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Megan Sep 2014
I gaze  at my reflection
in a gilt picture frame.

She has the slimmest
sliver of a smile painted
on her  expressionless face.

Her perfect eyes are so
intense, so empty.

Am I this predictable?
I don't know why, but I am really inspired by the Mona Lisa at the moment. This is my 3rd post today, and the second about this painting. What?
Traveler May 2018
That dad-blamed Darwin and his evolution
We got molesting priests and civil retribution
We got a lady on a beast committing prostitution
Oh no man...

We got holy rollers with their ***** money
They rule this land of milk and honey
They pray to god through their Easter Bunny
Was that the sun god or god's only son?
Oh no man
I'm not the one

We got the DaVinci code and mother Magdalene
Look out now there's another goddess on the scene
911... was it just a bad dream
Oh no man
I'm not the one
This is actually the intro to another song!
Called "Wake Up"
Traveler Tim
Margot Dylan Dec 2014
Dearest reader,


My name is Margot Dylan and I am no longer a ******.

I stared at Dianne staring at Frieda Bentley, as she dragged on a Camel Blue and as I dragged my pen across my notepad. I sketched her figure as she walked closer to Frieda, dropping her cigarette on the ground. Frieda smiled at Dianne, as she stepped and twisted her shoe on the smoldering carcass.

And they looked at each other. Not like how normal people look at each other. And Dianne smiled. A smile that was not like any smile Dylan ever gave me.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, with ******* slipping to my collarbone. The ******* tapping belonged to a girl. The girl's name was Thora, a brunette that smelled like bubblegum and 'don't go'. Thora had something in common with Dianne: They both recently came out as gay. Unlike me, both family reactions were fairly positive. In fact, so positive that-What are you drawing?

"Margot?"

I paused, looked at Thora, and looked back at Dianne or Dylan Dunham. "That girl," I pointed in their general direction, as Dianne kissed Frieda on the forehead. Thora followed my finger in time for the kiss on the lips, "the ironic one."

Thora Nelson, daughter of Cameron Nelson and the deceased Geraldine Nelson, looked at my chin and asked, "Who is she?"

Thora's cotton-candy-blues met my puddles of mud, as I looked away, putting my notepad in my backpack. Before I zipped, I grabbed the lime green marker sleeping next to my pack of index cards. My teeth squeezed the leaf colored cap off, as I pulled out the fetus, smelling the aroma of non-toxic afterbirth.

I asked if she wanted a tattoo and she shrugged, "Oh no, you mean I get to choose whether you touch me or not?"

Lightly pressing the fiber tip to her arm, I glanced up at her and shrugged a bony shoulder, "Her name is Dylan Dunham. Well, it's actually Dianne. It's complicated. I used to call her Dylan. She used to call me Margot."

"But your name still is Margot," Thora informed as her eyes followed the acid-green ink trail.

"Some people change, some people don't," I said, with the cap held between my teeth.

I painted her arm in lime hope, by the soda machines. My eyes focused on her pores that I imagined swallowed dirt and bacteria from the side of my palm. I could feel Thora disarm me with her eyes, after I had disarmed her with my words. Her heartbeat echoed inside my grasp.

"I didn't know I was dating Leonardo DaVinci," the words flowing from her mouth.

"I am gay and Italian, so it's not like I was doing a terrific job of hiding it from you," I muttered as I finished and held her pale forearm and bracelet cuffed hand a foot from her face, "Look: it's us underneath a tree."

Turning and wrinkling her nose, she adjusted, moving her head back and forth. " Oh wow. Wow, wow, wow. Meta. So meta. So abstract. Brilliant in its simplicity, deconstructing the concept of natural complexity-"

"Shut up-"

"The tree looks like an umbrella. And we look like we have canes-"

"Those are our fishing poles. In that world, we are fishermen. Fisherwomen. Fishergals-"

"And my **** is too big and your ***** are too small and our smiles aren't big enough-well, at least mine isn't, I can't speak on your behalf," she finished.

Grabbing her arm, I looked at my masterpiece, looked at her, looked at it again, and looked at her again as her smile grew with every glance. "Well, I can see how it'd be up to debate, and you're right: very, very meta. But you do have a big ****, and I'm not one to sacrifice accuracy. Speaking of accuracy: as I look at this green ****, I realized I hit the mark by dating you. Honestly, your **** may have its own zip code..And...I'd like to be in its area? Please stop me."

Her chin touched her knee, as she doubled over, laughing. I played with her hair, wrapping her bangs around my fingers. As my hands were enveloped by her dark hair, I found a scar on her crown. I imagined Thora's milky-white fingers scrubbing through shampooed locks, trembling across the zig and zag of removed glass.

I imagined Thora Nelson, of Cameron Nelson and the deceased Geraldine Nelson, hearing sirens instead of water hitting the tiles. Her slumping to the floor, as lather and water runs down her face, each tear a memory of being dragged out of a steel ribcage, onto broken glass jungle pavement. It was too easy yet too difficult to imagine her staring at the steaming showerhead. It was too easy yet too difficult to imagine her reaching towards a metallic carcass growing in flames.

Her hand grabbed my leg and I saw her for what might have been the first time.

"Hey you. Listen. Are you listening?"

I nodded.

"I'm in love with you, Margot Dylan. Like, really in love. To the point to where I feel like I'm in a Jennifer Aniston rom-com. It's disgusting."

I didn't know what happened between my exploration of her hair and her pale face studying mine, but, before I knew it, my blood shook and barbed wire nerves orbited around pieces of my body.

The ricochet of a soda can smacking the mouth of the machine sounded. Time was either too fast or too slow, as I looked at Thora's cheap mascara eyes and chapped, soft pink lips. She was the type of girl that could make someone happy not to believe in god.

"And I love you. To the point to where I'd refuse Hogwarts because of not being able see you during the school year."

"How sweet, I know how badly you wanted to get into Ravenclaw," she smiled.

"Sacrifices must be made in the name of love, you know. And it ***** because you're not even my type," I admitted.

"Oh, how tragic. And what is your type, if I may ask?"

"You may, thank you. And the falling in love type," I'm an idiot.

"Could you be anymore cheesy?"

"Mozzarella."

She stopped and looked at me, "Hey, but really, I'm in love with you. It's real."

"I love you, too."

Her eyes were speckled,"You really love me, Margot Dylan? Because I'll believe you."

I leaned in, softly placed my hands on her cheeks, breathing the word, "Yes." I alternated between staring at her mouth and her eyes, as her lids began to drop.  My lips started to dab hers and soon grab, as if soft hooks grew out of and connected our flesh. I found the corner of her mouth, the summit of her cheek, and each crease in her lips. Nine or ninety seconds past before I stopped, pulled away, and looked into her eyes. "Hogwarts is overrated anyway," I lied. She laughed.

Her face was red, as she looked down while covering her face, "Don't look at me, I'm a dork. I'm being a loser. I'm infected."

"It's okay. You can be my infected dork and we can be losers together," my voice was a rasp.

"It really isn't. You see, my face always becomes extraordinarily red after I kiss or am kissed by someone, especially by someone beautiful. And it doesn't help that I've never been kissed by someone I love. And I've never kissed a girl before and I'm really glad you were the first, so there. Gah," her hands fenced her face,"I'm just going to hide behind these hands, don't mind me."

I was in love, "For how long?"

"Probably forever, I don't know. Or until the next installment of American Horror Story, I haven't made up my mind yet."

We heard Ms. Calloway scold Dianne about smoking on school grounds. I looked at Thora and the bell rang. Her hands slowly dropped, as everyone started to move in blurs. Bodies gaining more and more distance. Inches became miles. Feet grew into light-years, and, before I knew it, Thora kissed my cheek and said, "I hope I see you later, okay?"

My hand had something in it. My fingers unfurled and revealed high school origami. My name was on it, with a heart or a ****-I'm the artist in the relationship. I began pulling on *****, the tips of my fingers breaking the paper safe. So delicate must have been her mysterious movements.

I opened it.




A pebble flew from my hand and blipped off her bedroom window. Funny thing about bedroom windows, they look the same at 12:03 am. Or maybe they look a little different when the person you love is behind the glass, as you do an eighties-film-esque pebble throw. Before my next pebble hit the pane, her bedroom light came on.

Navy blue curtains disappeared to the sides as Thora came to the window and rubbed her eyes. A second later, she was gone as I imagined her sneaking past her father's bedroom, quietly down the stairs, and through the foyer. As I imagined this, I could hear the front door being unlocked and creaking open. I walked towards the porch and a yellow glow escaped with a silhouette living in it.

Thora's left hand is burnt, but I don't mind and I don't think I ever will. She held my hand as we walked through the threshold. At first I was nervous when I saw her father in the living room, but I instantly realized that he was passed out, as my eyes found empty beer cans sleeping beside him and around him.

"It's not like this every night," she whispered, "he just has trouble with certain months."

Thora tucks her toes when standing in place. When we were walking up stairs, I knew she would be embarrassed if I looked at her toes, so I kept my eyes on the second floor. I don't understand why she feels this way, though. She has very nice feet, and that's coming from someone who thinks feet are gross.

We walked past punched in doors adjacent to perfect picture frames. Her mother was a beautiful woman.

As we approached Thora's sticker-clad door, she turned to me and whispered, "You're about to enter the only place in the world I feel safe. So, please don't break my heart in it and please use a coaster."

My thumb kissed her smooth burn, as I took my first steps into her bedroom. The light-switch flicked and her room illuminated. There were movie posters hugging the walls, pinned to a bulletin board were pictures of lost people and found memories. She looked at me and whispered, "I don't know how to keep people."

We stood before the side of her bed and I looked at her smile, "You sure you want to do this?" Thora nodded and I reached towards her thighs to lift the bottom of her shirt. Lifting it over her head, I looked at her porcelain figure clad in black *******. I tossed the grey shirt onto her bed.

My eyes swam from her belly button to her *******. My fingers approached and stopped until she said it was okay. Tracing her curves, scars, and stretch marks, she pet my fingers. Thora glanced at my hands on her ******* and then at me, cooing, "I'm sorry."

My hands slid to her sides, "Sorry for what?"

She shrugged, "I don't know," her eyes spilling, "Sorry for this," she motioned at her torso as she stared at her bulletin board and then at me before looking away again, "I want to be perfect. I want to be perfect for you."

"Oh no, no, no," I asked for her hand and then placed it over my left breast, "Can't you feel how beautiful you are?"




Her arm was under my ******* and her hand was on my rib, occasionally running her fingertips across the bumps. She slept with her leg wrapped around mine, staying as close as she could to me. I looked at her, in her slumber, and left a faint, burgundy stain on her forehead. I reached towards our shins and pulled the black cover over our fused bodies.

I feel like I have been in a coma for seventeen years and I've just woken up. If I could, I'd stretch this moment over centuries and use it to smother wars. This relationship probably won't last past my senior year, but that's okay. It truly is.

In this moment, Thora Nelson is the love of my life, and, in ways I don't understand yet, that is the most beautiful thing in the world.



May the sun set in our eyes forever,


Margot Dylan
Pyrrha  Aug 2018
Broken Art
Pyrrha Aug 2018
We always talks about putting our broken pieces back together
Or we speak of mending another with tape and glue
Like stitches that won't undo
But putting the pieces back together wont make them new
Why don't we ever think about picking up each others broken parts
And placing them where ours once were
Instead of fixing a puzzle with missing pieces
Why don't we become art
And fill each other with beautiful parts?

All that you find broken about yourself
All that I find rotten within my hollow shell
Are colorful pieces to complete a work of art
If you take some of me and make it beautiful
Then perhaps one day I too could see the beauty I betray
I'll do the same for you as I collect these magnificent additions
To the masterpiece that I make of myself
One day we will become Mona Lisa and The Starry Night
Not only will we be the art we will become the artists
As grand as DaVinci, as unique as Van Gogh
We will fill this world with our broken art
And make others learn that there is beauty in every splintered part
Anna Lo Dec 2011
He paints the woman
dark hair, fair complexion, symmetrical face,
with
intricacy, detail, voluptuousness.
Her eyes, they're an expression of ambiguity and mystery, piercing through the canvas.
His eyes, young and passionate,
staring back at her,
waiting for her intimacy,
awaiting for a carnal desire to be fulfilled.
But her posture is austere,
her shroud chaste and binding,
her eyes never quite his to own and understand,
her lips smirking but demure, mocking his emotions.
Lamar Lewis Oct 2011
It all happened so fast. Like most good things in life--the really monumental moments--it's like you float out of your body and come screaming back just soon enough to realize the moment had passed.

I didn't know how many miles were behind me now. It seemed like a thousand but it didn't really matter. I wasn't going to be one of those mindless wanderers--blindly probing my way through life's misery and defeat to one day wake up wishing I was young again.

I'm taking my youth back from the government, the bankers, the Wall Street gamblers and racing toward the horizon like there are commercial airplanes in my blood and skyscrapers burning in my chest.

You can only go to the same god forsaken place to have your soul ****** out of you for so many ******* days in a row before you either become one of them or make your own revolt and

collapse
                 *into a sea of ash

                                              slithering like snakes along the city streets.
You just run as fast as you can.

I chose the latter.
__________________­__


I'm going to do the cliche thing I suppose. Do as many drugs as possible, do as many women as possible, keep chasing the next good time until I get high enough to slap a saddle on my car roof and ride off into the Atlantic--fireworks shooting off in every direction to *** up the stars--refracting radials within the iridescence of the shimmering sea.

>explosions echo endlessly<
[wrap around the ambient rhythm of the TidePuller]

touch! caress! make love!--stare through eyes into deep blue souls and find something of yourself there.

That's how I'd like to go anyways, I don't know about you--.

That might just be this narcotic cocktail talking. I take my pills ground up in a wine glass mixed with cheap scotch. Then I chase with cups of watered down coffee--chugging until ceilings start to undulate and shake me loose. That's when I know I can start the day.

It's usually my most productive days when the ceiling tiles arrange into piano keys. Then I get to create my symphonies and soliloquies before I try to go get laid.

Now that I'm out here on the road though my mind is being blown.

Try waking to the same white black piano key ceiling everyday, to then finally feel the colors of the sky--for the very first time!

A never ending metaphysical canvas for the thoughts and longings of a drugged up DaVinci who just woke up in his time machine to start the 2nd Renaissance in the clouds. It all makes me wish I would have left years ago.

__________________­_


You see, I'm your typical twenty-something passionate kid trying to turn a ****** past into some kind of salvageable foundation for a chance at catching up with the rest of normal "adult" society. But I've got some problems with this whole "reality" thing people are so adamant at upholding.

Last time I visited my human family around the world they were all drowning in debt and poverty; trying with every fiber of their being to find that one bright spot. Stuck. In the deepest, darkest, most cavernous rotting excuse of a day to day life.

All because some meaningless number
on some computer
in some bank building
with their name on it
either is too small or doesn't exist.

Most of my human family know things are bad,

But most in the impoverished third-world are so deprived of basic human needs that they never get the chance to ponder who really holds the key to their cage.

So they are inclined to accept the status quo and the system and try to live inside of it. Failing to find sunshine within the deepest depths of an erupting volcano; mistaking the heat, the burning alive, for some kind of sign that the brightness has got to be somewhere close. So we will just try to sink a little deeper with the rest of them.

Here in America:
Sure, let's go on back to ringing registers for minimum wage all day until my ears bleed and my head wants to fall off so I can go home to watch some television!

Yes, God Please just let me relax here with my box of flashing pictures and scintillating sounds. The only truth I'll ever need.

Just let me relax here with my reality being defined for me by the volcano directors--telling me that I didn't just come in my house dripping with magma all over the carpet.

YES GOD, just let me relax a little before I have to go to my volcanic, skin searing hell again tomorrow morning. Where they tell me on T.V. that I'm going to find that sunshine I desperately long for. But It'll always

*collapse
                 into a sea of ash
                 to scar the sky grey, silence the sun's rays, blot out the stars, and darken our days*

You just sigh and say "Tomorrow's another day..."
_________________­__


Yeah, I was right there with them yesterday. I was with them for years. Getting brainwashed and ***** slapped by advertising--getting barraged with constant reminders that all I was meant to do was to work my life away--decide to be some tiny insignificant cog in this "economy" they call it.

Looks more to me like I signed up to be some mindless consumerism *****! Sheeping my way along... buying and wasting; buying, wasting; buying again, a bunch of **** I don't need and throwing it away.

We're Living in a society infected with some sort of capitalistic contagion that pretty much siphons off the Earth's life force.

We are conditioned into a reality that the richest & most powerful would like all to believe.

Art-full hearts are stomped on, told to get a job, and plan for retirement. Told to slow down and be reasonable rather than speed up. Velocity of the heart may as well be an act of terrorism unless it's for marriage--and LGBT is on the no fly list.

This is a reality set up predominantly for the endless profit of a bunch of trans-national corporations who won't be satisfied until they hold complete and utter dominion over their ***** and pillaged planet.

Perhaps then they'll be rich enough to fly away in spaceships to **** the next Earth and leave all us sheep here with bargain sales, social networking and reality T.V. as distractions...

Too bad for them some people still read. So I'll learn the different strains of herb from my local library and become a ***** of feeling good, freeing love, and accepting all artistry.

Have you ever seen a painting in the sky? Or witnessed windy symphonies in trees? Hey, don't judge me,

you're the one addicted to killing everyone and everything with your mindless dollar bill.

kneel before almighty god,
mind your founders,
adore their wise countenance,
looking up at you,
re-assuring you,
comforting you,
taking the pain away,
but DON'T RUN OUT!
you'll be back for more.
you'll come crawling back.
You'll do anything for just enough,
just one more fix.

It's got its hooks in bad,
don't it.
___________________­_


PRODUCT-XA110357: Capitalism
DRUG STATUS: Still in Clinical Trials
TEST SUBJECTS: Human Race
PHARMACEUTICAL LABORATORY: Earth
INITIAL FINDINGS: Subjects not receptive, keeps causing: Anger, Greed, Jealously, Oppression, War, Ignorance, Famine, Inequality, Imprisonment, Slavery. Environment not receptive, will cease functioning in the future. Time of Earth Death is unclear. Thankfully it does seem capable to last through the next few fiscal years. A relief, as this is what our stockholders are concerned with.


Symptoms of Withdrawal
Users who are addicted to money and are going through withdrawals may or may not experience a loss of food, water, shelter, clothing, transportation, education, free-time, happiness, fulfillment, reverence of nature, beautiful moments, relationships with friends or families, and love.


FDA Warning
If you are poor, lazy, and uneducated it is your own fault. Being poor and lazy may or may not result in Debt. DEBT may or may not lead to SLAVERY, stress, illness, and an early death.


Poison Control Center
If you have ingested too much debt, slavery, stress, illness, and are fearing an early death please do not call any corporate buildings. Access your phone, computer, or go to your local library to find reputable resources and EDUCATE YOURSELF IMMEDIATELY. Get some nice speakers and start exploring ALL GENRES OF MUSIC. Look at as many paintings, sculptures, forests, and gardens as you can--as often as possible. Lay under the stars and dream about what YOU want to do to make a positive impact on this world. FIND OTHER POSITIVE PEOPLE and AVOID NEGATIVE PEOPLE. If you know someone that is poisoned who you want to save please refer them to the nearest Poison Control Center

-->Smile at the sun--feel its warmth<--

----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------------------------------------

happy hearts:--after love--not money--free from pain--sickness will surrender--
addicted to art, peace, compassion, and empathy--feel the sky get closer--.


-----------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------





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"In a state of enlightened anarchy each person will become his(her) own ruler. They will conduct themselves in such a way that their behaviour will not hamper the well being of their neighbours. In an ideal state there will be no political institutions and therefore no political power."
-Mahatma Gandhi
Composed October 2011. Revisions (Lots of Them) February 2014. Blend of Fiction & Non-Fiction.
David Nelson Sep 2011
Midnight in Paris

oui, oui Missour, excusez-moi s'il vous plaît,
may I take your bags, welcome to the Ritz
I am most sure, you will enjoy your stay
Paris is most happy, to see you  Mr. Fitz

Paris in the spring is such a lovely sight
the flowers all in bloom, the skyline at night
bright sun shinning now, maybe an afternoon shower
plan your day well before you ride up in the tower

strolling past the cathedral of Notre Dame
thinking of the bell ringer the old hunchback
like the Philadelphia liberty, the bell has a crack
the storming of the Bastille, to relieve the shame

to the Louvre for the most exquisite art
Rembrandt and DaVinci at their best
so many things to see this is just the start
to see it all would be a fantastic quest

time for a ride down the Seine river
astonishing sights this old city can deliver
a bottle of nice Vouvray to enhance the ride
a lovely local woman right by your side

now you might ask her if she likes to dance
for the clubs in Paree are oh so fine
club Lido also a great place to dine
a wonderful time, Midnight in Paris, France

Gomer LePoet
JL  Feb 2016
Introvert
JL Feb 2016
I retreat into myself
Into the corridors of me
I lounge on the well worn flagstones
Gazing on the marble columns
Arranging tapestries and paintings in
A more perfect order
I stalk down old hallways and explore unnamed galleries with a
Single candle to push back the deep
Sometimes rooms are filled with old Furniture
Sometimes entirely empty
Once feeling brave I held onto
The threshold of such a room and
Stretching out I hold the candle aloft in the chasm. Nothingness, darkness complete the light puddles at my feet pitiful.
When I recall that yawning abyss the silence of
It persists.
In ballrooms I play Chopin's waltzs' for no one  in particular
Yet I take my bow and my place at the head of a table set for a score of kings
I lay on marble steps trying to guess the riddles that my echo whispers
I climb the  towers and the spires to dizzying heights and many weeks I was lost in the labyrinth of cellars of basements of tombs beneath
I have seen strange things lately: a chair upturned or
Bed unmade, quills still wet, and doors open and shut of their own volition in the inky black
I swear I have seen before
A tall figure in a hooded cloak dart
Into the shadows, and it did not seem
Altogether human

I read for years inside my library  
And have spoken at length to Shakespeare and Plato
I have seen Yggdrasil and the seven hells
And sped through time with
H.G Wells. Of death and moon, of birds and galaxies I am enamored.
Tea with Julius Ceaser, chess with Captain Hook.
Breakfast with The Buddah
Coffee with The Christ
Did you know that Captain Ahab takes His water with a squeeze of lime? No Ice. Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain know me by my first name, I have fenced with the Gods of Olympus and of Asgard and I remain undefeated. The divine crowd my hearth and many nights have been passed here in quiet conversation, with Confucius, with Archimedes, with Epictetus, Davinci, and the brothers Grimm
I have lived ten thousand lives and Will live another ten

-Without a single thought of you-

I wander
To my garden
Gently lit by paper lanterns
The path is smooth and heady
The amber blossoms
And weathered sculptures
Make my eyelids heavy
Monuments with fists clenched beat my
Ego ******
New flowers sprout from the ivy throat
Always things are grown but never overgrowing
I steal through the hedge maze that only I know
To the secret center where no plant grows
Pavilion and pond
Where no bird sings year long
In that quiet I endeavor
To look without fear
Into the pupil of forever
Some say writing is a good outlet
Some say writting is a good inlet
Kara Rose Trojan Jul 2015
I don’t write about my Dad or God so
I will write about how
Moses told all the Jews to slay a lamb, take the blood, and paint its blood around the doors
so that the Angel of Death may Passover the marked houses.

The story goes that Dad (or God) was
Wobbling down the street with heavy breathing like a deflated walrus washed on shore,
kneaded jowls bouncing beneath his jaw with each bouncing step,
Because he had to order special shoes for his diabetic feet.  
When he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and collapsed beneath
The L train and curious stares blurred against a man’s fight to live.
Fiddling with either his rosaries or toolkit or pants or
Phone or newspaper or lungs or shoes or inhaler
And I’m sure they’ve seen him before,
But I’m sure this time it was different –
They would have a story to tell to their co-workers and loved ones
About their walk on the sidewalk by the hospital
Where an old man collapsed
And they would echo the words, “Count your blessings,”
But have no idea what that means.
He was dead for two minutes and had bleeding on the brain.

This is about more than just myself
And him
And the way he made me feel.
This is also about the man next door to him
And how I came to learn to never talk about my Father or God.

It is a Saturday morning with snow on the ground
And there is guilt frosted on my back
I have not moved in a few hours (perhaps years)
And there are tubes like translucent octopus straddling his mouth and mounting
His chest
As it rises – and breaks – rises – and breaks (so romantically)
With each second beep of the heart monitor.

In the general waiting room, some men and women arched in their seats with gleeful excitement
And balloons and footies for newborn babies
to deposit
Something hopeful and crisp into the umbilical residue.
So as to mask the horrors of what human health really is.
Staring at what is truly written as if the “I” myself
Is too special to suffer.

And, then, there is the man (stranger) with a smile
Too transparent against the masks bouncing robotically in the foreground
The man (stranger) –
he asked me if he was ready to
Make count with his major failures and major contradictions,
Thereby ready to vacate (physical) body (earth)  
up to the Lord. He spoke to me about The Lord as if I never knew him,
never knew his stripped promises of salt statues
never knew the bent knees and heads during Mass
stripped away the infallible memories of people
of people
who knew no better
yet checked each other
to thank him for their
chosen suffering.
never knew the responsive sweat dotting HELP along new mother’s brows
never knew the elegance of bliss/love during *******  
never knew the muddy feet of a wretched child clambering between belts.
never knew the frantic swerve of hurried fury from a coat’s hem.

my brother said he was going to
time how sporadic, chaotic, hypnotic
My three-year-old haunches switched up the stairs –
Animal-like, on all-fours,
swiveling from one grimy patch of
cement-splotched carpet patch to
the frozen barbecue-sauce colored tile at the front door to
another grimy-cement colored carpet patch to

the tacky, stuck-together carpet-hairs hardened by dish-soap calligraphy –
combed the S.O.S. message I crafted one hot, sticky June evening
after slapping the ***** of my feet into mud
then tracking pawprints through the kitchen door,
transcribing my help-yelps as Dad’s belt cracked –


Climbing then freezing at rage’s zenith,
His face contorted like gargoyle-wrinkles deepened with sweat
broken peals of thunder-skin splitting like a river’s delta through the house
Flooding pockets of silence then bursting with a child’s sniffs
since crying never helped me, anyway;
undeniable red-shame pooling split skin after each crack-smack
doubled back then cooled its buckle on his thumb.

With comfort, Aunt Joan assured me: “Love is
the second most mispriced of human goals.”
What’s First? “Liberty.”
So I’d lie amongst the dishsoap-doodles
     like Alice in the daisies
Limbs outstretched --
          like DaVinci’s Millenial Man
     or
           Jesus on the cross  
     or
           hopeless girl losing her virginity
     or
          Ma reaching towards the door lock
     or
          McMurphy post-lobotomy
     or
          Santiago dreaming of Lions on an African beach
     or
          fireworks blossoming against an emptied sky --
And trace the cracks in the ceiling with the blue veins on my arm,
like
       roads on a map;
I'd mouth the names of places I'd never seen/heard of but
       I would go in my mind –
The mountains I’d climb steady on all-fours, switching my haunches
As if Escape was the warm, fuzzy world only children would dream of -- then linger with their eyes shut to return there -- hidden beyond the garden of Love and Liberty –

No, sir,
        No, man,
        No, stranger,
                I never knew there was such a way.
-- how could I go undone?
He hogged the conversation – I hogged the facts
Everything I’m leaning toward is a cut in the conversation, sir. How could I go undone?
He asks me what his name is and I tell him, Ken. His name was Ken.(Or God.)
He asks why he is here and I tell him
You don’t need to know that. I don’t know why I am here. Why are any of us here?

He then prays for him and invites me to as well.
I tell him,
When you come undone, I come undone
We’ll all come undone in the end
We were doomed to die the moment we are born
So who will pray for you in the waiting room, sir?
No thank you, sir, I’m just fine, since who
Knows the way or what somebody says
All I know is that I can put you away. But, I will not.
So why don’t you sit your excited *** down?
If only he could understand the joke.
May the man learn the dead man’s float and seek solace in the cadence of Charon’s poling of his ferry.

What valor. What courage. You all turned out so well.
The leading man is dying.

Escape is the erased movement where the sinewy lights and colors behind dark eyelids stand steady long
after the first disturbance, then usher those that were hurt
into Charon's ferry
because anything feels better than everything that was taken.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2019
You seem to know where you're needed


to whom this command addressed is a crazy me-man,
a street walking big DaVinci ibearded mumbler,
the kind you would cross the street
before the smell is close enough
to sending you running, not just
politely walking fast but a souped up
hi-yo silver away!

this guise no surprise,
you must and do
already know where I’m needed,
sealing the pact with a yellowtine post-it
writ in simple block letters ordered in a brewed cafe,
my latte arrive states my name as


come see me

come to the time the place and the date

and prepare oneself for twenty and fours
of rigid interoperability as our systems
interface reach the pure state of 100%
ultimate wordless dialogue

communicating
in with by
perfect silence
heaven

you will write a verse,
my reciprocation
is already prepared

this terse repartee
will many spawn poems generational
for your family amazing and extended

an elephnat never forgets,
his servers are a rolling stone
with no direction home,
capacity unknown
every blade sighted retained,
and every sensate glance
a phrase seeded

departure will find me clean shaven,
pressed jeans neat,
and shod in well worn dockers,
cloaking my innate invisibility

when the children ask who was that,
you’ll sage reply

one new who knew where one was needed
April  8  4/6/nought nineteen
10:13 am

https://www.google.com/search?q=da+vinci%27s+beard&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#imgrc=q3e6G4ijVeXNKM:
David Nelson Sep 2011
Minuit à Paris

oui, oui Missour, excusez-moi s'il vous plaît,
peux je prendre vos sacs, être bienvenu au Ritz
Je suis plus sûr, vous apprécierez votre séjour
Paris est le plus heureux, vous voir M. Fitz

Paris au printemps est une si jolie vue
les fleurs tous dans l'éclat, l'horizon la nuit
le soleil brillant shinning maintenant, peut-être une ****** d'après-midi
planifiez votre jour bien avant vous le trajet en haut dans la tour

le fait de promener devant le cathederal de Dame Notre
le fait de penser au carillonneur le vieux bossu
comme la liberté de Philadelphie, la cloche a un craquement
le fait de prendre d'assaut du Bastille, pour soulager la honte

au Louvre pour la plupart d'art exqusite
Rembrandt et DaVinci à leur meilleur
tant de choses à voir c'est juste le début
voir tout cela serait une quête fantastique

le temps pour un trajet en bas le fleuve de Seine
les vues étonnantes cette vieille ville peuvent livrer
une bouteille de Vouvray agréable pour améliorer le trajet
une jolie femme locale directement par votre côté

maintenant vous pourriez lui demander si elle aime danser
car les clubs dans Paree sont oh si parfaits
le club la Plage aussi un grand endroit pour dîner
un temps magnifique, le Minuit à Paris, France

Gomer LePoet

— The End —