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Secret-Author Jan 2017
The first time I said his name, he asked me how I knew him.
I was thrown. I knew him and I knew Kim.
What we've been through -
Your family and I;
I often lay awake at night and toss and turn and sigh.
I felt like taking his head in my hands and saying
"Your brother - he was mine."
But I didn't.

He lives in the house next to my parents.
And knew me until I left. Bereft.
Then he sees me now -
and acts as if he doesn't know me.
Like he hasn't held my hand or cried,
Well that's what's really thrown me.
The tree in your garden. It's planted for him.
With me at the window, watching tiny you and Kim.

We used to sit in that garden, late into the night.
Until everyone was gone, left with nothing but starlight.
Oh, what we've been through -
Your family and I;
To this day I lay in bed and sometimes have a cry.
So I was thrown, to the bone, and feeling so small...
When I realised that in your mind,
- I didn't exist at all.
Spoken Word Poetry
JjJ98 Oct 2016
Time passes like no other passes.
Like no other classes: you cannot learn
about time, and how it moves.

You can be shown mechanics,
the seconds and minutes.
Though these illusions alleviate
us of reality-
how gradually
it treks on.

It stops and starts
and starts to stop.
We feel the slots
slipping by, flying by.

There's no way to tell,
when ours will end,
though its grasp eternal,
begins again.
Arrays of stars land softly
on this thick bed of pine needles
under your graciously reaching tree,
and we see impossibly blue, miniature
flowers with centers of infinite white.

Tunneling underground, more
have been born over the decades
since you planted their mothers and fathers
by hand, here in this garden that has become
a secret woodland, even in the middle of town.
©Elisa Maria Argiro
Two hundred years ago and yesterday
a sailor wrote a letter in longhand,
entrusting it to the road
back to his beloved,
where dawn was breaking
at the closest port of call.

A century ago, a shy and lovely
mail order bride wrote
to the man who would be her husband,
in a land entirely different from her own.

In her delicate, sincere questions, from a
heart wrapped in ornate brocade layers of
kimono silk, she hoped to begin to know him.

Relationships formed gracefully, over time,
an ocean of water and thought intervening.

Water and air may be there
keeping souls apart,
until they are meant to be united.
 
Now, two beloved young friends have found
in each other a twin flame, first seen shining
in the virtual world of today. With only letters,
or flares or morse code, these two would have
seen, and known, that light within one another.

Souls destined from very early on.

My loving eyes have seen them, decades from now,
leaning into one another, silver hair entwined
as they rest their heads together on one more journey.

I defy anyone who might challenge me,
seeing these two blossoming in love
from a virtual, chance encounter, 
to say that life is any less real
in the ways that matter most,
when it is born in abstract space,
in this manifestation of a reality
that is in itself a metaphor for
Reality.

Reality, is living,
deeply living,
the inexplicable,
unfathomable,
exquisitely simple
complexity,
of being fully human.
For Lynn and Josh ~
©Elisa Maria Argiro
Lee Banks Jan 2016
At 5, his eyes grew wide with wonder
He jumped on the giant chair and swirled
His father’s office seemed like a castle
To him; the biggest in the world!

At 15, he stood determined,
Ambition burning in his eyes.
One day he'd reach the top as well
For him; the limit was the skies.

At 25, he was undefeated;
Half way up the ladder to success
Nothing could derail him now
He was the greatest, He was the best!

At 35, he held his daughter;
All his dreams were coming true.  
He stood in his private office,
Brimming with pride, he admired the view

At 45, He'd made his money
The time to follow his heart was now
To silence all those naysayers
And find his own way somehow

At 55, He could see
the dead end his child was heading towards
despite all their fights and laughs and tears
She never did heed his words

At 65, He sat content
On her swirling chair, his heart glad
She smiled around her office proudly
And said, "Look, I finally made it, Dad!"

At 75, His grandson cried
His daughter too, with frustration
Finally, He could tell her all about
Parenthood’s trials and tribulations.

At 85, He smiled as
His family surrounded his death bed
He'd lived a life of no regrets
with nothing left to be done or said

At 95, He lay in the ground.
Decades of his memories living on
In his family’s hearts for years;  
Their love for him forever going strong.
Taylor St Onge Aug 2015
1969 Cult Mentality: Charles Manson
is asking you to “leave a sign… something witchy” at the scene of the
crime.  You listen because you believe he is Jesus.  You smear the word
                                                                ­                           “Pig” across the door.

1978 Cult Mentality: Jim Jones
is asking you to drink grape Kool-Aid infused with cyanide.  You do this
because you have been convinced that he is “Christ the Revolution.” You
                                 inject your child with the toxin before gulping it down.

1997 Cult Mentality: Marshall Applewhite*
is asking you to tie a plastic bag around your head after you consume a mixture of phenobarbital, applesauce, and *****.  You do this because you believe dying will take you to the spacecraft flying behind
Comet Hale-Bopp.  You make sure you have a
five dollar bill and three quarters
                                                         in your pocket for the interplanetary toll.
written to my foundations of creative writing course.  prompt: five lines, five words, but I later edited it after I turned it in and this is the final.
Joe Wilson Jun 2014
Inward smiling as the thought just returned
Remembering the shame as advances were spurned
Still going red at the thought's recollect
No romance that time, another chance wrecked.

Ah adolescence and all the things new
The callowness is borne like a fedora askew
The so spotty face that we tried hard to hide
By growing our side-burns enormously wide.

And now decades later and still happy in love
With the woman who always fits me like a glove
Those teenage angst years are now way in the past
But we have to go through them for the now things to last.

To be loved for decades is a wondrous thing
My heart wakes each morning and just starts to sing
For my love lies beside me as we welcome the day
In my heart I now realise it was always this way.

©Joe Wilson - My love lies beside me 2014

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