I wish I could forget you, leave behind the memories like you left me, but I can’t. You’re in the air I breathe, cutting up my lungs like pieces of glass and vodka drank all too quickly. Your scent is in my clothes and on my bed, snaking your way into my dreams at night. You’re in the coffee that I drink after sleepless nights; bitter and cold on my tongue but with the possibility of delicious warmth. You’re in the paths that I trudge down every day, reminding me of the times we spent there and the feelings that are now lost forever. I hate that you left me like this. All of these empty promises and a void so large no one could dream of filling it. You must not have ever loved me, because if you had it would have been impossible to just leave like you did, taking all of my heart with you. Packing it away in your suitcase along with the shirt I gave you and the books I’d lent. What did you do with the pictures of us? Would you try to forget and leave them in their frames, or did they not mean enough to you to even worry about and were thrown carelessly in the bottom of your bag? I hate the gaps you left in me. I’m broken and damaged now and you left with the cure to fixing me. This lovesick pain is getting tiresome and I hate that it isn’t wearing on you too. I thought I was someone you couldn’t live without. You sure as hell were to me. And what’s saddest of all is that if you came back now, I would run and throw my arms around you. Because I’ve already fallen as far as I can, there’s no need for me to be cautious now for I can’t slip farther down than I have. I would love to be someone that you need. Someone you can’t live without. I would be honoured to be the person you look at, the way that I looked at you. But I was just a passing spark for you, and you were my light. Just take back the memories like you took back everything else.

All intellect is dissected
Through the tunnel visioned perspectives
Stretched thin
In a stream of feed
Producing the illusion of need
Projected from old men
Who grin
Below the suicidal idols
Of the rivals
And glutton in the maniacal sins
Commenced
By brain dead Americans
Painted in the amens of the dense
Commending the hymns
Of spent casings
Atop the blood of babies
And maybe
One day
It can be better
Than the clever endeavours
To sever the head of the predators
Washing our hands of their sedatives
And delivering the skulls to the slavers
But we are pay dirt
Shoveled into trucks to work
For a leafless tree
Ready and wanting to believe
In anything
That doesn't see our deeds
As we
Are manufactured with the greed
Of sleeved wisemen
With five of a kind
In the fight for life
Putting our souls
Upon our rites
We bet
Despite the path of right
Infringing on the height
Of success
In excess
Of the tests message
We are the blessing
Of a warning
Within a forgotten story
Historically denoting its anointing
We are the disappointment
Of the warrior
Defeated in a court
Of corrupted consorts
Sorting out the blueprints
For a new fort
Distorting the borders
Of moral disorders
With orders to kill
The hoarders of will
We are the shrill screech
Of a dying world
And we are alive
But dead
Born to kill
Batteries of a shield
Building hell
To sell heaven pills

Late last night I saw something fall from the sky,
I happened to be in the kitchen making tuna on rye.
As I looked out my window it landed in my yard.
It crushed the pink flamingos, the wife took it hard.

I stood there at the window taking in the sight,
Bright lights flashing red, blue, and white.
Then suddenly a door slid open, I was seized by fright.
But my wife had gone out the door, in her hand a kitchen knife.

As the little green man stepped out, he was looking fine,
In a tye dye tee shirt, waving his hands in a peace sign,
Looking like he had come straight from the sixties,
I think he was expecting to find some hippies.

Thinking this guy might be peaceful, I tackled my wife,
As she dropped the knife, I yelled, "He might be nice".
The little green man then pulled out a bic and gave it a flick,
As he held two finger to his lips, I realized his vice.

As I had given that up long ago, I had nothing to share.
But the little guys face showed such despair,
I went into the house and got the beer from the fridge,
And grabbed the Nacho Doritos for this astorial kid.

We sat on the lawn chairs out under the sky,
drinking the beer, eating tuna on rye.
I asked where he was from, he just pointed up.
When we finished our beers, I said good luck.

Back to the spaceship the little man went,
his steps were unsteady, I think he was spent.
He got in the spaceship and closed the door.
As I waved goodby, the spaceship took off with a roar.

I heard on the news later that night,
That something had crashed in a field, lips were tight.
But I heard a rumor, that someone was found alive.
I guess I should have told him not to drink and fly.

I: Hypocritical Accusations of a Jealous Knave
I could have sworn the Queen winked at me as
I laid my Royal Flush on the table
Clubs
She was always the prettiest
Hers is my suit:
I imagine myself as the Jack
Who turns her from Monarchess to
Adulteress in the Royal Garden
Maybe slip her a stolen tart or two
To spite the King for he always
Outranked me
The chances of being dealt it are
Sixty four thousand, nine hundred and seventy (ish) to
One,
If my luck is running out,
Why must it be wasted
In the gaining of ethereal money?
Why not conserved for the selling of my soul to
A queen who is not ink on laminate
Card?
Or at least not here in an
Imagined Vegas or Montecarlo where
Neon, though colourless in nature,
Forms a blinding parody of a hell, hooded
In green and pink and orange and yellow or more
To pass as a heaven for
The wannabe vagrants of brat nations
Who may weep pennies for a disaster,
Remove the split onion, retake the shining knife
And bleed brass, nickel, copper and
Slaughtered tree (more ink) into
An impossible lottery
Hoping for a transfusion with
Monetary hepatitis and all from
The blind benefactors
Apply a plaster and
Reabsorb oneself into the mirror
I too am guilty of all this

II: Inside the Dreams of a Madman to Be
Checkmate.
Oh how the intellectuals do duel
Yet spill not one drop of blood;
Like the bishops of old before they were
Confined to diagonals
Who would carry clubs instead
Of blades to preserve their
Sanctity:
Keep it white, not stain it red
Or brown, dotted with congealed black;
It is a wonder to paint
But not to see or to feel
This was before the days when
Bleach could hide one’s
Breaking of the LORD’s commandments
And before the harnessed
Lightning strike
Killed the LORD himself in his creation’s (<Eyes
And so the bleach was not needed
Yet still it sold because
Grass stained trousers:
The fruits of a hard summer afternoon’s
Labour in the sun
An atom of wasted
Childhood well spent
Could not be called a sin

III: Nonsensical Ramblings of the Recently Awakened
The eyes of an ivory cubic
Snake in two parts leer up at me
Does this mean defeat at the hands of fate?
Nonsense! I am the hand of fate
The left, disused one to be exact;
It is not chivalrous to use me
Yet I am the hand of many things
I know nothing of hands or of dice
I tell lies instead

He undertook
  Such a jolly folly
To search for his heart's twin

O'er plain, and peak
   Never sparing daring
Mad quest he did begin

He careless spent
  All his funny money
For he spared no expense

Heard of a man
   said to uncover lovers
Without a recompense

"He's only known
   as the Giant Bryant"
For there were none bigger

So off he went
  For how dare-he tarry
With the greatest vigor

Within one moon
  He did righted sighted
The giant's stone castle

And cautious stepped
  Midst the towers flowers
For he was quite facile

With guarded prose
  Lest he adverse converse
Relayed his quest of years

And though none be
  A more mighter blighter
Tall Bryant shed six tears

"Your search for love"
    Reflects gallant talent
And will surely quench thirst

In yonder vale
  In a deeping sleeping
A daughter who's born first
    
A true love's heart
   And hair flaxen waxen
Braids tressed with a blue fleur

She longs for love
    To keep-her deeper
Hope steels her to endure

It was just so
  For he found-her sounder
In the vale with fields green

Her braided hair
   In breeze saving waving
With the suns golden sheen

As he held her
  In their blissing kissing
Knew he'd ne'er search again

For in her eyes
   Shown a growing knowing
Reflecting his hearts twin

She spent her whole life dreaming. Everything and everyone she encountered told her
to stop. “It’s a waste of time” “It’s not healthy” “Grow up” they’d say. And eventually she
started to believe the things people said. She wanted big things - for herself and for
others, but it didn’t take long for her to realize the importance of settling. It made things
easier and she had the tendency to complicate them without even trying. She felt
isolated from the world just outside her door but she didn’t know how to change that or if
she even wanted to. The best things in life tend to waste away after a matter of
moments. They pass away as if they’d never existed. Maybe she’d imagined them all.
She began to condition herself to expect disappointment. It worked for a little while, but
hard as she tried to shield herself from the pains of everyday life - the bullet always
seem to find her. It always came, without fail and pierced her heart with little regard for
the repercussions. She longed for the day she would be good enough for the people
she loved. Maybe you had to earn it, and she hadn’t yet collected enough gold stars to
pick out of the treasure box.

Nights spent with fingers crossed
make it hard to return texts
but the message I forgot?
Whilst occupied with shit-talk
and sliding 'cross these frosty sidewalks
was you won't be forgot

Coughing, choking down this spite I chew
I'm through with slowly dying here
and rotting out my youth.

I know this stream of epithets
pouring out my mouth
sometimes missed its mark
and unfairly wet you down

I'm letting this town down, now
But it always did the same,
and shame's the only lesson I have learnt.

So, with bridges burnt, I leave behind
these Dow and Main Street blues
Shoes worn through, I bid adieu
to Broadway and Alger
to the lumps in my throat
     on the 5th Street bridge...

Forgive me my distractions,
dispositions and my scowls
I'll reposition my tongue, now
     for milder words

But still...

This place will fucking kill me
if I don't leave, right now.
So plant one on my cheek,
or clasp my arm and see me out.

This ghostly whisp of smoke
has found its proper breeze
and punched its ticket
to touch nostrils in a new locale--

--Punched its ticket to say, "Fuck it."
     and pull a solid form
     to cover all this ether in.

The granite sky's eroding
          --finally!--
Rocky dust falls down, lithic snowflakes
But I'll shake it off my shoulders, now.

I'm sick of sighing, sick of shame.
Fed up with guilt, I settled my bill
with all I can't forget
  
          Because,

"My kids will never scrap shit 'round here,
And I won't die crying in a pint of beer..." (McGowan)
I'll turn my back all fondly,
But sneer into the wind.

And so it comes to this: the end of days,
The sum of starlit nights and rain-washed years
I spent with friends who lie stone dead in fields
Of Troy. My faithful Andromache waits
With Astyanax, my son: I wish my stay
Would last one summer more; to see him grow,
To lie with her in balmy autumn nights,
And rest in fields where Golden barley grows.

But Achilles waits: no war is ever just,
And he is young, a boy who seeks his fame,
He does not understand my love for life.
The gods have foretold this: but I will not
Take shelter behind walls. I see old death;
He waits for me. What can a mortal do
When gods take sides, and all our years are bound
In dice that fates have rolled; and now death waits.

As long as mankind exists, Achilles wants
His name to last, but I just want to live
In peace, to tend my goats and watch the sun
In lands where neither men nor gods seek blood;
But Achilles waits: and death is waiting too.
And all my yesteryears have led to this:
This field, this god-infested ground, and I
Wait sword in hand for death: I am ready.

Diptesh Ghosh

Only the rain falls silently
Like the happy years before;
On the house where we spent our years,
But can return never more.

Diptesh Ghosh

finally, inspiration to write
you, and these thoughts
got me up all night
sleepin all day
wasting every minute not spent in your way
my sweet,
won't you beg me to stay?