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 Dec 2018
Kevin Eli
Fires from a living hell
God has plucked me from conflagration
For the first time
I wiped tears of peace from my face
2015
 Jan 2018
Kevin Eli
It's quite a feeling to wake up each day a little less numb. Honestly, it's terrifying to feel... anything. When somebody has carried on for so long without allowing oneself to feel love, accept love, or take risks to find love, they start to find that they are only half a human and only half living.

This chord may resonate like the sad sound of a violin because maybe the last time you fully loved someone, it gave you the ultimate pain, sadness, loss and suffering to the point where your favorite places, foods, music, shows, hobbies became a hole in your heart and breath. Where the sanctuary of sleep meant nothing to the rising haunted and longing memories within. Where the only solution you can think of is not waking up again and again.

That hole never goes away, and it's something that you just try to get used to. Some people don't, and they take their lives, or die of a broken heart, while others become lifeless. These last hold no light within their eyes, walking amongst us like hollow puppets on strings led onward by everyone else but themselves, never recovering from the shock of the loss of what they loved more than their self.

One remarkable feeling that often remains in loss is hate. To find blame and ask why a million times about a million things and run in a circle screaming at the top of your lungs every time the radio plays their favorite song and you blame the DJ for reminding you is insanity, but you're just looking for somewhere safe...

But you can never have it another way and you make lemonade as best as you can, unsweetened and sour. Knowing we all expire like the lemons under the tree, we make that **** lemonade and bring our recipe to market. With a second wind, the slightest breezes somehow keeps blowing down your lemonade stand.

Others may laugh and abuse you for what they see as a ****-poor performance at making lemonade, but they don't know how hard it was for this person to crawl on ****** hands and broken knees while their salty tears fell into the lemonade they call their own life then shakily offer you a half full Dixie cup of everything they had left.

I applaud those who have had to make lemonade with less than lemons and I applaud those who are willing to try these ad hoc recipes the most broken of us scribble frantic and blindly. Society tells us it is universal that we all want love, but the things that love entail like sadness, grief and loss are unwanted and many believe they can avoid the minefield by being picky, guarded, flighty or selfish... That's not love.

Love is work, love is painful. Love can take a lifetime out of you. It requires that we dedicate precious time here on Earth which we never get back to someone other than ourselves, and that is a risk that must be taken if it is to be found. You will get hurt, you will be broken, you will survive or succeed on your own terms. As humans, we look at the world and wonder why about everything; why am I alone? why does love hurt?

Only the universe knows. O' to say we should never ask if it was worth it and laugh. It always is. Even if you end up at 88 or 28 placing flowers on their grave, love is worth the risk.
 Mar 2017
Chris D Aechtner
A plastic bag is snagged in the branches where I can't reach to stop its crackled song. The bag is an *****—its kidney? Stomach? Heart?—of the thing that's dying. The thing's given pills and powders, and graveyards are robbed to replace its parts. When it dies, it'll be brought to the taxidermist to be stuffed, and its stiffened corpse will be strung in lights—a beacon for people to arrive, two-by-two, and scoop out the void from behind its glass eyes. And when the void has been doled around, the dead will shuck, jive, and shuffle step to plastic song.
March 25th, 2017

The 10 minute time-span of these exercises includes any punctuation and other cohesion that I add after the words have streamed out.
__________

When the plastic bag rustles in the wind,
I hear its crackled song as an omen heralding in another phase. No matter what happens, only the moment is ever assured for us.
 Feb 2017
Kevin Eli
God, this universe larger than I, powers that be, Please hear my cry

I want to grow,
To make more music and write,
Meet people and travel.
If I don't, I'm going to stall,
Tumble into free-fall.
I would be the living dead;
A shadow of what I could've had.

I'm not scared of dying,
I'm scared of never living again.
 Jul 2016
Kevin Eli
Lets change this world
Let's make it better than we were left it
Let's make sure we have clean oceans and healthy land
Water in our lakes and rivers
Food in people's mouths
Olive branches in our hands.

No more wars
No more corporate overreach
No more fears of what we cannot see
No more sitting in our houses
Take back our democracy
Take to the streets
 Jun 2016
Kevin Eli
More than this world could hold
She was rough sketched perfection
A temporary rose
 Jun 2016
Kevin Eli
Clippings in my life
Staying up at night
Are memories of afar
As echoes of the past
Flow through the portal door

In visions ballroom dancers
Masquerade and banter
I see through their eyes
A shade under the sky
Where kings of kingdoms
Repaired their stables
Repenting with each staple
Wondering if they destroyed the world
 Jan 2016
Kevin Eli
Delayed response to ground control, oh how I was crying.
In retrospect, I was just shallow; like an astronaut only watching
himself as the rest of the world kept steadily spinning.
Impersonal up here, never caring about winning or losing.

The star charts that mentors showed lost to what my mind followed,
A winding path through this sacred space which I unhallowed.
I didn't flinch at blastoff; it wasn't bravery, it was me being a coward.

Sweating in a far away bed, steel round walls with no decoration,
Straining my mind fighting the moments of suffocation.
Spots in my vision, distortion and discoloration.
Seeing stars I glimpsed my comet on exhibition.
I would have to come back around. It was just a matter of my rotation.

Retrospect from ages back and to beyond where we will have gone.
Black holes made that can never be filled, endless they came, endless they will come. To touch down in glory, or stay on the run. Life is just a rocket that departs from the sun. The rest isn't lost, it just hasn't been done.

So as we eventually drift into deep space and age becomes our dawn, remember to look out the window and wave to the passerby's.
They will cheer you on.
 Feb 2015
Brycical
I’m picturing these two deities
sharing a loft just off of Madison Avenue,
maybe near an F-train subway station.
Naturally, the neighbors are complaining
of glass shattering bleeding screams
and thick, throbbing scents of charred hair
penetrating the floors above and below
while Trent Reznor’s trademark chain in the breeze voice
blares “I WANNA ******* LIKE AN ANIMAL”
from some speaker system seemingly embedded
in the trembling walls turned all the way up to “*******.”

Opening the door to reprimand the two,
the landlord is shocked
to find thick, juicy molten stains
of red wine and blood pulsating a putrid perfume
akin to petrol mixed with cinnamon sweat
as shards of plates and glasses glisten
across the kitchen and living room
while the duo erupts
into a carnal carnival of frenzied roller-coaster screams
as Kali plucks out a rib of Dionysus to lick and gnaw
and while her runaway train hips derail against his—
he stuffs out a cigar against her shoulder
despite blindfolded eyes and ankles handcuffed
to the hissing oven
while she shoves shrooms dipped in acid
down his throat
simultaneously sniffing the remaining white powder rocks
from under his nose.

The burning wild eyes of both beings slam
against their skulls--
exploding pupils cartwheel with each ******.  
The landlord cries, tears teetering the steak knife's edge
of maniacal hyena glass shattering laughter
and wrist-slitting sadness
until both beings ******
a mushroom cloud volcano blast piercing souls & hearts
bleaching away reality in a reverse black hole super nova
just past Park Ave.
I'm not sure about the ending. If anyone has other ideas I'd be more than happy to hear.
 Feb 2015
JLB
Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy.
Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy. Vacancy.
Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy.
Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy. Vagrancy.
Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly. Aimlessly.
Rambling rambling
trying to
say….
…what.
What is…what is…this world…but a tiny little thing.
A speechless infant. A cowslip in spring.
A girl.  Who I am…? A…


Thing. A thing. Imagine! If I can…
When everything is vast. No words, no way.
No truth, no words. No way.
No truth, no words. No way.
No truth, no words. No way.
To say…

I’m a girl wandering in April. I’m a girl wandering in April. I’m a girl wandering in April. I am a girl wandering in April.
I’m a woman wandering in April. I’m a woman wandering in April.
I’m 70 and I’m wandering in April. I’m 70.
Who…a cowslip
An IV drip.
Me, wandering with no words.

Then, brain
working down
the whole machine
no, just the mouth
to verbalize and verify
and analyze and clarify
and organize and ratify
and formalize and justify

the vacancy
of vibrations
in my vox box.
complacency
of situations
until one talks.
Based on Samuel Beckett's "Not I"
 Dec 2014
bambi
For centuries
my weary soul's
been swallowin' grey-faced spirits whole.

But the porcelain broke
between the lips
I feel dusky fingertips.

I have short moments,
one brief farewell
before I place my sins in hell.

Stranger please--
lend me your ear,
I've become what I most fear.

I know there's no
such thing as ghosts
but I have seen the demon host.
 Jul 2014
Furtuna Sheremeti
When they asked him “Why do you love her?”
he said:
“Because she is beautiful, smart, has a great smile and is always there for me”
When they asked her “Why do you love him?”
she said:
“I have no idea why. I just do”.

*She was in love. He was not.
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