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My periods turn to semicolons
My suicide notes to poetry
My goodbyes became hellos
The blades turn to sunflowers
And the bullets, a rose
My heart still is broken
But the pieces have been found
Death isn’t for me anymore
What is, in the here and now
I still don’t feel enough
But I am alive
And that’s enough to say
Today is not the day I die.
Sometimes, I feel
that the modern world
has traded love, for clarity...

has traded flowery gardens,
for deserts.
has traded stars,
for a picture of stars.
has traded dance and songs,
for analysis.
has traded ecstasy,
for mere control.
has traded heart,
for mind.

has traded life,
for death...

© Manan sheel.
i want to talk about you
to everyone i know
i want to shut my mouth
and keep you to myself
my heart flares up
explodes with thoughts of you
and i can't catch the words
and i can't catch my breath
~dedicated and gifted to Alyssa Homes Underwood,
in perpetuity
~
<>
this one, like so many others, is
for my inestimable~faithful friend
who asks, listens and never sings
out of tune,
always lending me his ears…

<>
the 7:42 am train is pulling in…
the tracks run by the soundless waters,
directly through the spaces
called my mind

<>


sun begging come out & play,
“c’mon baby, you know need warmth,”

(even if mine ain’t the kind that realizes
real dreams, the kind that exhale healing,
but come out anyway, take what you can get,
put off the pains of haunting curses, sins that cannot be erased, random emerging like jacks-in-the-box that were cranked, but just waiting for the right moment to fk you up…try putting them bastids, back in the can with  aplomb & composure but you know it’s way too late..)

Van Morrison serenades
“These are the days
(of the endless summer),”
it is a hymnal
in / of the church of blue sky,
birch  white pews, voices choral…
the caucus of birds who are crazy flitting, cawing, cracking,
making an unholiness mess unsuitable to the moment’s serenity,

the rabbits, seeing if this idiot threw out some
baby carrots (he did), Van singing of love of the one magician, who would turn my blood into wine…

the whistle blows, a one-minute-warning, train
a-leaving,  so is this poem, and the randomness herein is not a poem, but a cry of the mind,

”un cri de l’esprit,”
may it, it may resonant or fall, face~flat to the ground, the sound of the mind,
the train whistle, the symphony of mother morning nature, the quiet lapping waves,
all acknowledge their “failure to soothe,” them, relentless, will return later, on the morrow, same station, them, who
will never concede that they can be beaten,
to superimpose, a mental purity in the recesses
of where the screams crawl out of the mind’s
cemetery, them unmarked graves, of babies that
did not survive to be named, and yes, that’s a
real thing…shhhhhh, them say the triumvirate of the natural forces state with equanimity
”write, let it out, let it go,”
you
hope no one reads this…but it’s far too late
it is
for~formed, created,
on this the seventh day of the week,
when the Maker rested from his
creation~work, and you think maybe a day of rest, not a bad idea, smiling cause, someone is playing Joe Cocker singing,
“Have a Little Faith in Me”
and then,
“(Try) With a Little Help From My Friends”
confirming, in the governing firmament of this world there are no coincidences…*

<>

8:10 by the sky, and
checking out the sky holes and the holy,
seeing the sight lines to souls gone but always,
well remembered…they too shushing me with
loving kindness…and the next stop is
Nazareth
The moment you forget.
Mind wanders with regret.
Eyes blurred, lose focus.
“What’s my current purpose?”

Is spontaneous enough?
Chasing a dream, tough.
As a child we rushed,
what was all the fuss?

The lost moment finds.
The lost moment unwinds.
The lost moment reminds.
Messes with our minds.

In that moment there is clarity.
We connect with our reality.
Understand humanity.
Endless possibilities.
Test our comfortability.

A chance to breathe.
Rebirth and see.
Are we where
we want to be?

Take that lost moment,
to reset your focus.
To find yourself and
your new found purpose.
Is a circle,
Love and thou shall beget love.
It's not the past that rankles
it's the manacles on your ankles,

come on
get with the program
sixpence from all good booksellers.

he rattles on
figures from a
past long gone

on his door,
a sign that reads
do not disturb.
In the cascade of light, she flows like a stream,
While I, with an old thirst, in her beauty gleam.
I've quenched my longing, with a gaze so deep,
Capturing her essence, in my heart, I keep.
With every passing moment, l linger in her sight,
Banishing thoughts of others, swiftly, out of sight.
For in her radiance, I find my endless quest,
To dwell in her presence, is where I find my rest.
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