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Robert Ronnow Oct 2021
From marble and granite to steel and glass,
we were discussing Rhina Espaillat’s On the Avenue in class,
was it 1950s or 1980s NYC and were the fifties
the city’s halcyon days or is it now, the 2020s,
the boroughs teeming with immigrants
from the round earth’s imagined corners,
Hasidim and Muslim, Haitian and Russian, as we
Italians and Irish in an earlier era were. Everything will
be ok or not, the recombinations which make
prediction and intuition fortunately hopeless
and each individual an experiment gone well or wrong.
On the avenue God speaks by spewing
toy and clothing stores, breakdancers and ice skaters,
the Brooklyn Navy Yard seen from the Brooklyn Bridge,
the skyline admired when my car broke down on the Triborough Bridge.
The numbers of us overwhelm, there exist powers
overwhelming for the human body and mind.
I don’t mind but I can’t make sense of it.
Gandhi said What you do may not seem important
but it is very important that you do it. By that what is meant?
Linda said Why does God always have to be a man?
I said He could be a she but She’s probably really
a Tyrannosaurus rex. I like to be in America!
—Espaillat, Rhina, “On the Avenue”, Playing at Stillness, Truman State University Press, 2005.
—Donne, John, “At the round earth’s imagined corners”.
The math, the scent, the tears…
A couple of ears and two eyes that aren’t willing to see
What we’ve prepared for today!
- Hey, sister! Would you see us!?
- Hey, teacher! Could you care about us?!
- Hey brothers, did you ever embrace a cruel song
And let it tare apart your entire soul?

An arbiter of splendour
Was sitting on a bench,
In silence waiting for his times
To come and take away
All pains.

An arbiter for love and your great dance
Eternal!

"I was never good enough for you,
Never doing what you wanted me to do,
I’m quite proud of that right now
Since it kept keeping me away from that pesky debt you had to carry on with!”

Eternal dance of love
And passion for the poor
That’s rich in kind but sorrowful unreachable goals!



Two dots on a sot verticality
Asking for more:
Destroy all the planet, destroy us all!
We got tired of living
What you wouldn’t call
Neither life nor living!

Two dots for a fellow and one for my soul;
Two, one after the other and the third in a row
That sometimes separates two types of worlds.

“- I am feeling a bit sad and disappointed; I must have felt that I was much more and much better than I really am!
- I understand, we all get to feel tired and crushed sometimes. Just don’t let anyone get to you! Many will try to hurt you. Just don’t let them do that again, that’s all!”

A penny for the poor,
Starvation for a fool
Trying to live a life
According to the rules
Of saints!
- You’re not a saint, you girl-dude!
And even if you were! What do you think it’ll serve you for?
We’re all above and helping each-other!
- While you all think it is better that way… the poor way!
- Than what? Our struggle?
- Oh, please! Give me a break! We do not struggle!

Are you much more of a man now?
Oh, pardon me, I was such a fool back then, to trust you
And to love you with all my ‘rotten’ soul!
This cold forgotten soul…

Are you much prouder than before?
Are you successful?
I know I know! I admired your entire carrier!

I should probably **** myself, just now
But I guess that I am too ******* proud
To do so.
Are you still proud of your soul and your wonderful goal?
I know that I am of mine!
I should probably commit suicide.
But not until I get less ashamed with who and what I am;

~ I Mean the loser someone planned to make of me and got to make me be ! ~

Much too carefully!
Much too shamefully!

Oh, my!
The Freak-in’ Carbonite kicked in!
I must get it out on the screen!

After that I’ll try to organize those showers for the angels;
Propeller pins and cosy sins
Already happening

why bother?
It’s on them!

Brutally honest with myself:
I find my old journals a bunch of idiotic steam material.
God, I hate myself for not being… stronger!

Yet I must confess:
I love myself more than anything in the world!

“I’ll be the spit in your face if I have to!
she yelled back at him
You traitor!
You must be joking now, dear!
a choir they join both saying:
- Aurevoir, dear!



I prostrate myself
In front of your greatness,
Too grateful for the little I got to accomplish
And give thanks to the Greatest of Lords!
.
“Are you much more of a man now, that you killed them all?”



A missing point that was completely unknown
To the public
Got out meeting people and feeling them all
Just like a believer.

“I need you and I want to be needed too!
I Miss You!"

A moon and a missing point looking for sun-warmth and half a cup of solitude.
© All rights Reserved Theodora Oniceanu, first published in September 2018
Pockets Aug 2020
Birmingham I am your first born Ex husband
Birmingham I am 3rd avenue north
Birmingham I am the hands of Vulcan
Birmingham I am an abandoned race course
Birmingham I am your Bob Dylan
Basquiat and Bukowski
Birmingham I am nothing
Birmingham I am blue
Birmingham I’m yours if you let me
Birmingham I am you
I'll be thinking of you
on new year's day.

I'll be missing you on the
first day of the rest of my life
like you had never, ever left;
can still see your silhouette.

it moves across the sky;
then melts away as it
says "goodbye."



Muhammed E. K.  ☾  🅴  ✩
© LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS POETRY
Thank you for reading. Hope you had a nice reading session.

If you want more content from us, you can follow @lightinthedarknesspoetry on Instagram. Feel free to check out our website for news and updates.  

Muhammed E. K.'s debut poetry book "Light in the Darkness" is available on Amazon.com
Mystic Ink Plus Feb 2018
In a new avenues
Under the radiant skies
With unknown identity
Like a wonder of a visitor

On closing those eyes
So far, I was lost
Spending time in circle
Ultimately, I found my way, beyond

Calm silence, everywhere
Colored reflection of breaths
Echoes within memories, and
Chorus of forgiveness.
Self Discovery Mantra.
Shared from my Anthology, Canvas: Echoes and Reflections.
Star BG Aug 2017
The Vessel I live in
is of Human form on Earth.

The address I live at is
in the country of my heart.

The street I live on is
Love Avenue
Compassion Lane
Abundance Road
Joy Drive.
Peace Crescent
Harmony Boulevard
Freedoms Trail
Bliss Highway.

And the heart is my roadmap.



StarBG © 2017
savs Jul 2017
Last month you were walking home
and you passed by a bus stop;
one had just arrived,
it was empty,
but you decided to ignore it

Until you remembered my lips,
my cold hands

After that time, you payed attention
to every single bus in town,
wondering if they could take you
someplace nearby my eyes
and my voice

Because you missed me,
you still do

And finally,
you bought yourself a ticket,
you couldn't wait to see me anymore;
you needed my kisses
and my arms,
almost as much as i did

As i do

You were ready to come,
but then I woke up,
realizing it was a simple dream

knowing you would never take
that empty bus
Martin Narrod Apr 2017
This is my body.
You know it. You touch my teeth with your fingers, my imperfect teeth. The teeth I brought home from the Czech Republic after pulling off my braces with pliers, after not having a toothbrush or fluoridated water for half of a year, you tell me that you love me and my teeth. You know they make me so uncomfortable.

You lay beside me in bed. You put your right hand in my left hand, your right leg over my left leg, and you tell me that your boyfriend is only your boyfriend because he was the opposite of your ex. He's not the one you want to be with, he's the one you just happen to be with.

I tell you we shouldn't kiss until it's over between the two of you.

This is my body, it's driving the car you're in. I fill up the gas tank and ask you where you'd like to go. You say you'd like to go anywhere. I drive us through Chicago, we go up one street and then down the next. I drive us downtown on Lake Shore Drive, across the city on Grand Avenue and over to Ohio, then I put us on the highway and then I take us off. We take North Avenue from I-94 to Wells to Lincoln and then North again until the car runs out of gas again. I fill up the car with gas, again.

I look at your face, your hair, your hands and your legs, I love your legs, your face, your lips, and the words coming out of your mouth.

I didn't know I could be happy like this again. I didn't know I could be so attracted to someone's body and so attracted to someone's mind- at the same time. I tell you that you should break up with him before we kiss, even though I just want to kiss you now. I want to kiss you now and now and now and now, and we start making promises, we start telling each other that there are rules for how to live life by understanding it. You understand your life and you understand me in it. I understand you and trust everything you say. You're right, brave, brilliant, and beautiful. I love the sound of your voice and the words you choose to use.

I'm sure we've known each other for over a decade. This is my body. This is your body. We are perfect and animated towards one another, and I like it, I love it. And I'm so ******* lucky.

I never have been as brave nor as bold as you've shown me I can be. I could be so brave and full of grace and excitement, and enchanted immensely by every gesture and breath that comes from you. I had previously been riddled with immense insanity before we met. I was sworn towards unmistakeable insanity, and doomed to a life of solitude and sadness, I had lived in a wash of thick melancholy, and I knew, and my friends agreed that my body and I would  never know happiness, pleasure, or awesomeness anymore.

You're driving me happily crazy. Fueled by unmistakeable excitement, and on the way towards a future of wildly enticing momentus togetherness.

You and your little dog too.
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