By Ryan P. Kinney
A Jigsaw poem adapted from quotes taken at the 50th Anniversary Hessler Street Fair Poetry Competition Judging; Cleveland, OH 5/11/19

A snake crawls about his bleached skull.
Frosted night pales the moon.
(lets dive into his dreams. Will this dead man tell us his tales of madness and delight?)
Mysterious, smoky eyes look back at me.
The very breath of time
A deep breathe for those unafraid to leave the sun behind
It’s just a matter of time. We all fall down.
Quarterly tides that lift my spirit
The truth changes with the promise that nothing can ever remain the same.

Rhymes out of time
Where I can see the truth in each brush stroke.
What would I do with such knowledge, but to ask for more
There ain’t ever going to be a perfect audience
His book will never be bargain basement; overstock.
I’ll never live that long
Poetry isn’t produce
Almost nobody is looking to buy local.

He is part of the people who chose to be lost
Parents often struggle to teach their children how to choose.
Millennials are the forgotten ones
A generation that has no tolerance for *******
He figured it out long ago
He was a captain without a ship.
Burned the ship to save the crew

His tactics had not matured.
He wailed, “I want to feed my mind beauty.”
“I could eat up the kisses you lay on me each day.”
“Chocolate love can correct a lot of mistakes…”
“I need to eat healthier.”

The music rocks me with desolation
Microphone to inform underground
In the morning, still angry with power
I stop and ponder at what I thought was the immaculate conception.
Unshattered crystal can be torn between love me and love me not.
Anywhere is better than the empty side of your bed.

What is the consensus on nonabusive drunks?
The woman with medicine in her voice, she wanted to heal him
However, He was a dog not easily brought to heel.
The salt of the Earth tastes different than the kind Morton makes.

When standing in your sand I feel glass shards cutting into my feet.
Punctured with track marks from an older compass, lifting rose buds through the empty pores.
A life made from the finest threads of silk; gossamer quickly torn asunder.
I don’t want to die at the hands of someone else’s creation. I create my own life
Will she bet hers or mine?

They call me a murderer, but all I’ve killed is a lie.
Undeterred by my hacking
Cutting never worked.
They cut her open, replaced broken parts
She lived, in fact she thrived
While I will remain my shape.

Burial lands are for the living.
The largest human hole ever dug.
Where she could rust in piece with friends and we could finally let go.
There is holiness there in those subtle, dark places

Be bold she whispered, scribbled on the pages of her soul
Follow your wandering heart.

Each aware of the wings blooming ****** and wet; from the other’s shoulders
Flower crowns are essential.
Bathing in sweet feral rain
Pine sap running through his veins
Dining on nature’s primal fruits
While we lie among the roots

The change that never came
At least as a zombie I don't feel my mind rotting
Imagine ******* out bits of dark matter into an open sewer through the center of the city
Our baptism by fire, need not be theirs.

Original quotes from Ryan P. Kinney, Lori Ann Kusterbeck, Barbara Marie Minney, anitakeys, Lorianne Arwood, Audamatik, Jeremy Jusek, Ralph Pittman, Valentine Ventura,Casey Krysztofik, Kevin F. Smith, Kelly Hambly, Diane Ferri, Michael Ceraolo, Maeve Kroeger, Ariel Alexander Fiore, Hannah Gates, Georgia Reash, Eli Hawkins, Shivla Shikwana, Frank Thomas Rosen, Rob Smith, Tam Polzer, Elizabeth Burnette, Julie Ursem Marchand, Nancy Brady, Christine Donofrio, Cat Russell, Keith Allison, Sara Minges, Joan Perkins, Aubrey Crosbey, Tim Richards, Jill Lange, Ashley Pacholewski, Krystal Evans, John Burroughs, Renee Sanders, Azriel Johnson

Assembled by Eli Williams and Ryan P. Kinney
From works by Lennart Lundh, Gabriella Ercolani, Vicki Acquah, Ayla Atash, Russ Vidrick, Chuck Joy
Additional original content by Eli Williams and Ryan P. Kinney

Some future digger after truth,
alien or human, kneeling with
trowel and brush at this grave,
will note in clear, careful script
the wonder that a people would
be so deliberate with the smallest
of their gods' creatures,
and so careless of themselves.

They walked upon the new Earth
Like they did on the Old
Tugging along their gravel hearts
On freshly laid asphalt
Their eyes slowly
Moving towards the new sky
The clouds, like curtains, unfolded
Their feet freshly cleansed of old
Traditions and assumptions that they
would never make it to this great moment
But no one knew what was past
That port of no return
The ship sailed away,
Faded out of view
The lights one by one dim
The music softens
The actors bow,

Bewildered is the conscience of a dancer
whose unified self wishes to remain true
to a lover,
to family,
a social circle.
Yet a facet of the face must make love
to the masses;
each hungry audience that idolizes the mask,
she slowly exposes.

Another layer chipped away like
Hardened clay
The people here aspire to be
Nothing more than alive
The lives of the New World
In the hands of strangers
Coexisting within each other
For fear of never existing again
This is their lifeline, their blood
They are all in this repopulation
Together

They are husband and wife, or lovers.
They are childhood sweethearts
become best friends against adversity.
Or supplicants, praying for tomorrow.

But when your empty heart is weighed
"what are you really worth?"

I am vapor
An ethereal mist that permeates through all people
Unknown that I have infected them
That my heaviness weighs on their soul

You stand here, asking me,
“What do I want?”

I want to be light
Free,
Not a particle that jams up people’s souls
But something that invigorates them

She presses her hand to the bulletproof safety glass
And meekly whispers,
“Well, what do they say?”

They say I shouldn’t be so tired
They say I should get a job
They say I should get off this couch
They say I shouldn’t be a blob

They say I should feel,
Live
Create
His hands move wildly in the air
Miming a paint brush; a hammer
A tool of destruction; creation
He weaves his hands as though he is dancing to his own genesis


Simple and intense
As the splattered paint on a Jackson ******* canvas

we see others as they are
we see ourselves at every age
and all at once

Assembled by Ryan P. Kinney
From works by Russ Vidrick, Dan Rourke, Joe Roarty, Tanya Pilumeli, Terry Provost, Brian Matheny, Joe Roarty, Bob Wilson
Additional content from Saga of the Swamp Thing vol. 1
Additional original content by Ryan P. Kinney

The devil checked in at noon
And asked us
What is the sleep of reason?
The devil is a wicked man and wears a suit and tie.

In the eyes of your maker
You should be ashamed
To look your Maker in the eyes

Yes, you must stand naked. We all must

I see the perverts.
I see them on the corner.
I see them in the dark.
There's nothing a pervert won't do for pleasure.
They want to be weird.
That's how they do it.

Taste the salt on your tongue.
Salt of the earth
The ****** that made you and touches everything you made
Give us our daily lust. In **** we trust

...And God teaches the cricket how to play his music.
In a world gone wrong, won't you hear my song...
Live in vain or live in shame.
A dead man's hand, a mad man's brain...living off the lighting in his veins
What a wealthy country, but no one’s coming to pay my bail.

Assembled by Ryan P. Kinney
From works by Lennart Lundh, Elise Panehal, Tanya Pilumeli, Jason Blakely, Bronte Billings, Matt Young, Megan Hively
Additional content from Saga of the Swamp Thing vol. 1, “People who Died” by The Jim Carroll band, Linkin Park “Powerless”
Additional original content by Ryan P. Kinney

Dig the small grave
and place the smaller body so,
just so. The chill May rain
and the warm human tears
falling on her head
will serve for the ritual
washing of this pup,
barely two days old.

The fly says, “I can see that I have alarmed you. Please… Feel free to scream. There is no one to hear, and I shall still be here the you are finished.”
“I kissed it. It’s clean.”
“(Most) the people who died were all my friends”
We kinda stopped talking before we started talking.
says aloud, what he has been speaking in silence.
How fake they wish this could be
live inside, where everything that is small and screaming
There's blood on my hands... and I can't wait for this to be fixed so I can wash my hands of all this.
You woke the devil I thought you left behind.
So I cozy myself to a liar and a thief, because I want absolutely nothing to do with me.

Your telling me if I’m dead or not.
Atleast act like it matters

Assembled by Ryan P. Kinney
From quotes taken from works at poetry readings by Ray Lesser, Rosemarie Iwasa, Tom Hyland, Terry Provost, Ray Gihani, Tanya Pilumeli, Micheal Billings, Adam Brodsky, Ray McNiece

The children graduate in spring with slightly soiled diplomas
They think democracy is the ability to change the channel on your TV
The long line for the short attention span
We do not know how to differentiate between self and not self
Or are they afraid themselves or their kids will set themselves free
if you were not already dead you could live to 300, but only if you were born yesterday
If you want to lie with death, I'll sell you her coffin
no ashes, just bloated hypocrisy
The only way to heal is poverty
Ashes and **** cloth work
This generation will not pass unscathed

Assembled by Ryan P. Kinney
From works by Russ Vidrick, Connie Kopko Kramer, MaxWell Shell, Lennart Lundh
Additional content from Saga of the Swamp Thing vol. 1

At dawn
It is more interesting
The sparrows sing

That cloud looks like the starship Enterprise: a vessel of hope and discovery; a vapor. This sweet potato destined for the curry’s a carp: Japanese-lucky, walleye-man’s curse. And the cross-cut carrot? It ain’t an iris, a hint about eye-health. Friends, it’s just fun: not science, not God. Also, it’s dinner.

A fountain of youthful talent chemically imbalanced.
...with a grey skull full of He-man.

The road behind them curls
like a river taking the easy way,
not really caring where it goes
as long as it's someplace else.

The sky’s aflame. He skulks back to his mud, his ferns and stones. It is unease he feels, without a name, or merely autumn gnawing at his bones. The things of shadows vanish with the night. Worse horrors still are (may be) heralded by light.

Assembled by Ryan P. Kinney
From works by Gabriella Ercolani, Dr. Benjamin Anthony, Heather Munn, Vicki Acquah, Tanya Pilumeli
Additional original content by Ryan P. Kinney

Bewildered is the conscience of a dancer
whose unified self wishes to remain true
to a lover,
to family,
a social circle.
Yet a facet of the face must make love
to the masses;
each hungry audience that idolizes the mask,
she slowly exposes.

Then he saw the little movements where her belly was and now were taut muscles barely holding back guts and little faces with eyes shut snakes tiny tongues clicking, tails wrapping around

Atlantic waves
Soothing
Tsunami crashes; my mental health strews memory about like road sand.

A child asks for two dollars
To help me from his heart-
My maintenance software
Opens to error messages-
"Man pushes glasses up
On his nose-incidentally";

Resistance subdued
Take her then
Junk in the corner
She's worthless to me

This is no kindness in this man.
He is gluttony incarnate.
Consumption just to flaunt his aristocracy to the peasant.

You enter the world empty-handed and you will leave it empty-handed.