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The high society
Hive variety
Narrow
Mindlessly
Anxiety
Actively striving
To overprescribing
To first do no harm
Just alarmingly
Medicate
Future doomsdays
To preemptively
Automate
On our behalf
Now it’s teaching the class
Some in front
Some in back
And the ones in the lead
Still don’t know how to act
Just be taught to succeed
To monopolize need
With a pedigree
Meriting
Ivy League greed
And proceed to convince us  
Its capital gains
From the poisons it pumps
Through our varicose veins
And the garbage it dumps
In our wishy wash brains
All the same
In the ways it uplifts
And enriches
The rest of us
Broke in
Its system-wide glitches
 Dec 2024
Nemusa
Let vanity slip away like smoke in the wind,
And lies crumble beneath the weight of truth.
Let doubt loosen its grip on your soul,
And gossip fall quiet in the stillness of love.
No false friends, no hollow words—
It is time to show them who you are.
 Dec 2024
Nemusa
I am tired,
like the tide—dragged forward, pulled back,
never still long enough to feel whole.
The sheets, tangled like seaweed,
hold the stories of nights I’d rather forget,
their salt-stained whispers clinging to my skin.
I wish for something small,
something I could cup in my hands—
a moth, a moment,
a bit of light to carry me through.

I have worn too many costumes.
The brave daughter, the loyal friend,
the woman who keeps her head high,
even when the sky presses down.
But I am tired of rehearsals.
Tired of fitting myself into frames
that cut me at the edges.
It’s hard to keep smiling
when your reflection keeps slipping
out of its skin.

No one tells you how to explain
the kind of broken that doesn’t come
with instructions. No subtitles for the father
who walked away like a stranger,
or the mother who tried—
God, how she tried—
but her hands were already full
of her own crumbling foundation.
Some lessons are too heavy
for the tongue.

I am falling,
not like the movies—no slow-motion grace—
but fast and heavy,
the way rain hammers the earth,
each drop praying it won’t drown.
I need arms that know the language of holding—
friends, lovers, strangers
who can take this weight
and turn it into something softer.
A raft, a lullaby, a way through.

Let me rest. Let me lay it all down.
Let the fight leak out of me like ink,
disappearing into the sheets, the walls,
the dark. I don’t need much—
just a quiet room,
a heartbeat steady enough
to remind me I am not alone.
A chance to breathe
without my chest caving in.

But tonight, it’s just me—
the bed too big, the wish too small,
hovering like a bird
who doesn’t know how to land.
Il-Milied it-tajjeb lilkom kollha.
 Dec 2024
onlylovepoetry
/\/\
can/cant
write a true love poem
without free falling tears
welling before the before
i.e.
the first word is laid down

just the way it is with love,
lost or found,
forgotten or-newly uncovered,
either/neither way,
the ducts working overtime,
distorting visibility, and
realistic truths,
so no chance their
accompaniment is not
present,

it’s as if it is
de rigeur,
a precursor-cursor!

the non-cursory
liquidity summoned
to protect and provide to
that place where love
thoughts, hopes, all
memorials
are stored,
needy for wet
to be released

not a love poem
above and about
or
finding it or losing it -

more about remembering
when either came
without an or within it,
always was
a two sides, one coin,
two identical equalities
but separated
by
direction

weeeping means
meandering memories
congealing, needy for reliving,
a retelling forgiving,
sinning and reexamining,
an easy gliding
when the path
is eased by a
slippery slide
of
damp
can/can’t (write a love poem). olp  nml
 Dec 2024
Nat Lipstadt
begin this life in a wordy
but wordly habit, daily,
father-gifted, though different,
in form and language selected,
‘tis the one and ‘tis the same

tally, a counting combination
of all that has been done, for both
better & worse, blessing/curse,
the key: revamp review reset
this day upcoming and welcome
all the major tasks, minor miracles,
that one can effect,  select, elect!
by choice, a freedom so great it
tenderly rips joy thoroughly into
and from my cells, and my body
is enlightened, uplifted in this,
now a preposition, a conjugation, a

state of composition,

for the tasks given, the granted,
those that must be taken, those most
difficult, when knowing their choice,
entails pain, untempered, and
requires establishing a two edged
position of composure…

this is a hard and an easy
new proposition I create,
hard for I write on a tiny
phone screen, in letters so
small. it keeps me humbled,
a reminder of having
lived a span well
beyond belief,
for one took\gave body a
careless comfort,
giving little
of the differring
kind of nutrition in order
to live life, well and purposed

hard too, for my body has wept,
a steady stream of silent tears.
unceasing as I scribe,
making vision difficult, the
insight salty but clear and the
words contained within them,
flood for easy laying-down

for this AM workout of counting,
lists up and down, so many items,
of differring nature, even now
noticing for the very fitting first time,
the subtle hint within
differring,
for it possesses a doubling
of the enormity, the division
of what has been already
accumulated and what yet,
needs accomplishing, the tally
needy for resolving looking past,
for seeing with yet more tears
fast-as-you-can-forward

the tally never ends, paused only
for a quick question/happy deletion
of, and a resolute immediate, moving on:

Where do I stand,
what is my position?


keep on keeping on,
tallying has no finale,
no sunning/summing up,
for another day
will yet follow,
for you, and
your own
tallying must
goes on, on
and
not even,
nor even,
odd,
when mine,
mine no long,
and the
and yets,
no longer
commence
646am dec 18 2024
 Dec 2024
Nemusa
He said,
"You always make it harder, don’t you?
The shortcut’s right there,
but you lace up your boots for the storm."
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe I like the sting of gravel underfoot,
The bruises on my knees that sing like hymns
To a Blessed Mary I don't really know,
But she feels softer
Than the buckle of his belt.

And the words—
Oh, the words,
They’re like little knives
Tucked inside his good intentions.
"This is for your own good,"
But what if my good
Wants to run barefoot
Through wildflowers
Instead of praying for a miracle
That never quite lands?

Lipstick red like fresh wounds
Isn’t fooling anyone,
But it’s my war paint.
Cranberry smile stretched wide,
Hiding a scream that could crack glass,
Hiding the scars beneath my blouse.
I walk the hardest path,
But isn’t that the one
Where the sun hits just right?

And at night,
When the buckle’s hung and his words are ash,
I sleep to find the open fields.
Fields where my mistakes grow like dandelions—
No one beats them out of me there.
I pick them, blow them,
Forgive myself in soft whispers.
Maybe next time, I’ll bloom for me.
Maybe next time,
I’ll leave the storm behind
And just run.
 Dec 2024
Irving MacPherson
She came to call
And stays most of the fall,
She takes the ground floor
You the one above

The floorboards creaked under your weight
Driving her wild, she'd yell at the ceiling
You thought maybe from a hospital she'd escaped
Any scenario was none too appealing

You hoped for more than this
Trying so ****** hard to appease
When you met in the kitchen
You wondered who this strange person was

Something about her had you sweating bullets
You reached for the tea towel while the kettle boiled
She whimpered and you knew not what to do
She shrieked and you poured the tea

Around the first snow you saw a way out
Above her you'd shuffle soft shoe on the wooden floor
Using the washroom you'd pull the seat up and snicker
Leaving hair in the sink, and a streaked mirror

Before much more time the cards were played
The rooster greeted the morning and her bags were packed
You waited at the station to make sure she got aboard
The sound of the train whistle set you free
 Dec 2024
guy scutellaro
casts huge leaf shadows on dirt
and the mockingbird's mocking me.

"mockingbird,"
I put my hands in my pocket
and pretend a smile,
"some things you can't out run,
church bells and a wedding dress,
funeral processions and baptisms,
the cop car radio,

she was so beautiful in her wedding dress,"

I'm pointing my finger up at the mockingbird,
"so I'm a few steps ahead of you in heartache,

it was a toss of the dice,"I tell the bird,

"I threw a handful of rice."

"so don't look sad at me, bird.
everyone gets hurt."

and on her branch in the sycamore tree
the mockingbird's crying to me...

"I'm a few years ahead you...
Sweet One, lonely bird.

I've walked through fire,
stared into the wall of shadow and sorrow
into the cold silence of tomorrow.

I hear what you're telling me, Dear One,
loves been a little ******* you, too,

and there in illusion lies the danger
so please be kind, my friend,

the sorrows that never seem to fade away
become the grey, dark sea,
and sunlight through the Sycamore tree.
 Dec 2024
Terry O'Leary
I go to church each Sunday,
God warns ‘there’s much to fear,
the world is decomposing,
the final end is near’.

I go to church each Sunday
and taste the wine and bread,
though elsewhere on our globus
raw hunger reigns instead.

I go to church each Sunday,
hear preachers’ words rebuff
repentant pauper’s pleading
‘enough is not enough’.

I go to church each Sunday,
watch candles burning bright
although they don’t enlighten      
the demons of the night.

I go to church each Sunday
to wash away my sin,
while prophets make their profits
with wars that do us in.

I go to church each Sunday,
think thoughts incessantly
of all our planet’s peoples
denied equality.

I go to church each Sunday,  
sit peacefully in the nave
while folks afar seek, grieving,
throughout a boundless grave.

I go to church each Sunday
to view iconic forms
alive in lancet windows
that hide unholy storms.

I go to church each Sunday,
discharge the weekly tithe,
while others pay the piper
when Reaper whets his scythe.

I go to church each Sunday
regard the holy bell,
reflecting on the wastelands
where day and night they knell.

I go to church each Sunday,
hear persons of the cloth
disguise the hell hereafter
with wartime victory froth.

I go to church each Sunday,
half perched upon a pew;
with everything so hopeless,
what else can one but do?

I go to church each Sunday,
and gaze upon the steeple,
majestic as the rockets
that plunge on placid people.

I go to church each Sunday
to hear the choir’s song
keep time with banshees shrieking
within a world gone wrong.

I go to church each Sunday
(above, doves fly in flocks),
while far flung realms are flattened
beneath the wings of hawks.

I go to church each Sunday
and pray so oft for peace,
but still the death continues,
it never seems to cease.

I go to church each Sunday
to sing sad psalms of praise,
while distant drones are humming
o’er bodies burnt, ablaze.

I go to church each Sunday,
a quest to save my soul
’gainst warfare’s pride and plunder -
prayer never plays a role.

I go to church each Sunday
my errors to confess,
while countries keep on killing
and suffer no redress.

I go to church each Sunday
the future for to see -
a man-made Armageddon
that ends humanity.
Spurred on by and inspired by my pal M.G.
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