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Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         Convention: Day 4 – A Workshop in Obedience Training

[This doggerel is recyclable and may be employed in both the Republican and Democrat conventions.]

The cult formed obediently for his look-at-me show
Where every response was a fist and a cheer
He didn’t tell his sycophants what they needed to know
But only what he wanted them to hear
The pool of rain shadowed the sun, dancing with a tepid demeanor. City lights' glamour reduced the light of the sun—melancholy was evident on her face, accompanied by the distinguished incorporeal's breath of air. The late-afternoon tea and dried-out smoke of snowy November. 

It turned into night; the sun was still blatantly drowning in the pool of light, where a small trickle of its shadows tantalized the mockery arrayed in her face. Followed by the sickness in her stomach, pinching herself as she naively believed he loved her for all she is. 

After all, he was the one who called her a goddess and even paralleled her in the universe in which Aphrodite takes part. Surprisingly and naively, still believed conspicuous lies. It scarred her. A mountain that cannot be climbed; a river where blood flows continuously; a garden full of thorns. The face of a fool. 

The glamour wore off when he saw her on stage, where all of his queens and muses were. He wasn't even paying attention to her, and yet she was the only one who performed on stage—she rose and fell; she sang and moved like a goddess, surprising and naively believing he could take back her youth. 

He watched her rise. 
He watched her fall. 
He watched her lose her life. 

She hopelessly believed, with her skin and bones, that he'd choose her this time. He didn't.
if my life were a song, it would be goddess by laufey.
And over the specks of dust and rose-colored evenings,
in the melancholic fate of soliloquy;
yet as wretched as her soul be, her very first breath was, “Have mercy.”
 
The pale, starry-eyed of April’s sky ends, and it’s pouring; the trees are swaying in their places; the sun is impressed by the rising of the lilies.
Daunted by the ray of light, quietly caressing its innocence.
 
She looked over the moon, as if it were painted by someone she knew.
In hope, she clenched her fist and whispered again and again and again.
Like the petals of dried daisies fallen from the moon.
 
She knew it’s written on the stars; someone knows her name.
 
The airy summer between spring and March’s language, an imprecise grief of longing,
a desert of bones starved on
an ethereal ghost of past summers and the sickening void of the night sky,
she needed to endure
something in her holler with violence—some rage kept on the other side of her old pillow.
 
And yet it’s still written on the stars—someone knows her name.
 
Where the river flows, she follows.
In hopes she’d be directed to the one who wrote her;
achingly believing she’s the muse this time.
Who else could have written her the way she is?
 
With her eyes the same as the earthly sand,
her lips alive in light gray, with the way she lit up when the moon reveals himself to her,
the sea pushes upon the land as if it were longing to kiss her weary feet.
 
With the way her hips dance when she walks, when she closes her eyes, only she can hear her author’s note at the back of her heart. Slowly yet surely whispering, “It’s written on the stars. I wrote your name, my love.”
 
And so she follows the flow of the river, faithfully locking her eyes in the waters' steepness. She gently brushes the cold river, and so it quietly blushes at the thought of her.

That someone like her was cared for enough by her own artist.
april, you were legendary and momentary. good days are coming.
"One firm step," she said. As shallow as she must be, one could think she radiates midnight, and while no one is looking, her lips are similar to Burgundy—soaked in wine and in her drunken state; resting her body as she sat mellowly where no one would choose those seats made for her—deluding herself that there's just too much space in between, and they danced around each other's thick skin while their gazes were fixed on her. "One firm step," she says, straightening her back.
 
Every day, she'd meet her own grim reaper in the shade of the earth's brown mist, kissed by her long, thick lashes as she closed her eyes, surrounded by the people she considered dead. As strange as it was, they didn't know her. There's one string of luck hanging side by side in hopes that she'll live another day.
 
At dusk, she'll attempt to accompany the earth's body at her expense. She'll whisper nice things, and they'll blush at the thought of her noticing them. She'll offer her hand and kiss the molds, and her lips, the tint of burgundy, will now be the same pigment as the earth's body, and they'll chuckle at the sight of her.
 
When the world is laughing at her, death stands still in front of her, waiting for her presence, but she remains still. When the sky cries for her, she gives him rainbows and butterflies, even though he hates them. And when she's alone at night, she kisses the flies roaming around her bed while he thinks of her—but then again, the expression of death is inevitable. It seems like he doesn't want her to be happy. She lets Earth do what he wants with her, even if her skin glows like ivory. She lets him soak her in his dark mists and long-tailed veins, and death starts to interfere again.
 
He shows up in a crowded room with his thousands of soldiers, pretty faces, and partygoers. In his simple armor and at the grocery store, in his childlike appearance and beggar state. She must have been so exhausted from showing up minutes later or arriving at his usual business hour—midnight. Even with the screen, she usually spends the rest of her day. He shows up. Death was persistent. He signifies everything she could've had, even the voices implanted inside her. They named him Death. Sometimes he's a song, a lyric, or an instrument she could not quite understand; the ring before the call was answered; the tap before the keyboard; the lump before it washes down by the water; the movement before she lays her eyes on.
 
He was once a person she grew tired of—but now a metaphor she'll always keep in the back of her notebook. And sometimes, he is an anecdote every old person mentions in their hospital bed. She was shallow, but he was a willow tree.
A swamp.
A locust.
A lover once.
Hi, it has been a while. It’s been months since I wrote something that I’d like to read. Now, I’m just rereading every piece that I scratched from the back of my notebook. I don’t feel like writing anymore. I don’t think it’s coming back, and I don’t think I’ll give it a chance again. There's not a day that I don’t think about it. At the back of my heart, I know it calls on me—in total solitude, in the noise of the world. I haven’t forgotten about it, but I’m tired of pretending that I still love writing. I’m often a wanderer, and a wanderer gets tired too—we get lost in the woods, in an empty grave, or on a blank page.

A wanderer sometimes loathes herself. I’m exhausted.

On the other hand, here’s a piece that I wrote back in 2022. 
I won't leave this page. I know I'll be able to bleed ink again. Maybe I'd write my next piece on my skin—or on an old tree, or maybe in a dream where my words are limitless and in total sonder.
What am I beyond my industry?
Are we not building another Babel?
We babble on beyond comprehension, big-noting ourselves into oblivion,
in an attempt to reclaim the lost,
Our lost selves...
Could the career path lead us back to ourselves? Beyond ourselves?
To our true selves?
To be selfless, seeing others in loving kindness?
OVERBURDENED WITH RAINWATER

Ahhh...your smile
lights up this room

... you, as ever
its centre

head thrown back
before the spill of laughter

like a buttercup
overburdened with rainwater

hair scattered
in all directions

the wind
adoring its fiery tresses

you, the beautiful
Medusa

& always
that pose

hand on hip
an ever-lit cigarette.

Some of us
still cry.

Others hold
back tears

like buttercups
overburdened with rainwater

& still you laugh
at our grief

locked into
the landscape

of your
photograph
TELL TALE TALK

Shark’s tooth
draws blood

( even though long dead )

a startled red
against the sharp whiteness

lost in a bric-a-brac
box of shells & things.

“Gotcha!”
grins the dead

shark’s set of
choppers.

Baby shark
but a shark nonetheless.

I drip a trail
of red

across the Charity
shop

snap up
a tattered HUNTING OF THE SNARK

a battered
AT SWIM TWO BIRDS.

Here
a broken ballerina

on a jewellery box
( minus her music )

there
( I stop dead )

a used
soul

bruised
badly used

Godless
without guile

my fingertip traces my initials
on its dust

tarnished
without hope

immortal and unnoticed
amongst shark’s teeth & shells.

I get
a SNARK & TWO BIRDS

for a pound
a piece.

The shark’s grin
for a pound again.

“What do you want
for this old thing?”

I nonchalantly
ask

setting the soul
with great care

within the cage
of teeth

perched atop
the books.

“Being dying
to get rid

of that
for ages.”

“It just sits there
staring at me!”

“Scares the life
outta me

to tell you
the truth

even though I don’t know
what the hell it is!”

“Give us 42p for it
& we’ll call it quits!”

I buy back
the soul

( my soul )

I had given away
with some old shirts and shoes

things I thought
I wouldn’t ever be needing

. . .again.

But seeing it
discarded amongst shark’s teeth & shells

I thought
twice about it.

Maybe
( perhaps )

I can use
it

for a paperweight.

Or a doorstop.
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