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  May 2024 Traveler
South-by-Southwest
The day
by daze
the days are due

Watching
the wallpaper
come unglued

I twist
and turn
within my skin

There's no relief
or chance
to win

I clasp
by grasp
with shaky hands

Woolen lapels
compels
to truth to stand

The paige
is paid
in skin and bone

The cannibal
enthrawled
"Welcome home !"
  May 2024 Traveler
Jessica B
🩶

Life is more than who we are….
  May 2024 Traveler
Thomas W Case
It's One a.m. in the psych ward.
Let's just call it 4 North.
On the table that I'm writing at is a plant,
it looks to be a member of the cactus family.
Three nurses sit behind a glass booth
and watch me with curiosity.
One of them looks to be a member of the
cactus family—or is it cacti?
Either way, I don't want her close to me.
Just now, one of the cacti-looking nurses says,
"What are you writing? "
I say, "My escape plan," without looking up.
She says,
"Very interesting."
That's one thing I've noticed in the
psych ward, everything is very interesting.
Just once, I wish they would say,
"That is the most boring load of
**** I've ever heard."
Then, maybe I'd be less inclined
to think they resemble members of the plant life.
Check out my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7n3PXaA5szQKvZ8VlkcxTA
  May 2024 Traveler
Lawrence Hall
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Submitting a Ballot Blank


                                   “Obey me and be free!”

                          -Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner


Feel free to submit a ballot blank
To ignore all those rotten cabbages in rows
We have only ourselves to thank
That our party leaders are Rolex-rich pharaohs

Feel free to submit a ballot blank
The parties’ incompetent choices need not be ours
Forced upon us through caucuses dark and dank
Let us assert our constitutional powers

When they issue us ballots bearing no real choice
We will return them just as empty  -
          That will be our silent, powerful voice
  May 2024 Traveler
brandychanning
The Unbearable Winter’s mist

The winter’s mist,
peculiar,
the sky augurs
blue and sun mellow,
but clouded vision
begets and besets,
my own and owned
melancholy vision is
a consequential
snake like blurry speckled band,
of my own drawing,
covering my eyes,
when I read Márai‘s
wit, write, legal writ,
but with my corrected
add
of the
un
and my own self assigned
grade is a bright red
F


eye of the beholder

Life becomes unbearable
”when one has come to
terms with who one is,
both in one's own eyes
and in the eyes of the world.
We all of us must come to terms
with what and who we are, and
recognize that this wisdom is not
going to earn us any praise, that
life is not going to pin a medal on
us for recognizing and enduring
our own vanity or egoism or
baldness or our potbelly. No, the
secret is that there's no reward
and we have to endure our characters
and our natures as best we can, because
no amount of experience or insight is
going to rectify our deficiencies, our
self-regard, or our cupidity. We have
to learn that our desires do not find
any real echo in the world. We have
to accept that the people we love
do not love us, or not in the way
we hope. We have to accept betrayal
and disloyalty, and, hardest of all,
that someone is finer
than we are in
character or intelligence.”


Sándor Márai
trying my hand at  more traditional poetry,
yes, still self absorbed; but when I read
Marai’s wods ,was struck that by adding un to bearable
the words had equal validity
  May 2024 Traveler
South-by-Southwest
For I no longer find favor
In your exclusionary arms
No longer embrace the warmth nor kindness
You come lacking all your charms

The eyes have all turned inward
They gaze upon your wall
You have pulled the curtains
Now I feel like Adam after he had made the fall


I am the seed that was turned to grist
By the grinding of your wheel
For I see , I feel , and taste
Your ever consummating will

I was raised a tumble ****
in death was I set free
To roam the plains of noncompliance
by the fickle winds that be

Every day a broken branch
Rounded out in form
Everyday another chance
Was I only to be scorned ?

So I choke on the dust of life
No waters near nor far
Forever will I remember
the child . . .

Sleeping . . .  

in the rear window of the car
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