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Crowds of weary people
shuffle from life to life

in the bellies of subways
claws of escalators

past booths of seven-dollar coffees
taking off shoes and jackets

as a voice in the roof says that
the flight to Mumbai,

or wherever, is now boarding.
All of it disappears

because--after these many years--
your face

(I shrug off
my backpack)

your voice
in my ears
 Feb 2013 L Curley
Quinn
it's the kind of thing
where you can't stop
singing beatles songs
or smoking too many
spliffs to stop yourself
from gushing all day
long

the kind of thing
when you feel as if you're
sitting over the edge with
your legs dangling and
every once in awhile
you're tempted to
jump

the kind of thing
when you memorize
irises and listen to songs
and you swear every
single one was written
to make you feel this
way

the kind of thing
that leaves you breathless
and too full all at once,
heavy and weightless,
empty and full,
grounded and
free

this is my favorite part
 Feb 2013 L Curley
JL
I feel as if I am a king
The music sounds so
Beautiful to me
The violins and cello
Are wind through the willows
The piano's sweet tunes
A garden by moon
And her smile from a stone seat
The flowers spill perfume
On the stone walk
As she and I talk
The music is so sweet
You're not your body.
You're not your mind.
You're not your own,
and you are not mine

I'm not my heart,
my fleeting mirth,
my hidden tears,
my death, my birth.

We're not the world's
and it's not ours.
We can not own
the earth and flowers.
We can't sell the groves of trees,
we can't buy the land and seas.

Yet our hands build cities,
and our hands spill blood.
Our greed yields envy
while our hearts seek love.

Let us hope
that someday, we
can let it go
and simply be.
I've found myself in a place of supreme peace recently, and it came from the realization that nothing is really ours.  Even our bodies, minds and thoughts are simply tools we can sharpen and use to some purpose, but they aren't ours.  They're just close to home.  Then it becomes clear that this box of tools is calling the shots, drawing the blueprints of our lives, my tricking us into thinking we are the tools themselves, and we get caught up in this cycle of endless wants, this attachment to possessions because we somehow think that identifying with property will make us happy.  None of that's true.

What's left when all those things disappear, and we've nothing left to own?  Love and compassion.  Everything else is just an instrument to spread that love.
Could it be love has lost its taste?

Hidden thoughts and feelings riding the fence

Trust and conversation gone to waste

Unaware of their existence

They fly through the night's bitter breeze

An unfamiliar chill reminds them

Love is not a coat one puts on in stormy weather

And anyway, it doesn't always stop the rain
Bald headed mountains with thin tree hair.
We're okay, though
we didn't think we would be.
I got a message today
from an ex-coal miner
with anti social paranoid depression:
keep them coming,
he said, of the poems;
and I too felt less alone.
The snow darkens sky,
lightens ground.
I don't know about you but I think
I've been making too many excuses.
Sometimes I sleep in the coal mine
because I want to, that's all.
Three brown birds say,
"See me!"  "See me!"
Snow falls on my head and I'm thinking:
I don't want any more birds to die for me
The road has taught me
so much about universal
fragility.

With enough time and chances
almost anyone
can end up almost anywhere;

guard yourself
but be kind
to the unguarded.

It's been ten million miles.
Few, and blessed,
the undefiled.

Christ mourns
with me as we
walk down rainy street

towards caged and crying child
Ecclesiastes 4:1-2
 Feb 2013 L Curley
Abigail Madsen
Between stolen kisses
The hits and misses
We create ourselves
this distorted image of what we
deserve
This façade to aid our acceptance
this thing we use to find any remanence
Of self confidence that has been ripped away
leaving our self importance at bay
Our own distortion of inner meaning
unable to see
what
and
who
we deserve
The nerve
Of ourselves saying we don't deserve
the best
and that we deserve everything less
than the most
it's not fair, how
being imperfect
makes you believe you're some how defective
and its not fair
that
when we get caught in a place with dont belong
with someone we don't belong
with
The only possible reasoning being
that
We accept the love we think we deserve
but you deserve the best
So accept it.
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