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 May 2023 JLB
Smothered Divine
He walks with grace like butterfly wings flutter
A scent like lavender,
Skin like butter.
His soft spoken voice, a calming sound
Akin to honey, bees flying around.

But he carries a sadness
Deep in his eyes
A sorrow that dares not see the sunrise
Perhaps a lost love, or an action filled with regret.
The weight of the knowledge has him affixed to his bed.

The townsfolk wonder,
who could he be?
A man of few words, a mystery.
But everyone knows, him by his scent
The fragrance of lavender,
undertones of torment.

One day he vanished..
without a trace.
No one knew where he went,
no one bothered to chase.
His fragrance lingered in the air
A sweet reminder
Of a man so rare

It was later revealed,
he took his life.
The sadness too great,
Emotions a strife.
But his lavender garden, a final farewell
From a man who suffered an untold hell.

The townsfolk mourned
The loss of a friend
The scent of lavender,
A bittersweet end.

The lavender man can now finally rest,
He didn't do great, but he tried his best.
 May 2023 JLB
Luke
I went out to find
Some value in me,
So I sold what I had
For little a fee.

My eyes for a penny
I sold to some fools,
They're blind and useless,
Mistook for jewels.

My lips for a nickel
To the sweetest sin,
So they'll know the love
That has never been.

My ears for a dime
I sold to a lover.
To hear sweet nothings,
And silence uncover.

My hands for a quarter
I sold to a ghost,
So that she might feel
What I've wanted the most.

Finally my bones for a dollar
I sold to the earth,
But as for my soul-
There was found no worth.
 May 2023 JLB
Joshua Reece Wylie
Sitting here in the car
with the windows semi-down
there is a bloom of content
as the door is swung open
to receive a cool breeze
which breaths on my face
and glides over my feet
relishing their woodland walk
my body embracing the warmth of the end of May
as Springtime collides into summer
Written Saturday 27th May 2023.
Copyright Joshua Reece Wylie 2023
 Sep 2020 JLB
michelle reicks
I have never touched you.
I have wildly laughed, bent
at the waist, hair
hanging - shaking laughter.

You have seen my garden,
we have circled it. Bare patches of dirt held up by crooked wood planks, they were here when i moved in, i just put up the chicken wire.
I told you what I wanted to grow in my soil.
I told you about my truce with the weeds - creeping charlie that
grows beautiful tiny purple flowers and heals your stinging nettle if you yank up the small round leaves and rub them on your skin, turning it green, but
also choke out my radishes.

I have seen you sweat -
on a bicycle on a hot
day - you look at
me - exasperated.
   And joyous.
Under your helmet, beads
of moisture gently sliding down your hairline.
You are gorgeous. And you
may or may not know it-
But when you smile at me,
my heart smiles back.

You feel like forgiveness.
You feel like inner peace and hope.

Your gentle quiet vulnerability
   has me weeping

                relief
                 joy
                 grief for my past
                                     selves.
A deeper understanding of
myself and of love and connection.

A spiritual journey, - is all
life is.
 Apr 2018 JLB
anthony Brady
Daffodils?
Wordsworth’s waved and danced:
mine just bend, bow and nod,
in a sight, densely displayed
upon a mossy bank.

No lake there, nor cloud
in the sky,neither am I lonely.
I'm here with a girl called April.
Counting those yellow heads
is easy: sixty, if I’m not mistaken.

How William “...saw ten thousand
at a glance..” from a closet, baffles me.
It seems daffodils make you gay
and sprightly dance - jocund too -
at least they made him so.

Now supine upon my comfy couch
I lie - in breezy mood of parody,
it transports me off to Holland.
where  in Amsterdam counting tulips,
Naughty Weekend April is beside me.

TOBIAS
 Aug 2015 JLB
Pen Lux
it's nice to find
satisfaction
in hoping

it's nice to feel
my mind
opening

it's nice to see
a path
constructing

it's nice to know
everything
is fluxing

it's nice to be
me
and nobody else

it's nice to
finally
love myself
 Aug 2015 JLB
spysgrandson
Father
you were in my dream
confused, calling out for your own mother
though she was gone the year
I learned to walk

you walked
while you talked
your hair was not yet gray
yet you were more befuddled
than on your deathbed
in the poppy's soft
sluggish embrace

I could not trust
your words in the dream
why do these creamy visions
visit me, you so long
under the dirt?

what other words will come
when I am defenseless, in repose
wishing for more from you, perhaps
even though it is fiction
I can never
decipher
 Aug 2015 JLB
spysgrandson
Michiko would never know
the strange creature that opened its bowels
that day, was named Enola Gay

she would remember the fine feel of the water on her face,
the taste of tea she had with her pears, and the odor of chrysanthemums through her window

the same window through which
her mother would stare, there, at the morning sky
at the smothering smoke of all creation

her brother was left a shadow
on a wall, nothing left at all of her father
who stood at ground zero

Michiko, only double digits the day before
would follow her mother down the long road
to the smoldering fires and scorched skin
and the stalking stench of the dead

on the path, along the way
but only that day, Michiko would see the black giant
growing in the summer sky
a magnet to her eye

more beautiful than all
the sweet flesh and shrines that fed it
a billion years in an instant
that August morn
The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 70 years ago today
 Aug 2015 JLB
Melissa Joy Carlson
She
i watched her lips part and smile form
i heard her laugh start and heart warm
her heart was sore and her jeans were ripped
her mouth sipped coffee from the mug she gripped

the pages from her book were bent,
they were stained where the coffee dripped
the pages from her book smelled like home
they reminded her of him

i watched her lips part as her feeble voice shook
tears filled her sorry eyes as she put away her book

she told me that she saw her life
as a page in a book she didn't intend to write


© Melissa Carlson 2015
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