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my dad used to say all of the songs were about being seventeen young and sweet, wind in your hair, excitement in your veins and I thought wow, that means seventeen could be my year will my fairy godmother spare a wish? can my rags of hopelessness finally sparkle? maybe seventeen is the excuse I need to be brave to take the shot in the dark if it means finding light to cross the unbeaten path even though tree roots are out to get me to express the love flowing in the canyons of my heart to stop closing doors as quickly as I open them my age is young, but my dreams are old with this next chapter comes stories untold
I've had 536,457,600 seconds of air and don't want to waste one more
she casts her pencil like a wand as magic soaks into the page her flannel cascades around her work, shielding it from curious eyes she tilts her head to listen to the lecture, but her heart is elsewhere running through castles and stumbling through candle lit streets colors tangle to mirror the expanse of her dreams she shares her soul with every meticulous stroke each face blessed by her style but never the same when she designs she never aims for perfection for she knows perfect is just a fancy way of saying flawed she erases and redraws as if her art could never satisfy her desires it can always be better but it is never good enough if only she knew I meant it when I told her I loved her drawing her art speaks to me like Mona Lisa never could
Let me go, like letting the ribbon slip through your fingers, your eyes watching the balloon dance in the breeze before disappearing into the clouds.
This too will sink I know
Like the others before
This too will go
Behind shut door.

Once a place of rejoice
Where I poured my heart
Leaving is now the only choice
And make a new start.

My work is my blood of toil
Come at a high cost
Digging deep into the soil
What I grew is all lost.

I leave this holiness with pain
Will miss all you gave
Leaving the circling dots to reign
And send old poems to grave.
I leave with love and best wishes for all the fellow members and friends here.
The boulder river almost called
the figure leaning on the bridge.

The height wasn't much
but one touch would crush.

He saw a doll with its blood
floating away with the current.

Thin line, he muttered under his breath,
I never realised
it was this thin.

He snatched himself away from the moment
and headed towards the rest house
thinking
I would give it a try,
some time.
.

often   i am retrodden   after passing a lengthy sleep battle
day following day      i wake in and out   loftily bobbing
  nodding into conversation  and durring out          
                                 like a tiny failing electric fan
  struggling to appear present and take part
   then whirring   into a congested cumulus  

a colleague, (name slips me), sips her coffee
she dribbles her features into her colourful lap
her words become a slury chum of incoherence
(she may snap back if i have energy to retrieve her
she may  upon a whim   form another person altogether)

i have accumulated a D.S.C. (Depression Support Creature)
the opposing to what may seem                                                
                 this fella supports my depressions feature being
and monitor's my decline
fleshed out to drain me                                                          
      whilst acting as a detracting blurred vision
shaking in a drabby coat  and baring its dumbed face
i'm turned inward on drooping wealth                          
                           and rot in the anxious conglomeration
a distracted reality from reality already conquered
                         flagged and declared ;    
the phony thing that's real
 Oct 2024 Sean Fitzpatrick
Jill
Mimosa pudica retreat
Humid glasshouse, rainy day
Pane-separated from the world
Exhaling foggy vagueness
Colours run wet
World through window walls,
a distorted Monet reproduction
Morphing, mixing, mushy
Each canvas exists for a sliding second
Glass and breath
Collaborating through condensation
Our fuzzy-haze masterwork

Panoramic gossamer lens
Magically softens
spiky, scratchy, sharp, crispness
into a smudgy simulacrum
A kind deceit
Frowns, scowls, growls,
and bared-toothy rage,
all smeared
Gently redacted
Calm, dreamy, pillowscape broadcast
Impressionist buffer
In muted pastels

Reality in artful disguise
Remoulded for ease of consumption
Sugary spoonful of subterfuge
Sifting, sorting, selective
Incomplete and fragmentary
Blur-clouded brain-break
Intermittent extra distance
Breath-focused,
soupy-warm,
momentary masterpiece
Just for me
Until my leaves unfurl
©2024

BLT Webster’s Word of the Day challenge (gossamer) date 4th October 2024. Very light or delicate.

Mimosa pudica is a small shrub, often referred to as the Sensitive Plant, the Shameful Plant, or the Touch-me-not Plant. The leaves curl up when touched.
 Oct 2024 Sean Fitzpatrick
Jill
The powerful man
Pitchfork-armed, chasing the girl
Tine-first, ready to strike

She is today’s unfortunate rage object
Hapless, wrongless victim
Weaponless, shieldless casualty

He is blind privilege righteous
Incandescent from his
latest, baseless, graceless
gotcha!

Forehead veins pulse sickly blue-green
Gas giant magnitude pupils
Each aperture an onyx void
Irony in sympathetic nervous system arousal

If he can wound her
– really break her,
he will quiet that feeling
The one that creeps and gnaws
Whisper screaming
Especially at night

Impossible conscience
Poor Jiminy Cricket
Eyes sticky with tears
Best efforts in vain

How do we retain compassion?
Scaffold empathy?
Bolster sanity?
While absorbing the violence
Of the man who flattens his beer cans
   with a hydraulic pancake car crusher
who cuts his delicate finger sandwiches
   with a restored 1790s guillotine
who sets his table
   with longsword steak knives
   and matching pitchforks
   a set, for special occasions

Vast energy required to remain soft
When distant and diamond hard
Is the path of no resistance

All this energy
Feels wasted
Why can’t we collect it?
Battery store it?
Pitchfork narcissist anode
Empath cathode
Could power a city
Energy crisis solved
©2024
To live a good life that’s effective
You have to be somewhat selective
Your mind isn’t frozen
Your thoughts can be chosen
The truth after all is subjective
This month only, all proceeds from custom limericks ($60 each) will go directly to victims of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina
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