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Donall Dempsey May 2017
"O WORDS ARE POOR RECEIPTS FOR
WHAT TIME HATH STOLE AWAY"

The summer sky
tried me on to see

if it fit
or I fitted it.

It was not used to being
a 7 year old boy.

I quite liked the exchange
to have clouds for eyes

birds flying
though all my thoughts

wearing a rainbow
in my hair.

To have a heart
that shone like the sun.

The summer of '63
ran about my bedroom

looked out windows
ran down stairs

three at a time
kicked a ball against a wall

swopped comics
marbles and conkers

recited "I remember, I remember"
to itself

until it could
remember it.

Absolutely loved me Da
being its Da

the kisses of my Ma
the laughter of a brother.

Oh what a thing it was
being human.

I, in due course
was an about-to-be

thunderstorm
clumping about the evening

like hobnail boots
on marble tiles.

Thunder and lightning
the whole works.

I could have gone on
for a forever

chasing horizons
making up the days to come.

But the summer sky
had taken all it could

take of being
a little boy.

So many thoughts
running about a head

that was only just
about 7

so that it fell asleep
and when it awoke

it was no longer me
but itself

the summer of '63.

I too had released
the sky back to the how

it should
and has to be.

My thoughts scattered like birds
by a chance church bell

telling time
its Angelus

or a knell
to end it all.

I still remember all of it
as if

it had really really
happened.
"Summer pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Dear heart and can it be that such raptures meet decay...

Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
Like a ruin of the past all alone...

O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away

REMEMBRANCES - JOHN CLARE
Tom Leveille Feb 2014
whenever i hear a wind chime i think of your voice. i wonder what it's like to be your bedsheets. what it would really be like to understand the jargon in your head. i ******* want to kiss you sometimes and then others i really do want concrete between your hands & my skin. i can't think straight all the time so i wonder if it benefits me at all to explain what it means that i don't want or expect anything from you but if we accidentally liked eachother in that middle school "sort of way" then i wouldn't say no. i want to really understand what you mean when you say "stay" to me in our texts. i wonder if your sleeping pills do to you what they do to me. i'm thinking again about "stay" and maybe i'm choked up on you leaving for school up north but i'll never tell you because get the **** out of here and don't look back especially not for me. stay. your smile, genuine or not tears me in two. i wish every face on the planet had your smile and i am ******* afraid of you wearing lipstick. i'm terrified of your bare skin and goodbyes. i hate farewells and see you laters. i knew the first time i saw you interact on your phone while drinking coffee the way you text people and how i now do the same thing. i get around read receipts. i sometimes want to hear you say you want.. not so much me, maybe me, but my company. theres a park near my house where i've imagined us paddle boating. i got written up at work once for daydreaming about it. what the **** is in a friendship anyway, decency in a human isn't biological. i get hung up on knee jerks and gut reactions. i want to know what the ******* are thinking about when i look up and you are looking right at me. but then again, i don't. as long as i'm wondering. as long as the door might swing open or closed. stay. go. run. **** your collarbones. **** your chest and skin and lips and everything i hate but crave and might like about you without say so. stay. sit down and explain to me why it is that i care anyway. i am afraid that if i say i want to *******, you'll think i mean *******, and not "*******". i wanna know if any of this sounds familiar and i here i am back to wondering what the **** is going on and why you're looking at me. the hair on my neck stands on end when you do and another thing... **** poetry. i cloud my feelings for you & anything else with the abstract so you'll never really know if i ******* hit rock bottom or not over the fact that i know we will never kiss. somebody just said "**** buddy" on tv and i think sometimes symmetry between irony & circumstance. i have harbored some of these thoughts since the night you said hello to me. i'm sorry i had to get over the fact that once upon a time i wanted to save somebody, and you weren't going to let it be you. i do sometimes think my hands might break you, that you spend your day painting a picket fence in your head that you can't get on one side or the other on. i felt like you didn't want to get up from dinner and i rushed it out the door because i am afraid to start a sentence with so. so stay. i am sorry my words often wear brass knuckles. your smile shoots to **** and if i ever die while you still remember my name i want you to read this or read something at my funeral. i don't know if these butterflies are waiting for me to jump or sit down but they speak up when my phone lights up & it's you.
JR Rhine Sep 2016
I'm going to hold onto my birth certificate
like my mother holds onto receipts

and when I write my last rent check
addressed to whomever lives upstairs

I'll knock on the door

and when they open
I'll kindly flash them the paper
which never expires
and I'll ask
for a refund

and they'll say "No,"
"We only accept exchanges,"

and then I think I'll believe in reincarnation.
ceara  Sep 2011
Receipts
ceara Sep 2011
10/12/2008, FOOD

Tom Yum Soup
how you held my hand
growled in hunger
how I didn't know
if we were a couple

15/12/2008 FOOD

how happy I was
to convince you to diverge
from healthy eating
to Vanilla cream and wafers


21/12/08 MISC

a tinsel hoop
and drawing pins
for a sock to hold
a chocolate reindeer
to your door

02/01/09
new year
we were a couple no more
JC Lucas Oct 2014
There is something magical
in the whirring
of a midday laundromat.
A cessation of pride,
maybe.
People all dressed in sweatpants
the air full of detergent smell
and the sound of coins clicking
against great tumblers
as they go round
and round
and round
and round...

The people smile back,
no use pretending superiority here.
Whistlers twitter on, folding towels and socks into neat, organized piles.
The children are well behaved,
their hands full of potato chips
given by their parents as a pittance for their patience.
The patient patrons
ponder on,
their empty hands crumpling receipts.
This, with the crunching of chips
and the distant whistle
over the percussion of clicking
coins clattering
in a dryer
compose an unintentional opera,

an ode to humility.

Humility's honorable honesty heals humanity's hubris.

Noisy trucks pass outside the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows,
Where the hot air wreaks its violence
and men make their ways

in spite.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2015
only an idiot like me, the rain poured down, my socks were wetted,  and i looked at the pavement for glory, instead i found a £10 note and  imagined my right shoe on my left leg, and my left shoe on my right  leg... just to prove the luck.*

it came from listening to rotting christ's kata
ton daimona...
i wrote the poem on two tesco receipts
numbering them no. 1 - .4,
it made sense to just give it a narrative...
the naturally apparent lisp of greek is due to...
lies between theta (θ) and phi (φ)...
check feta cheese... it might be less morbidly fermented...
that's why the greeks have a natural lisp...
it's theta and it's phi...
in english it's like chinese.... w & r...
something's rolling something's waving,
something's trigonometric...
harrison fowd was almost jonathan woss if i care...
the chinese in english debate with chin-chin-******
scissors piece of paper stone good luck on the handshake:
lost the price of interest being gained for excavation
purposes of dinosaur bones and inflation via the
ptertodactyl of the extended mohawk shave...
english dicionary makes me confused...
it places theta alongside the, than... but then
it's therapy... thermometer...
too many unique examples i'd have said...
that's the lisp there... sidelined phew and engaged in phew
in byzantine...
english linguistics is filled with too many "unique" examples
of expression... coupled with the celebrity culture...
i farted and a person took hold of a *** squeeze...
how's that?! english language in summary?
pleasing on the eye... but the spelling? a burden on the tongue.
i know that slavic linguistics would make enlgish that's written
ugly...
it wouldn't be pharmacology but farmacology...
then it made sense, i stopped asking the english dicta
written down, the greek θ wasn't a couple of th & etc...
a few athenains in death metal said it like i said it... the 2nd f...
it was απηθανoν - because it was simply athens - fern fence...
and not d... defence, or anything easily acquired as a prescription
of zee wee point of german scottish.
Caroline K Aug 2013
Take your knife and cut it into me deeply,
watch me bleed,
hear me scream.
I'm hurting as much as you are,
I'm sorry I had to leave.
But I've moved on.
I like you too much.
Self taught years ago to expect nothing in return,
Best way to not hurt at the end of the day.
People don't really care,
especially boys,
Learned that from the man of my house.
Tell me you do.
Tell me how you want to go out,
then tell me how all these girls are really cute,
but trust me I don't care,
I don't get jealous.
I care about you the amount you care about me,
Which isn't much, take away my body and it's nothing.
I'm the mirror image.
I'm not sure how to send you the message,
words always are messy.
& I don't want to stab you anymore then I already have my eyes,
I have to be nice.
I shouldn't be the one,
But I could.
I want you to listen, to care about the words I have to share.
I sit here alone and I can't breath,
these walls are closing in on me.
You are going to ignore me now,
Which is expected and only proves how right my judgement is.
I want to feel the pain of my mind and heart,
across my arms,
or maybe on a long tortures run.
But then you text me and say you're coming over,
and I smile that half smile that you bring out.
*You've proven me wrong.
Lyra Brown  Nov 2012
receipts
Lyra Brown Nov 2012
“I like your shoes.” The barista said.

“My shoes?” I said, taken aback by the strange compliment. I was standing at the till, waiting to pay for my drink. There was no way he could see my shoes unless he had seen me waiting in line moments earlier.

“Yes, the way they come to a point. It’s exciting.”

“Oh, thank you…?” I said, punching in my pin.

“How do you feel about receipts?” He asked.

“Oh, no that’s fine. I don’t need it.” I smiled.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to have them.” He looked me straight in the eyes.

I felt puzzled, as I walked away. I wondered what he meant.
Penelope Winter May 2017
It took sixteen years to become acquainted with my old self.

The self that:

Could not write on crumpled papers,
Or sleep in untucked sheets,
Played her scales robotically,
Left no word incomplete.
Labelled all the cupboards,
Books were organized by name,
This was the life I led.
I never knew that it would change.

it took 4 weeks to fall in love with my new self

the
self
tha
t

writes on ollld receipts,
   kicks the covers        off the bed
     ~lets my fingers play freely~
         not every sentence has an en-
            stores shoes with coffee mugs!!
               writes in mArGiNs to save time
                  not all rules need to be   f o l l o w e d
                    not all poems need to

                        sound the same

who knew that little pill
would teach me how to live
not erase the 'me' that showed
but bring out the 'me' that hid
16 years of worry
of obsessive, anxious thoughts
who knew that little pill
would change me
I,
for one,
did not
.

- p. winter

— The End —