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 Mar 2016 ap
Eulalie
French and Love
 Mar 2016 ap
Eulalie
A Tale of Two Cities, Marie Antoinette, Les Misérables,
Populaire and Jacqueline Boyer—
Van Gogh and Monet and all things the Louvre—
Louise Labé and Louis Aragon,
Camus, Voltaire, Baudelaire…
I’ve been breathing in pieces of France,
Eating baguettes,
Dreaming of their kisses,
Committing the curl of their words to memory,
To maybe find out just why they say the French love better.
Maybe if I’ve established the impartiality to the Eiffel tower and the familiarity of romantic cheek-and-cheek-kiss greets,
I will grin under the Parisian Moon, whispering with some curls of my own:
Je suis heureux.
 Mar 2016 ap
Martine Panzica
I shall scream Chopin
I shall bleed Monet
I shall whisper Rumi

They have poured their souls into my eyes and ears
Thus I will pour it back for them

Into this life and into this world
Till beauty rises like tidal waves over the heads of the lost

And we as one, will live it together

One soul, ceaselessly pushing love against the dark.
09/08/14
 Mar 2016 ap
Felicia C
Ouch.
 Mar 2016 ap
Felicia C
is there a word for the way it feels to cry in front of the Water Lilies in the museum?

is there a word for when your teeth taste like blood from getting punched in the heart?

is there a word for the moment when you say the last words you ever wanted to say to the boy?

there should be.

maybe then I could understand what it takes to tell someone that you hope they wake up feeling alone.

Who I’ve become is someone I respect.
March 2013
 Mar 2016 ap
Gwen
Better than art
 Mar 2016 ap
Gwen
I used to admire Van Gogh for how lovely he could make simple sunflowers look,
But then I saw you,
and I wonder how jealous Van Gogh would be of your beauty.
 Mar 2016 ap
Jon Martin
unfinished
 Mar 2016 ap
Jon Martin
These are the moments poets write about, paintings waiting. Quiet city streets at sunset, building, highrise sentinels of man's unquenchable thirst for conquest, and all of us together under one sky, waiting.... This radio screaming in my ear, Bon Iver, Conner Oberst, the other poets that wander these lost, lonely alleys. Sun's rays fading, as city lights rise. The soft blue becoming the strange azure, that fades to my indigo incandescent familiarity. This nighttime refuge of lost souls, wandering the frozen streets, and becoming something more than the sun can make them. That soft, ragged, imagined power coming from within each of us, in the open darkness of a concrete river. Nothing has changed but the light, and the new light makes each of us something more than we were in the rays that preceeded it. There is nothing to take away, nothing to subtract, nothing to glean. Just this place, this almost-lostness, betraying in itself the proclaimed divinity of dark. Stepping back, without looking behind, not knowing that the fear in front of you cowers before the monster behind your back. Just. Live. Be, let the being become you, and embrace this inner-self so few have seen, so few have touched, so few have truly loved. realize that all things wear a darker form, and the things that lay in wait under these city streets are dangerous. The way a chainsaw is dangerous in the hands of a child. There is no way to know who will get hurt, and once the chain of events is initiated, there is no way to safely remove the weapon from the hands of the naïve. Things that bite, hiding in dark corners, and laying wait for the lost, weary, and heartbroken. Lighted hallways, entrances into the other realm of indoors, torch-lit passages into forbidden and mysterious kingdoms. Every stairwell lit. The bannister to the lower, and upper, a stripe on walls as I drive on. Two million bulbs of nightlight security, and still this city finds shadows in which to hide fear. Dark corners for the lonely, and blind alleys for the lost. Every heart beating, fresh hot blood, and no warmth to share. Scared and alone, wanderers all, until the burn of the light we call home beckons us there. This passing of time, a gift, from gods unseen, and hands unheld. Colded fingers for want of a lovers touch, or the precious gift of familiarity in a foreign land. Alien landscape, and this, my unfettered direction of ambiguity. Directionless wandering for want of a chosen path, and no choice but to take the offered road. The fear secondary only to the loneliness, oh that curse that comes again.
If you want to know what my writing process looks like, check back. This will be chewed on over the next several days, or weeks. Revised and changed, until I like it. I wanted to show my writing in the rough. This is the painter's art, on raw canvas....
 Mar 2016 ap
g clair
this house
 Mar 2016 ap
g clair
Early this morning
downstairs in the kitchen
new sunlight is beaming
on fresh painted isle
it spills to the floor
like water, light streaming
on warm 'Sandy Beaches'
mom's favorite tile.
  
and out through her windows
it pours in the front yard
kissing green lawn
which is littered with leaves
wet brown and orange
red, golden yellow
while shadows are present still under the eaves

coffee steam rising
it wafts up the staircase
and into the room where I'm barely asleep
awaken my senses
and draw me to sitting
when off of the mattress I suddenly leap

Today is a brisk one
my window cracked open
cause breathing cool air to me always feels best
I play with the thermostat
keep myself cozy
I'm layered on thickly, topped off with a vest

So I sit here writing, while tile guy cutting
the ones he will place near the door to our home
upon which will stand all our autumnal guests who are shopping for houses
not reading this poem.

I've turned up the music, Bon Iver,  
with coffee to  comfort the artisan working his trade
along with his help who'd complained of a headache
his sinuses cleared with medicinal aid.
  
And letting the morning lapse into the noonday
while dew's burning off, we'll be singing a song
blue sky or cloudy, misty or raining
it's daytime, we're doing and rolling along.

And as I tap lightly, I am seriously sinking
in work I must finish to ready this place
today I am painting a bedroom and thinking
how lovely it is to create, to erase

all of the bumps and the holes from our living
I'll spackle and sand to a smooth starting clean
so nice that old wallboard can be so forgiving
and I prefer flat paint without any sheen.
  
the sun's setting quickly
but night-time comes slowly
as it is common to dusk on the land
revealing the stars I can see further out
and enjoying the evening, with nothing else planned.

I trudge to the place where
my day always ends
and isn't that something, just as it begins
I pull back the covers and
punch up the pillow
and ask Love's forgiveness for all of my sins.

Nobody tells us to keep our lives simple
a choice that we make to be glad less the gold
for the things that are free less the stuff that we carry
a pleasure to have which will never grow old.
 Mar 2016 ap
kylie
i. this poem is not about that thursday afternoon
you spent holding me in your arms, swaying
back and forth in the middle of your bedroom
because i mentioned that no one understood me
and you told me you liked my dark hair and
my olive skin and the fact that i wrote poems about
confused teenagers in love and that i had a heart
that was just as confused as yours was

ii. we whispered sweet nothings to each other and
kissed under your navy blue duvet for two years
and the reason i still cry over that is because
you knew how much i detested dancing and that
i hated when my peas touched my potatoes and
that i never went to bed before two in the morning,
but you never learned that i am an iceberg

iii. i asked you to describe me and you failed
to mention that i'm afraid of the dark because
it reminds me of a sky without stars and that
my favorite song is skinny love by bon iver
because it reminds me of the relationship that
i shared with you and you never understood
why i liked sad things (it's because i like the
way rainy days and sleepless nights make
me feel something worth writing about)

iv. this poem is not about love or heartbreak
but it is about you, and i must admit that it
feels awkward to write about you without
feeling any ounce of admiration or hatred
pulsing through my tired veins. this poem
is not about me missing you, or how i wish
that you still thought about me, because i
am glad that i no longer float across your
mind whenever you watch a baseball game

v. you were like the titanic and our feelings
were the ocean that carried you closer to me.
you saw the surface of my being, consisting
of all the things you liked about me and the
things that you could put up with. but your
ignorance became too much and every
quality you failed to pay attention to came
crashing into you all at once and i
absolutely destroyed you and i don't know
whether to say i'm sorry or
you deserved this
008
 Mar 2016 ap
emily grace
the back of your truck was painted a brick red, with the previous blue showing through the cracked paint.

I remember the drive up to the top of the hill with you

Bon Iver playing softly on the radio as you grabbed my hand

singing me the words to Skinny Love

and even though the parts of me weren’t skinny

you loved me anyway.



We reached the top of the hill, and everything around us was dark

the moon was new, the sky blackened like a bruise

the car lights shut off and I jump out of the cab

"too short for trucks" I murmur

I rub my eyes to look up at the sky and gasp

stars freckle the once black sky, casting a luminescent glow over the hills

and on your face

twinkling in your eyes

and I remember thinking how beautiful you were that night.



You pull all of the blankets you brought out of the back seat

and begin forming a makeshift mattress in the bed of your truck

I watch you in awe

watch the muscles in your arm contract as you work hard

to make this night perfect for me.

"I love you, you know that, right?" I whisper to you

you lean over the edge and kiss my lips

and say

"I know".



Helping me into the truck I find my favorite blanket

the plaid one with the wine stain from late night endeavors with you

and wrap myself tight

you wriggle your way in with me, throwing another over us

and I look up

amazement finds my eyes and my mouth is agape

but you don’t see it

I look over to you and see you gawking at me

I whisper what, and shuffle your hair

and you smile coyly

"The stars pale in comparison to the beauty that lies next to me"

I grab his face and find his lips

kissing him over and over

somewhere in between kisses and stargazing we find each other

half naked in the back of your truck

and I’ve never felt so alive.
More like a short story kinda thing... but still. enjoy.
 Mar 2016 ap
raen
Obsidian
 Mar 2016 ap
raen
An almost stillness came about as she strode into my door,
like breath itself refused to move,
fearful of touching her mysterious beauty

But her obsidian eyes betrayed her.

Sharp and gleaming,
with a silver sheen
she looked at me,
and I knew…

---------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------

Molten lava spilled forth from her mouth, melting our clocks—
eighteen hundred nightmares compressed in two hours.
Long hand moving forward, as the short hand moved backward
How can memories persist in such an acrid life?

She spoke of a beast in the guise of a man,
one who ravaged innocence with the flick of a click
A coward that collected milk teeth for hardened bones
of other ***** beasts with no spine

That throaty tenderness when she spoke,
sprinkled crystal seeds of frustration in me
She says she loathed him, denied she loved him,
but her obsidian eyes betrayed her

There she was, a bud he plucked from the nuns’ garden
He grafted then he pruned her,
spreading her pollen, wafting her scent
yet folding her petals to himself

Caterpillars feeding upon her leaves,
she lets them devour her,
yet once they are wrapped in their cocoons to sleep,
she stabs them with her thorns.

Tears then slid down from her midnight lace eyes
and it was all I could do to catch them
She said she was weary of curtailing butterflies,
of tearing their wings before they can even fly

I had to ask, how many… how many winged gems?
She lifted her sleeves, and showed me her scars
One ugly mark for each innocent child plunged deep,
my heart getting slashed at least three hundred a beat.

----------------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------

A certain stillness came about as I strode into her door,
like fear itself refused to move,
letting breath touch her mysterious beauty for the last time....

Her obsidian eyes had betrayed her.

Sharp and gleaming,
with a silver sheen
I looked at the knife beside her.

Maroon-mapped sheets, a stunted womb.

Strains of Bon Iver’s “Flume”
flit past the sighing air like a butterfly,
and I knew…
Agosto, 2014
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