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TC  Jun 2013
for midsummer nights
TC Jun 2013
freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.

smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey,

if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,

that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.
Craig Verlin Dec 2013
you can jump from
swing to swing
when you know the
safety net is there
all bottled up
in highways and
happy hours
long drives through
painted lines
and exit signs
long nights spent
swinging out
as far as you can
above that safety net
picking poison
from a stainless
steel spoon
and long mornings
spent picking up the
shards of a life
that longed to be
left behind
on the road
mile markers like handholds
climbing you farther and
farther up the mountain
closed eyes keep you far from home
rolled back in escape
those painted lines
those six lanes
seventy five miles
an hour toward everything
another spoonful
another baggie
another mile
keep me from thinking
keep me from feeling
keep me from the truth
all these safety nets
saving me from myself
another night
another fight
working futiliy to
keep that hand
tighter and tighter
around my throat
Holly Salvatore Dec 2012
Molasses is
The most red
The most gold
The most vibrant
Least cold
Fall of my life
And it’s a new ****
Maybe he wears a trucker hat
Or maybe he wears bibs
Maybe he’ll be some dark horse
New candidate
I don’t know yet
He could be one of these
Over mountain men
Filtering through the woods
Appearing in the hills
Ghosts of Hatfields past
Fur on their faces
Instead of skin
Strong and sturdy
Growing up from the ground
Like the cane we’re cutting
Down
And it ain’t about money
Out here in God’s country
We’re just willing and
Able
Enjoying the rich soil
And machetes
Carving calluses
While the sugar’s pressing
Staining, straining
Green and sweet
Skimming, boiling, browning
Finally draining
Into glistening mason jars
The day is going dark
Sail away ladies
Sail away
And say darling say
Playing banjo
In a moonshine-induced
Hallucination
Till all the bread is gone
The molasses gets carted off
And now it’s full dark
The spooks come out
All the wicked witches
Spitting hairballs
At their victims
That thing making noise
Moving in the bushes
Might be Matt Kinneman
Tells me I’m a good woman
I’m a human wall
And my pigtails make good handholds
When someone needs to reach his knife
The mountains grow
Apart at night
And the hollers pull us in
Molasses tastes like being
Home again
For Lou
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2014
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




a little straight slip of a thing,
red, a quartier inch wide,
red, a quartier inch thin,
suggestive, inquisitive,
a political and philosophical,
lovely provocation to conjecture

as if it were a colored arrow,
pointing strangely down,
instead of up,
to the next handhold
on a rock climbing wall,
in this case,
handholds on a
woman's body

this way,
follow me,
to the barricades!
a tourist mapped-path to follow,
visit the glories of the republic,^
and the charming Quartier Latin!

entrap and entice,
the eyes willful blinded,
taken away to thoughtful solitary,
on-one-side-only,
does the
bra strap
conveniently,
consciously,
haphazardly,
(yes, that's it,
a hazard,)
invitingly, speaks to,
looks to me,
inquiring will you vote,
RSVP to red?

as if a line of lipstick on the body drawn,
the directive points,
this way, perhaps,
always, just perhaps,
this way tourist,
to the dome of the pantheon,
where the statutes
are the course,
or perhaps
disguised, well-placed, statuesque, (ha!),
improvised explosive devices,
purposely presented,
needy for a desired
psychological high impact detonation

If
that is its purpose
under heaven,
under sweater,
under halter,
under cutoff gym top,
under liberty,
to tempt and remove
the blindfold from the womanly scales of
under justice
to tilt him favorably one way

If
it, is theater,
I, the audience

then whatever is on stage,
(Ibsen's Doll House, ironie délicieuse)
is a failed distraction, naught to naughty,
to no avail,
his eyes fastened, stapled wide
to the quarter inch thin
red path
from her slender shoulder,
leading, stepping him ****** down to
his I-magination,
for which unknowingly,
he, ticket purchased,
months ago for
two hours and one intermission

He must go again,
the show was
superbly acted,
for so the reviews said,
Ibsen's play,
"an unremitting portrayal of the suffering of a women"





^republic ~ a state in which the power rests in the body,
of those entitled to vote, exercised by their representatives, their eyes, chosen directly by and for them.
A synthesis, a hybrid of recent actual adventures and thoughts in, on and about Ibsen's Doll House, rock climbing, Paris, and the exposed solitary bra strap, not in that order.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 1
its birthplace, its origins, the where the whence,
these clues are inclusive of
sources of inspiration which
are like handholds,

Even,

"incidents and accidents /
There were hints and allegations"
but you knew, you knew in advance,
you,
Can Call Me Al"

eye easing offerings, kindly giving kindling,
to the overwhelmed reader burning eyes,
ease the struggle, hire/higher the insights,
just hints of the wherefores, if the whys so
desperate must remain secreted in your heart alone

you are so right!
the greatest poems ever
go oft,  without stepping stones,
why not mine?

If you anticipate scholars centuries later
explicating your poems, well then, they
most of all, will  need a leg up about your
disco~

graphy
Labor Day ~Sunroom- inspired by conversations with new poets
Thera Lance Jun 2020
It’s a tall order
Sloping miles above my head in loose handholds
That crumble to gravel at my touch,
Rolling under my feet sliding back
Further than I can crawl forward.
It hurts in scraped palms
And hearts of my own both beating
In and out of my chest.
My knees tremble at the eternity above my head.
But the view,
The sun unhindered by Earthly clouds,
The stars that I had lost sight of
Make this treacherous climb worth all the pain
Of one foolish enough to fall off the mountain the first time.
TC  Mar 2014
Contrails pt. 2
TC Mar 2014
(I. Summer ‘ 13)

Freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.

Smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey—

if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,

that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.

(II. Fall ’13)

Spines and ribs
don’t do it justice
you raptured me
both ways to Sunday,
built me up to shatter jaws,
car windows—me
bar stool battered,
you my perfect carpenter,
smile with wooden teeth
(you made them yourself)
so stain me the color of
cherry trees
and unbliss my empty spine.

(III. Winter ’13)

Mildew clutched tight,
hollow-*****, manic thrusting,
marionette-faced, barrow-lunged,
nails to the bone-gristle,
lips raw with spit-polish,
redacted eyes, redacted eyes--
we are palpable creatures,
transient drifters of soulspeck,
one unraveling the other constructing,
sallow truth would dissolve skin.
founder a self, rusty copper
with adamantine eyes,
steel core unbroken by absence,
drown in opposite directions,
oceanwater salve, yes
calloused tongues jostle,
ribbed in salt and rust.

Unlaced corset,
striped sweater,
grunged trainline veins
run on endlessly,
a clock,
abandoned in the middle,
I think once
it very much mattered.
Jamie  Oct 2017
Gravity
Jamie Oct 2017
And it's moments like these
where you stop moving and the world
spins
And your body feels so heavy
like rocks, like mountains,
like the whole world is pushing down
like you're drowning
in gravity
like none of the rules of physics apply
And it's like quicksand
there's no bottom to the pit
you've dug
and no ladder, no stairway, no handholds
you're falling
And you feel like you can barely breathe
barely blink
barely live
Depression isn't something cool
not a fad
or a trend
it's a sentence
a death sentence
and I don't know whether or not I can lift it
because somedays,
like today,
it's just too heavy
david badgerow Oct 2011
I've suffered in the throes
of writer's block for seven sordid days
I've spent the wordless week wandering in a silent daze
I tried to pick the lock to lift the fog and haze
But the words were stacked against me backed into their dark caves
They never left me entirely they were cold and huddled together
in the sticky-damp attic of my mind mumbling themselves chanting in time
I thought the ***** would loosen their fearful grip on reality
but the words proved to be a stubborn people
singing We Shall Overcome while hovering
behind my whiskey-drenched eyes
I tried jumping up and down up and down
nightly to rattle one word loose
Just a lonely word a sick child of a word
the one with the least hand strength and the most fierce imagination
but even this word proved thick with endurance
vitality perserverance and clung tightly to his handholds
Any attempt to moisten my palate with the
smooth syrupy texture of a word
was met with bitter reluctance by my parasitic tongue
as if a mountain man were holding a red-hot iron
inches away from my bread hole
There they clung with surpirising tenacity
on the steep cliffs of my inner skull
Some of them proved hungry to be spoken
but the sacred few I managed to twist into an
audible figurine balloon were useless and elastic
Words like **** and **** were flowing like ichorous
from the aperture in the front of my face
They dangled and then I broke free.

— The End —