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 Dec 2013 Alyse M King
Ryan Unger
There was a young lad, whose name was Ben,
And he had the worst gas of all of his friends,
Every time he’d cut the cheese,
He’d bring them pleading to their knees.

“Please Ben, be a friend, and go seek some help,
For your gas is so potent that even the skunks yelp!”

Well Ben sat and thought for a second,
I’ll just break wind into a jar he reckoned.
Ill twist off the lid and plug up my ***,
And fill the jar with my putrid gas.

For weeks and weeks he collected his farts,
Til the air inside the jar was thick and dark.
He placed the old jar on top of his shelf,
I’ll get rid of you tomorrow, he said to himself.

Well something happened that night, and Ben’s life was taken,
When a violent storm left the whole house shaken.
The jar that Ben placed on his shelf with such care,
Had fallen, releasing his gas into the air.

Ben proceeded to suffocate slowly but steadily,
A victim of a crime that was silent but deadly.
In the time it took to read these lines
A million mayflies were born and died
In half a blink of the cosmic eye.
I’ve had recurring nightmares
That these dreams of you would pass
And leave me with a reality
Far too stark for me to last.
And I’ve had a throbbing ache
Lodged somewhere in my chest
That what we have will fade
And that our love was just a guess.

But these nightmares pass me over
Like phantom ships into the night-
Or like thunderstorm and lightning
Disappear after a fight.
So take my hand and lead me
Guide me somewhere where you are
For I do not care for any bliss-
It runs away when you’re not here.
 Apr 2012 Alyse M King
JDK
Cricket to cricket
Mouth to mouth
A horse in the garden
A hole in the mouse
A moon crash landing on the roof of this house

Glasses to ashes
Dust enough
An army of lions
Couldn't figure this out

A print too dark
A matchbook on fire
An imp in the corner
With a spoon and a lighter

A line in the middle
A sheep in the hay
A boy with a fish
Thinks of something to say

A band in a march
A bulb with a glow
A group of people
With somewhere to go

A square and a circle
A line and a string
A mass of a miracle
Begins suddenly to sing
Humanity is the poetry of Science
The throbbing headache and nausea
I can endure; I've had worse.
Right now I could cry,
such a raw hope consumed me
as I thought about you, desperate.
It was still dark for me then,
when I needed you. Now it's day.
It brings a true smirk to my face
to know you are nothing more
than a night of binge drinking:
a foolish part of my youth,
a consequence of boredom.
I could not hold your liquor,
I vomited all that bile you said to me
in the hedges outside. Don't fret,
this is not a bad memory, in fact
you might never be a memory at all.
I am well. I will drink better and
far more dangerous poisons.
I am today, you are only last night.
I am myself
You already know this, but not to the extent that I, myself do
I have found myself, I was never looking, but there I was
I never devoted any part of my life to finding me
But, I always hoped to discover myself eventually
I, myself; am a peculiar sight, and an even more complex thought
My desires and interests are ever-changing
But they are always more confusing than the last
What do I want? That is a good question
I have already found I, myself
So what I currently want, as I, myself

I … myself… wish to find you
Then there was the sudden stillness
of thousands of birds on the telephone wires
strung like records of our transgressions
in an unquiet pattern against
roiling gray sky.
How had they come there, how
in their alien dance had they conceived
this tautness, this bizarre
and malefic solidity
from their own selves,
a tension like a hand
on the small of your back, at the nape
of your neck.

Then there was the sudden stillness
of thousands of black birds on telephone wires,
black stones on a string, a long dash
on granite sky—
There was a squandering ember that climbed her spinal chord
and lit the deteriorating birchwood on the peach-fuzzed tea lamps.

When those stairwells cramped and swelled with staggered liquid terraces
in the foundational pin-cushion that cradled family after family.

Woe begone chants that railed support beams moaning under elemental abuse.

A litter of ghost kittens coiling underfoot where the rug
used to yawn before the grandfather clock,
now senile and rotting with absent-minded tick-tocks.

Inside her streetcorner, the music was that
monkey hopping to street ***** blue notes on somber ropes.

The air thick with the regal, chunky vibe
of batting eyes, flirty sighs, and bourbon.

Between the buildings again...
embraced with the same warm feeling that
entrances your fingertips, lips, and ears when within a man's arms.

In this city, Love is those two birds on that same powerline
that bowed and ebbed with summer's sweet sigh.
I cannot fly today
Yet perhaps last night
We flew between the stars
Who can tell?
Tomorrow will no doubt
Be like today
But not always
Not everlastingly so.
I sew the scenes
Of our escape
While sitting here tonight
Sleepily concealed
In this weighted room
And happily involved
In inward visions
Of eventual flight.
Please pardon
My distraction.
I am so immersed
In a solitary search
For solar satisfaction.
Copyright 2010
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