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 Oct 2019
Elle Richard
This girl I know
She is just ... like a book.

Her cover is so beautiful
And yet ... forever changing looks.

But this girl's beauty
Is unlike any that you've seen.

It really comes from all those pages
Those pages in between.

Each page tells a story
Some of sorrow oh so sad.

But for every one of those that you read
You'll find one of better time's she's had.

This girl I know
She rules a realm that no one ever see's.

This girl will never show it to you
And she will never show it to me.

This girl is tough
And dauntless and strong.

This girl she sings
The most beautiful songs.

This girl will never let you see her cry.

This girl will never answer you why.

This girl she doesn't need wings to fly.

Because this girl ... She is the sky.

You will find her overhead
Every day and every night.

Her sun will warm the hardest heart
And her stars they shine so bright.

If you should ever catch her and open that book
You'd better read as fast as you can.

Standing still in any one place
Is never in her plans.

But, this girl I know isn't running from something
And it's not that she's some bird on a wire.

She isn't blindly running through time, you see
This girl I know ... She has a world to set on fire.
 Oct 2019
Elle Richard
love is not made of giving and taking in equal parts
it is not a favor for a favor
i owe you nothing

love is not a compromise reached after long deliberation
it is not hurting on Monday
and healing on Tuesday

love is not touching because you will leave if i do not
it is not feigning naivety
when you see me cry

love is not the untimely squandering of innocence
it is not the suffocating grip of guilt
it is not your unwelcome touch

love is not
 Sep 2019
Francie Lynch
We've numbers in distress;
We've villains and scoundrels
In need of redress;
Choose any one of one thousand quests -
We're in desperate need of a Hero.

No call for a cape or cowl,
Hidden rings or magic swords;
We need action,
Not placating words -
From a righteous Hero.

Greece or Rome won't be the origin,
There may well be one in Oregon;
At this juncture we'll take anyone -
A home grown or welcome Hero.

We'll have truth without hyperbole,
Not disdain, but hearing dignity;
One to rise up, reach out, lift us
From the swamp of vanity.

We don't need Deus ex machina,
Or anything supernatural;
A woman or man,
Natural or choice,
A sister or brother,
To call us home;
To hear a voice say,
You're not alone.
 Sep 2019
agalwithwords
After a long long time I thought of opening the case
To see the broken bow hanging on the top side,
On the glossy brown body, loose bow strings slide.
Bridge collapsing under the wires is undeniable,
Strings bending to some unknown tune, unrecognizable.

After a long long time I thought of opening the case
Once, it was an instrument of love and affection.
With work, for me to learn and to master.
Over the time the passion is just gone,
Clutching and wondering what went wrong? 

After a long long time I thought of opening the case 
I hugged it tightly and I simply cried.
In a desperate need to rekindle my old flame.
I started to fit together the broken pieces,
I tried to mend the old bearings of neglect.

After a long long time I thought of opening the case 
While wiping down the dust it made me wonder.
Why we let the things we love to fall under?
As we grow old and time passes by,
Things we love the most, always pay the price.

After a long long time I thought of opening the case 
Few things we must hold on to in this life,
No matter if experiences teach you to strife.
I am learning not to forget the things I once loved,
They make you who you are, where you once belonged...
Love for music, love for life...
 Aug 2019
Francie Lynch
I never knew him to do wrong.
He left me here last Saturday week;
I never saw him again.
A terrible shock.
God was cruel to me.
Words cannot express... my heart is torn.
I have the others.
God spare them to me.
He was the loveliest of all.

My heart breaks day in and day out;
I am just now living for when...

He took a pain,
In the head;
He went to the hospital.
We don't know
What happened -
They didn't,
Until they got the blood test back,
From Dublin.

The next day the baby was born.
At twelve o'clock  there was a crowd,
Neighbours waiting on the news.

They did all in their power.

He was dying.
Words that will ring in my ears...

It was the saddest... most respected
Funeral,
The teachers and children formed
A Guard;
A hundred met him at the Creamery Cross;
Carried the little coffin up the steps
And into the chapel.
Six school pals carried him,
From the chapel,
And left him to rest.

He'll never go off this earth
Without first coming to see me
(Mary, at two o'clock in the morning he came up the hall,
And rapped on the room door
)
I do hope and pray
I'm not keeping him
From Heaven.

I wanted to write you to give you a surprise...
It was little thought it would be this sad news.

The baby... is the image of him.

My heart is torn.
I  could be washed in tears.
This is called *Found Poetry*.  I came across a letter my mother wrote in 1953, just days after the death of her first born son, Michael. My brother, Gerald, was born at the same time, so my mother never saw her son alive again. I hope I did justice to her grief and anguish.
 Aug 2019
nico papayiannis
We don't talk
We won't talk
Problems grew
Far beyond me and you
The silence it calms
No reason
To take to arms

We accept the reasons why
Side by side
We walk on by
I don't speak your name
Mine is never heard
No emotions to exchange
All feelings now
Go way beyond blurred

I saw an old figure
Hunched,  but familiar
Whispering words
Words of regret
How time so quickly
Does seem to pass
Drinking from an empty glass

In a broken mirror
I can see
The person I blame
The person who won't talk to me
Fractured memories
Of a splintered past
A heart forged from stone
A heart that shall forever last
 Aug 2019
Francie Lynch
When she said, Don't talk to me,
She lost some of her voice.
Then I heard, Don't look for me,
She gave no other choice.
Don't touch, I have no feelings,
You make my skin crawl,
Don't expect a pick up,
If you pick up to call
.

But I still smell her everywhere:
The shampoo used on her hair;
The bedsheets where we lay bare;
The fragrance of her festive tree;
Her aromatic herbal teas;
The lilies she could grow in sand,
Are sensational in my memory glands.
RIP
 Jul 2019
Jodie LindaMae
When you were a little boy
They would lay you to sleep
With small prayers and a leap of faith,
Your angel-blonde eyelashes barely touching
And you would stop breathing periodically,
Gasping into the void,
Creating sounds that would echo against the cacophonous
Tomb of your mind for the rest of your life.
I hear your screams reverberate
In every instance of a Swedish accent.
I guess you were lucky enough
To be pronounced Dead three times.

Of course you'd call it an ice skating accident;
Ever the man, ever the glowing effigy of strength,
How could you bring yourself to tell us how you'd been mangled,
Beaten so badly that your organs broke and bled,
Your ten year old knees
Kissing the carpet of your mother's living room
As you fell and died that first time?
You'd later tell stories about the progression of death,
Colors enrapturing you,
Everything dipped in blue.
There were levels to this,
You said,
And you'd stuck your skin into one that no mortal could have
And yet you returned to us.

Nothing about this poem
Is going to make you seem more evil
Than the vision you've already placed in people's minds.
Thin, pale hands tossing a severed pig's head into an audience,
Those same fingers tracing the path of a jagged bottle blade
Down your arm in a business motion;
Pelle, I'd write an ode to every scar on your arm
If I wasn't sure that you'd already done it.
A heart corpse painted as black as the inside of a closed casket,
Your closed casket,
What was it that ruined you?
What was the trigger that pulled itself
Besides the so obvious one?
A broken kid from a broken home,
What made you run so far away
Only to hide in the arms of those who
Let you parade your mental illness like a banner,
Let you wear your delusions like a cape around your neck?
Who let you climb to the roof
Just so they could cheer for you to jump
With your fantasies and shredded silk hair flying behind you
Before your bones crumbled against each other in skin
Too tender and frail to contain you?

When they talked about you in magazines
Writers were always lamenting the tragedy
Of your cut-glass jaw and your piercing eyes,
Masculine beauty of such a caliber
Wasted on a character so evil and vile
It might as well have blotted itself out against the sun.
What you thought you were
Doesn't define your worth.
You're so much more than a corpse on a bed,
A couple of necklaces made from your bones.
You are so much more than a voice that was
Throttled out of existence by its own hand,
So much more than a statement piece.

For years after your death
Your family would receive packages for you in the mail
From bookstores around the world,
Tomes of witchcraft and ancient magics,
Spells designed to enchant and bewitch,
Pelle, were you trying to necromance the Dead?
Were you trying to take the parts of you
That felt less than human out?

If I could talk to you,
If I could say one thing,
It would have been what I've told
A dozen friends who've jumped in front of trains,
Called me from mental hospitals,
Called me with guns and knives in their hands.
I wish I could have told you
To wait one more ******* day.
In one more ******* day your father would have called.
You might have had a ticket back home.
You might not have a strike through your name
On every online page referencing your work.

The screaming may have stopped,
The air raid sirens in your head might have dulled
To the point where you wouldn't have felt the need
To blow them away.

If you didn't feel human,
If you felt like this was all a dream and that you'd wake up soon,
Why are we still living in the remnants of your nightmare?
Part one of a series of love poems dedicated to "unloveable" people. Rest in the glow of the freezing moon, Pelle. I hope you're having fun in Transylvania. I'll be seeing you soon.
 Jul 2019
Stained Glass
"---I think...
        that every deep thinker is
            more afraid of being understood
                      than of being misunderstood.---"
 Jul 2019
fray narte
my soul is stuck
in old, coastal towns;
a cup of strong coffee in hand;
i can drown in its taste
mixed with my heartbeat running amok.

the sound of the rain
threatens to deform the roof,
as if the midnight sky
was trying
to read her sadness out loud
to the unmarked graves
beyond my ribs;
as if the raindrops
were prison guards
chasing after my soul,
waiting to cage it
back in place.

the broken clock
tells me it's still midnight,
but for all i know,
it may yet be another
sleepless night kinda
monochromatic daybreak
and

i can no longer tell which is louder —
the storm inside my head
or outside.
aiming for that edgar allan poe vibe
 Jul 2019
Gale L Mccoy
this is the life i want to live
I say from the ground
no it isnt
but itll be part of it
time
to have it to waste and wallow
the time to let myself be swallowed
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