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 Dec 2012 J Christmas
Ian Beckett
I was fifty-three this morning,
But I feel so much older now,
Having lived a lifetime in a day.

It started like a thousand others,
Time suddenly skipped a track,
Everyone I know is dead and gone-

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
I never knew that time was precious,
This morning was a hundred years ago.
 Dec 2012 J Christmas
BarelyABard
I saw you.
You seemed the same.
Your eyes seemed the same.
Your lips seemed the same.
Your smile seemed the same.
I touched you.
Your skin felt the same.
Your kiss felt the same.
Your breath smelled the same.
I held you against me.
Your warmth seemed the same.
Your touch felt the same.
Your stroke felt the same.

You seemed...
the same...

I looked in her eyes,
and all they said was...

You are not the same...




I am not the same...
Flawless was the sky
Stained by blood
A rise in the war fields
A smile among hate

A child born of darkness
But eyes of innocence

Pulled closer to the pain
I was wrapped in my own cocoon
So beaten on the inside
Soul ridden

Twinkling light held above my head
Cry blood

Sticks scrape my skin
Rocks break my bone
Words slice my neck

One scream to echo

No one can feel my pain
I must bare it alone
Carting this weight on my back
I mustn't fall

No wings to beat
No way of escape
I hang my head mournfully

String to bow
My song plays
But my soul
Lost its
Way
Home
 Dec 2012 J Christmas
Jamie Cohen
I like driving at night


indigo nights in the odd hours of the morning
my tired eyes adjust to the rhythm of the traffic
a slow fluid, tempo, melting into soft orange lights
cars slip in and out of my consciousness

the street illuminated in artificial glows
and manufactured air fills my lungs
forming goosebumps on my skin
my eyes are growing weary

the radio static, constant
tuned to 91.3
plays liquid jazz
dewdrops on my weary mind
and my pulse fills the empty spaces in the bassline

the music melts into the rhythm
the soft lull of the engine humming
the crescendo and decrescendo of tires on pavement
a lullaby

the reflectors twinkle on street
like artificial stars
and the highway-- a tangle of progress
unravels before me

my eyes slip into a dream

I like driving at night
but one day I won't
What happens when my bliss,
Resides in you?
And when you leave,
What the **** shall I do?

Happiness is temporary,
I've been taught many times.
And you, my dear,
You're oh so sublime.

You, my love,
Many times, proved an angel,
But my love for you,
Proves my being to be in danger.

Because love is not forever,
And bliss is just for a minute.
And love resembles bliss,
Which unfortunately, I am in it.

For to lose you is my death,
And to love you is a threat.
To need you causes stress,
I need you and nothing less.

I love you.
I cannot outrun that fact,
And if you decide to run away,
Would bliss ever come back?
Actually, I am very drunk... but I still need you.
Hell is but a step
within redemption.
Hate is but a smile
among conception.

Heaven is the run,
of a fast and wild stream.
Love is the voice
of every person's dream.

Opposites attract
even the ghosts of a past.
Being alike
is what everyone wants last.
 Dec 2012 J Christmas
Tom McCone
held up in gutterwork masterpieces,
half a shard of torn and ragged paper edged on,
where once it bore, proud and in eager definition,
a reminder of little importance or,
a note of sweet insincerity or,
the last refuge of an eviscerated mind;
and, lost to entropic freedom,
no-body would care to ever even want to begin deciphering those smears.
not that they could, anyway.

the death of parking lot culture,
they say,
is all down to the skin on the teeth,
of a couple earthquake-gowned security wardens,
and the irresistible clamour
of city lights:
"just gotta get away, get outta this place" you say,
when you haven't slept
a real night
in three or so months, at last count, in the best-case,
whereas the real tragedy
is the drizzle,
that you're sure
will never,
ever,
cease to fall,
inside of you,
even though you keep telling yourself,
it's still just a lie.
it's all just a storytime fabrication.
it's all just waiting to fall apart.

and you're just hoping it's sometime soon.
 Dec 2012 J Christmas
Marigold
My soul is ancient.
And it is not mine.
In darkest reaches of my heart I am told I do not own it.
I am impermanent.
I feel interminable.
My soul reaches to those around it,
But finds little kinship.
This soul and I are locked together
Out of time and place,
We are anachronisms.
You have seen us before.
They died; they all died, without a moan;
their final passage writ in stone.
Dark shadows here and there you see
where Jews passed to eternity.
In these silent streets no children play
No trees survived the heat that day.
A suicide martyr some call a hero
was detonated at ground zero.
Nine hundred thousand are believed lost
in this second, instant, holocaust.
The suitcase he held in his hand
was the latest weapon from Iran.
My team has come here to retrieve
the evidence from Tel Aviv.
No one will be living here
Not for another fifty years.
• * * * * *
A damsel with a dosimeter,
in a vision I once saw,
warned me that appeasement
nearly always leads to war.
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