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 939° 
Khoisan
In a world without paper
there are no trees
no roots
no tattoos
no love
no ink.
 773° 
DankerSchon
I loved every part of you—
Your smile, your gaze,
Even your anger.

When you cried,
And your tear-stained eyes met mine,
I saw myself, buried deep inside them.

Losing

Y
O
U

Terrified

M
E

So, in the end,
I became my own

"ENEMY"
 602° 
-E
What if
Is a dangerous phrase

What if you
What if me
What if WE
What if there was a world
Where my What ifs were meant to be
 555° 
Kelly McManus
The older you get
the shorter the days become
so live while your young
 378° 
E
Sometimes I wonder
If you'd even remember
What you did

I think you cared
Once
But that was a while ago

Before you took everything from me
My heart, soul, and name
And left me without even the memory of you
 318° 
isabel
Another small step is all it takes.
A frightening depth beneath myself.
Another small step to front or back,
will decide my fate in life or death.
The step was planned; I saw the drop –
My heart fell down; I felt it stop.
A step, a start, my future saved –
Another small step is all it takes.
 271° 
Orchid
I drag myself back, further cracked
To this feat
I cannot help but envision
The poison I must reek

Left as lambs to all slaughter
Change is all but skin deep
“Well you’re your fathers daughter”
And with those words
I weep.
 256° 
badwords
They will tell you there is a right way.
They will hand you a torch and call it the sun.
They will roll their words in raw linen and whisper:
"This is what poetry is meant to be."

And you will nod.
Because they have made it so that not nodding feels like blasphemy.

But listen—
the ink does not check your credentials.
The meter does not ask if your suffering is organic.
A line does not collapse because it was crafted instead of bled.

They will tell you a poem must be naked, barefoot, aching—
as if there is no beauty in a well-cut suit.
They will decry the temple and build a pulpit in its ruins,
preaching freedom in a voice that allows no dissent.

Good poets are cult leaders,
and the first rule of the cult
is that they are not one.

So write the sonnet, carve the sestina,
sculpt the page in iambic steel.
Or break it, shatter it, scatter its bones—
but let no one call your wreckage untrue.

And if they do,
smile.
Because poetry does not kneel to priests.
A counter-point mirrored in style to:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4983752/good-words-are-clickbait/

The morale of the story is:

try not to dictate creation and by extension freedoms.
 254° 
Vianne Lior
Purple tendrils sway,
wind hums old forgotten songs,
stars blink, half-asleep.
 248° 
RMatheson
I hate suicide
I wish it would **** itself

RIP
Jim
Woody
Arkheem
Tim
 202° 
Traveler
The warmth remains
But only within
The tyrant called winter
Has closed us in

Apathetic dreamers
Lost in the cold
This frozen nightmare
Has taken its toll

Where is the May Queen
To free are beliefs
To return our magic
Frozen in grief

Oh but to pine
Away till it's time
The Keeper of Seasons
Changes her mind...
Traveler Tim

The snow is 3 1/2 feet deep
10 degrees
 201° 
Carlo C Gomez
~
Maternal midnight

Metallic lakeside

Freon heart, fayence mind

Eyelids of iron ore

Influence feet into the water

Into an embargo bay

Clear and innocuous, innocuously blind

Hills like white elephants on a polar plateau

Mosquitos on her mouth

Drink the blood of encryption

Change the tone of her voice

They pass behind the blue vein

Become infinite particles of her

~
 198° 
Francie Lynch
When he came after the Canal,
We did nothing.
When he came after the Island,
We did nothing.
When he came after the minerals,
We did nothing.
When he came after women,
We did nothing.
When he came after the Alliance,
We did nothing.
When he came after the Greenery,
We did nothing.
When he came after the children,
We did nothing.
When he came after the North,
We did nothing.
When he came after Liberty,
We did nothing.
When he came after Freedom,
We did nothing.
When he came after Justice,
We did nothing.
When he came after the Sheep,
We did nothing.
When he came after the Truth,
We did nothing.
When he came after Decency,
We did nothing.
When he comes after YOU,
What will we do?
NOTHING!
NOTHING AT ALL.
Wasted time
nothing matters
wipe the sweat
and get up

eat the food
on your plate
death's on a run
and it'll never stop

I feel time differently
flowing through me
God's writing in his book
about the new me

If you talked to me before,
act like you never knew me
I don't feel bad anymore,
I am wedded, newly,
to my past
and my future
and my life
and my death

Every breath
has a use
speak love,
and the truth
show kindness,
don't abuse
be clear,
and not obtuse
uhhh
 149° 
Asher
she brings the rain, soft and slow,  
a hush of silver, a gentle glow.  
yes, i care for springtime bright,  
but care for nothing in her light.  

she brings the rain, the world turns grey,  
yet melts the clouds, she clears the way.  
in dawn’s embrace, so cool, so wide,  
she brings the rain, i stand inside.
inspired by a song i heard in the show euphoria
 143° 
SableNocturne
sometimes you will want things
that aren’t meant for you
that aren’t going to
bring you love,
safety and clarity,
they are most likely
to cause you more damage
and harm in the long run.
so don’t..and i beg you..
don’t trade
your peace of mind,
your health and heart
for a fleeting moment of
what is known to be
a masterfully
executed
illusion.
 142° 
Madeon
you are not the darkness
you once wandered through
you are the light
that learned to shine
 138° 
Eve
forests green embrace my mind
the harsh branches look soft from the meadows behind
in fleeting moments birds shadows pass
and the trees move,
a hypnotizing dance
a melody’s whispering from afar
“the deeper the trees go the deeper they are”
i’ll try and listen to the songbirds warn
not to get lost in your hazel charms
 111° 
zoe
Shadows dance along walls
Cold, undulating fire
Threatens to suffocate
My thoughts,—I go on walks
Outside, the golden leaves
Know how to be better.

A dormant forest sees
Balance between forces,
Ever-changing seasons,
The purposeful movement
Of critters and giants.

Is the forest moral?
Wolves know moderation
Better than most of us.
My reason breaks:
Do humans still bother
With being good
These days?
 111° 
shadowsoul
He told me
"What's not to love?"

It's more of a
"Whats not to hate?"
 108° 
raahii
खेलने जा रहा हूँ इश्क़ की बाज़ी,
करने वाला हूँ दिल का इज़हार।
उम्मीद है हो जाएगी फ़तह,
हार भी मिले, तो हौसला रहेगा बरक़रार।
Love is a game, and I am ready to confess,
Hoping for victory, yet unwavering even in defeat.
 105° 
sunny
i see everything you never were in the other people
 97° 
Nat Lipstadt
~my poet friends and friendly poets~

(written in anger, then sorrow,
tinged with regret, but in the end one
has no choice but to forgive and forget)

<•>

the ghood poet knows no boundaries,
lays down tracks of a New England
pond of nirvana,
or across Siberian froze wastelands,
another
salves the wounds of dying soldiers,
and gives away comfort to the dying
with the freeing oxygen of
comforting words

the world of self,
that thing we know best,
thus encouraged by the textbooks,
well,
to have at it, plays whacamole
with your  owned flirtatious emotions,
none too imperious or low down or
garbage dump *****, that yet
cannot be validated by exploratory
over-the-line words pithy

even the florid, tiresome nickel & dime ing
rhyming scheming crutches,
we so oft employ,
yields up stuff that ain’t half bad,
periodically,
though, the blunt of words well crafted
needs
no such delimiting amusing playthings
or imprisoning
I-am-amoebic-pen-tata-meter

take you inspiration from here and there,
the proverbial deep dark of the mind’s recessed corridors of
corrupted consciousness,
or, the
contrail whiffs of the steaming steaming of the contradictions of a
newborn first day’s contrast of-
the wet dew on toes cooling,
while the simultaneous sun warms all
the cheeks,
heats the blood with
a thanks-god-I’m-alive
overwhelmingly overall tickling,

or
not.

write with the tools you have, but keep
them well sharpened, with
insight and revelation,
exploring the rain’s windowed
navigable rivulets,
the musical tempos
of waves and their multi-mystical variations,
and the readers will come like
pilgrims to your  holy land,
wearied and yet so delightedly hopeful,
with tingling contrasting dictions,
to capture and release,
by shattering any
stale notions of adulation
will bring your
audience of holy voyagers and voyeurs
to imbibe so deeply your creativity for the quenching, and the
amen gasp escaping tween
their lips is just a simple holy,
gentling thank you

discard the bad words as ornery and
distracting, veiled in pomposity and
highfaluting, self-saluting, arrogance of
those deeming themselves critical thinkers,
who thrive in the low mud flats of
self-pretension and the reassurance
of a mirror’s reassurance

write straight from the heart,
fill our eyes with the
complexity of the simple
and
grant us the write to share,
in your humanity

craft the work
and
the work
will repay
so stealthily
by secretly
crafting you





                                   nml
3:43 am 2/16/25

p.s,always fixyour typos
 97° 
Julie Grenness
Seize day,
Positive way,
Today!
Feedback welcome.
 89° 
Sia Harms
I sat on the edge of a teacup,
Spinning, spinning in a saucer,
My feet dangling in the boiling,
Tea-stained water—wondering
If it were better to fall forward
Or backward.
 88° 
Marshal Gebbie
Having soared above the surly bonds of earth, shared the heavens with eagles and billowed halls of cloud, having witnessed the glorious-ness of the golden light of a setting sun on craggy mountain peaks and the eternity of great oceans.... and on descending through the patterned, green fields to set my craft down in the velvet tones of pristine evening.... I have lived the life of the Gods....
And want for no more.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
An explanatory note to they, who have not yet tasted the utopian experience of piloting an aircraft through the high altitudes.
Having not witnessed the true, unbelievable and pristine magic of this, our mother earth, the place we call home.
 86° 
Liana
I may not believe in a god(s)
But that does not mean that I do not have a religion

I believe in poetry
Not everyone has a god, but everyone has a religion. For some it's art, animals, money, or music. For me, it is words, or poetry. At night I do not pray to God, I write poetry. I do not ask God for answers, I write to figure them out myself. Poetry is my religion.
 85° 
Maria Etre
The further
I moved away
from my traumata
the closer I see
them running towards me

It’s like a parasitic
relationship
I let them happen
I let them stay
thinking that
if I bought them
a jersey
with
“norm” stitched on it
I would fall for
their play
Full blog here: https://indiedoodles.wordpress.com/2025/02/19/the-in-counter/
 81° 
Sophia
i prayed every night:
when morning comes
don’t wake me up.

& i woke up
every morning.

i don’t know
what to believe in anymore.
 80° 
Zelda
He wears a broken watch,
Frozen hands, a falling arrow
Invisible letters, clear as change—

She loves him

Twice a day,
His broken watch tells this truth:
Love is frozen.
No need to wonder,
No need to question.

Very extraordinarily eternally

And time—
Twinkling,
Twirling,
Turning,
Ticking
February 20, 2025
 75° 
Millee
the flowers died on monday
the clouds cried on tuesday
the sky screamed on wednesday
the sun dimmed on thursday
the stars hid on friday
mother nature weeped on saturday
the earth spun on on sunday
Whispers of the night,
Raindrops dance on rooftops low,
Dreams drift in the hush.
For @Liana and @erin, two young poetesses who should be commended and praised for the connections they make through words.
A haiku for you both, my way of saying thank you for the words you share.💙💙💙
لنتعانق.. حتي تَخمد الكلمات وتتوقف ويطغى الهُدوء حتى يعلو صوت إحتكاك أجسادنا وتدفئ ..
لنتلاحم .. حتى تشتعل النار بيننا وتهبْ قطرات ندى من عرق جسدكِ تتدفق بين نهديكِ وأنا لها وعاءٌ يتذوقها ..  
لنتماسك .. أنا بعنقكِ بكلتا يدي وأنتي بظهري بجميع أضافركِ حتى تغرق رئتي براحتكِ ويمتلئ حلقي بمذاقكِ وتمتلئ عيني بتفاصيل جسدكِ بِكل نحتٍ وبروزٍ ونتوء ..
لنتحاضن.. حتى تهدء أنفاسنا ونبضات قلوبنا كفرس وجوادٍ ركضوا لساعاتٍ على شواطئ الرغبة و الإشتهاء ..
 61° 
Pax
Death, whose guise is end to sorrow,
sells salvation 'til tomorrow.
September 17, 2022
 60° 
Thomas W Case
When I was
younger,
I had to learn.
Sit and wait to
write.
I  would get
impatient and force it.
If you read it,
you could tell.

Now I’m quite a bit older, and
I quit trying.
Fodder seems to be
everywhere.
I can write about
the most mundane
things.

Today I’m at the
library waiting for my
girlfriend to
finish up at the dentist.
She’s getting her
teeth cleaned.
All my drinking ruined
my teeth.
When I got them
pulled a year ago,
there wasn’t a
healthy tooth in my head.
I have dentures now, so
I don’t have to
worry about how much I drink.
I know this isn’t a
good poem, but
hey,
there she is
all shiny and bright…
and sober.
This is a repost.  I have been sober for over two years now.  Here's a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryqLr9ehn7Q
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