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DEATH is stronger than all the governments because
the governments are men and men die and then
death laughs: Now you see 'em, now you don't.

Death is stronger than all proud men and so death
snips proud men on the nose, throws a pair of
dice and says: Read 'em and weep.

Death sends a radiogram every day: When I want
you I'll drop in--and then one day he comes with a
master-key and lets himself in and says: We'll
go now.

Death is a nurse mother with big arms: 'Twon't hurt
you at all; it's your time now; just need a
long sleep, child; what have you had anyhow
better than sleep?
Rachel Jun 2010
You know,

  Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I hadn't met you.
You have changed my life and I can't thank you more.

  You make me so happy and comfortable, I feel like singing along
to my favorite songs just because I am so happy being with you.
La La La La Da Da Da Duummm La La La :) there i go, singing along.

  I can't even imagine sleeping without you beside me to hold onto
in the middle of the night.
When I wake in the morning, I look forward to seeing your face.
  I enjoy your music, and your passion for what you love.
I admire your honesty and trust.
  I especially admire that you are stronger than I expect.
Through our fits and snips, each time I turn around,
there you are, with a smile on your face.
                                                           ­  and that is why, I Love You.

  I say, but never truly say,
                                                        that....­
I love to hear every thing you have to say.
I love to learn every thing you teach.
I love to listen when you speak.
I just, love you.

&& I'm so happy I married you.
You once told me how you were captivated with photos, how it fills you with satisfaction capturing a picture perfect portrait of a moment, memory, or even a mere mortal. I almost always never understood this addiction of yours on why and how you’re more than determined to collect snips of your life in a paper inked by dozens and dozens of color to paint a single picture. It is somewhat a kind of a waste but you never thought of it like that.

“What is it with you and photographs?” a question I finally got to ask you after harboring enough courage. Yet you merely answered with a shrug and looked away, away from my prying eyes, away from the echoes of what I just asked you. I was on the verge of giving up on you when you suddenly held my hand tighter than usual. “Because…,” you muttered in between huge gulps of breath. I wrapped my arms around you hoping to shield you from your turmoil. For minutes we sat there, still and not making any sound while I let you hold on to me as if I was your lifeline. Anchored back to the present, you told me, “I’m just scared that’s all.” I waited for you to continue, to go on with what you were saying, but you just did not. I turned to look at you only to find you staring at the far distance, looking lost, gone.

I yanked my hand out of your hold but you were still transfixed far, far away from me, far from this reality. Your stare just did not falter at the slightest even as you told me the words which bugged me for the most of my hours, days, or weeks even. Those times following your passing that is. Yes, you left me. You left me hanging and alone without knowing the reason why you ended your life just like that. I’ve always been blinded by the pretense that you were more that okay amidst it all. Probably it comes with the denial of your loss. But if there’s any consolation, I finally know you aren’t okay at all, now when it’s all a little too later that I should have known.

But now as I lay here, I come to think of the last thing you told me. *“If a picture is worth a thousand words, then as to what worth would a million photographs be?”


As I recall you saying it that night, hours before you pulled the trigger over your head, I assumed it was merely rhetorical. I merely thought you were playing Socrates in order to halt me from bombarding you with any more questions. It kept me up all night staring at the ceiling only to receive a phone call at 3:00 A.M. on how you were rushed to the hospital and how the doctors shook their head in the inability to save you.

Until now, I’m still kept awake not of the distraught on your sudden death but because of that question you took me by surprise. I answered nothing then but I am afraid I do know the answer now. You did not capture those sunrises and the blossoming of flowers out of sheer creativity. Instead, it gave you a glimpse of a new beginning that this life failed to give you. You did not capture the candid smiles of random individuals out of a coincidence but because your heart yearns for this kind of happiness to be instilled deep within you. You did not capture the city lights just for the vivid imagination it fueled your satisfaction. It was the colors which brought light to every impending doom you have yet to undergo. You did not capture the landscapes and skyscrapers out of nothing more than an appreciation of abstract art. Rather, it gave you the leeway to live in a fantasy as the surrealism in these photos fuels your unwavering resolve to escape the trap this reality caged you in.

Darling, you weren’t just collecting photographs out of a hobby, out of a custom. And now, I know why you told me you were scared that time I asked you about this obsession of yours. *You were scared to find out that your life is a meaningless pit, like a hollow chasm with nothing but a void.
In search of yourself, you found fragments of ‘you’ in these ink-stained scraps of print. It was how you defined your existence: in shots of images of the existence of others. Some might not understand, but you are brave and brilliant to this all. Brave for facing all your demons alone, no matter how I would have wanted to save you from your distress, and brilliant for discovering that our lives are merely a collection of lives complementing each other.

So, darling, maybe this is the end of the line for you, the brink of your voyage to obtain a million photographs. And to answer your question, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a million photographs would be worth a life. These million photographs are all you. These photographs are what make you whole, flawlessly complete. You will realize you always were as opposed to what the world let you believe in. And then maybe, just maybe, as you finally lay to rest, far-off from the tragedy this realm of this cruel dimension, you can be finally be at peace and eventually manage to realize that you lived not just a portfolio of photographs but a masterpiece.


*(k.p.)
Mason Jay May 2016
Pinocchio

I want to be a real boy

not a lying decoy

wooden girl doll

a little too tall

lack of hips

couple snips

to get the hair

that I can bear

as mason jay

things’d be okay
Infamous one Feb 2013
Walk in the door
Notice all the sports themed wall
The barber shop full of gossip
Waiting your turn
The barbers says next
Sit in the chair
tell the barber how do the hair style
He covers you
Snips and trims
Razor cuts and high fades
Shows you the work with a mirror
Pay your fee leave a tip
Dusts you off sends you on the ways
Come back haircut can fix you any day
Madeleine B Feb 2016
Her laughter pumps the gas, dumps the clutch shakes and rattles from each intersection
Her wet feet leave monster tracks long damp claws arching across the cement
Her hair grows brambles collecting thorns and twigs with the best of bushes
Her senses, corvid, snatching up dropped coins, pencils, paperclips
Her tongue unfettered, butterfly breath reels with snips of story and songs
Her eyes hold drops of honey, sticky sweet lashes follow the sun
sunflower cheeks blush cardamom on yellow velvet
glow butterfaced with dandelion kisses

Rough, regular under hand, stubbornly slate, unchanged unmoved.
if her soul is a garden there is a cinderblock there
holding down the sunflowers,
along with the grass at her core, it grows roots,
     but no moss.
From Jess's Lips Aug 2018
Cobwebs for eyes
and a cotton ball tongue.
I can't see what everyone else does
and even if I did,
how could I tell you
it hurts?

No one ever expected my buried body
to climb back out of the grave
I dug for myself.

No one ever expected my blackened lungs
to draw breath again,
to breathe the air that smothered me.

Twisted claws
gnashing teeth
slimy scales

And when I wake up
I finally see
that the nightmare
was always me.
When I was sick last week, I couldn't sleep and I wrote down several lines with different themes that I was probably meaning to expand into several poems. My head was really fuzzy and I don't really know where I was going with any of them, so I kind of just smushed them together instead. :P
The boy kissed her soft lips
and
all fires set alight in his heart.

She melted
like bitter ice in the flames of his embrace.

They were lost
in their crazy pleasure
and fragments of memories
echoed
in the spaces between them.
I wrote this entirely out of those poetry fridge magnets in my English class last year out of boredom and my English teacher left it up on the board for two weeks.
sobroquet Jun 2013
renegade memories
relentless effrontery
rogue  fractured intruders
a formulable formidable aside inside
man is a modified monkey
a jackdaw in peacock's feathers
contradictions, the multiplicity that is a unity
a patchwork of odds and ends
snips and snails
                                  dreams and delusions                                
hopes and fears
a mystifying  knot of  phantasmagoric  disquietude

agape in a stupefied bewilderment
as an autistic child swept up in minutiae
inscrutable incongruities
melange of matters beyond  explanations
maundering machinates
necessary inventions repeating and reforming
sheltering some aspect of the mind's deforming
'reaction formations' sotto voce instructs the analyst
defending emotions at the personalities bequest
    merrily merrily merrily merrily,  life is but a dream
psychotherapy is no mere scheme
partial selves
It was my first time
I was fifteen years old
And it was 8 inches.
Eight. Whole. Inches.
Laying motionless in my hands,
Long and lifeless as I stared excitedly, nervously
My first ...haircut
I spun around in the salon chair to see my exposed jaw, shoulders, neck
Holding in my hands a ponytail that would soon be sent to Locks of Love
My first legitimate haircut, not the simple snips my mom would attempt in the bathroom when split ends were too unbearable,
A real style
Back straight and shoulders proud,
Uncertainty left on the tiles beneath the feet of beaming confidence,
Leaving dead the sheet that covered scared eyes and shy smiles…ever since I've developed an addiction to change,
Can't leave it the same for more than two months
And the chime of the door behind me opened endless opportunities:
Brown, auburn, gold, red, blond, yellow
Black
Brown black, blue black, soft black, natural black, always back to black
Straight, curly, layered, cropped, feathered, fringed, shaved
Undercut, mohawk, faux hawk, that weird thing where I gel it to the side and kind of look like a boy...

And yeah, sometimes I get sick of the sexist comments
People telling me I've got a boy's haircut
That short hair is for men, but
So were the olympics and voting and public education and getting published,
And thriving in the workplace and wearing pants,
And god knows im not going to give up either my Levi's or my razor
I'm not going to keep worrying; man's words will stop me from doing what i love
And I've been called lesbian, boyish, butch, manly, androgynous, anti-effeminate,
But I know I don't stand alone.
So thank you, Natalie Portman, P!nk,
Rihanna, Katy Perry, Anne Hathaway,
Kaley, Megan, Erin, Kim, Skylar
I don't know all of you well,
But the risks you've taken with your hair
Are an inspiration to those who care
So short haired women,
Keep doing your thang.
Kyle Kulseth Oct 2012
It's 9 am your throbbing eyes
     pull you towards awake
The town hums hot outside
     to a tune of 13 minutes,
     buzzing nerves; roll out of bed
     and try to calm the ******* shakes
and 6 times
     in the last hour,
tried to swallow
     those distinct, familiar notes

          swollen throat won't go away

You're drying out. You're mopping up
     the yolks of eggs with half-burnt toast
And hearing snips of songs on radios
     down the alley from your home.
But the paint's all dry on this one--
     and this breakfast's monochrome
One more time
     choke back the losses
   on a streak that's growing long
         and ever thicker

It's 2 pm and coffee's tasty
     it's making your eyes ache
The town shares your migraine
And streets laugh at your footsteps.
     with the strangest sympathy
Try to still the ******* shakes
     as you cross the Lewis bridge
Just to shiver with the spirits
     while they howl about your head.

          But, outside, the town hums hot.
Charlotte Feb 2014
i remember when we smiled
through the phones
and we wondered
what it'd be like
to hold each other close--
and it was such a far away dream
of a happiness
that i had never known
and when i saw you
standing
real and tall
your skin,
dark to my pale,
caressed the bracelets of scars
i wore as badges
of honor
and you held me
like i was something precious,
a feeling i'd never known
and it all just felt so real
and endless
and i closed my eyes wide
to all your faults
just to keep that feeling
for a little bit longer
and you smiled and held me
clinging to my skin and
to the thoughts
of a future
that we would never have
and now snippets pass before my eyes
of years later
like the snips upon my wrist
the same wrist that you kissed
the wrist that now
wears a bracelet of your name
etched into a scabbed memory
of screams and decay
of a once first love.
but there was still a day
where these carvings weren't real
and all that mattered was your eyes
finding mine
and for a moment
in your arms,
i was warm.
LC Apr 2022
they stuff "yes, no matter what" / "you're always wrong" / "what will people say?" / into a flimsy puppet skin / rigidly moving the strings in one direction / whenever someone comes over / they mount the puppet on the wall / proudly showing off their prized creation.
but when their eyes come to a close / the puppet feels scorching strings on its shoulders / it reaches inside / gutted by what it sees / one by one / it examines each phrase / it takes everything out / replaces it with "no" / "I am not always wrong or right" / "what do I say?" / and slowly snips the strings off its shoulders / so it can walk freely.
Escapril Day 14! Prompt: taxidermy (the art of preparing, stuffing, and mounting the skins of animals with a lifelike effect).
This is my take on the prompt! Thank you for reading.
Bailey B Apr 2010
The snip-snips
halo my shoulders
in curtains
Ever-changing colorations
striations
maculations
depending on your mood
either flat as a newly paved ramp
or as ***** as Friedman
You took a class on this
you tell me
adjusting your headband and baring your teeth
your version of a smile
I steel myself against the guillotine
It falls to the ground in leaves of auburn
going against the nature of winter
and longevity
(there go four inches
off my life)
You lean in
boing the spring beside my face
inhale and ask me
what is my conclusion?
as your panda colored drapes swish by my cheeks
Sometimes it smells like cinnamon
or the cactus flower oil you bought that one time
and sometimes I get nostalgic and remember what it was
before I let you touch it
(autumn, soap, and vanity)
but now mostly it smells like one thing:
smoke.
And phantom pain.
I thought you were an expert.
Eleanor Apr 2021
I will cut you out of the picture of my life.
I will take a scissors, to these complex memories and
hack your influence out.
It took me months to buy the scissors,
years to get to the shop
but I got here, I have them.
I will hear sharp snips as I cut across
the images that are burned in my mind.
No longer will my thoughts wander towards you.
No more, will I allow my feelings to be  
clouded by a person who dug their words  
into my lungs and shattered
my ribs, with boots made of malicious intent,
of careless incompetence, of clueless mockery.
I will use the scissors to cut your burning strings,
wrapped around these cheap candles.
A chord cutting spell. Dust beneath my heel.
The memories I cannot cut I will burn.
I'll light a match on the bridge you
ignited.
You always said people never change, so killing current you’s influence
In revenge for past you’s violence is righteous, it is fair.
I'll sharpen their blade on the soul you hardened.
I'll rip up the pictures if I have to, claw you out.
I'd sacrifice that part of my memories,
I'd happily **** the old me entirely to take you too,
To cut you out of the picture of my life.
I won't let us be friends anymore.
.


Snips & snails & midnight shadows unaware--

...the soft flesh of wildflowers tremble
in the blistering wind.

Slowly shifting their tattered reflection...
Twilight fire, painted angels
bleeding dreamlessly.

A perfect stranger
melts like a million echoes ground into dust.
Eternity glowed like a falling moonstone.

Girl's souls
really are sugar and spice...







.
andy fardell Apr 2012
1am and the sun aint up
my writings gone and my head is stuffed
Mind is empty yet full of nothing
what with me!! yes eyes a puffing

The dead of the night feels so into me
all is quiet with nothing to see
the eerie silence creeps around as ants sound their armies chant
spiders wake and pace the floor
webs all spun for dinners door

2am and still I'm here
coffee's on awakens clear
still its racing all inside
madness calling ...all is fine

behind me a chair creaks its night time call
In house ghost welcomes all
sounds from above as sleep takes over
snores and wheezes battle Stevens
yet still near dawn I am awake
sounds of silence not for all

3am its snack eat time
snips of sugar dunked like wine
3 cup gone and I'm still buzzing
body calling sleep not coming

Birds now join my early day
different meanings all the same
songs in progress sounds so sweet
that'll stop me from a sleep


Yet the world awakes another morning
a life begun a day a dawning
RJ Days Jan 2014
for all of us, star-seekers, feeling now alive

for those with the ghastly skill of being alone
amid crowds of people
lost in thought but ok inside

for those who see streaks of madness
fly round, illume patterns/puzzles
grasping scales celestial to infinitesimal

for those playing games with reality
snogging smug wealthy boys in stairwells
oxygen bonds breaking the sublime

for those forgotten under dirt, asphalt & spot
buried dates and dashes no splashes of memory
just naked nihilistic Precambrian bones

for those nameless from identity crises
smiling glibly through missing teeth
embarrassed by circumstance and the folly of age

for those trapped in jaunty youthful frames
lacking mind's dessert: veneration (contradiction)--still
wisdom perilously choked plus feared

for those chanceless beings fate sweeps & sooner snips
chuckling at theodicies while they still can
some soothed by snake oil--I mean Purpose--
then just dying

and we're still uplifted? we are still star-seekers.
we, divorced from form and aching for the sky's response
hear nothing, but we know

eyes' lies are all around us and inside
they wear us out and keep us moving
they are ancient dull clichés, tarnished but
they have the audacity to make us shine, aspire
they are what your grandma says to get you to behave
eyes' lies are true:

we are still star-seekers
Emily Aug 2014
her grandmother’s hand feels like an overripe peach and there’s not much behind her glossy eyes. the nursing home smells like disinfectant and the powdery smell of old women. jane tucks her feet under her chair as she watches the vacant stare on her grandmother’s face and wonders if her grandmother will notice when she stops coming. the soft buzz of television and the chatter of nurses feels very far away and the room feels too big for the two of them. jane’s grandmother raised her when her own parents were too drunk or coked up to remember they had even had a daughter and her first, second, third stroke had left her soft and empty. jane kisses her forehead, leaving a strawberry-colored mark on her grandmother’s pale skin and she slips a paperweight from the nurse’s desk into the pocket of her dress

the coat is heavy and camel-colored and hangs off jane’s small figure, nearly obscuring her. the collar nestles under her ears and she’s warm, even in the chill of the dusty second-hand shop down the street, with the watery-eyed cashier who watches her suspiciously and waits for his cigarette break. the weight is comforting and she hugs it in closer to her before removing it and stroking the shiny polyester lining. jane waits a few minutes before she pulls out a bundle of carefully stacked bills and quietly buys the overcoat without making eye contact.

at home, jane’s neat handwriting fills the last page of the journal she’s been keeping for the past few months. from her desk drawer she pulls two more of the same. the details of her life coat the pages and it occurs to her how small, how ordered, how utterly unremarkable her days have been. this elicits no real emotion and jane pours herself a half glass of wine and lies on the couch, fully clothed, and breathes so slowly her chest hardly moves. she wonders if it will hurt.

she places the coat on her neatly-made bed and stands in front of her bathroom mirror. her hair is long enough to touch the waistband of her skirt and it tangles over her shoulders and back like a mass of seaweed before she gathers it into a ponytail and snips it off, just beneath her ears. there’s nearly ten inches of her soft hair in her fist and in the mirror jane looks sharper and meaner than before. she takes the same scissors and cuts a slit in the hem of the coat and drops the hair into the space between the lining and the thick wool. next falls the paperweight, the journals, a bottle of pills she will no longer take twice daily. the coat is sewn up with small, neat stitches.

down the road from the home is a wide stretch of anemic sand and silvery water. the breeze off the ocean tugs and twists the coat like the hands of insistent children yet jane walks solidly on, feeling more opaque than she has in years. the rocks along the beach are smooth and slightly warm from the sun and she slips the most beautiful into her pockets as she nears the sleepy waves of the shore. jane never stops walking. her shoes are the first to become soaked but soon the water infiltrates her hemline, her waist, her chest, her neck. the short strands of her once flowing hair float momentarily before the water slips over her head like a sheet. jane’s body does not float, does not struggle, does not resurface.
I love my little Buddha husband
sometimes I watch him as he naps
his face assuming the soft delicate
lines of a child or an angel
asleep on God's *****

I observe him in the garden
through the glass patio door
reflective light of the noonday sun
splashing gold over his bent form

Gently he snips fragrant rose blossoms
arranging a charming feng shui bouquet
for our kitchen counter

Cuddling close and cozy on our
chocolate brown love sofa
as evening casts a starry
love spell

I Thank God for such a
blessed and sacred life and especially
for my little Buddha's delight
Sparrow Oct 2012
Alfred is my friend,
glowing in the windowsill
coughing with karma.

He is a peaceful
lovely little basil plant
but he may be sick--

black spots on leaves tell
that an infestation grew,
but I love him more.

water and quick snips,
coarse lullabies and sunshine
I hope he will live,

because goodness knows
such a lovely companion
can’t forsake my poor nose.
Poetic T Mar 2016
I tied you to the boot of this stolen car, what a pile
of rust but beggars cant be choosy, you do beg but I
chose this place specifically don't worry I tied you
to an old fords car door,  let the fun now begin.

I put the peddle to the metal, I hear you screaming in
anticipation of what happens next. Got to love speed
bumps, 30, 40, 60 then I brake just before swerving
so you sail past then you fly. Screaming all the way.

"I found ford doors have the right weight ratio to land
door side up Skoda's, Audi,

"No,
"The mess of so many to clean up road pastry is not the
easiest to clean away, slinters in my fingers hurt like hell ,


They fly through the air I see them just before some with
eyes closed fear etched on the sweat dripping or is that
tears? I put a three pronged circle to see where they finish
up. Each has a consequence, red, orange and green.

"You land in the outer dam, out comes the penalty stick,

Not many survive that, as I am angry for ill landings a lack
off at least trying, I warn them but some just cry till I give
them a good few whacks. I know silly but I do little sound
effects "bang, bang, splat, then silence and twitching

"Bang, "I hate those that just linger and twitch die already,

Now orange that's ok at least the next one tried, but not hard
enough,I give you a two pronged choice, gouge your sight out
with a spoon or a fork "what at least I'm giving them a choice,
now they scream but some got ***** it must be said.

Some do it, see no evil you know what I'm saying hanging tears
of claret weep from there now semi vacant sockets, and still
they try to blink "look at me, as their head rise, but their still
staring at the floor and I prune the with but two snips. Some
survive others just clutch to a chest and like that "DEAD,

Now those that survive, well lets just say I am a man of my
word I put them in the car to the safety I promise, I talk to
them but understandably their not in the talking mood,
I give them water to hydrate and replenish lost liquid that
has others wise bleed slowly out, and some even say "thank you,

Now what can I say luck, skill, survival instinct but so few have
done it, like a four leaf clover they land in the pastures of green.
I jump up and down like a child at the fair who just won the
big dinosaur on the very first try, punching the air and a very loud
"Hell ye that's what I'm talking about baby,
Then kiss um on the forehead, lips are to personal for my profession.

I tell them what skills what entertainment for some as twisted as it
seems liked what I did, a few even asked for double or nothing.
But luck only goes so far and then the regrettably the penalty stick
came out, I do the sign of L on my forehead then their silent once again.

But those who sighed with relief, as I promised were released, at the
end of a gun mind you a bottle of water given gratefully drank,
then on their merry way, I bid them fair well and as that they never
Divulge this incident as I have their wallets, purses even email
you never no maybe bored and recollect our good times past tense
of course for we all must face what is inevitable,

"Life is moments, where death is a breath that will always last,  

But as is death, freedom is a fleeting moment, and a mind changes
like the wind different direction, different path. Trial and error were
key, things that mattered "weight, height, ***, all factors in the
end result of what is like a momentary freedom to the air then
realization as they descend to a finite moment of death.

I always picked those that drove, why easier to cover tracks of
what was perused in my desires for a unique way to challenge
others need to survive. To breath another moment to exist in this
time of now not to pass. But life is fickle and my fun must last.

I always made sure that they drank the water, a necessity of
what came next ever drop drank, if denied then you guessed
it, penalty stick then "Dam, I do love my sound effects.
But released those with sight no knowledge of their ill fate.

Those I killed in the drivers seat pick a place where
gravity would take president in this delicate manoeuvre
so that they would go through what was needed a accident
of fatal consequence. Then on to the living that was next.


Like jack they rolled down the hill till unconscious they fell,
this little automobile swerving,  ricocheting off boundary and
wall till wheels graced air and the reeve of the engine heard.
A little gift of what was left in the boot a full tank of petrol
and the lid so loosely covered, accidents do happen.

I did one more thing I doubt they noticed there cigarette
lighter engineered to be so slightly hot, just like porridge
to hot would be seen and felt, to cold and would be a waste
of battery not enough, but warmth enough to ignite an
accident in the back and I firework of flames birth forth.

Some exploded they were the best, while others tumbled
flame and wreckage spread out what a mess. I always chose
the location, never the same suspicion would fall and my
fun would expire and probably my life snuffed out in a
breath. always cliffs near by and wall was best.

Now I bid you farewell as other circles must be drawn.
New doors must be had, who will hit the bulls-eye or
who will fail the test. I'll try two doors at once spice
up life's fun a little who will hit green and who will
be the one who twitches and then "Bang, silence is best.
Emma Oct 2012
Heavy lids, lighthouse waves sputtering on the stone between steps,
the sound strangles you / breathe silently
exhalation loosens your limbs longingly.
Rhythms break the continuous system /
derivations of wordly conditions /
crouching tense in the reeds, jump to break gravity /
crouching beneath the monitor, ready to cut wires /
snips bright white
chunks of
hair on the tile.
Cory Williams Mar 2018
When did love become so violent?
When did people start to hold hands in fists?
When did amorous letters turn into 140 character snips?

Reactions were real; we stumbled through hoops together head over heels
And now we stumble through scrolls with eyes-
Irises as white as the background that bleeds into bloodshot sclera-
There is no vitreous humor here...we're melting.

When did Cupid start carrying a gun?
When did value turn face towards deprecation?
When did the olive branch come from a broken tree?
When did words become weapons of divinity?

The storm we hold is long and wide-
And the power of letting it go extends the hand of life;
Vulnerable, we most definitely are as the thunder rolls
And the lightning strikes - no place to hide...

When did you swing towards my lip to make it rain even more-
When that same lip could have been a cloud on your forehead
To clear the sky?

When did love become so violent?

30 Mar 18
Never had I more than a chance
To look at the future but
with a glance

I saw the world from
the rear window of a car
While being driven to
destinations that were near , some far

So many miles
before I was five
Before I even realized
I was alive

And home was where
my grandparents lay
Maybe we could go visit
on Christmas day

I learned to walk long
and I fought hard
Always drawing the shorter straw or the
the blackest card

I learned to spell struggle
with colored crayons
With black and blue
and red when hit on

I learned to run away
at the age of three
There were no fences
that could stop and hold me

Snakes and snails and
puppy dog tails
Emotional distrust
and a *******

No little boy
should ever be a knapsack full of momentos of forgotten history
Zulu Samperfas Apr 2012
Little black dots on the hillside
All fuzzy and free

I come across some, and they look at me
Black eyes questioning, am I a friend or a foe?
So gentle, so simple, never very bold

I know that they will all come to a bitter end
The process has been started and I tend
to notice these things, poor animals, so used
Simply products to us, no one is enthused
about taking better care of them
Most just never think
But watching them now puts me on the brink

They've been branded, ears cut, and even crueler snips
No anesthetic, and when they're gone, they won't be missed

Others will appear in the green grass fields
A never ending supply
Why isn't animal life held dear?

Later at the store, I see them again
Neatly stacked in packages, frozen and then
I know there is no possible way
I cannot be a vegetarian today
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2016
su sussidio... oh oh.*

cashier tarah talks, talks,
really talks, 6 hours east
to sri lanka, 12 hour flight, 15 hours
back, mother in law died,
sorry, yeah, something
got my boy out of the womb,
dubai was lost
as a terminal worth docking at,
too much shopping
too little insomnia...
but i just came in for my whiskey
and my coca-cola...
chubby cheek tarah hasn't
asked me what i do...
oh you know, i write poetry,
the stuff pop artists are famous for...
not actually doing...
i was never a serious gamer,
from tetris and su doku i progressed
to candy crush sagas... you know,
i didn't get the multiple-choice narrative
and the lost joystick freedom
of up down east west,
instead getting short snips of a story
unfold with a quick-drawn press button
action draw of the story unfold;
i wish gaming appealed to me
like the way advertising companies
got fooled by the way television works
these days: oops, paused five minutes
into the show, then skim eyed the adverts
past not even caring to be influenced
by consumerism propaganda...
i love it, i can finally watch t.v. and skip
the adverts!
thanks for the detergent and salt and pepper,
raw materials on the ready,
you improve your aesthetics elsewhere,
i'll drink my cheap whiskey with
cheap phosphoric barley tinged caramel
cola quicker than you can say the tongue tie:
eager ****** had the weakest liver
bone munching onomatopoeias of ribcage rattle.
Devon Brock Aug 2019
If I take to my drill and tin snips,
cut slits for my eyes in a bucket
of galvanized steel;

If I fashion from spent, inked
aluminum plates the newspaper
doesn't need anymore
a flimsy laminar armour;

If I stride donned in these and
perhaps with a blade of splintering
moulding left after the renovation
into the yard to hack at the vile
violet hyacinth blooms
laying siege to the aging tulip,
presuming to take the edge
gardens by attrition,

would you see as once you saw,
my sweet Dulcinea, the quixotic buffoon
so deep in delusion,
so madly in love with you.
Going to get my hair cut
almost Samson
but
not quite

a slight bit off the
back and lightly
trim
the sides.

the joys of getting older
outweighs the ecstasy
of not being
balder.

'boldly going on'
martha May 2019
Surface tension
Tender
Snips away at the inner bruising
Behind the eyes the windows are shut
And the curtains drawn
Run fingers over hidden ribs in the early morning
Witching hours
When fairy dust can decorate the pores
For imaginations sake

Morning skinny is now a norm
I plaster the walls of my subconscious
With posters of picture perfect shells

What they want
What you want
What I have convinced myself I think you want
What I want

What we want

I want to stop
I have told tall tales as unstable as my legs
Written them in invisible ink
Doused with sour lemon stings
So only I can see them
They appear before I eat
And in the quakes of my stomach aches

I know it is there to protect me
The most important parts of my body
The bubble which constantly pokes at me to ask
“what if there was nothing more than me
What if we couldn’t see
Shapes or sizes or colours or better
What if we couldn’t see pretty

Would that make you happy?

How
do I make you happy?”
The whiskey in your pores is drowning me, and when I come up for air the tobacco in your breath chokes.
When you lay me down, naked in front of your colleagues and peers, I’m not a man but an object.
Plastic. You look at me like a vessel.
A cheap locket you bought at a convenience store,
you crack me open at the seam to place pictures of other people.
A collage of this man’s sensitive touch,
This one’s sensual sway of the hips,
Snips, snails and puppy dog tails.
"You inspired me," are the words found in the shapes of your smoke,
But they smell of your claws digging into me in hopes you’ll find what you’ve been searching for.
I didn’t inspire you, because I am nonexistent to you, though my body isn’t.

Who am I?
No time for your little games
Misplaced accusations
Best that I should just move on
Sayonorah....salutations

No time for the little snips
No time for all the crap
No time for all the snide remarks
No Time.....this is a wrap

No time for all your misplaced anger
No time for things you say
No time for all your Drama Mama
No Time...to stay and play

No time to work on what we're doing
No time to be a team
No time to hear your nasty comments
No time to hear you scream

No time to be your whipping post
No time to feel the sting
No time to be the one and only
No time to wear your ring

No time to live as we intended
No time to share in bed
No time to  wait until it's ended
No time to clear my head

No time to figure out the problem
No time to stick around
No time to bite my tongue again
No time for us is found

No time to be a perfect couple
No time to be a spouse
No time to spend one more minute
No time to sit and grouse

It's time for me to move on forward
It's time for this to end
It's time to say that this is over
It's time for me to mend.......
Rand J Bennett May 2012
I’ve foreseen this moment for so long:
Always on some other plane, in some other grain
Of sand—in the far-off of time
Some future, a world away, too indistinct to decipher
the blurred edges into a clear line.

I’ve had nothing but hot electric tears
to warm my bed this year,
but they’ve long since gone cold.
See? the birds know.
Outside my window, they sing in the dawn
Long and low:
come home, come home

I don’t know where it begins or ends.
Small snips, short-lived,
Cut from the reel, spun through my head--
Some future, a world away, too tangled to unravel
the golden, living threads from the ashes of those long-dead.
(I don’t know where they begin or they end)

But this is the plane, and this is the place;
This is the axis of time & space
Where the birds sing you home on a path so old,
you can’t help but remember the way.
Reach down to the ground, wrap your fingers ‘round
the tangles of this golden thread,
pull it from the ashes of those long-dead.
The dust, once settled, will find its way
into the skies, then kiss my eyes.
(but it burns, it screams like a blow to the head)

You, a sweet surprise— the ash in my eyes—
Sharpening the edges into clear, cutting lines
That run ragged and ravenous through my head,
drag me through the ashes of the long-dead and I
Promise not to scream when they snip this thread--
(Oh, I would really love if you’d pull this thread)


Yes, I’ve foreseen this moment for so long:
You linger,
I blink;

and then you are gone.
La Funkbadger Dec 2014
There was an old crab from the Andes
Who had claws in the place of the handies
She wasted her time
Chasing the sublime
Now she snips chickens in Nandy's


There was an old knight whose great sword
He'd swing so not to get bored
He ran through the Prince
But started to wince
When he saw the royal horribly gored


There was a dear ledger from Ryde
Who had Gods love at his side
He wrote bibles for pence
On an old picket fence
That loveable ledger from Ryde


There was an old fellow from Greece
Who always wore a golden fleece
He rode his horse far
Faster than any car
Because of the healing properties of the fleece


There was a camera man from Spain
Who always used to film in the rain
The water was wet
He'd always forget
Electrocutions caused him great pain


There was an old man whose bonnet
Was woven with pages of sonnet
For he was a poet
And didn't he know it
Pretentious old man with his bonnet


There was a young man whose cuticles
Were ornately fashioned in cubicles
He was so vain
To be pretty again
He funded big time pharmaceuticals


There was an old frigate from mars
Whose cannons sounded like guitars
This frightened the queen
Who vented her spleen
And shot the space frigate from cars


A cat and a mouse and a dog
Lived in a big giant frog
They always ate brie
For breakfast and tea
Now they all wear one sandal one clog


There was an old pear from Derry
Who was scarcely if ever so merry
He fell from a tree
Landing in a lee
Till farmer Giles turned him into perry


There was a young lady whose toliet
Was broken so plumber would oil it
The new seat would come
To comfort her ***
Until another breakage would spoil it!


There was an old dog with a dream
To build her own mighty trireme
She'd sail the sea
And be back home for tea
If only she had opposeable thumbs


There was an old butcher whose feet
Would every third sunday tread meat
He rolled in the blood
That came in a flood
From cuts in the **** so discrete


There was a young boy with three heads
Who slept in three seperate beds
Whenever he dreamt
He lost what it meant
(The downside of having three heads)


There was an old eagle who'd sing
About losing her old violin
She gave up the search
To perch in a birch
And starved herself horribly thin


There was an old priest by a tomb
Who curled up inside a stone womb
For so close to death
He cursed every breath
And waited the slow march of doom
Kimi Jan 2018
Positive thinking got you drinking yourself in shrinking it off like it was a bad day, just a bad play, that it'll go away maybe if you pray
Blinking the lies, closing the lids at the rest of your life, just to avoid losing your way, stop you from jumping off the bay, try to find that ray
Meditate, let the light illuminate your mind, realize that it is not your day, your month, your time to be alive, shoulda just dived
Leave behind the weight, everything that's falling off your plate, starve, **** off your *** drive, collide into the divine light

 Job, having a boss barking off orders behind the shop, his saliva tasting like cola pop, go back to making corn on the cob
Walk the fury off going to the bus stop, have the boss pass by with the new drive, feeling like your head is in a throb, your whole life is a joke
There you go asserting, to make sure you keep that earning, determined that this what you should be deserving, absorbing it because you got no other yearning
You're overworking, jerking yourself off cause you got everyone overlooking you, shaking you off, like you're nothing, of no concerning

Come back home alone, grab a beer to cheer yourself up, forget that you have no one dear, no peer to be sincere or express your biggest fear
Eat some made up meal, feel like a pioneer putting together some canned tuna with weird aroma, do some tear and stir, end up with an unclear gear
Binge watch some netflix, six episodes in a sitting, call it a quick fix for your emotional mix, wonder if its time to bring the crucifix, 
Expel the demons that keep making snips and ticks, writting a bad script for your life, six episodes and six more and another six, wonder if its all just a bad trip

You're a meaningless grain, this pain is in vain, you're not even part of the food chain, abstain from being the main one to entertain
Don't let the grey slob penetrate your right brain, don't complain to the earless strangers about your acid rain, they'll call you insane, show off their gain
You won't find in anyone a golden ray, they'll shower you golden then flush the drain,  steal your blood when you cut off your aortic vein, 

Rise above before your demise, realize you're the one holding the light, that life is more than smelling like french fries, that if there's no light, you rob a flashlight.
Cries and kicks won't bring the sunrise, sanitize your thoughts, do not penalize your gut, ride the highs before you die, customize your hell ride.
You're on your own, and time is drippin on, you don't get a clone to do a re-do and reach the throne, get off your phone, soon you'll be staring into a light in your tombstone
Grow a backbone, burn down your belief of home, do not pospone your will to live because its out of your comfort zone
Matalie Niller Aug 2012
Pitter- Patter-
no more,
just shut up
can't take
nervey nerves
so dumb
no big deal
just feels
out of place
in my face
can't escape
shouldn't
would be a regret
until then
sweats and snips
no relief
not in usual pain killers or thrillers
just thinking far ahead
when everything will be
anxious for another reason.
tabitha Nov 2019
i'm in the plains, i'm John Wayne, and Jim's got me beaming
they wait for me, no one but me, to scream/shout/break the ice,
subzero prairie air sticks to my breath as i mutter
something about needing someone to love me
it melts my red-hot words into smoke as i speak
my lips crack but don't bleed
it freezes my wounds so they don't leak
good enough for me
i stay out there
for the great release...

Lucy showed me the river of rainbows running deep in my veins,
Molly paraded me through the paths of pleasure saying,
"it's yours to choose, whenever you please."
Jim taught me that good things come with time, just in time
my vices / my mind whisperers

then my palms pop with static, my brain identifies havoc
a humbling wave of logic, there like a zealous paramedic,
snips a clean line through the icy glaze of my delusion.
back from whence i came. this bar. that stool. that night. acting cool.
i come to my own rescue.

emotionalism: subdued
heart's ripping flesh: re-glued
i know i've been runnin'...
not away from but toward somethin,
because the avett brothers warned me about that in '07
i chase, i glide, i soar
searching for something...
something...
not heaven...

i, in all of my aspiring ecstatic toughness,
i   -----  crave
             more:
a wicked-good fight beat
molten gold down my throat and then i feel it in my feet
sweet sweet sweet then down down deep
free it, release it, strike thunder
why do we hold ourselves back?

— The End —