PLEASE NOTE: The original writer of this poem is Sasha Hayles.

Poets meet here.
Where the mind and soul connect
To telepathically spew about the
metaphors
Similes
And verses
Of words unsaid
About those spiritual genius
And poetic fiends
Who's tongue drips lyrical acid
Onto us, to burn into our chest
And relieve us
Of words unsaid.

Poets met here.
And their life line that tethered them to the coast
Of their sanity's sanctuary
Were frayed at the edges
And broken when they were caught up
In the rapture of
Gluttonous
Overly simplistic
And iconoclastic mentality
That closed mouths never moved forward...

Sly second skin hanging off my bedpost or
curled under my pillow.
It climbs into my dreams,
snugs up against me, the thinnest safest skin.
These words are my epidermis
pulled tight over me like a hood or a sheet
or socks and I can tell
anyone anything.

Here is the city—
its worn-down mountains,
its grass and iron,
its smoky coast
seen from the high roads
on the Wicklow side.

From Dalkey Island
to the North Wall,
to the blue distance seizing its perimeter,
its old divisions are deep within it.

And in me also.
And always will be.

Out of my mouth they come:
The spurred and booted garrisons.
The men and women
they dispossessed.

What is a colony
if not the brutal truth
that when we speak
the graves open.

And the dead walk?

Rain kisses the pavement
Cigarette burnt fingertips
Your warmth is god sent
I taste the salt on your lips

Black umbrellas line the streets
Clam chowder and baguette air
Like a child tucked beneath crisp sheets
Adoration the only stitch I wear

Pacific Ocean’s salt
Rain soaked cheeks
Coy, loving, exalted
We could’ve survived like this for weeks

What a cruel existence
to be one original artist
among millions

at what point is it redundant
to be unique,

and when will it be novel
to be ordinary?

when creativity became common
brilliance, typical

artistry achieved
at infancy,
and the minimum standard to be
a prodigy.

the least you can expect
is a breathtaking performance

and the most you can hope for
is a biography.

You! Do you wonder how you changed the Course,
the "Flow of the Weave,"
Across your own Microcosm?

You should know of the Khyber Pass,
and the armies that crossed there over centuries,
Families crushed, *****, forced to change.

And yet, across this violent Cacophony,
Life,
Embryonic,
always endures.

So what to fallen Gods, worshipped by dying generations?
By Assimilation's weak dead grasp,
A page is turned,
A thread is woven,
and a generation,
to pass.