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I may have already saddened

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a sameness in the parrots we care for

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our suicides
fight
for position

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we twin the parable

this one:  she pushed the baby carriage and in her going made quite

the parabola     /     the baby bounced     but was dead     the baby

bobbed

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habitually I displace:

     the ether / a god’s trenchancy

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the academic scholar of woe whose grave I would visit

uninterrupted    

     whose stone now is a lonely letter *f


who would’ve partnered with me to abandon

my freighted usage
of lonely,

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     of heart, of amateur eulogist
 Dec 2012 My Name Here
JL
I fell in step with a beautiful boy on an undefined path in the woods
Eyes of melted caramel, lips of bitten cherries
A face of dazzlingly white sun rays

His fair composition had caught my eye
Several grown oak trees away
An intensity of gamma rays and morning light
mixed in with a dash of candlelight

As I neared, I became drunk on his sweet fragrance
Of burnt wood and hot chocolate
and lying outside in the midst of a spring day
Tender breezes that smell of rain and cold earth

This boy, how softly he stepped, catalyzed a desire deep within
A compelling to touch, maybe taste his beauty
My white hand reached out, an extension of billowing feathers
With risk, attempted a gentle, gossamer graze on his back
and my face, a blush burning, consumed my whiteness

But this boy, so beautiful, had a bitter back
And soon my white feathers frosted
Ice caked in between my limbs 
Spread with an intensity like wildfire
And my nimble body no longer white
So cold, so heavy, I fell
 Dec 2012 My Name Here
brooke
Tarry.
 Dec 2012 My Name Here
brooke
Through the twigs and savory green,
dry yellow sun bits. A wet vanilla perfume
lingering in sweat droplets, staining
that white tank-top too busy being
baked in, dead grass fastened to your
thighs a bit like tassels. I am sometimes
positive that you grew from the thirsty
dirt like a

cactus
(c) Brooke Otto
I saw you and slammed
my fists against the tabletop
because I just wanted
a moment for our glances
to meet and ricochet–
but all I got was my beer
to break the imposed
inertia of its pitcher.
And so it poured: all over
me and mocked the way
I spilled myself to you,
desperate for you to love
me back. You give a fierce
beating for a heart so weak
and it’s funny, because you
never had to raise a fist
to get me so defensive–
and it’s funny, because I had
to fight back before I realized
I will never defeat your silent
treatment, no matter
how eloquent my words.
 Dec 2012 My Name Here
DM Pierce
He sees the world as her backdrop,
And loves her wholly.
She knows that and wants to love him back, but
All she can feel is lonely.

As he sleeps she cries in
Tight, silent heaves in rhythm
With his chest as he breathes.
His face is lit from neon light,
Slipping through a slit on the strung-up sheet--
An eye to the street,
And to everything that's beyond this life that she leads.
But she needs him and
Please, she begs, Have him
Hate me, at least.  I'm weak--
I'll linger until he throws me away,
Because at least then I can say
That it wasn't my choice, but
Everything must fade.


She goes on a walk every night now,
Riddled with complexes and smoking,
Eyes roving with 2AM mascara,
Wearing a spring dress in dead winter.
Head down in a crowd, aware
Of herself existing only when men stare.
They crave for her, she craves for him,
Her sadness, a narcotic magnetism.

She drowned off the coast
Of the island in her kitchen.
She weighed herself down with
Her faults like mountains and
Yellowed ambition.
Glowing sea tries to touch the sky, again and again,
As I appeal for your love even in inevitable constrain.
Endless sea merges with sky far away from the earth,
Just like our souls amalgamate with eternal love and mirth.
Glistening sands adorn with starfishes spark in the sun light,
Looks like the bride’s costumes dazzling in the marriage night.
Roaring of sea sounds like the echoes  of your heart,
Stoutly says on our   holy integration is never for depart.
Glittering sea’s waves  knee down and the tides go up,
As we bow down for God’s blessing with great hope.
The sacred sea shore gives the pleasure of eternal feeling,
As your love heals the soul and refine internal feeling.
Perception of my love
Before Mom got sick, Sundays always taught
me to Be still and know that I am God. I tried
to look my best when asking the sanctuary’s
chandeliers for forgiveness. Six feet deep
and seven months later, I got my first job
changing oil and on Sundays I would work
double shifts to pay for my sins, and I’d roll
them up and smoke them and they made me
Be still, and know that I was God.

Now I’m a ghost wallowing throughout this city’s
shell, haunting streets and raising hell—I’m broke
like a wallet and nervous like first days, but I am
adapting to the side effects of motion sickness,
the way my stomach overthrows my mind and liberates
my insides—defying gravity, flowing upstream
through my esophagus, they bellow out like cigarette
smoke or the sounds of my vocal chords. And slowly
I’m forgiving myself for being still for all the things
that don’t exist: I’ve found a strange heaven
in staying ceaseless.
 Dec 2012 My Name Here
Del Maximo
as day closes
I lay on my right side in night’s envelope
knees bent in semi-fetal position
my right hand reaches up and across
resting upon the coolness
of my exposed left shoulder
chin touching upon forearm

I ponder sunlight’s hours
where the insecurity of others
spews green venom
and imaginary superiority
reeks yellow breath

in the darkened quiet of sleepless sleepiness
I find that little spark
the enabler that allows me to love others
in a sometimes unkind, uncaring and thankless world

it is the comfort and peace we all seek
a feeling of belonging
to the earth
to the universe
to one’s self

no matter what others may think
no matter what happened during the day
no matter how hard it was
in that last moment of conscious thought
before drifting back into the womb
of softness and dreams
I know that I love myself
in triumph and contentedness
I love myself
no matter what
© August 4, 2012
 Dec 2012 My Name Here
Del Maximo
birth
life
death
rebirth
a rim tone’s soft cry (wah-wah)
emerging above a drum-like
basso profundo
chaotic cadence
harmony in vibrato
a singing bowl’s sustain dying
to be born again and again
the universe without and within
inhaled into the mind’s eye
traversing core’s essence
expelled through nostrils

meditation in slow motion
posture strung from rafters
a twisting waist
yin and yang separate
but equal
beautiful lady wrists
synchronized to calm, deep breaths
a diffused gaze focusing
on quiet power inside you
chi strong enough to stop time
as you move within a cylinder of silence
thinking about nothing
each movement with a memory of its own
a life time in yang long form
closing down to wu shu
the universe within and without
and in each breath
birth
life
death
rebirth
© October 8, 2012
My heart is too big
to hold god,
angels maybe,
dark-skinned,
with ragged clothes,
but not god.

Alone in His majesty,
it would be a waste of space,
and we should take care
to make of his gifts more than that.

Where are we to go
on Sundays
from now on, you ask?
Well, you could come to my house,
and I to yours. Or, if that won't do,

we'll build a house from the ground;
and it will be just a house, a house
without memory, without beatings
and cold stares.  Flowers
in all the windows, growing up,
blessed with restlessness.
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