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If distance were a metaphor,
its synonymous yet factual depiction would be itself.
Its shear complexity stretches over multitudes,
and from its belly flows rivers of emotions;
anger, frustration, regret sadness and not forgetting self realization.
Inadvertently it separates people and yet brings them closer.
Without doubt it's an enigma of life, call it Einsteins quantum theory of light.
Until one can comprehend the subliminal message deeply coded in the core of this phenomenon,
and without hesitance decipher its elaborate meaning,
one has no choice but to matriculate into it's class and take it's lesson.
Call it school of hard knocks 101.
 Oct 2012 Audrey
Kyle Kulseth
Another silent mid-Fall afternoon
Icy raindrops slash into my neck
The forecast calls for falling thumbtacks soon
One thin umbrella folding
Just 18 feet to the front step

With champagne acquainted
But forgot how to sip it
I slurp it down, eager,
'til I sit soaked and dripping

In time, fevered minds
will lower ears made for hearing
under waves of migraines
as mighty storm fronts are nearing

So I close down the bars and stumble home under awnings
Just to search for your name among newspaper cuttings
I've read the whole issue
and I've frowned over headlines
     put it down

Now, soaked or dry, I've got only time
I've wasted so much of it losing my mind
I'm blind in the rain that now sticks in my hide
     and they were right--
The forecast called for this squall to last all night

Another lonely mid-Fall morning walk
I follow gangs of specters in their steps
And, in the crunching gravel, ghosts will talk
November winds come howling
The second I leave my front step

The flavor's familiar
It comes back every morning,
when sunlight and sparrows
ignore tornado warnings

So the gales pick up strength
and a small bird's bones are hollow
The clouds lay oceans down
setting many sips to swallow

"So goodnight." I depart, but circle back in my wanderings
I'll always wind up here--shaky, ash-faced and yawning
I've read this before
it's printed on poor paper
     in red ink

I can't say why I'm still walking by
Those other front doorsteps that I never try
The thick thumbtack rain stopped but I can't stay dry
     the ghosts were right--
But if I find your name I might stop by.
 Oct 2012 Audrey
Kelly Landis
it's a wonder we are still surviving,
writing and re-living:
past memories and guilt,
pent-up lust and miserable deceit

sometimes i think,
you were the lucky one
 Oct 2012 Audrey
Kyle Kulseth
Under alcohol umbrellas
We'll seek shelter from the snow
This street is icing over
Sliding sleet beneath our toes.

This place keeps getting colder,
They predicted our bad luck
But the globe is growing warmer
Choke me down, I'll get choked up.

It's like Wharton is your neighbor
And McCarthy shares her bed--
     We've got plenty Pretty Horses
     But no Room, here, for Old Men

Tickers spit out headlines
Half of us can't even read.
But the other half's no better,
     We're cannibals eating dreams.

So you'll keep your smoke and mirrors.
And, reflecting, stifle coughs.
Operate under assumptions:
Overrated's good enough.

But I'm taking bets, suggestions,
And donations, West to East.
So, from minor indiscretions,
     I might try to beg release.
 Oct 2012 Audrey
Kyle Kulseth
Give the night two glowing eyes
     The ashes spilling on your lap
And blue goes grey
And stories
        stay
clamped tight behind
       your pursed and frozen lips

Back alley ways through black
                          and lighter greys
We'll bend our steps up northward
     past the frosted window panes
and swallow stories whole

Winter's on its howling way
     We're making up and think we're on the mend
(How are you making out,
     My stony, ash-faced friend?)
'Cause I been lying under
                    aching, heavy skies
And now I'm chewing on another sad story

The year's ragged breaths
              now begin to freeze
I gotta level with you:
--Speaking honestly--
The silence feels just like a fight.

"We could skate down frozen streets."
     You say to me and I keep
          seeking half-lived heat
Pretend to listen
          and I'm streaking through
                                'til Spring
Don't want another season's empty lies.

"I'm ******* sick of this place
     it's always, always only
     filling empty space--
but we keep living here.
     And I know that we're still
     just way too **** young to die."

Winter just arrived today
     You're breaking up and I don't think you're on the mend
How are you taking the
                muddy, snowy end

                  that never ends? And, brother,
                            winter skies fall slow.
Time to spit out every fermenting story

The year's rattled breaths
           froze and, now, they're ceased.
Let's take another shot for the deceased and face the fact that
we are all marked and diseased,
At least that's what I've seen 'til now.

That's all I've seen 'til now.
 Oct 2012 Audrey
Kyle Kulseth
The motions--
We're going through emotions (right?)
'Cuz there's not a better thing
           to do on Sunday
night. This place has lost
            religion
            ritualistically
And I think, realistically, it's time to do
                                                 the same

Overbooked, yet, overlooked
And on the hook for debts
                       outstanding
But you commanded my attention
            So stay unstained
I've been attaining second chances
     for unforeseen circumstances
So I'll drum if you keep dancing
             Just stay unstained

Intentions--
Can undergo declension
Yours and Mine are genitive
                  on dative Friday
nights. Some folks can lose
              their vision
              visionarily
So I'd say, cautionarily, "forget to do
                                            the same."

Aptitude for rectitude:
That may be shrewd, and yet--
                    while prudent
Rings no bells 'til midnight chimes out one
                more mortal year
Afeared, I fear, ad mortum. But we
     just keep pounding on pulsing heads
So let's drum on; keep on dancing--
                       Remain unstained.
 Oct 2012 Audrey
Kyle Kulseth
My nose, it just bled numbers--
Bled for years on years unnumbered
'Til I lost my youthful hunger
For anything but numbers
And coagulating blood

But with figures cold and clotting
And with innards now unknotting
I clear the corridors of blotting
And begin to finally breathe

Know pens belong on pages
In your pockets, in your hands
Not in lives, or heads or veins
Most certainly not in plans.
 Oct 2012 Audrey
AJ James
Brand New
 Oct 2012 Audrey
AJ James
Everything I'm feeling inside
is about to capsize.
I can't wait for these thoughts to subside
or will they collide
with the terrible force of my mind?
I say, God help me before I am confined
and so naively purblind.

I'm trying to find my way
and this may sound totally cliche
but **** I'm so terribly lost
I feel like my plans have crisscrossed.
But I'm actually star-crossed
with my own thought
of how I've turned into such a crackpot.

I'm so gone,
I'm squandered.
Am I being absurd?
My visions are blurred
and like a blind man I'm clobbered
by all the words that I have misheard.

But watch me
as I achieve
all that I can be.
I'm not a fool
I just need to refuel.
Take a moment
to just breathe...

..........

And I'll be back in full force
straight back on this wild concourse.
I'm not here to enforce
or endorse, I don't care
what's wrong with your discourse.

You're on your own, I'm on mine.
And I'm finding out why
this life is not so divine.
But do not deny,
stop with your outcries
I'm just saying my goodbyes.

But I will be back
and with a smack
you'll never know what hit you
cause I'm gonna be so brand new.
Watch me achieve all I've dreamed
all that you have blasphemed.
 Oct 2012 Audrey
Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
     universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
     reach my hands and play with pebbles of
     destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
     reading "Keep Off."

My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
     in the universe.
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