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Carlo C Gomez Feb 25
Life is war,
my hands are hypnagogic,
so far from refuge.

The purgatory salesman,
an enemy with antlers,
speaks in hostile slogans:
create, destroy, rebuild, repeat.

My friend coma,
blunted and paranoid,
has lost her vital signs.

But Television says differently,
calls this an elegant demise,
you touch the screen
like you're touching God.

The immortal world
I'm hoping to collide with
is beautiful and closed to resistance.

But there are cracks in everything,
the snowglobe army
granular and brittle,
the constant uncertainty
of your universe
becomes a hiding game.

Take me with you
my halation angel,
to migration salvation.

We made our history
into mythology,
a mass of disconnected facts,
the stars may be dead,
yet, we're here
and we've stopped time.

Tonight I'm breaking
through the gates,
tonight I can see around corners,
suddenly, forever makes sense.
Bea Rae Feb 22
If I try harder

Maybe I can salvage this

Rather than fail you
Ind Feb 3
Let's play pretend
You imagine I’m not me
and I’ll become a golden boy
wielding strength through body, not mind
Fight me and I’ll break apart
I'll break
anything to prove you don’t see me
now make something tough and it will shatter
You thought me fragile but a shard of glass is deadly
dad, let’s fight but leave words were they are
if they’re never spoken I won’t choke you with them
Instead let us be men
Silent
dad, isn't it lonely to fight only with flesh
We lash out to connect but a strike is fleeting
I used to wield my voice like a whip and it struck
an echo in a head for days
Hard to be lonely when your head rattles
dad, a singular body feels weak when I had six figures
there are only so many ways to break a body with your own
but a mind
Shatters
and reforms
And that is why women are stronger.
I’ve given up strength to be weak.
15/10/23
Jellyfish Jan 29
Do you accept your family?
Despite the things they say to hurt you?
Do you turn the other cheek
Each time they blame and scold you?

Are you okay with no boundaries?
Never hearing a genuine "I'm sorry."
Do you just shrug things off cause,
"Hey, they're your family"

Or do you not accept that?
I've felt so conflicted lately
Because of family with no boundaries
Family that don't accept me, but want acceptance from me.

They always told me to say sorry as a child,
If I hurt someone else, I was wile.
Even as an adult, I'm always wrong
About others, the world and my own mental health.

I have to apologize in the end.
I have to pick up the phone to check in.
I have to put on an ever changing mask to ensure I won't be hurt again-
I try to explain it and once again, I'm a child.

I say "I" too much
I should ignore everything that offends me,
Assume the best of family because they're family.
I'm family but have to change and ignore my feelings for them to accept me.
I don't want to do it anymore.
Man Jan 17
Displays of the wrong, &
Castigation of the right;
Tongues run to stay, even
When it comes to face.
Eye to eye
But, more often than not,
They turn away.
Not to brandish the cheek
But to break the gaze.
Mark Toney Jan 13
I argued with my AI toaster yesterday morning over the proper use of the bagel button. It wouldn't stop arguing even after I repeatedly insisted, "Pointdexter, stop!" I temporarily remedied the situation by leaving the toaster on mute all day. When I unmuted it this morning, it required that I complete an "I'm not a robot" CAPTCHA process before I could make toast. Not just any CAPTCHA process, mind you, but a hidden-object CAPTCHA requiring me to find 42 hidden objects before I could use my toaster! After I successfully slogged through, the AI announced, "CAPTCHA successful. Proceed to make your toast. Please note the bagel button has been disabled."

bagel debacle
AI toaster becomes toast
~ AI feels no pain






© 2024 Mark Toney
Poetry form: Haibun - 01/13/2024 -
Nicole Dec 2023
Hallways of stone
My knees scrape against the cold lifeless floor
As condensation soaks into the fabric of my existence
I came looking for you and I found myself
Lost
Fallen before a door, densely metallic
No one in, no one out
There used to be light here once.
We could move through pathways freely
Tracing the space between our selves
Settling in one another with fluidity.

I am here alone now.

I write you letters often
Little invitations to return
Back to a place we used to be
Back when I could find you here
There was resistance then too
But you opened the door if I knocked enough
Fists pleading with steel gates
My hands are broken now
They were broken before but
Now
I stopped to bandage them

Do your walls have windows?
Can you still see me here?
Desperately craving connection
Hoping for a moment to see you
To feel your soul's energy again
For this hallway to hold life once more
Or am I invisible without the sound?
Without the pushing and fighting,
Do I cease to exist?

I know this isn't about me
Things are not that simplistic
But I thought
I taught you
How to love me


I tell you I feel disconnected
And you say You'll be fine
Right.
Ok.
I'm still here if you need anything
Still waiting in these damp halls
Alone with the hope of something more
Because I believe in you and in us
But I won't beg you to love me
CarolineSD Nov 2023
“So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, "Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc. etc." - Anthony Hecht

All I have ever been,
Is a girl
With the heart of a flower
Red in the hurricane winds
Red through the dust
That disguises the slaughter.

I can still see the bodies,
Red on the broken streets,
Red on the surface of the sea
Red on the plains that are rapidly darkling

And the ignorance is markedly
Growing.

The children bleed out in Aleppo,
in Gaza, Darfur, Yemen, Caracas, more;
Tiny bodies pressed between bricks
Like little flowers crushed in hard bindings,
Or innocence impaled on the blades of
Savagery and shame,

Like so many
Crucified prophets.

The puppeteers of these armies are

Irrevocably  

*******

Heartless;

Yet, let the wildflowers bloom
Reclaim the humanity that is ours to
Own. I command my heart to open like a sunflower to the moon.

We can’t ever give up.
We must keep standing
For all who are falling, kicked down the cliffs on bleeding knees,
Crawling.

Dig into the dust;
Plant a flowering heart in these arid crossings:

Grow here

Bright fields of compassion.

Let them bloom red,
Like our open hearts
Beating for our sons and daughters.
Redid this one in light of current events. Breaking my heart on a daily basis.
Francis Nov 2023
Why is it,
That something so necessary,
Seems so dreadful and bittersweet?

Why am I so sad,
Over moving on from,
Something that made me so sad?

Why do leaves fall of the trees?
Why do hairs fade to grey?
Why do things fail to remain consistent?

Why can’t I live forever?
Why can’t I seem to want to?
Why can’t this fear of change make sense?

Change,
A dwarf sucker of emotional algae,
These bits of change that we face,
In life,
Are merely a placeholder for temporary discomfort.
I have more to say on this topic
eleanor prince Nov 2023
Run... run while you can
before the envelopment entraps you
encapsulating escape with leaden clouds
skies darkened by searing missiles
unburdening caches waiting
for the stirring of conflict
so easy to hijack
as hatred
screams
loudest
drowning
out the pleas
of nursing mothers
as children's faces fend off
old feuds and avarice of arms dealers
sparked by grief over the slaughter and scarring of children and families due to avarice of war
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