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wouldn’t it be great to learn Greek
she says
quickly riffling
through the phrasebook
with a thumb and her tongue out
while I try to discover what
‘to speak’ is in Dutch

everyone uses English
you know I say
spluttering ‘ik spreek, jij spreek,
hij spreek’,
trying to nail the pronunciation
like the book tells me to
‘ick sprake, yigh sprake, hi sprake’

but they might appreciate
tourists knowing a bit in Crete
like ‘efcharistó’
or ‘ti ypérochi méra’ she mutters
but it all, literally,
sounds Greek to me
and we can’t visit everywhere

besides, she wants warm weather
but I’d be fine in, say, Sweden,
‘Där är den närmaste Ikea?’
or in Iceland, but I can’t
pronounce anything
the way the phrasebook
wants me to

so Greece is probably best,
and anyway,
she’s too busy
informing me that
‘monókeros’ means unicorn
and it’s 575 quid each
if we book now
Written: April 2015.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time, regarding two people planning where to go on holiday, and using phrasebooks to pick up some of the language. I own several phrasebooks myself, including Greek, Danish, and Chinese. The foreign phrases in the poem translate as 'I speak', 'you speak', 'he speaks', 'thank you', 'what a lovely day', 'where is the nearest Ikea?' and 'unicorn'. All feedback welcome. A link to my Facebook writing page can be found on my HP home page.
NOTE: Many of my older pieces will be removed from HP at some point in the future.
I went into the pro shop
Paid my fees and turned to leave
The man behind the counter said
"you're new here...I believe"

I said I'd never played here
He said "there's things that you should know"
"I'll grab us both a coffee"
"Listen close...before you go"

"The first two holes are easy"
"nothing there gets in the way"
"no bunkers, and no water"
"just the way to start the day"

"It gets tougher on the third hole"
"There's some birds up in the trees"
"They buzz you while you're putting"
"Remember...birds on three"

"The fourth hole is a dog leg"
"It has a river on the right"
'Avoid the yellow caution tape"
"We had a drowning there last night"

I swallowed hard and stared back
"A drowning out on four"
"That's right" he said "don't worry"
"At least it's not the wild boar"

"The WILD BOAR?" I said aloud
He said "he's on five through seven"
"Don't worry much on those holes"
"He's been sighted on eleven"

"The eighth is fairy simple"
"A par three that you can reach"
"Water moccasins in the swamp"
"And lots of spiders in the beach"

"The greens are all receptive"
"They hold well, just come in high"
'But, land is short...there's quicksand"
"So...go in there...you die"

"you make the turn, and grab a dog"
"I give them out for free"
"The owner says it's wasteful"
"But, I say...just let it be"

"The tenth hole is a par five"
"It' one to reach in two"
"But if you put it out of bounds"
"I'd leave it...if I were you"

"you know about the wild boar"
"so eleven gets a pass"
"he's got some bite, that sumbitch"
"He might gore you in the ***"

"Now twelve...is quite a pickle"
"I'll tell you watch out now.....not later"
"We have a situation there"
"It's fairway's full of gator"

"What the hell is that you say"
"There's a gator out there then"
"Today there is but somedays son"
"You can meet as much as ten"

"You must be mad" I yelled at him
"I'm leaving...I'll not play"
"on a course so full of danger"
"There's no way...just no way"

I asked him for a refund
he pointed up above his head
"no refunds, only rainchecks"
"and then only if you're dead"

I sacrificed my forty bucks
And left, out to my car
The pro just sat and smiled
"I've scared off thirty one so far"

I know I'll not return here
not with friends or by myself
not with spiders in the bunkers
Or gators on the twelfth.
 Mar 2016 Jodie LindaMae
Kvothe
I thought
I could be someone.
I thought the world would open
up it's arms and allow the low
and broken
a home
in which to calm.
I was wrong.
Whispered dreams seem to shatter
on the wind.
A breeze of hope
whisked away the things I know
replacing them with
spinning tears.
No more near-sighted dreams.
A hurricane of plans
span it's last gust.
Leaving our future,
tumbling thickly
as dust.
Yay, pessimism. Life's been getting me down lately.
I have seen women lifted by love,
Countless women surrounded, fed, embraced by love,
But most recently I have met a woman condemned by love,
Alienated, starved, forgotten by love.
The pain from love is visible in the eyes, heart, and soul of this woman.
She who lives for love, who would die for love.
Curiosity forces me to look deep into her.

Big brown eyes tell of a man whose love was taken away as quickly as was given.
A selfish man whose compassion drowned in these eyes.
Taking advantage of the faith and forgiveness she possesses.
Tears roll down her cheeks and begin to drip from her delicate chin.
As sympathy overwhelms me, I invite myself in for a better look.

A bleeding heart welcomes me to the truth behind this love.
What once was bliss has transformed.
The love that filled now forces her to starve,
An endless hunger that consumes, leaving nothing for this woman.
This man has stripped her of all that she loved, including himself.
He has laughed at her sorrow and found comfort in her misery.
My heart breaks for her as she opens up to let me in.

One foot after the other I step into her soul.
My thoughts echo as I begin to connect with her sorrows.
"Stop," catches her attention as I start to reason with her.
"Do not give yourself to this man."
Confusion fills her as she wakes to catch my gaze.
"If your love/your life mean so little to you that you can just give it away, why should it mean any more to him?"
I hear these words and reality sets in.

I have met this woman in love,
Alienated, starved, forgotten by love.
I have seen into her eyes, felt her heartache, and visited her soul.
This muse whose sorrow connects so genuinely with mine... is ME!
I have given my life to a man who has never asked nor has he ever cared for it.
I have believed and made true all lies.
I have accepted inferiority, for how can he value me more than I value myself?
I cannot watch slam poetry at school because my body tells me it is wrong to show emotions that to show emotion is to be weak and I cannot connect the dots of this broken spirit
it is called slam poetry because it makes me watch to break things, to lash out with these tears, to drown the sea of people forcing poets to feel this way, I tell myself that im only crying because im on my period, that this is the red river that heaven cast down upon us for the curse of our femininity.
when I show my poems to my best friend I cannot look her in the eyes because I am transparent and she will see through the mask of indignation and indiscretion that i've put on
when I want to show my poetry to my English teacher I have to send it when I am not around to see the look of disgust on his face and his eyes trail my words like the wind I cannot hear the whispers of not being strong enough, not worthy enough for this career I have chosen
I love the English language, my old ball and chain, but its my insecurity that's weighs me down.
How id love to stand and preach in the choir and sing my poetry for everyone in the gospel to hear, to be praised in coffee houses and tea shops and libraries, to stand up for myself. but I cannot even bare the sound of my own voice, so I sit down and have the polyester seats dig into my skin like knives in the back with myself and its own mistrust.
it is called youtube because it is all about you, you and your favorite button up cardigan, the frayed sleeves from the over worn achievements that I cannot grasp, but the pain is sewn in tight and I cannot pull it above your chest, you can make me scream but I cannot even begin to understand how those lungs continue to be fully functioning when I smoke like a freight train and its frightening how I run this scenario over and over in my head because I can never get high enough to forget the way I arch my back to these metaphors
196 lb
average male weight
ego not included

156 lb
average female weight
although one spoken sentence hits like a ton of bricks

20 lb
unsaid words,
searing, left in your throat

10 lb
“It won’t happen again”
guns for vocal chords

40 lb
a dead car battery

25 lb
for every bullet he left inside her spirit

a scale says 167 pounds
body mass measured
heavy heart unaccounted

19.30 g
roughly the weight of a wedding ring
she’s seen three removed from three different fingers

1.5 g
enough for six rotations
enough to feel zero

1.5 oz
enough for a shot
take six to feel a hundred

10 million tons
the weight of a star

10 million tons
the thought of her

we are loaded
dense
filled

made-to-break
paper-made
carbon-bounded
­heart-strung
fire-resistant

the weight we carry is not the
numbers on the scale
we are much more than the pounds we gain
the aches that we hold
the tears that did not fall

living with a hallowed heart does not make it any less heavier

these light words were not meant for these paper limbs
gravity could care less

we are pressured
felt
squeezed
until broken
forevermore

built strong
lasts shortly
bulldozed by just one fallowed swoop
we are demolished

you could build your vessel as ravenous and as merciless as you can
only to be held down by the world
we are defied

measured
counted
hated
loved
we are
I sometimes forget to pitch my voice up
and I lose track of my expressions and my body
And I stretch so high that my head never comes back down

Nobody talks about me anymore, and there is no relief
The way I walk still turns heads, my perfectly adept
Hair and makeup leave quite the impression
But silence follows in my wake

I am fine, not searching for attention my careful adage
I just want to make the best first impression
Heels and dresses and eyes and stomach and ***
I drink coffee for 2 out of every 4 meals
And gorge myself on all the emotions I miss out on, living
Solely out of the pocket I feel safe in, my home
A house that sits just next to a neighbor
But we never meet
Father said immortality was a wave upon which I came and crashed
And to embrace the ephemeral like the claws of the cat, a scar on my knee
That vanquished all of my fears of living safely, blood, and who knew
It would outlast the skin, down to the bone, down, past the soul, the cut
I would make many more as the years left me

Father said my willingness to learn was a godsend, that too many folks
Waste their whole lives pretending they have all the answers, and I said,
"And, Daddy? What about you?" And he told me that he knew everything, and
Somehow that didn't grate unexpectedly then, as it does now
He lied to me and I lie to the whole world to right that wrong

Father said that how fickle it was, how time was, how time goes, how he just
He knows, and he let me in on the secret, the magnetics, electricity
The undeniable, insatiable grasp when the whole world is in your hands
We traversed all of the United States in a semi-truck, only breaking to sleep
Only pausing to look out of the windows at an Arizona desert where, maybe
The Totem Poles were the spirits of the dead calling out to us to stay, just once

Father said I was supposed to eat and am entitled to growth, how delightful
Change is, and I embraced that philosophy with enough barbituates poisoning
Me I could finally feel the infinity that he talked about, and how he shied away
From the word God, and still talked about his childhood and his destruction
As if they were tangible things, he said he's forgotten so many details already
jusso you guys know half of this is made up and i would never in my whole life call my father daddy because my daddy kink would really **** me up like tbh i can't even think about calling my father daddy without wanting to **** lol
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