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 May 2014 Michael Amery
Anne M
Our flesh makes words
which are caught
like peanut butter
on the roofs of our mouths. Trapped
by teeth
until they can be freed.
But they’re too alive
for our unmoving lips
and we’re choking
on the verbs that won’t cease,
the nouns that fight,
and the adjectives that breathe
and beat
against our natural rhythms.
We've got participles
dangling from our tonsils.
On our imperfect palates,
they form sentences.
Thoughts.
Ideas
that must be spoken.
Shared.
Heard.
These words that form
in the madness of our hearts
and bubble
in the heat of our cheeks
aren't questions,
suggestions
or even statements.

They are commands.
 May 2014 Michael Amery
Anne M
Curled like an ampersand
around a telephone
that never rings in time
with the words that sing in her ears,
She waits again.

Her hands and lips
cold-blooded mercenaries
that ****** what she can’t quite hold
with silence and questions.
with ellipses and time.

So she pushes again
seeking definition.

But finding the horizon has never been so hard.
Her vision so thoroughly blurred.
And the sunsets force her closer to a Something
she can’t quite believe in.

So she pulls what she knows
into herself,
rolls into a familiar shape and waits
for a phone that has always been ringing,
A voice she isn’t ready
to hear.
It's eleven o'clock,
my socks are wet.
You pull a silver spoon
from your pocket and say
I'm not finished yet.

Steal the links to our chains
golden fences
never looked
so flimsy.
Go hungry for the holidays,

how do I die again?

I heal better at home.

So come on over.

My ears are ringing,
I'm singing songs
of yesterday.
My ears are ringing,
you don't think
things will ever be the same.

Collect all the garbage,
put a ribbon on your prize.
My ears are ringing,
and I'm singing
how do I die again?
Unstable, used, she picks up the bill
and walks out.
Looks to the heavens
no miracle tonight.
At least she looks good,
no clown eyes.
No, running mascara
Just a woman emerging
She, snorts at her inner monologue
'Emerging' ha, in more ways than one.
The palatial house, gone,
the unfaithful spouse, gone,
the demon on her back, gone.
Her mother named her well
Sable 'heraldic word for black'
The darkest colour
Jet black, ebony.
Bonnily she steps out, ironically
clad in a Sable
she drops the coat to the floor
wearing nothing at all.
No need to conceal anything
she does as the flashing lights tell her
(Blue lights)
gets down on the floor
© JLB
 May 2014 Michael Amery
Poetic T
I put a pen to my
temple and Bang
my head shudders,
out flowed words as
if they were blood...
 May 2014 Michael Amery
Jack
~

I have stood on aging avenues
watching walls crumble
while destiny’s debris
collects
at my feet

pieces of the past?

I have heard the laughter of babies
and the wail of the homeless,
opposites in a
straight line of
what is
and what might be

voices of the future?

I have stared into the portals of
left over meanings,
methodically
laid out to rest
on long tables
of bad intents

visions cast of shadows?

I have knelt before a dream,
clutching my chest
with indecision,
the pain
a reminder of my
fragile heart-
opened

memories of lost love?

I have cried
without a witness,
empty streams of
dense forgiveness,
requested of no one
and answered by the same

and nothing remains?
the cold dirt road on  the mountain
its holes filled with ***** rainwater
a broken fence to one side
marking the edge of her farm
the trees obscure any distance
just patches of meadows and dark wood
the summer song of birds gone to roost
she walks alone hands buried in her pockets
she was born on this mountain
she will be an old woman here someday

a ****** of crows feast loudly
on some dead thing in the tall grass
of the bright haze of the meadow
untouched by breeze and soaked in sun
they gather at the overhang of a dead oak
where beer cans and spent bullets lay
like corpse's of a battlefield lament
the burnt shell of the oak
leans dangerously against the field stone
covered with graffiti
she would wait for him here
the ****** of crows gave way to silence
watching

her father was a good man in his way
lean and quiet with a dark look
but as her father goes to show
one man in his family's arms another in the world
the nature of a man changes when he
steps out his door
few know a man
sometimes none

she is a rare beauty small town girl
but as much as she dreams of the wider world
hard fact taught her nothing like home
the nature of the world changes when you
step out your door
few will care about you
sometimes none
she was born to the mountain
she is going to be an old woman here
few know the heart of a woman
sometimes none
(not what you think its about...but a cautionary tale never the less)
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