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 Sep 2024 blank
Evan Stephens
A mouse broke its bones
on my neighbor's floor;
I was called in mercy,
as the angel of slaughter.
My heart was the water
in which it drowned.
Days later, the wound
closed when I met Circe:
my silverish lion's stony
fringe burned away in smolder.
I left her starry thigh,
her eyes like cask strength rye;
They live, we sleep - No,
we're awake and night is slow.
ABCDDEECABFFGG
 Sep 2024 blank
Evan Stephens
Curious things emerge
from this last cup of gin.
Maybe I've been too alone
with the rain and with drink
because strangers converge
into thumb-smudged skins
washing over smoothed stone
into the storm's glottal rink...
I'll stop there and stem
these mannequin thoughts
seeded by a dollar's solitude,
watered by a fallen hem
of night. Thunder's brought
a brand new mood...
modified Italian sonnet: ABCD ABCD EFG EFG
 Sep 2024 blank
Evan Stephens
Sun is hotter,
but moon is nearer.

Yellow-belted dress
in runny mirror?

Come naked night,
intent is clearer.

In the day air
you can hear her

bright beguiling verses;
after dark is dearer -

moon-mouthed poems
are sincerer.
 Sep 2024 blank
Evan Stephens
The truculent sun
escapes cloud guard
& serves us day

over green bonnet trees
that birth false fruit
where wasps crawl.

Now the roads fill
with rioting flax,
rose rays, rude rain -

there's too much life -
the world's heart is burst,
blonde-broken sobs.
Minor revision for better flow/logic
 Sep 2024 blank
Jill
My eyes are clear
Opening my lash-eyelet curtain
A near-perceptible glacier-clean,
--thud-crack of thick ice
Forming two, perfect, transparent, oval shards
Convex bevel edges
Satisfying symmetry.

My brain is quiet
Waiting for the roaring, train engine, kettle-boiling,
punctuated by slight, syncopated,
tap-taps that,
-- so kindly, remind me, my mind be, relying
-- on pulsing blood
Still roarless
Still, roarless
Spline-smoothed
Blood journeys gently, cloud-style
Not muddling, befuddling, nimbostratus
Just happy little cumulus
Soft. Nice.

My shoulders are low
Cage only soundtrack here
Absence of intended sounds
Only the astral smooth void
Flawless, measured, even space
My ears can kiss my shoulders if I feel like it
--but I don’t feel like it
Comfortable.

My breath is even
Jaws are open pliers
Thoughts are photos in ice and midnight blue
-- no rue umber or regret beige
Muscles are liquid-warm wax
Palms are oasis-free deserts
Pupils are obsidian-shined globes
Skin made of moonlight
Heart matching the beat of the universe

I have returned
Back inside myself
I am here.
©2024

Music reference – John Cage, 4’33” (1952).

BLT Webster’s Word of the Day challenge (rue) date 23rd September 2024.
To rue something is to feel penitence, remorse, or regret for it. Rue is often used in the phrase "rue the day."
I’m no daughter
I’m no mother
born under a cabbage
only worms
as my fellow cradle
I crawled
on barren land
my ***** and scratched  skin
covered with calluses

I’m no daughter
I’m no mother
born under a cabbage
I fell
the icy water took me
but I was colder than it
the current  carried me away
I climb on the bank
I was clean

I am mother
I became  daughter
I palpated
happiness
Daughter of no one
 Sep 2024 blank
Bonnabelle Reed
orange tinted bottle
poses on its shelf
tick
tick
tick
autoplay
auto isolation
tick
tick
tick
dulce de psyche
locked in cylindrical plastic
across a carpeted sea
tick
tick
tick
existential
educational
static rooted legs
cowering elastic comforter
tick
tick
tick
cranial jolts crest
water not drunk
and it will remain
needs dip
jewel hovering over head shifts to crimson
"go here"
X
"go here"
X
the great salt lake
was formed in a bed bound state
notification reminds
yet opportune remains deceased
an eleven pm google doc
tick
tick
tick
next stop
early morning
based on experience with executive dysfunction.
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