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 Jul 2013 Swells
Jamie Cairns
Time is happening all at once.

The past.
The present.
The future.

At this moment we have not been born
And we have died.

At the same time,
The past has never happened
And the future never will.

Still it drags on, moment by moment
The future becomes the present becomes the past.

The past exists only in our memories
The future only in our dreams.
 Jul 2013 Swells
Anne Sexton
When man,
enters woman,
like the surf biting the shore,
again and again,
and the woman opens her mouth with pleasure
and her teeth gleam
like the alphabet,
Logos appears milking a star,
and the man
inside of woman
ties a knot
so that they will
never again be separate
and the woman
climbs into a flower
and swallows its stem
and Logos appears
and unleashes their rivers.

This man,
this woman
with their double hunger,
have tried to reach through
the curtain of God
and briefly they have,
through God
in His perversity
unties the knot.
 Jul 2013 Swells
Anne Sexton
Sleepmonger,
deathmonger,
with capsules in my palms each night,
eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles
I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey.
I'm the queen of this condition.
I'm an expert on making the trip
and now they say I'm an addict.
Now they ask why.
WHY!

Don't they know that I promised to die!
I'm keeping in practice.
I'm merely staying in shape.
The pills are a mother, but better,
every color and as good as sour *****.
I'm on a diet from death.

Yes, I admit
it has gotten to be a bit of a habit-
blows eight at a time, socked in the eye,
hauled away by the pink, the orange,
the green and the white goodnights.
I'm becoming something of a chemical
mixture.
that's it!

My supply
of tablets
has got to last for years and years.
I like them more than I like me.
It's a kind of marriage.
It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside
of myself.

Yes
I try
to **** myself in small amounts,
an innocuous occupatin.
Actually I'm hung up on it.
But remember I don't make too much noise.
And frankly no one has to lug me out
and I don't stand there in my winding sheet.
I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie
eating my eight loaves in a row
and in a certain order as in
the laying on of hands
or the black sacrament.

It's a ceremony
but like any other sport
it's full of rules.
It's like a musical tennis match where
my mouth keeps catching the ball.
Then I lie on; my altar
elevated by the eight chemical kisses.

What a lay me down this is
with two pink, two orange,
two green, two white goodnights.
Fee-fi-fo-fum-
Now I'm borrowed.
Now I'm numb.
 Jul 2013 Swells
Anne Sexton
You said the anger would come back
just as the love did.

I have a black look I do not
like. It is a mask I try on.
I migrate toward it and its frog
sits on my lips and defecates.
It is old. It is also a pauper.
I have tried to keep it on a diet.
I give it no unction.

There is a good look that I wear
like a blood clot. I have
sewn it over my left breast.
I have made a vocation of it.
Lust has taken plant in it
and I have placed you and your
child at its milk tip.

Oh the blackness is murderous
and the milk tip is brimming
and each machine is working
and I will kiss you when
I cut up one dozen new men
and you will die somewhat,
again and again.
 Jul 2013 Swells
Anne Sexton
Bayonet
 Jul 2013 Swells
Anne Sexton
What can I do with this bayonet?
Make a rose bush of it?
Poke it into the moon?
Shave my legs with its silver?
Spear a goldfish?
No. No.

It was made
in my dream
for you.
My eyes were closed.
I was curled fetally
and yet I held a bayonet
that was for the earth of your stomach.
The belly button singing its puzzle.
The intestines winding like alpine roads.
It was made to enter you
as you have entered me
and to cut the daylight into you
and let out your buried heartland,
to let out the spoon you have fed me with,
to let out the bird that said *******,
to carve him onto a sculpture until he is white
and I could put him on a shelf,
an object unthinking as a stone,
but with all the vibrations
of a crucifix.
 Jul 2013 Swells
JW Parks III
Toes become wet from dew soaked shoes,
fog engulfs the park with a moldy like fuzz.
I take repose on a dank, weary bench,
The cool fore day fog
drizzling on my inflamed cheeks.
My hands and face coated,
with the warmth of blood.
Images of the night before,
appear in my mind, like clouds in the sky,
only to dissipate within the wide-
open expanses of my thoughts.
I shan't ruin a beautifully disconcerting
morning-like this.
I must get home.
 Jul 2013 Swells
Aubrey Rose
Elated
 Jul 2013 Swells
Aubrey Rose
Give me an overcast day over any other.
Give me a day so dreary that the sun
is completely blocked out. So that I am not
blinded by the ultra violet rays
I can’t repel, due to my deformed
eyes. Give me a day where I am not
deformed, when I can see with
distinction all of the color
and the green in the cemetery across
the road. Stay behind the clouds,
bright sun. So I can see the world
and not be afraid that tears will begin
to form and people will ask
whats wrong. So I will not have to explain
my deformity, and I can see
the colors in the cemetery across the road.
 Jul 2013 Swells
Emily Twisp
Walk with me
We will become drenched in sunlight
Holding hands
Feeling the vibrato of happiness penetrating the back of your palm
electricity shooting from my finger tips
Im not sure its love, but I've never felt any emotion so true.

Walk with me
We are drenched in sunlight.
#love
 Jul 2013 Swells
Andrew Coleburn
We spin words with expert precision,
making strange bones dance.
As if life hangs on our decision,
we spin words with expert precision.
Insane; are we the definition?
There is more than a chance.
It’s how we spin words with expert precision,
making strange bones dance.
 Jul 2013 Swells
Charlotte Lee
He remembers my birthday.
His mother told me so,
last night
when I found myself in her immaculate home once again
...my best friend is seeing his brother.

I ditched them to catch up with
"Mama."

"I mentioned your birthday-- it's coming up!"
Wine bottle in hand, the old appendage intact;
things haven't changed
much

but he doesn't live there any more.

"I said I know it is in May,"
she continued,
"Try this new red I picked up at a tasting.  Dry.  Musky."

Elixir of truth.

"But I couldn't remember what day--"
She gulped, and licked at a crimson stain
hugging her upper lip
"--then he said, 'The Fourteenth.'"
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