situation today,
After all that I've encountered...
Each stone I've flipped over, and
every waterfall I've checked behind,

I feel so mad at you.

Even the poems we wrote back and forth,
They're so childish, you reference cartoons.
I would have done anything for you,
You plucked me out of my broken world and threw me onto the rift.

I fell asleep at night telling myself stories about an empty apartment with a mattress.
It's so uncomfortable now to look back at.
The fact that you were the hope I had for my future.

It's not okay and I'll never stop thinking this way.
Another poem tonight because I'm mad after looking back
Steve Page Sep 2023
Sometimes
I wish for a smaller heart,
single chambered,
with no excess capacity,
efficiently run, solitary,
tailored for one, outfitted perfectly,
with no room for give,
nothing wasted, unforgiving.

Sometimes
I wish for lower mileage,
less wear and tear,
a more careful owner,
not given over to road trips
to the beach,
to late night romance,
like in the movies.

Sometimes
preloved is prone to hurt.
Sometimes
I wish for less capacity
for love.
No I don't.
MsAmendable Sep 2023
'I was beautiful once,'
    she said,
                  her weathered hands mending another torn patch on an old travelling cloak;

"It was good in its own way, I suppose,
    But it no longer had use for me.
...
I wore the beauty over my shoulders like
  A second skin,
          like a gifted jacket
                                 which I one day outgrew.
...
My interests turned to other purposes,
          And she was tucked away alongside the other tokens of my youth"

She stood, shaking out the quilt on her lap
     which flared in kaleidoscopic colour -
an intricate map
                     of tiny knots and stitches which had layered over years of constant mending,


"I make my own clothes now"







.
Path Humble Sep 2023
“where time is the fly and age the fisher of men”

<>

”until I fell forward
into fall where time is
the fly and age the fisher
of men, then when winter
begins all will be forgotten,
where time is the fly and
age the fisher of men”


excerpt from “The Fall” by Rick Richardson

<>

that words from a different ionic state, jump as embodied ions from screen to the throat, evicting a guttural current of exclamation, you believe even with the half-heartedly palpitations from  remainder of my damaged pumping heart, that these words were always intended, just for me…

boy and old man coexist, the pottage of memories stirred,
and the time is fly, and I drown in the miracle of greenest grass of
Yankee Stadium at age eight,
oasis, heaven, a child reborn in a sea of Bronx concrete,
and the swallowing up of my boyhood is forever marked henceforth, the hook has caught me, and I am of the age
once and forever


not a fisherman, but a fisher of men’s souls,
mine own is my best bait,
hooked line and sinker, and
wisdom and words
elude and delude always, 
 like summer is perpetual and aging a construct,
time does not fly, but slowly laps and waves
eroding our myths and ourselves upon a continuum with
no ends

~postscript~

<>
yet I believe,
in miracles of
fish and loaves,
and that our individual continuums
will exist beyond the artifice of constraints
of
mortal time and that poems are
the forever chemicals within
our
bloodstreams,
even when our blood no longer spills


yet I believe!
a tribute to one of the best poets around
Psych-o-rangE Aug 2023
1 I attended with my new suit
1 I barely made it to and back
1 I watched from a screen
1 I missed the train
1 I've been preparing for

2018-2023, 5 years.

I'm 25 years old
My dads getting old too
My mom I had to convince to come
Eyes of familiar faces to watch me stand or stumble
I just want you all to know, no matter what, I love you

A son, step-son, brother, half-brother, nephew, grandson, grand nephew, boyfriend, partner in this same suit
You made me who I am

Farmor, especially you.
Farmor means father's mother/grandmother in Swedish
Anais Vionet Aug 2023
She’d been depressed at seeing how her parents had aged in just a couple of years. She hadn’t really contemplated time much before, it had seemed an endless resource.

Seeing her lying listlessly in bed, he asked “Are you ok?”
“I’m getting old,” she admitted, closing her eyes to conserve energy.
“You’re turning 20,” he stated dryly, somewhere in the darkness.
“Still,” she said, “You should know that I’ll start wrinkling, any day now, like a deflating balloon.”
“Yeah, I was afraid of that.” He said. She opened her eyes and looked at him soberly.

“You’re almost 27, are you getting crows feet?” He flinched away from her outstretching hand.
“No,” He responded confidently, but he checked his reflection in her dorm room mirror.
“Soon, your libido will flag,” she informed him solemnly, taking his hand for comfort.
He slipped off the bed and gently closed the bedroom door with a casual swipe of his hand.
“You should start eating fiber,” she gasped, “and retirement planning!”

“I’ve got a few good months left..” he said, as he came back to the bed and started unbuttoning the top of her yellow dress, “I might need someone, in the medical field, to keep an eye on me.”
“I could do that,” she smiled, as his button work progressed, “I do need more clinical hours.”
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