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 Jun 2014 Cassandra Leigh
Austine
i like to listen to the silence of the night
because beneath the deafening stillness
and gruelling vagueness that it holds are
the sound of your breathing that i sync with mine
the chuckles you make when i say a bad joke
the rustle of sweet words you mutter to my ear
the disarming roughness of your voice when you talk

i like to listen to the silence of the night
because its warmth is my brief escape from loneliness
and its noise is calm and inviting
and because for a moment, no matter how quick,
silence takes me to you
I love you. I hope you know I do. :(
I'll never forget her face.
Our eyes met; both had butterflies
In our stomachs that had
Butterflies in theirs.

Teenage features made
My eyes softer from
Touching them with vision.  
Smiling with every inch of

Herself; slightly protruding
Canines gave her a sense of
Wildness. An insanely
Beautiful wolf.

Mouth slightly open in
Centre at default.
Those lips that women botox
Themselves to achieve.  

Angelina Jolie's half-sister's face.
I became a slightly different man
Then.
Like after a near-death-experience.

After three and a half years together
She still blows my mind.
I can watch her from a distance, and
Contemplate the way her skin seems

So thin over her collar bone that
You wouldn't dare even kiss it
If you could. That, and how I rest my
Face there every evening and thank

Whomever it May Concern
For it all.
I am a man with hungry eyes and
Hands.

Beauty is my ******.
My own strengthening, inspiring,
Comforting -every-day-Heaven-
******.
The giant fin whale swam along with the tide
A nineteen-foot calf was swimming by her side
They were swimming away from her mate’s now dead shell
Trapped in a lagoon and then all shot to hell.

She’ll raise her young calf on her own from now on
Not mating again as they only take one
Her mate had followed a herring shoal in with the tide
And for a short while there were those who had tried
To help him turn and head back to sea
But the cruelty of nature would not let it be
At eighty feet long and a shallow cliff lea
It could not turn around to escape and be free.

And then a vile streak in the locals took hold
A most wicked shooting match began to unfold
The most handsome of whales was trapped and revealed
As shooters took aim and young children squealed.

They fired and they fired and they fired and they fired
Stopping only to reload and then when they got tired
They even drove speedboats across his shot back
Leaving deep deep prop cuts as a further attack.

And when they were done and the whale was no more
His body burst open and in death he’d now score
For the stench of his now rancid corpse was so rotten
This beautiful creature wasn’t easily forgotten.

There was a man who tried hard to get him free
But one man alone is as a wood with one tree
And by the time he had got national press all aware
The whale was now dead, so bored, they’d not now care.



©Joe Wilson – A Whale shouldn’t die like that 2014

Many years ago I was enthralled by the work of Farley Mowat the renowned Canadian environmentalist who died last month. From reading his book, based on real events ‘A Whale for the Killing’ published in 1972, I took to studying whales as a hobby and I quickly realised just what a perfect creature the Fin Whale is. It is the only whale that is match coloured along both sides giving it the same symmetrical beauty as a dolphin and is the second largest creature to live, the Blue Whale being the only creature bigger. It is so amazing it can lift its entire body out of the water. Why on earth would you fire thousands of rounds of ammunition into a creature so beautiful? Why?

This is a small tribute to the memory of Farley Mowat (May 12, 1921 – May 6, 2014) and to people like him who try so hard, such as the Sea Shepherds who try to stop the massacre of bottle-nose dolphins each year in Taiji, Japan ostensibly for food, even though most Japanese people shun the whale-meat.
I need feminism
because men are more upset about people saying "all men"
than they are about the fact that 1 in 4 women will be ***** in their lifetime.

Not harassed, not catcalled,
*****
And that is not okay.

I need feminism because out of the four women
I speak to everyday
two of them have been *****
and all four of them can't walk to their car
without sticking their keys through their fingers to
feel the slightest inclination of safety.

I need feminism
because the other day in my math class
a student said "She was asking for it"
and the teacher agreed.  

I need feminism
because when my father wasn't drinking
he was telling me to be a man.

I need feminism
because the way my father taught me to treat women
was to get them drunk.
It's not his fault,
he knew no better.

I need feminism
because my father knew no better.
I thought I could beat it.
I thought I was better than it.
I wasn't. I was only human.
I fought for a day I promised myself would come, because I was ready to be invincible. That idea, the innocent, unchanging, unbreakable idea that I created in my head was the realist thing I had ever known. The idea of something flawless, pristine, and timeless was the perfect constant to an ever-changing variable. Only one thing could ever crush something as unbreakable as an idea, and that was the idea itself coming to life.
Willing itself into a reality I couldn't control, it appeared in a body, in a name, and in the eyes of someone I had never known. It was there, but it felt different. I became an invincible vessel to a vulnerable outcome. My greatest weakness became the idea I had once hoped would make me indestructible. Instead, I found myself a slave to the hope I hoped would enslave the fear of being forgotten.
I found myself human.
Better, battered, beaten, but never broken I became invincibly vulnerable.
Finally, I knew I could beat it.
I knew I was better than it, because I indeed was human.
Beautifully, yet impossibly human.
a fear of joining them
a comfort in seeing them
love for the lost
the time
we spend
alone
energy
is all
we leave
the life of the living
the consciousness lives on
the body
dies
Henry Tobelman 2014
FLY ME TO THE SKY SPARROW
WITH YOUR GOLDEN GILDED WINGS
LET'S WALTZ UPON THE CLOUDS
AS OUR HEAVENLY ANGEL SINGS
A SONG SO SWEET AND PURE
EVERY NOTE PLAYED A SYMPHONY
LET"S TWIRL AMONG THE STARS MY FRIEND
TO MUSIC JUST FOR YOU AND ME
LET"S TAKE A TURN AROUND HEAVENS' BALLROOM
FOR NOW, LEAVING SADNESS AND SORROWS BEHIND
JUST DANCING TO THE MUSIC
NOTHING BUT THE DANCE ON OUR MINDS
AND AS THE MUSIC STOPS
AND YOU GIVE YOUR COURTLY BOW
I CURTSY LOW TO YOU MY FRIEND
NOT KNOWING HOW TO THANK YOU NOW!
FLY ME TO THE SKY SPARROW
TO DANCE ONE WALTZ WITH YOU
WITH YOUR GOLDEN GILDED WINGS
YOU HAVE MADE A DREAM COME TRUE!
I ALWAYS WANTED TO WALTZ
THANK YOU FOR THE DANCE!
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