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Francie Lynch Sep 29
What derails someone's success?
What propels someone's failure?
What settle's someone for mediocrity?
Someone does.
Alone,
Or with someone.
It's always someone.
Esme Calder Sep 10
There are many graves that I have dug, but refused to lie in them
There would be too many, as I’d keep digging
Until my breath would come in quick rasps, and my arms heavy trunks
Until my eyes would fade in and out of focus, and day would fade to dusk
Rows and rows and rows of holes, each one by the other’s side
For even ghosts and ghouls and wandering souls
Would soon become lonely
Even when the night came, in a falling heap would they continue to walk
And think of their actions, or their life in the past and why they couldn’t talk
Each of their words strangled and scrambled to the winds howling in stormy skies
Each of their tears turned to stone before it even reaches their eyes
From their heart that was once full of blood, is the empty which comes the ice cold
From there would be their story, locked in pages of black ink
Memories have long since faded, and the words shall all get jumbled on the paper
Twisting and turning, and melting off the book
To be carried in their hearts, and in their minds they carried the key
That remains to be forgotten, and so they shall walk lost
And for leaving your graves, row by row, unburied, is simply the cost.
Shofi Ahmed Aug 29
Nature puts kindest proteins
In the spices in the greens
Mum cooks them wholesome
Only her has the long hand
Can pick it from the land
A mother that never eats
Before her man before her kids!

Can we fairly blame
the Mother Eve then?
What she did in Heaven
Given her motherly instinct to feed?
vik Aug 15
if the theatre breathes like a rancid lung
   it must exhale into the rafters;
ledger-scent and sour of iron...y,
  and hours congealed into one bleak bruise.

then it must be that only (i) inherit a vessel
as one inherits a house wrecked by fire:
   walls still too warm with other lives,
wallpaper peeled into letters that spell me.
   never (my) name.

heart-beat / heart • skip
(these syllables only ever tally debts.)

    (my) palms are tax-collectors with gloves far too soft to grasp mercy.
    (my) ribs are two little vaults where accusations slumber.
    and there are ceaseless receipts folded inside the sole of (my) shoe.

evenings most beautiful
  with rain pouring down their face,
have stopped pooling and now,

   they sediment, layer upon layer...
in the strata of one’s rues,
  as ossified bulwarks for crimes (i) never learned.

a braided tongue of smoke
   knots through (my) chest,
insisting on words (i) never even conceived,
       sighing a confession to a jury of
absent eyes.

  they led me to the scaffold
palisaded oak, blade polished to a sunless gleam,
and the (crowd), silent as those ledge
pages,
      watched
as i was sentenced for the mere act of knowing.

and even as the head fell,
       i felt the phonetics of my existence
spill like tarnished coins across the wet cobblestones,
  and the (spectators), formless and meticulous,
  gathered them as though i were (theirs).
returns
The wine you spilled you made me claim
And I couldn't help, but take the blame
While a piece of me you tainted with shame.
Now, I don't dare to show my name.

What a mythical thing to be
A fae underneath a rotten tree
The scars you made I've shut close
And I threw the memories in cases I've lost.

You know my train could take you home
But on the way, it'll curse you to a life alone.
I sold the pieces right then and there
Heart of mine, to spirits who dare.
I really did curse him.
Arii Jul 27
I am the words they carved
Into my skin,
The amalgamate
Of everything I’ve sinned.

My hands light fire to all that
I can touch,
Burning for a day
Before it turns to dust,

It turns to dust.

“Fight fire with fire,” they spit,
Doesn’t make it not
Burn like acid.

Rain pours down
Onto my skin,
And sure enough, it
Hurts like acid,

Like
Acid.

Didn’t mean a single word that they said,
Doesn’t mean
You didn’t mean
For it to happen

My arms are made of wood,
And yours are steel.
Just because you’re in pain
Doesn’t mean others can’t
Feel,

Everyone still feels.

Everything still
Feels.

“Fight fire with fire,” they spit,
Doesn’t make it not
Burn like acid.

Rain pours down
Onto my skin,
But it doesn’t make it not
Burn

Like

Acid.
Science has done irreversible things to me
Kalliope Jul 14
I placed you upon my highest shelf,
Where no one ever sat before,
My prized possession, the collectable
I’d always been yearning for.

All my toys end up broken or lost,
A fate that eats me alive,
But you- I was determined not to break,
So I kept you out of these hands of mine.

I adored you from a distance,
Too scared to get too close,
You were lonely on that shelf,
To be played with, you wanted most.

My hands clumsy, your heart so fragile,
A dangerous game we played,
Measuring my worth around your presence-
If you looked fine, then I was okay.

But looks have always been deceiving,
It doesn’t mean things were smooth,
My sweet trophied, prized companion
Just wanted me to hold him too.

Slowly, I became bolder,
Taking you down from that shelf,
And for a while, it was heaven,
But soon enough, we needed help.

You were fragile, and I was clumsy,
We know how this story ends-
I was angry, you were gentle…
I should have never held you in my hands.
If I'd have stuck with video games I could have just reloaded my last save.
MuseumofMax Jul 8
Sometimes I go back to the past

I watch my twiggy legs shake, my hands grip my arms attempting to steady; to comfort

I watch myself form an invisible box around my body; a personal shield

While I begged for forgiveness that I didn’t need

My brain separated my consciousness from reality,

I said it all just like a story,
just like they had taught me



On my knees in front of your bed,
an altar for wrathful gods

I cried and I prayed for forgiveness that I didn’t need

I took all the blame, bared it like a cross
and carried it with me,

You gave me a title, a crown of thorns-
and watched me bleed  


And still while I bled, exposed on your cross,

You told me to beg harder, for the innocence I had lost

So I begged for forgiveness that I didn’t need


while he watched under the shade of your palm trees-
Yuzuko Jun 15
I am so truly lost in a haze.
I tried with all my heart to love,
But all I’m met with is a lonely gaze.
It just wasn’t enough.

I’m drowning in the waves of a sea.
I’d created this sea of emotions.
Locked away and lost the key.
Now I watch as it consumes me.

Gazing at the moon above,
I see the scars over it.
And start to wonder where I messed up?
Yet, the moon maintained brightly lit.

The garden I called home met a flame,
And now I’ll be to blame.
Ken Pepiton Jun 24
Being shamed
at having lived, survivor who hid,

ducked and covered, and lived, since

from when America
was a Grand Old Party, all righteous
free whites from foreign tyranny refuging

Come ye, to where the railroad grew,
straight across the Hunkpapa Lakota
happy hunting grounds
taken as
homeland
after the horses came
where

before the Methodists
Free Soil, and the making
of good Indians,
and relatively rapid fire ballistic devices
witty inventions circumvented careful aim
tedious patience selecting chosen heads
to remove from the great game,
played with boys
called young men, sent west, believe-ing,
we can take the land,
we can build a castle,
we can build a city and buy and sell
and get great gain, a city on a hill,
famed for sharing bombs, with
peoples of the book,

as sure as-
as sure as-

certain murders are not called ******,
American tradition holds tyranny,
under the banner
of land owners, requiring local labor
to eliminate hate,
by killing any who hate truth…

conserved order, leaders, managers, laborers,

and the cursed worthless good for nothings,
always bred to man the trenches, dig the ditches,

for which we now have machines, no slaves need apply.

Right, the Holy word for authorized readers.

We can all be heros, like

Caleb, whose land had giants, yet Caleb
had the conquerors's courage, his troops
had nothing to lose,
out of the wilderness,
into Ezra's exhortation, work or die,
Noah, Ezra, Joe Smith, same function,
heroic tales told
in Babylon,
under authority
from no less than the authority
of Moses, first witness to events in Eden,
whose will wrote the law, while atop Sinai,
obedient, to the letter, no lie, no lie
the command
not all of it,
of course, the ten commands,
one must clearly outlaw prevarication,
ah
wit wound windwise turning inward,
left and right, swirling axial role rights
tighten
time
BTW, jot and tittle
close inspection reveals,
"Thou shalt not lie" literally is not commanded.
Not one of 10 minimum obediances demanded.

Never the less, chosen to survive the womb,
despite definite spiritual cuckoo egged odd ducks.

Chosen-ness, excluding any not
of the blood, as determined, how, back when,
? serpent on a pole, no, what could determine,
who is included in the chosen to rule class of us

purging foul stench from shame on the mighty

by surging pride in rebuilding a people, a mind,

which when tuned
to prosperities patterns learns,
this is the old way, where good is, we sought.

We find, unnoticed,
here, held separated, by God,
not our fault, we did not choose
to be chosen, truth, Essene evidence,
is all the evidence
of Genesis we really have…

circumstantial historical happenings happened
to us, each one, made
from two, made
from four, made us, eventually deemed equal,

by virtue of a kinsman's redemption, shoe shucking,
symbiology symbolism recognition, by right, taken,

my ownable, fungible intellectual property, the air
I altered through mediating peace where none ever is,

at the core spin, the one, big spinning polarity that is,
present tension, hold us, each, in mindful now, this is,

as we have agreed, words work thought, we make
believe a verb, we use love as if it, too, is such, a verb…

active ability accounting for idle word, as such, loving

called to become, shapen
by time, the steady course correcting

force pulling,
momentum pushing, coagulating mass,

from once, when nothing was,
but the unspeakably
sacred potential
of you,

the one, you,
never one like you,
your unique role,
the one thing only you are,
and only you may be, that is
the one law
of life
in our bubble
of being, is to be, any must chose,

to be like whatever one feels like,
as birds of a feather flock on,
each parrot or person perfectly
randomly conceived to mature,
unique, vibration of reality
as manifestly difficult
to get through without learning

the root of beauty, is not beautiful,
its functional, essential no light state…
grow up, grow down, grow weary
become old and become soil.

All men decompose, no contest, all tie.
Dust or ash, same difference, pride

lay beside the heretic's troubled cognitions,
say true, pride alone powered all our wars.

-----------------------

Ontogeny, whence came we hence,
whither go we thence here after?

Bards sent forth with vatic blessing,
go, thou gifted with gab, go
say thus saith he with power,

to take the breath and the breather,
and punish each wrong imagination,
as adultery, in the core, in the heart,

done, done,
done… In deed, remarkably

non staining, resulting in no outward,
shame on the man, taken in the very act…

what standard waves the same
whether winds blow north or south?

Whose mind opens to recognized
authority, memory verses from childhood,
neighbor hood vacation Bible school,
instead of camp, great revelation,
instead of hell, your default after,

if, you wish otherwise, believe the good news,
it works, with patience, perfecting itself,

Magnificent, magnified,
eye to eye as any little child's messenger
app proves, there is here an interface,

a way,
a portal for important recognition
apropos your purpose driven life,

imagined, along mystical wilderness trails,
far as ever imagined from the maddened masses,

gravity, initially retracting reasonable doubt,
God, Elohim and Hermetic orderly revelation,

leaves us being, recent, new thinkers, thinking
original thoughts, using multifaceted wordforms,

holy invocations, declared knowns, all the people
said Amen, yet,
but

what if, the one turning universe, rewound,
stopped, sistere, reverse course, stand sun still

leave, this POV. Reader reading life in a book,
thinking time from a bottle, an ancient amphora,

thought possibly the uncorked source of story,
the Epimethean suggestion given hope, enough.

Make believe, let us pretend, behave as knowers,
leave us establish order, here,
believe my most used me to make you think

you know, what I mean, you hear, what I said,
filtered through beans in your ears, been there,
done that, read about it, heard tell, one time,

suffer not
a novice,
to teach or preach, eh, there oughta be a law,

lie not, one against the other brother, truth
is not elusive, after all's been said to judge me,

to weigh the worth of my time taken up, thunk,
functionally funky, rough shod, taken strength,

turning universally tightening chirality to work,
two wheels joined tighten toward forward
motion, heuristic conditional ifery, by word

righty tighty, taken to the left side, axially,
loosens and leads to wheels falling off,
and yokes breaking and oxen becoming
barbecue.
-----------------------

Through the industrial spinning
wombed men, leaving children
to fend for themselves, child wise,

never allowed to learn the art
used for casting spells to alert
receivers of magic papers read

as auspex read
the birds and feathers
informing ready readers
look up untested lies,
famously leaders seer's
methods for redemption
of unentertained mobs,
drawn by word of free bread,
too lowly for even the hucksters,

A poet's voice, oh, Emma, beauty,
make the New Colossus bow in shame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"
cries she
With silent lips.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning
to breathe free,
The wretched refuse
of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost
to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" (1883)

From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lazarus>


Whose to shame, whose to blame, who
are we to say, we whose nation is so good…

steal from some mind feebler than thine,

self preserve,
within the life
after the womb,

where
in all potential variation
a we acquired local order
involving cascades
of coincidental
instances when next depends
from now,
by a thread, twisting
some how,
should the whole truth we swear
to tell, have fallen into JWST awful true,

look at us from a million miles away, wave,
make noise, holler like the last who in whoville.

What good does it do, who are you to ask?

A truth, fitly twisted,
takes any time paid attention a pinch of worths
good to know,
possibly freeing many children's convinced
fear
of holy wrath, likened
to a raging man,

stilled at the truth,
survivor
of a devious plan
to undermine heaven's command
to turn, universally, inverse, obverse, turn to

see men as trees, ently walking, literally as if,

we may say mankind knows the hero myth,
we may say ourkind knows the messianic version,
we may say kindness knows the kindest way

to say, God sent me, I am here to help.

Hey, sky pilot, what can you be proud of today?

Don't let an old vet make you doubt the whole
truth you are sworn to know beyond all doubt,
truth you serve, guardian of the story, faith tells

children, wordlessly, knowing seeps in, science
occurs, with first lottery lost, with last ditch crossed,
face to face with former soldiers lost to lies, true,

If, my son, you can keep your head…

ah, Kipling, I have wept with you, I, did not die.

My warrior days left me alive, did you feel that, too.

Common Form, we form, whatsoever we
agree, as ghostly reminders of spiritual facts, brave
is a spirit, diffidence and confidence, as well, mere

states of mind, kind of like standing, still, sol-stice,
sistere, tortuga, shields up stand, take the blow,
settle all accounts, love your neighbor, suffer
situations beyond mind's control, sequencing

Hallelujahs from trusters in horses, who deal in war.

"Should any ask why we died,
  Tell them, because our father's lied."
Free to publish any where, I said. Not my intellect's property, in truth.
Therapy is knowing somebody will think with me, and our agreeing may make a political force gone holier than any, humble itself under local face to face truth that killing does to a national mind dedicated to justice in truth.
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