Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
They say that all is fair in love and war
But is all fair in the war of love?
Is there temperance amidst the virile and the delicate?
Or is it just a guise shielding us from the bitter truths of love?

Dear brother of mine
Bold lawman in the making
Had a young sweetheart years apart

He was climbing up fast
With the promise of a bright future
And she would only be the start

But two summer days
Of ecstasy and pleasure
Were all it took in the name of time

For the young sweetheart
With his heart on a hook
To tear apart the cord of his precious spine

Now his reputation, his hopes, his dreams are on the line
Because of a young heart whose blood was replaced with slime
How can this happen to a man of pure heart and mind?
Such a burden to my dear brother will never be a friend of mine
Based on a recent tragedy a few hundred miles from my hometown.

---

© Jordan Dean "Mystery" Ezekude
I'm lost again
Lost again in the snow

There's nothing here
No people
No houses
No trees
Nothing

Nothing but white
and me

It's so cold here
Yet I still feel warm

I'm lost here
Yet I feel like I've been here before

I look up
I see a hand
It helps me up

The hand disappears
I see a house
I recognize that house

I reach out
I open the door
I am home

It's warm here
And I feel that warmth

I start feeling cold
I can't feel its warmth anymore

I'm lost again
Lost again in the snow
Story of my life

. Written after depression in September 2010

. Inspired by "Counting the Roses" by Arto Lindsay

"Poetry to me, it's like creating my own microcosm.
A sanctuary of comfort. It was probably, no, it must have been the end of another sad day when I wrote this poem."

- Kimberly Fox, fictional character (D2)

. For my loving family who is, was and always will there for me



Thank you
Ellen Joyce Apr 2014
This poem casts a line from insomnia to morning
On the wind of a prayer that whatever bites, holds on.

See I have counted eleven score and ten,
with rainbow like curves of my neck -
contemptuous beasts leaping in formation
each bleating out a preach of vague platitudes;
A narrative for the night sky.

My hands clamour at keys for escape
until I tumble headfirst into a web so vast
it has ensnared the whole world wide -
millennials are living in-ter-net over in-the-world;
a new ultraviolence against humanity.

I beat my words into the screen until it breaks;
shattering scarlet emoticons like confetti
pouring over language as if it were a compliment.
My mind massages shapeless polypous thoughts
like tight constricted muscles aching for release.

3am casts these philosophies into horses,
whipping them into shape and speed
before the eyes of this statuesque ******.
This anxious wakefulness begs my manic self to dance;
suggestively ******* tickets to ride like cleavage.

Sleep is fast becoming a neglected former engagement;
as my mind trips over fallen heroes
wades through my favourite mistakes
in a wonderland unfolding faster than I can fall
while the world beyond my window remains dark.
This poem was written in response to prompts by a friend of mine who is throwing a competition offering a signed first edition copy of her poetry book as a prize.  Visit her facebook page for details of the twenty word prompts and details on how to submit.
https://www.facebook.com/Siajanewords?fref=ts
Ellen Joyce Mar 2014
The sinking has returned too fast.
I knew sanity wouldn't last -
but madness is here much too soon.

Electric amnesia returns to me.
Cacophonous thoughts breaking free
tear my feet from trembling ground.

My contradictory conscience
******* utter nonsense
across the face of my clean slate.

Peel back my shimmering rib cage,
see insomnia's grip of rage
still my dark heart into hurting.

Plunge me into freezing waters
where caught apathetic breath blurs
treading to sinking to drowning.

And I'm caught in the crawl spaces
between the in between places -
wretch to my opprobrious mind.

Not if but when sayeth the doc
to the tune of the ticking clock
willing me to wave the white flag

Madness is a graceless game.
Ellen Joyce Mar 2014
write this silence a symphony
a song to sing what words do not tell -
seventeen year old arms cradling her stomach
pregnant with a truth who's name she dare not speak
shhhh

paint this darkness a rainbow
a myriad of colours exploding from camouflage -
seventy two years young a drip in his arm
flushed with a pain and a shame held mute

shhhh
draw this prison cell an exit
a crudely carved hole radiating light
ageless frame electrified, like lighting
flashing white in a brightly lit room
shhhh

name this shame like a first born
unapologetic, lung screaming introductions -
mask dropped to a mess of shattering self on the floor
arms outstretched for a help in hand
speak

Vouloir, c'est pouvoir.
Ellen Joyce Feb 2014
one, two polished leather shoe set the beat,
marks the grey tone on the broken cobbled street.

three, four silent tears pour down the face
making widows lace of the sullen slaggy place.

five, six, the count fades to mix with the collective sound
of doors unbolting and the sight of chins taking to ground,
and busy hands stilled to lay respect like paving slabs.

The tall terraces stained with iron ore stoop to kiss the head
of another working class warrior fallen to soon to his bed.
Smoke billowing from cooling towers lays low - scent of '64
dousing wreaths in docker's sweat, a local hero's glow.

The final home leaving, with no kiss from his wife,
in the fanciest car he's been in in his life.
He never expected nor asked life for much,
a job in the docks, the works - a trade or such;
four walls and a roof to sit over his head,
a wife to share his heart, his life and his bed;
a family with whom to laugh and to cry,
not striving for riches, just to get by.

Happy and sated through much of his years,
counting his laughter so much more than his tears,
call him unambitious, plain if you will,
but how many die having had their fill?

Top hat and tails, 53 steps taken and checked
one for each year lived, a mark of respect.
Ellen Joyce Dec 2013
And the sun is rising.
A crisp winter dawn is giving birth to this great city.
Rays of light kissing one way signs with promises amidst the building chaos.
The ear-spitting labour song gathers momentum and breaks into a cacophony
of horns panting, rails screeching, breaks shushing,
crowds pushing, rushing to the sound of can I get a hoagie?
a bagel, black coffee, eggs
scrambled into the pulsating clouds
light with smiles and heavy with the fuming of exhaust pipes
contracting to the crowning of car bonnets and head lamps and taxi cab signs
dancing in a place, to a pace and a rhythm constructed, conducted
by a lone woman in blue with benign brown eyes
leading a symphony of brake light beating, feet pounding, bus groaning,
venders sighing, newborns crying, school bus squealing,
pedal revving, fingers drumming, foot tapping pedestrians building
to erupt in a crescendo of a man asking to buy a cigarette for a dollar
and refusing to accept it for free.
To a heavy building door held open by a New York giant inviting me in;
welcoming me to the raw, ragged, rich, beautiful carnage
of the afterbirth.
Next page