the girls I danced with
I never wrote songs about

the girls I kissed under bursts of fireworks
I never won carnival prizes for

the girls I entered the sheets with
I never made a deeper connection

the girls who gave me their best
I never understood their motives

and I wondered where they all went and
why we parted ways like cathedral doors
and why they took the hand of other monsters and vanished into the night.

I was too naive to notice
all the red flags waving behind me
and too dense to turn around
and open my eyes.

but now I face this dry vacancy
and I see they’re
intertwined with their domestics
constricted with their marriages
taunting their husbands
commanding their boyfriends
obsessed with their photo albums
cramming belief and guidance into their children

its the same unabridged story
told over and over
and over and over
again.

I too, sit with this adverse outcome:
this one wants me to quit drinking
and that one wants me on a diet
and this one wants me to get a better job
and that one wants me to exercise more.

I’ve never been one to rest on my laurels,
but as I lay down in this bed with this one
like so many buried cold beneath the Earth,
I can’t stop thinking of those angels from my past that have flown off into other heavens.

I was never deserving
of their time nor
their presence

and I am neither
here nor
there.

Ephraim (Trump) feeds on the wind ,
And pursues the east wind ;
He daily increases lies and desolation .
Also they (he) make a covenant with the Assyrians (Russians) , and oil is carried to Egypt .

"I'll be a better friend this time".....

Was my beautiful life to much for you
Like a snake you snuck behind my back
Wearing the insidious mask of envy
Always hiding behind your lies
Like a plague you came back and killed me
As if you haven't taken enough from me
You've taken the last bit of my happiness
The last bit of hope and trust i had in humanity
You destroyed me
You burned all the bridges in my life
Why did you have to tread on my territory?
Why couldn't you just stay in your lane?
You open your mouth just to hear all your lies
the lies that want to bury me alive
What kind of friend are you?
You're more like a demon in Disguise

-Shelly Ramos

Breath in , breathe out
Lighting in , Lightning out
To sad , too much

anyone else have anymore to add ?

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

       (Written several days before the events of 24-25 March 2025)

                                The Brass-Elevator Mountaineer


                                        A weak imitation of

                                         Osip Mandelstam

                      Of whom let us pray, “Memory eternal”


Our lives no longer sense truth around them
In our ewails we are afraid of each other’s words

But whenever there’s an eye-rolled whisper
It’s about the brass-elevator mountaineer

The ten tiny worms of his fingers
His words like mountains of loot

The waving tendrils atop his head
The glitter of his shiny Tesla

Wheels stained with a **** of groveling bosses
He toys with the tributes of his house pets:

One clenches his fisties
Another salutes
A third pledges eternal loyalty

He pokes out his fingers and grabs ‘em by their _

He magic-markers mass deportations:
Three hundred or more for El Salvador
A hundred or so for Guantanamo
Uncounted hundreds to disappear
From routine check-ins here

“Your search has returned zero (0) matching records”

He rolls the possibilities of _ ___ on his tongue like diet sodas
He wishes he could deport his former best friends forever

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

A repost from March, 2018


                     Yes, Yes, But They Need Jobs in the Real World


                   “Forward Electronics, your victory’s achieved!
                    In all communication, progress is our creed!
                    Ignorance is darkness, technology is light!
                    Radio, our watchword; radio, our might!”

          -Komsomol youth singing in “For the Good of the Cause,”
           Solzhenitsyn, 1963


The plans for your construction are precise
The design and engineering are true
The foundations solid, the drains are laid
In mathematics pure, infallible

The offices are bright with light, well-aired
The flow of work geometrically set
The shops and stores convenient to the staff
In tactical practicalities placed

But do you wonder, at night, beneath your lamp -
Why are you building a concentration camp?