Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
 Jan 2013 Quinn
Natalie N Johnson
What a cruel existence
to be one original artist
among millions

at what point is it redundant
to be unique,

and when will it be novel
to be ordinary?

when creativity became common
brilliance, typical

artistry achieved
at infancy,
and the minimum standard to be
a prodigy.

the least you can expect
is a breathtaking performance

and the most you can hope for
is a biography.
 Jan 2013 Quinn
JM
Sons and Mothers
 Jan 2013 Quinn
JM
I had to do it again.

I had to willingly
walk into the face of danger
and get rid of another stray
you let in.

My hand still hurts.

You are the most beautiful person I have ever known.

I have seen you beaten
and bruised by men
you have loved.
I have watched you struggle
for years with your own demons
of addiction, depression, poor choices
and lost loves.
I have seen your face
cry
far too many times.

Through the years
we have waxed and waned,
driven each other mad
with rage
and consoled each other
on our darkest days.
We have laughed,
cried,
screamed,
loved
and hated ourselves,
together and separate.  
I have left your side,
sometimes with thoughts of never returning,
of leaving behind all the pain
of our lives together and seeking my own pain,
only to return to you always.

We  got high together,
got clean together,
and have been everywhere in between.  
There were times
when you have been

so spun out

that you were unrecognizable
as a human
except
for your shape.
Other times you have been
the sole beacon of lucidity
in the dark chasm
of my
great
nothing.

Throughout all the beatings
we have suffered at the hands of others,
all the times some stray you let in robbed us,
all the dope deals gone bad,
the missed holidays,
the broken promises,
lies,
the good intentions gone bad,
through all of that your unshakable faith in
God
has always been a source of your inspiration to go on,
to move forward,
to keep smiling and more importantly,
to keep loving others.
Your willingness to help those
who are in need,
those
that have have hurt you,
and even
those
that you know are going to
hurt you,
has been both a source of
consternation and frustration
along with teaching me
how to love others,
how to have compassion.

You are the most beautiful person I have ever known.
I love you, Mother.
 Jan 2013 Quinn
Bruised Orange
There are a lucky few of us, who benefit from the paltry services of the mental healthcare system.
The rest of us, well, we are the ones who walk naked down the street with absent faces.
We are the ones who sit alone and ***** on the street corners of your small town America.
Your America.
We mutter nonsense to ourselves, for the sake of a sanity that was denied us.
Denied us, yes, as we sought and sought a solution to our degradation, but we never could grasp that golden ring.

Mrs. Murphy trims her hedges.
And we walk obtrusively through the park
on your warm, sunny, sky blue happy day,
seeking love and connection with our own humanity in the garbage receptacles
that are scattered down the paths of our solitary confinement.

And in your eyes?  Yes, yours!
We seek our solace, our redemption.
If only a single soul would glance up,
and connect with the eyes of our soul starved, 'yes, here I am, friend!'

We seek the self same recognition that you do.
We seek that opportunity to be.
That opportunity to be loved.
 Jan 2013 Quinn
Shannon McGovern
These days I long for
the times we drank for hours
getting dolled to the nines
in between shots and dance
moves. Weaving our way
in and around bodies
dark and in shadows,
prowling. We were the big
cats, the ones they keep
in cages for tourists to gawk at.
The ones they fling whole
carcasses towards, to be devoured.
Soul searching eyes and manes
longer than the Nile. Stopping
grown men in their paths with
a single glance. I dream of
the nights we could have talked
our way out of cop cars and into
furry handcuffs with a twist
of the tongue. We would twirl
boys around like tops, wrapped
in dorm room sheets. Winking
and taking them out in the morning
like black bags of trash, one after
the other. Blowing smoke out
our windows and giggling, our
own secret language. Setting fire
to our own bridges and dousing
the flames in tears and liqour.
We were the biggest game,
hunters being hunted, dying
to be laid out like skinned rugs
and ravaged like last meals.
In the end, like lazy zoo lions
we were left with nothing but
the shadows of the Queens
of the Jungle we used to be.
Licking our wounds
and cleaning our paws
in the sunlight as the world
goes on without us.
 Jan 2013 Quinn
Marigold
You
 Jan 2013 Quinn
Marigold
You
I still repeat words you said to me over in my head.
And now I only speak in tongues,
For few understand the ramblings of a loveless madman.

I was running,
You were chasing,
You ran out of breath,
I never realised you'd given up.

We are hopeless lovers
Distraught in worlds of unimaginable alone-ness
And I only want you.
I only want you.
And you are not here.
 Jan 2013 Quinn
Brett Jones
Adonis
 Jan 2013 Quinn
Brett Jones
The seven day prayer candle burned out
seven days ago, and the twisted blinds

are held together with chopsticks and moving tape
after snapping in an unresolved haunting.

The nights enter like gemstones and exit like rabbits.

Truth sequestered from skin; I get a haircut
instead of another tattoo.

While shaving my neck with a straight razor,
the bald Albanian barber asks me:

"Which is scarier: people or mirrors?"

Before I could reply he shook his head:

“Trick question. They are the same thing.”

Walking home, I tore up the if-I-die note I had hidden

in my back pocket, and taught the pieces to dance
to the silence of buckshot screaming into a black hole.

The choreography was as patient as pregnant pauses
breathing into paper bags.

To the neighbors, smoking cigarettes on their stoops,
the shredded paper just looked like litter.
 Jan 2013 Quinn
Shannon McGovern
I can only write when my still
beating heart, dances across
the page leaving lines of love
in blood stains. When I am wrought
in two, curled, fetal, wrapped
in others clothes trying to remember
how it was they smelled after hot
sleepless nights. I can only lay
a verse after I have lost my last
chip, and gambled away the last
pieces of what little love i have left.
When I cause myself to cry,
chained by foolishness and insecurities.
I can only say the words when
the hourglass has no more sand,
and the buzzer echoes dimly,
the last seconds a distant time frame.
I wish my words fell like a concrete
avalanche to the floor, rumbling
and shaking the ground, like angry
Gods seething over unheeded warnings.
I wish the truth glowed neon, like the streets
of Sin City. Where you can't miss the signs
and you know, you're exactly where you're
supposed to be.
 Jan 2013 Quinn
Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Next page