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Harry J Baxter Nov 2013
yeah we're getting drunk at four in the afternoon
we don't have anywhere to drive to.
we have no class
no responsibility
my city's filthy
I live in the art district
nobody else anywhere else in the world can say that
Richmond knows how to lay it down
how to make the children feel invincible
how to make the women feel like super models
and the men like long lost kings
don't like my poems?
that's fine
we flow to a different drum beat
yeah we are a bunch of
PBR swilling hipsters in our non corrective lenses
but we know how humanity dances back and forth
like the flickering of candle light
and I've never felt out of place here
only just as weird as everybody else
we are pathological liars and sociopaths
our apathy is only matched by our endless empathy
My Mum thinks I am a hell of a writer
endless support
but the anonymity never ends
a scroll from God to lead us to death
and the transvestites are polite enough
boy you smell ****\
they blurt out as I walk past in a cloud of old spice
the art school chicks make me feel validated
when I find myself sneaking out of their houses in the morning's yawn
come to Richmond if you want a good time
if you're fake you'll make it
but if you're bitter and jaded
you might pass out of interest
like cartoons to a 15 year old
I could talk **** on this city all night
but truth be told
I love what I hate
and truth withheld
don't tell my English friends
that my heart beats
solely for that
RVA-lution
Andrew T Aug 2016
You painted your eyelids with green velvet and ruby red. The fractured mirror kept your insecurity at bay, as sparkle blue glitter poured all over your head from a little tin can.

We drove across the bridge, and through Shocko bottom, stopping at a nearly deserted parking lot sanctioned by an honor code. We double parked behind an Acura sedan, and waited as you snorted half a gram of Molly off your manicured fingernail into each
nostril.

You took in a deep breath, smoked a Parliament, and blew smoke out the
window. After ten minutes we shambled out of the car with our purses tucked under our armpits, and red fire dying in our eyes. When we reached the Hat Factory venue, the line disappeared from our view and we walked to the entrance where two bouncers were posted up. The tall giants marked our hands with black sharpie ink, drawing a large, bold “X” on each one.

Once inside the spacious warehouse, we ascended a white marble staircase and paid a ten dollar entry fee. Another doorman took out his marker and drew a red line, crossing through the dark black “X” that was drying on our hands. You broke off and away, going
straight to the bar. The bartender asked what you wanted to drink, and you requested water. She smiled and gave you a red solo cup filed with tap water and ice-cubes. After you thanked her, she handed you a bright pink glow stick that you wrapped around your forearm, fitting a figure 8 around your skin like a cloth sleeve.

On the stage was a young man dressed in neon colored plaid and skinny jeans. He climbed up a tall stepladder and jumped from the top, belly flopping on a beautiful African Queen bodacious gluteus Maximus, daggering deep into her soaking black spandex, the decadent bodies swimming on top of each other, stroking and staining the pink gymnastic mat with hot sweat and salt. A huge beach ball colored with red, white,
yellow, and blue pinwheel stripes sailed through the air over the balcony, smacking into a deathly thin model who was smoldering her Parliament cigarette into a clear glass
ashtray.

Mollywopped undergraduates gathered around circles where reggae artists harpooned inflatable black and white killer whales with thrift store bought switchblades.

Laying flat on his stomach was an Asian photographer snapping away with his Nikon digital SLR camera, pale hipsters in ***** black blazers and black fedoras hurling red and purple plastic assault rifles into the intense mass of worry-stricken college students carefree for the moment, gyrating and grinding to the womp-womp bass booming from rectangular speakers that squished in a disc jockey and his hardwood stand with his mixer and two turn tables. He scratched the needle along the worn edge of a battle-scarred vinyl record. His fingers zigzagged the sliders, pressed down on buttons, turned up the volume knobs.

Some hyper-maniac golden child bounced around the dance floor, sneaking up behind university sophomores mesmerized by the makeshift floodlights in the rafters blinking on and off. Conversations were made in the head, but never opened up when the girl approached. Stuck up super senior girls with heavy black mascara and matted eyelashes raised their eyebrows and swatted away ***** flies with a wave of their lotioned hand.

***** girls dress in high heels and septum piercing, their ear cartilage stabbed through by unclean metal. A rude person bumps into the Hyper-maniac golden child, causing the golden child to shove squarely into the rude person’s back. Name-calling ensues, threats fired and received, looks exchanged and bitterness rose over any other tension in the fuming room.

In the far right corner were a couple of kids making out; they’d just met.

Walking away from the fight, sidling between sweaty ugly people, the golden child swayed upstairs to the second floor, passed another bar and balcony tables, chairs, and dance platforms.
He went through a swinging door and joined a conversation between
a bunch of strangers. Wary around the golden boy, he starts practicing his standup Comedy routine, almost bombing on the first joke. Cheap jacks burned bright orange after a blue flame ignited the tapered paper end. Arms snared around the golden child’s body. Oh how nice! It was his friend from Modern Grammar class, he used to sit next to
her in the second row and copied homework answers from the blackboard with her.
She was happy.
And he was happy.
Harry J Baxter Mar 2013
I moved to this country
when I was thirteen or twelve years old
My Dad was semi-proud, semi-sorry
"I've been promoted...
the only thing is we have to move to America"
but all of my friends
but then again... it might not be raining all the time
but I'll miss the rain
don't lie
okay but where in America?
".... Richmond, Virginia."
where?
What state is Virginia in?
"It is a state, near D.C. - the head of the south"
oh great the south,
it was like moving from a farm village
filled with fat xenophobic racists
only to move to an even bigger farming village
filled with fat xenophobic racists
"Well you don't have much of a choice."

So we went on a pilgrimage
to the land of slavery, cowboys, and McDonald's
they didn't have a monarchy
but there were a lot of kings around
JFK airport wasn't much
compared to London
and the traffic down from DC
was absolutely ridiculous
This many people can not possibly
find use out of a truck
why so many traffic lights
and raised cars
We got lost
and drove through a DC ghetto
where I saw TV depictions of "The streets"
for the first time up close
quick close the windows
drive drive drive
We made it to Richmond
in the dead of night
and even then
the skyline across the James
was like low hanging stars
and in the mornings
the James looks like a scene
from a Jack London story
and now I've been here for almost seven years
and the place has grown on me
it's a good balance
of obnoxious redneck republicans
and obnoxious hipster democrats
and some of the prettiest landscapes I've seen
and yeah I'll take Richmond on a summer day
over any other city
Because RVA creates
is on every street light banner
and the feeling permeates through the city
like electricity in the air
making your hair stand up on end
as if to say
Welcome to Richmond
Mateuš Conrad May 2018
/an invested man, said so little; hyper-autism in the format of solipsism... something in the chance of an Afghan of gamble... G... rolls counter B counter R... and the rest remains: Praha.*

to invest
in a microcosm of
of feelings,
stable,
is to shy mind
a warsaw
witch say in
3rd voice passing:
i'll keep him...
you, my *****,
the chemical engineer
soviet scoops...
and worh minding:
predading:
OLI-GRACH
   ras...
                 KU-RVA-
PUTIN!
            THE *******
have idiot-spazz or
will retards build
the bridges?!
  retards build the bridges...
NO WIN!
                   well done,
democracy overturrns
nature...
    "bolshevik swine"....
    nature and "man"
                                     ...
god and "etc."
                        aren't the prized
mousetraps?!

    GHANA
and...
                Nicaragua is not China...
sunset ******* Val Kilmer
Buleuvard...
   boo-yah... gang...
     n-ah-n-ah!
Johnny Noiπ Jan 2019
black in the United States,                              so long from the white city;
city in the music beautiful star water man dies
red mother of the child after the birth of children
in the night's green space to God, death & Australia,
African-English woman in the eyes of the young people
of the three best Americans of European Russia,
south east of England, Italy male genitalia parts;
Asian minutes,                                       Greek john stars to the hair color,
George giant change in the workplace
         in the middle of blue scalp blood work in the history
of the German fire of the dog on fire in the time of hot air,
reality's sun is hot on young Thomas naked,
of this power is the heart of the law.
                                    From the park to the Italian side
                                    of town with a Chinese girl,
                                    a second dreaming European Goddess;
Christ is the nature of the Spanish glass weekend in the stone city,
according to the idea of ​​the game
is called the opening hours of Igor;
Church first of the Jews who wrote a hot dance
and in his own robot half,                         voted with his fingers
filled with a lot of football and a great king
of the Saudi museum of Mexico
               with the collaboration of the song
is difficult for them to help put in
the conflict of vitamins in the knowledge
that we write the Chinese,
star on the land of pain, on the clothes that she used,
one does not know to be a secret in health care.
A modern family                      But in the meantime,
              the rich man cares about these books today,
of course, Bob,                      and are in port, France,
Greece, England,                   I heard the fish, too,
in the dark, lush,                     almost all the needs of the head of the crowd,
of Satan blind ******* the life of the brain's *** life
has a natural look of the devil in her mouth,
Meltään girls;               Mary felt that a car the word b-----'s
place of God in the temple,
he asked a group of games tomorrow,
the dragon is a poet, how to understand
and listen to the words of the angry Einstein's window rises.
Gas burning the midnight sun
that is fed to the prophet of the coast
as the thoughts of the angels body of the world,
money perches on the cat's stiff legs.
That the angels are the ones
that are the leaves of the trees
                were for the first time making mention of you in Ireland,
but the plastic had a wife, a *******;
a woman is great, the ark of the box of the Jews,
we have learned from the desert to the sea,
Daniel, Paul, the law of return
of the sisters to the wall of the new movement
  of the Bandit Tempus Leo in front of the dog,
to hide the invisible things from the list,
as well as in the eyes of the eyes
from their Spanish Pontus,                              and on the lips of your country,
and the girl,      the image of sitting in the garden of the ****** of the saints, that your light in the shower,                                                       you must,
your supervisor,                               and will give you something to drink:
a complete developer Alkeemy's ikonic
Barbie is to collect arms from the thick socks
and distribute them in the teeth of the day
he was given the Republic as heavy
as the leader of the ointments: RVA Glory
Arabian General Tom is occupied
the ways of the One who created the world of burning
BLO h BRIT Ole, the end of the lookout for change with all parents haamunpoistimet, ****, our food:          black as in the United States
many years of beautiful white city, night city in the water
beautiful man star music dies
red mother of the child after the birth of children in the night's green space god, Australian death,
African Latin woman,
eyes young people from three of the best Americans of European
Russian descent, south east of England, Italian Asian genitalia;
Greek john star minutes up to hair color,
George's giant scalp blue blood
workplace workplace to change the history
of Germany's fire of the dog on fire time;
Thomas' young hot sun, hot air naked reality                              of this power
is the heart of her feet,        Christian yellow silver sky country Russia's poor challenge the north ocean of Roberto's BEEF;
Golden State is a dead space,
the story of Jesus to turn on a free hand in this free game,
the German hell song E reaches the name of his former brown.
Law. but the Italian side reading park
opened by his Chinese daughter, the second European dream
Christ Goddess, the nature of the Spanish glass;
stone weekend in the city according to the idea of ​​the game,
which is called opening hours
by Igor's Church, the eldest son of the Jews,
who wrote a warm dance:
the robot and the fingers voted in the personal
center filled with a lot of football;
the king of the great Saudi museum.
The Mexican corporation song is hard to help
setting the debate on vitamins in science to write;
The Chinese star of the country of the consumer
of clothing is not known to be the secret
of health care                            A modern family
                                  expects that rich care these
books today, of course,                                   Bob sleeping in the port France,
Greece & England,                                    heard the fish in the dark,
lush,                                      almost all the souvenirs head company
of blind Satan ******* life,  *** life,
the brain has a natural basis for the devil's mouth,
my daughter Meltään Mary felt the car square
b God's word in the temple,                       asked a group of games tomorrow,
the dragon is a poet walking, to understand,
to hear the enraged message of Einstein,
the window rises.                                  Star Media feeds on burning thoughts
as a sleeping cat should be a prophet of my heart,
beach, goes to the angel body of the perch.
The cat is silver,                               but the law requires clean and crisp legs.
                                        The angels are the ones who are the leaves of trees:
the first, mentioning in Ireland,                                      a real plastic woman,
a ******* and a big box of Jews heard from the desert,
at sea, Daniel & Paul read the sisters' walls of new movements
Venenatis' dog hides invisible on the list,
as well as the eyes of the Spanish Georgian lips,
the girls of an image reflected in the garden,
sitting by murdering the saints,       light shine in a shower that suits your supervisor or gives you a drink:
a perfect developer alkeemikone
Barbie who takes up arms, thick socks,
cut teeth date dated marked the heavy corner of perfume
RVA Gypsy-print of the planet,
wet to save Sodoma,                                 know that the silly plot of land
began in the next century, tool-*****.
Your wedding tram acid train
           to repair some standing computations
is the box buried in my color of the leaf bars
nasty Marcus' African country left e Mark Hill
                                watching the Bettie Indian bring in the new shadows
Arabian General,            Tom met BLO's burning ways that created traps
all over the hole at the end of the *** change,
the parents, haamunpoistimet,                                   ****, expensive food

— The End —