MAKE war songs out of these;
Make chants that repeat and weave.
Make rhythms up to the ragtime chatter of the machine guns;
Make slow-booming psalms up to the boom of the big guns.
Make a marching song of swinging arms and swinging legs,
        Going along,
        Going along,
On the roads from San Antonio to Athens, from Seattle to Bagdad-
The boys and men in winding lines of khaki, the circling squares of bayonet points.

Cowpunchers, cornhuskers, shopmen, ready in khaki;
Ballplayers, lumberjacks, ironworkers, ready in khaki;
A million, ten million, singing, "I am ready."
This the sun looks on between two seaboards,
In the land of Lincoln, in the land of Grant and Lee.

I heard one say, "I am ready to be killed."
I heard another say, "I am ready to be killed."
O sunburned clear-eyed boys!
I stand on sidewalks and you go by with drums and guns and bugles,
        You-and the flag!
And my heart tightens, a fist of something feels my throat
        When you go by,
You on the kaiser hunt, you and your faces saying, "I am ready to be killed."

They are hunting death,
Death for the one-armed mastoid kaiser.
They are after a Hohenzollern head:
There is no man-hunt of men remembered like this.

The four big brothers are out to ****.
France, Russia, Britain, America-
The four republics are sworn brothers to **** the kaiser.

Yes, this is the great man-hunt;
And the sun has never seen till now
Such a line of toothed and tusked man-killers,
In the blue of the upper sky,
In the green of the undersea,
In the red of winter dawns.
Eating to ****,
Sleeping to ****,
Asked by their mothers to ****,
Wished by four-fifths of the world to ****-
To cut the kaiser's throat,
To hack the kaiser's head,
To hang the kaiser on a high-horizon gibbet.

And is it nothing else than this?
Three times ten million men thirsting the blood
Of a half-cracked one-armed child of the German kings?
Three times ten million men asking the blood
Of a child born with his head wrong-shaped,
The blood of rotted kings in his veins?
If this were all, O God,
I would go to the far timbers
And look on the gray wolves
Tearing the throats of moose:
I would ask a wilder drunk of blood.

Look! It is four brothers in joined hands together.
        The people of bleeding France,
        The people of bleeding Russia,
        The people of Britain, the people of America-
These are the four brothers, these are the four republics.

At first I said it in anger as one who clenches his fist in wrath to fling his knuckles into the face of some one taunting;
Now I say it calmly as one who has thought it over and over again at night, among the mountains, by the seacombers in storm.
I say now, by God, only fighters to-day will save the world, nothing but fighters will keep alive the names of those who left red prints of bleeding feet at Valley Forge in Christmas snow.
On the cross of Jesus, the sword of Napoleon, the skull of Shakespeare, the pen of Tom Jefferson, the ashes of Abraham Lincoln, or any sign of the red and running life poured out by the mothers of the world,
By the God of morning glories climbing blue the doors of quiet homes, by the God of tall hollyhocks laughing glad to children in peaceful valleys, by the God of new mothers wishing peace to sit at windows nursing babies,
I swear only reckless men, ready to throw away their lives by hunger, deprivation, desperate clinging to a single purpose imperturbable and undaunted, men with the primitive guts of rebellion,
Only fighters gaunt with the red brand of labor's sorrow on their brows and labor's terrible pride in their blood, men with souls asking danger-only these will save and keep the four big brothers.

Good-night is the word, good-night to the kings, to the czars,
        Good-night to the kaiser.
The breakdown and the fade-away begins.
The shadow of a great broom, ready to sweep out the trash, is here.

One finger is raised that counts the czar,
The ghost who beckoned men who come no more-
The czar gone to the winds on God's great dustpan,
The czar a pinch of nothing,
The last of the gibbering Romanoffs.

Out and good-night-
The ghosts of the summer palaces
And the ghosts of the winter palaces!
Out and out, good-night to the kings, the czars, the kaisers.

Another finger will speak,
And the kaiser, the ghost who gestures a hundred million sleeping-waking ghosts,
The kaiser will go onto God's great dustpan-
The last of the gibbering Hohenzollerns.
Look! God pities this trash, God waits with a broom and a dustpan,
God knows a finger will speak and count them out.

It is written in the stars;
It is spoken on the walls;
It clicks in the fire-white zigzag of the Atlantic wireless;
It mutters in the bastions of thousand-mile continents;
It sings in a whistle on the midnight winds from Walla Walla to Mesopotamia:
Out and good-night.

The millions slow in khaki,
The millions learning Turkey in the Straw and John Brown's Body,
The millions remembering windrows of dead at Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and Spottsylvania Court House,
The millions dreaming of the morning star of Appomattox,
The millions easy and calm with guns and steel, planes and prows:
        There is a hammering, drumming hell to come.
        The killing gangs are on the way.

God takes one year for a job.
God takes ten years or a million.
God knows when a doom is written.
God knows this job will be done and the words spoken:
Out and good-night.
        The red tubes will run,
        And the great price be paid,
        And the homes empty,
        And the wives wishing,
        And the mothers wishing.

There is only one way now, only the way of the red tubes and the great price.

        Well...
Maybe the morning sun is a five-cent yellow balloon,
And the evening stars the joke of a God gone crazy.
Maybe the mothers of the world,
And the life that pours from their torsal folds-
Maybe it's all a lie sworn by liars,
And a God with a cackling laughter says:
"I, the Almighty God,
I have made all this,
I have made it for kaisers, czars, and kings."

Three times ten million men say: No.
Three times ten million men say:
        God is a God of the People.
And the God who made the world
        And fixed the morning sun,
        And flung the evening stars,
        And shaped the baby hands of life,
This is the God of the Four Brothers;
This is the God of bleeding France and bleeding Russia;
This is the God of the people of Britain and America.

The graves from the Irish Sea to the Caucasus peaks are ten times a million.
The stubs and stumps of arms and legs, the eyesockets empty, the cripples, ten times a million.
The crimson thumb-print of this anathema is on the door panels of a hundred million homes.
Cows gone, mothers on sick-beds, children cry a hunger and no milk comes in the noon-time or at night.
The death-yells of it all, the torn throats of men in ditches calling for water, the shadows and the hacking lungs in dugouts, the steel paws that clutch and squeeze a scarlet drain day by day-the storm of it is hell.
But look! child! the storm is blowing for a clean air.

Look! the four brothers march
And hurl their big shoulders
And swear the job shall be done.

Out of the wild finger-writing north and south, east and west, over the blood-crossed, blood-dusty ball of earth,
Out of it all a God who knows is sweeping clean,
Out of it all a God who sees and pierces through, is breaking and cleaning out an old thousand years, is making ready for a new thousand years.
The four brothers shall be five and more.

Under the chimneys of the winter time the children of the world shall sing new songs.
Among the rocking restless cradles the mothers of the world shall sing new sleepy-time songs.

On days like this,
I am more thank you
than apology.
More welcome party
than goodbye affair.

On days like this,
men can't shut my voice
into a casket.
No person can sift my heart
into a dustpan.

On days like this,
my voice is gospelled choir
a hopeful tune
My heart refuses to unsing
a joyous song.

On days like this,
I am phoenix
brushing cinder
off infant wings.
I am honey
to your honeysuckle.
I am bowing apex
off a tidal wave.
I am fresh picked book
opening up
to new hands.

On days like this,
I am no ocean
with finite shores.
I am skyline.
I am boundless
beginning.
I rewrite.
I renew.
I begin again.

(tw; family dysfunction)

I don't remember the day we first met.
I don't remember the time or the place
or what you were wearing
or what the very first thing you said to me was.

Honestly, it's difficult to imagine you
speaking to me at all, because, well,
that would require me not giving off an aura of distaste
to everyone in my general vicinity,
due to my extreme distrust of people in general.

Knowing me, we probably didn't even speak
until I grew used to seeing your face day after day,
became accustomed to your presence.

It's likely I knew your name before I said a word to you,
as I am an introvert with a side of social anxiety,
and it's always been a bit difficult for me to make friends.

Even after the first words we exchanged
transformed into our first conversation,
as pitiful of an excuse for one as it may have been,
there was nothing spectacularly romantic about it.

It was just passing remarks littered with wit,
sarcasm, and largely inappropriate humor.

 I don't remember when you became so important to me.

No matter how much I wrack my brain,
clawing meticulously through every memory I can reach
in my largely disorganized mind,
it's impossible for me to pinpoint that one moment,
the instant in time that changed everything.

What I do remember is the way every inch of your face
reddens when you laugh,
that contagious grin spreading across your cheeks
as if you had just heard the funniest thing in the world.

I remember how it feels when I'm the one causing that smile,
that rush of accomplishment I get when I can make you happy,
even for just a moment.

Those little things, however insignificant they may seem,
are stuck with me,
ingrained into my brain like the stain of spilled grape juice
on a once-pure white shirt,
imprinted into my soul like an unexpected fissure in a landscape.

They torture me, day and night,
and you would expect by the way I describe these feelings
that I want them to go away,
that I want to remove the stain you've made on my life,
stitch my landscape back together
and act as though you hadn’t cracked me open,
and maybe, once upon a time, I would have,
but now?
I never want them to go away.

As much as it pains me to feel this way,
and as much as I sometimes despise being so attached to you,
undeniably and irrevocably reliant on your existence in my world,
you've made me feel ways that, a few years ago,
I didn’t think were possible.

Not long ago, I wasn't even sure if being happy with myself
was possible,
much less feeling anything close to whatever this may be,
because I haven't quite figured it out yet.

All I know is that I care about you,
no matter how much or how little that may mean.
I care in ways that I probably shouldn't.

I want to protect you, keep you safe from harm,
and when I can't, it hurts.

It physically hurts me to see you endure any kind of suffering,
and yet I know you have to, every single day,
because you've told me so.

I've sewn together the shreds of you,
the real you, that you've shown me,
and as short and fleeting as those glimpses may have been,
I only want to see more.

I want to know who you really are, behind the mask,
behind the walls of the impenetrable stone fortress
that you've built for yourself.

You like caging your heart in your chest to protect it from harm,
I know that all too well,
but I want to put the pieces of you back together,
and even if I can't,
I will hold the shards of your soul with my bare hands
and keep you close to me.

No matter how long it takes,
no matter how painful it is,
no matter how much I bleed,
I'll do it for you.

 Most people sweep broken things into a dustpan
and toss them in a trash bag,
tying them up and leaving them on the side of the road
with all of the other discarded and damaged items
that once had a purpose,
but I'm not one of those people.

I keep every broken thing I've ever come across,
if I can hold on long enough,
whether it be pieces of someone else or pieces of myself.

With you, though, I think it's both.

You remind me of the way I used to be,
and the way I am now.

Maybe that's why I care so much.
Because I know what it's like to have a mask.

I understand how it feels to have to protect yourself
from your own family,
because even they find ways to hurt you,
even when they try not to,
even when they don't.

You know that, though, or at least,
you may have come to that conclusion,
because I've offered shreds of myself to you, too,
the suffering I've had to endure.

You know, but I want you to understand why,
why I've allowed you to see the pieces of me that
I rarely show anyone.

Because I understand what it's like, and at the end of the day,
we're not that different.

After all, we’re both in pieces.

We’ve lost so much of ourselves,
and even though we’ve tried to keep the fragments together,
losing them was inevitable for us.

There’s not enough left to restore us completely.

We would have to search to the ends of the Earth
to even come close to making ourselves whole again,
and even then, it wouldn’t be enough.

But maybe we don’t have to.

Maybe we only need to look right in front of us,
because together,
we have enough to make something extraordinary.

I was vacant:
dust wafted off the window-sill, swirling in the afternoon sun
when you came, rapping green fists on my empty door
peering into my cloudy windows, glancing at the address
shrugging
and letting yourself in without a key.

You floated across the creaking floorboards of the foyer,
sweeping my cobwebs into a corner.
          Did I forget to leave you the dustpan?
You strode through glass-pained doors into the kitchen,
scrubbing my china with the cold iron-water that poured forth from my pipes.
          Did I neglect to provide you with lye?

After you lumbered up the stairs, coughing on mothballs,
I imagine that you shook your head at the tassels
hung on my fraying valence,
for soon enough you hurried your way
back down the stairs
into the kitchen
through the foyer
and out of my door.
I wonder—

          Was it the dust?
          Was it the dishes?
          Did you ever stop to open my curtains?
          Did you ever peer out the window, and into the gardens below?

i'm a fool,
your shiny foil.
enhancing elegance
i'm practically-
pragmatic.
deserving girl,
get your dustpan ready
and sweep your dirt
off his stationary feet.

There are gentle curses,
simple words that would break you
into those pieces you are,
scattered on the floor,
swept gently into my dustpan of marble,
reassembled from the
broken little statue you are
not so little, are you?

I'd reassemble your last horizons,
raining bleak shores of a suicide walk off of Beachey Head.

Smash,
dissolve into the waters,
and turn the ocean waters
purple.

A corner of a room is a misguided place to cower in.

Bad move!

Especially after you have just had chicken chow mein styled into your hair.

You sit.

Transfixed.

You watch.

Catatonic.

Prawn ***** glisten like diamonds in the snow as they slide effortlessly down the peeling wallpaper.

Baby screams.

Baby screams relentlessly.

The stench of cheap beer perfumes the stagnant air.

You think to yourself

"Is this it?"

Then you remember

You remember ….

What the hell was her name?

It’s on the tip of your tongue ….

BANG !!!

Tina Smitherson

Once!

Just once ….

The one and only time he raised his hand.

She was gone.

Didn’t even look back.

And her so quiet and all ….

Oh ….how we tormented her.

Oh …. how we teased her.

BOO !!!

BOO !!!

BOO !!!

Away she ran like a frightened little mouse.

No friends.

No life.

Nothing.

A bona fide geek.

And yet ….

And yet … only once.

How was that possible?

Night turns to day.

You look around the room.

Chaos.

Filth.

Emptiness.

Taunt at you manically ….  in triplicate.

Baby sleeps peacefully in her makeshift cot.

Bruises red and angry.

Maybe today ….

Maybe ….

Then you reach down into your darkest resolve and open the cupboard beneath the sink.

Bin bags.

Detergent.

Dish cloths.

Dustpan and brush.


*“I wonder what Tina Smitherson is doing at this precise moment in time?”

Broken into a thousand anxious pieces
stomped upon and disliked
rejected and neglected and humiliated
like a broken dish someones gone crazy on
until the porcelin has turned into the powder it came from
Like sand, or flour, it does not resemble a dish at all, but could
become something else, most likely swept up into a dustpan and dumped
a million microscopic pieces of a former dish, that is me
A mess of powder splatter on the floor
what will I become next?

Saturday mornings growing up
my mother made me clean the bathroom

. windex . bleach
. scrub brush . rags
. mop . bucket . broom . dustpan
. lots of paper towels

she insisted I clean the bathroom
every Saturday morning
before I did anything else
with absolutely no chance of an allowance
she paid me plenty she said

. shelter . food . clothing
. television . internet . video games
. books . some sort of education

not to mention

. life

“do it because you love me”

so waking up Saturday
meant cleaning the bathroom

it meant my hands reeked of chemicals
while my friends enjoyed games I couldn't join
it meant I missed the best of all
the cartoons everyone else watched
it meant I didn’t feel like loving my mother

for years I begrudgingly

. scrubbed . wiped . cleaned

that bathroom
until it sparkled - until it shined
like the top of the Chrysler building

. sink . mirror
. toilet . tub
. floor

all of it spotless
love you mom

then in college
there's this woman that I'm living with
this woman that provides me with

. shelter . food . clothing
. television . internet . etc.

and she makes me feel alive
so I clean her bathroom
and when she asks me, “why?”
all I can think to say is

“I did it because I love you”

and it feels like that's the truth

They guard our gates. We are ruled by mechanised gods.

We are not free.
We are not real.
We are not awake.

Our mornings wake up to dew and smoke. We wake up and pick up our broomsticks and sweep.

You and I are made to sweep.
And it is through these sweeps we dance our fated dances.

Dance to wake the castles,
and water the gardens,
and venerate Emperors long dead and gone.

“This,” we say, “is our duty.”
“To belong.”

“To bow together.”
“To hope as one.”

We, all key cogs in the machinery. Everyone has a broom and dustpan. Everyone is made to sweep.

"Is this the land," we ask, "that we sang for and dreamt our feverish cartoon dreams for?"
Perhaps not. Our stories exist only in a land beyond time.

We’ve been there. It is a mechanism for the gods. They too hold brooms.

They too sleep in shrines of stone.
They too live in temples of steel.

The gold ones have long ago burned.

there are moments with
you, and moreover, tiny
moments within moments,
and so forth, when it feels
impossible to be any closer
to you than the cigarette
between index and rebuttal.
[it should be saying a lot(but it's not)]
like on those southern nights
when honey stained our lips
and lives and judgment;
they showed up in the back
of a police car, armed with
a deadly arsenal of threats
as empty as the bottle of
whiskey in the corner.
they left, and we delivered,
before the state could sweep ash
away into the dustpan of a foster
home and furthermore into the
wastebasket or dumpster of the
so-called effectively efficient system.
we caught some air mixed in with
the paper souls betwixt index and
profane, and discussed past lusts
and loves and losses and the insanity
of the preceeding few days while the
accompanying ebb of breath and flow
of fire beat gently on our consciences.

the new year; i never thought i'd
make it here, *and neither did you.

Soot on the bottom of
a torn Coca-Cola can...
remnants of cut laden
Q-tip heads stuck on the outside... man what's he thinking
he wants to get caught
these aren't the errors
of a person trying to hide.

The rig most certainly taken from a Consolidated EMS kit made from several others that belonged to his grandpa when he was still alive.....
and sure enough
there it is right in plain sight.

The kitchen faucet been running for a good 10 minutes... nope...
I haven't heard the
distinctive sound of dishes hitting the edge
as you rinse off the soap.
Walk back into the kitchen, curiosity peaked...
"What are you whacked out on dude, must be some good dope!"

His conscience won't let him lift his head and look me in the eye, he struggles to mumble some ******* some lie. " Sure okay," I mutter and then walk away.

We all have our demons and I'm no saint but we've had this discussion before and it's no pretty picture you decided to paint. You've shown your true colors and it's no secret where loyalties lie. Your souls turning black and is ready to die.

"I don't care what habits or needs you might have as long as you handle your business" was what I had said just 8 months before.... In one ear out the other, you walked out the door.

So you're probably fuming right now saying... "****** hypocrite, what gives him the right?"
Well it's like this....
I don't need to Snoop
to know what goes on at night.

Your eyes are devoid of the nephew I once met.... there was warmth love and joy ....It seemed genuine back then but I looked for the light first...there was no need to figure you out yet.

But now all I see are secretive eyes and all I hear in your air are con artist lies.  But true... These suspicions don't give me the right and I wasn't snooping I tell you no lies.

Grandma wanted the old couch back in the living room. God knows what you find with a dustpan and broom. Amongst all the trash that you could have thrown away.... the tools of the trade.

Easy enough to check the EMS kit I'd shown you to realize it's missing most of the insulin needles and syringes... At this point I had as much right to look through your **** as you did to look through and take from mine.

So calm yourself son I'm worried for you... GagieWagies gone missing.  I  would much rather say, "Ah he's just gone fishing" but I fear it's much worse... Just don't hook the reaper is all that I'm wishing.

I love you brother
and hopefully you find
your true gift
so you can be released
from the black chains
that won't let your soul lift.
But until you do
I can't have you killing us
slowly with worry.

So if this is the life you've chosen and your family, the street, please pack up your things
and release us from your flurry.

a poet doesn't live in here


just a hallowed wreck


woe is me ... all that ****

i only want respect


a blind man couldn't see him

so he thought he was a farce


stumbling down flashlight paths

taking to himself in the dark

whispering all the sick things  she would have liked to hear

screamed silent lullabies about the brutal world of fear


a poet doesn't live here

just a 17 year old's self esteem

little boy's riots and life-long bad dreams


i wanted to pain you a picture

dead bodies on trampolines

smiles on their faces...


know what i mean?


i wanna cut my heart out

black dead and cold

and give up what's left of

my shattered dustpan soul,


this whole thing for me

was like pulling teeth

slowly twisting one by one

and gargling gasoline,


a poet doesn't live here

he's all dried up inside

and summer's come

it's time for fun, no more time to write.

The handle
to the front door won't budge,
but it can still be locked
from the inside.
The overgrowth is five years
in the making, vines took over
this home of once improvement.
I don't believe we ever
owned a gas can.
A boarded up pool.
The one in which the dog died.
His body was as bloated as my eyes. The puppy in the pictures still hung in the basement beside the kicked in window.
Leaves and insects rest
on the linoleum floor, a cohabitation that was formed out of vacancy.
A long dresser left ajar from wood paneling, insects crawling around,
not that one would know how they
got there. Old paperwork and letters survived. The assumption is that the moths never arrived to join the spiders nestled in their leaves.
Both longhand and typed sentences that spoke of longing, love (young love), happiness, direction, and lastly evaluation. Broken glass fixed against the dresser, a reflection shows.
The dirt and grime is of a
subconscious level.
One that exceeds the proximities
of the appropriate metaphor.
So what is seen is loss.
And although this occurrence
comes as a new beginning, the best solution at the given moment may perhaps be a broom and a dustpan.

I write when I am
distressed, when I
don't understand, when I
desire rest. I write when I wish,
I wish I were struck
by anything moving
fast, of adequate mass
that it might jolt me out
of this existence and into
a dimension which doesn't
quite exist, as it's residing in
thought, that fifth dimension.
It's calling me, calling to me;
Calling out my name,
Or do I call to it?
Wishfully.
I don't have to try
to think softly after
a roaring voice rips
through my mind, it
is just a thought that
crops up sometimes.
The sound is thought
which drifts, fear slips
and I know I'll stand
between sky
and sand when this
is all over.
Ashes to
ashes,
Dust
to dustpan.
Sweep me up.

living vicariously,
a fly on the wall
observes its surroundings.
a predetermined life
of insignificant actions,
destined just to live and then to die

the fly on the floor,
now dead and gone.
memory faded, life forgotten.
a shattered body
and an empty mind –
reflecting the world through vacant eyes.

swept into a dustpan
broken and cold
but no more now than it was in life.

She sweeps him
up.

Puts the bits of
broken urn in the bin.

Empties the back end of
the ***** bottle.

And with the aid of
a little yellow funnel

decants his ashes from
dustpan to bottle.

A little cloud of him
hangs in the air

like a genie
appearing from...

She keeps him in
the ***** bottle

for ohhh...years

despite him being
a whiskey man.

When he was a real
life man

he would beat her
when the spirit moved him.

Sad to say she was glad
he was dead.

His death gave her
her life back.

She hated the way he
coloured her

skin in
with big blooming bruises.

One year she just got fed up
looking at him in the bottle

in his ashes to ashes
transformation.

So she just flushed
him down the loo.

His photo kept on
smiling as

he watched
behind the ***** glass

this her
final revenge.

One of my favorite songs is by a guy named Watsky, it’s called sloppy seconds. It used to mean so much more, but I’ve grown . And now I’m here, and you ring, and I pick up, and it’s all for you.
You told me that it's your fault, but how I have to do this for you. I told you
“But you’re my friend, so I suppose I owe you trying to clean up this mess”
I need to pick up your pain. I’m listening to the song and thinking about all the times that have numbed me to taking up other people’s sloppy seconds but the song always told me
“I don’t care where you've been, how many miles, I’ll still love you”     and so i did.
I still do for some others. Please understand, this is not all  ̶f̶o̶r̶  you.
I stopped you.
I caught this one.
I’m holding this a dustpan for the cremains of this mess and picked up the shattered urn of feelings.
I handed you the broom. Whether you use it or not is your decision.
It’ll get cleaned up in the end, either way.
I WANT TO DO THIS OUT OF LOVE NOT OUT OF PROTECTION.
WHAT THE ****.

I feel trapped inside
My own
Existence,
Totally unable to escape it
Unless by doing the unthinkable.

I take a package of
Sticky notes to work
And steal a few precious
Heartbeats to commit my thoughts
To paper,
Forever immortalizing them.
These notes decorate my fridge,
Monuments that will long outlive me,
Reminders of those heartbeats
Where, during the pumping of my blood,
I was actually alive.

I clean up everyone
Else's messes
And thus I make my living,
But can it really be called that?
A living?

Day begins.
Breathe in.
I make the coffee, and attempt
To open my eyes.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn't.
Off to work. To the broom
And the dustpan
And the beats of my heart
I will never get back.
Music helps, but it's not immortal.
Even the best of playlists gather dust.
My job is important, they say.
I don't believe them.
Maybe if I could just see what difference it makes,
Who my work impacts,
That there is proof that I am doing something right
Other than an empty pat on the back
And an obligatory paycheck,
Maybe then, it would be worth it.
Maybe it wouldn't **** away my soul
Like it does.
But maybes don't pay the rent,
And they certainly don't replenish my soul.

Only words make me alive.
But it is too late for that.
I was born with a gift
I'll never be able to use,
A sanity I'll never be able to reclaim.
I was born a few centuries too late.
Or maybe I was born with a soul
In a soulless world.
Where has life gone?
How can anyone live like this?
How can they exist
Rather than actually live?

Why am I here?
I can work such magic,
But there's never anyone to see.
So what does that
Leave me with?
A head and a heart full of
Words and a world that has
No place
For them.

I'm static,
I'm stuck,
I'm riding the deck,
In silence,
I'm eternally seeking port.
I miss the wife and kiddies.
The waves are stilled now.
Although their crests are tipped with white.
There's not a bird or shark in sight.
I can't even smell the sea.

I'm picked up and examined,
Closely inspected,
by the old sea dog,
in the tatty tweed suit,
through his right eye,
using his monocle
He puts me down and creeps away,
moaning at the assistant,
that's much too expensive,
I'll have to leave it for today.

Next thing I see is a manic child,
with his mum,
he's running wild.
Hey nipper leave that alone,
Crash,
Air swamps me,
As the shop assistant with the dustpan and brush,
sweeps me up.
Wraps me in a newspaper page,
throws me in the re-cycle bin,
What will become of me,
one thing's for certain,
now I'm free.
(C) Livvi

i don't know if i'm phrasing this right but no one in my house validates my feelings; they always kind of brush them off or make me feel like i am irrelevant and don't matter and you know what? i think that is one of the main things that has ****** me over. i watch movies and tv shows and see how ******* compassionate the mothers are with their children and i have never once felt like my feelings even matter to my mother or that she even gives a **** about me or the relationships i have. just because i have only been on this earth for sixteen and a half years doesn't ******* mean i don't have feelings and problems or that i can't feel hurt or depressed or anxious or in love. that doesn't come with age, it comes with being alive. i am just as much of a human being as you are and it breaks whats left of my glass heart and she doesn't even care enough to get the dustpan and sweep it up into the garbage can.

I slept in my pants last night.
Tears stained on my pillow like
The blood
On my hands.
I swept the mess of my life into your dustpan,
And wonder how many pieces may fall behind me.
I will never be able to clean them up,
If I am too afraid to look back.

I fell asleep in my shame,
Forgetting to take it to your dry cleaner.
You would wash out my skin and hang my soul to dry.
Carve your new colors into my palms.
Paint me new irises and maybe
I will fall asleep under new skys

We were dying that year,
the year they fell,
and when they fell I felt nothing;
but I heard them hit the ground.

Amazed by her nonchalance
I sat the children down, the sound
of fighter jets outside the window,
to talk about the day’s events.

I’d spend the next ten years
studying the art of empathy,
pushed along by the shame of
standing zombie-like and unaffected

while others wailed in horror at
the collapsing twin towers, and now,
the haunting realization that so many
had to die in order that I might learn to feel.

The ones that jumped live with me still.
More real today than when they leapt.

     We define our lives by brick and plaster,
     row after row of rooftop satellites staring southwest,
     straining for a glimpse of God while
     our garbage appears at the curb before morning.

     There is no talk behind dark shades, no debate,
     only flickering lights of transmission
     and lives backed into corners, swept up in
     a dustpan of mindless television.

     The fighter jets brought me back to life,
     my neighbors stay mostly out of sight,

     until one of them encounters
     their own catastrophic collapse,
     then the others congregate curbside
     in the flashing red light

     to watch men stretch yellow tape
     around a scene that looks familiar
     and wonder why they cannot feel;

     like the day they fell when I felt nothing.

you took out the dustpan and broom
and swept while I mopped the dining room
     we had every DIY cleaning solution
in the palm of our hand,
    we went through the house
with a fine tooth comb
          knowing neither of us
                  ever really called this place home