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Lani Apr 2021
I have an island
I bet you think I'm rich.
I'm really not.

I have an island.
People come and go.
But I'm the only one who stays.

Boats come in and out,
drifting by.
I meet people for years, or for hours,
but I feel a loss as they go.

I am an island.
All alone.
People come and go.
They never stay long.

For them,
I'm a tropical vacation, a place to get away from their problems.

But I was made of a volcano.
I crumble with every wave.
Pieces of me break off.
But I try to remain

tropical.
I just feel like an uninhabited island sometimes.
I actually kind of like this poem.
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2021
~
From the initial dawning

lithium sky met infernal waters

and it all went awry

the light of happiness

constituted halos

leaving intimate words

paperclipped, tongue-tied

and love bruises

upon inner thigh

the wellspring enveloped

char and holm

with faint kissed alkali

abating the stormy umbrage

as if a softly whispered lullaby

and suddenly along this watermark

only you, me

and the need to multiply

~
Cardboard-Jones Mar 2021
The center of attention, she commands the room.
She’s on her own frequency, try to stay in tune.
She’s lookin’ like champagne, never coming down.
I never stood a chance.

She’s got eyes like the sunrise, a smile like July.
She speaks life with every word, no wonder I’m alive.
She’s smoother than champagne, she deserves her crown.
I won’t resist the trance.

Sweaty palms and a fever, how do I approach?
My feet left the ground now, I’m losing control.
Then she offers me champagne, a night on the town.
I need a heart transplant.
Strung Feb 2021
Heavy beast and heavy burden
Burned into growing feet,
a mile above all great sentiments of
Home, clouds settle into molds
Carved inside carnivorous minds.

There is no quadrant on this island
You could go
Where I could not see who you created
In me, fiery and dormant, whirlwind
Of silence and fear. I see you everywhere,
In every line on my face,
You exist.

I exist amongst a million cold dandelions in a weary field.
Inescablable youth, river stones wrapped to knarled knees
To ground me to three separate waterfalls,
All who whisper of the dead
To creatures who eat the love from out the backs of children’s heads.

I own a million fragments of a life
And nowhere have I found the one
Who makes them whole.
David P Carroll Jan 2021
On a warm sunny day it's
So beautiful and bright in
Saba a Caribbean Island today
And the sun is shining
So warm and bright
And the sky is so blue
And bright
Oh and I'm smiling
Full of delight,

And it's so perfect
In Saba Island today and
It's such a perfect day today
And the sun is shining so bright
And the flowers are so
Beautiful too,

And while the bees
Swarm in the gentle breeze
And the birds are singing along
To my beautiful favourite love song and
Let us be like flowers in the sun
Smiling so beautiful and bright
And always turning to the warm sun light
And it's such a beautiful day
Today it's so sunny beautiful
And bright in Saba Island all
Day and all night.


David P Carroll.
Island 🏝️🏝️
big sleeper Jan 2021
Two years on, the bank bought the house
Your mother tried but couldn't make the payments
I tried as I could but couldn't keep it going
So many memories just left to fade

No trace of life, no trace of a body
You just went clear off the edge of the earth
Didn't bring a map, didn't plan to come back
Did you suffer, Gillian?

There'll always be part of me that remembers
But I know that there's always something missing
I'll try to move forward from this loss
But how could I make sense of it all?

I've been holding it all together for too long now
So much so I've forgotten myself
Been trying to be stronger than I used to be
Rebuilding to learn to love someone else

Where does love go?
Where does it bleed out?
What can be done to stem the flow
What can quell the hurt, what can ebb the tide?

Where does love go?
Where does love lost get found again
When does it stop hurting so much?
Oh, does it ever really stop?

Can I try to make connections new
With the ghost of you
Still lingering 'round all I know?
Can I try to keep my heart aligned
And try to pretend I'm alright
With you still missing from my life?
from "the island", a selection from a larger body of work

Under the shade of the tree
Shadows of the leaves played hide and seek

Green sea and the sandy beach, on the isolated island serene

The sun sparkles white, the bright star
That it is

The lone, silver motor boat, recently got a fresh coat

Awaits its ride on the balmy waves
Inspired by a photograph
Ross Island, Andaman
island poet Aug 2020
pick a word, let it lead you astray, then (soil)


a poem to exclaim, refracting the sun rays emerging
from the curves of your chested heart, the waggle of
ten fingers conducting your inner song, the baton first
waved swipe to earth pointing, let us commence there:

think of yourself, entirety, as soil, you the potter,
what has been planted by others, nourished by others,
along sides of your ingestions, you the grower, seeded
anew, each word, hybrid edging with existing vocabularies

the sun from without, the sun from within, the rivulets
of water, the arterial pathways, feed the treasure chest,
and you, farmer, planter, grower, picker, plucker of the
produce, serve us, baskets grown on the fruited plain of

poems’ soil consisting of the writings grown in the
unique you,
all of you,
body & soul
Fabiola Aguayo Aug 2020
I feel her stir and stroke her hand.
My plan is to sedate her, gently bait her to sleep,
Just a while longer, to somewhere deep,
Where she can keep to her dreams and in those dreams recede.

The seams of this island
Are too fragile for her agile hands.
When she wakes, she shakes mountains,
And tangles the sky by the locks of her hair.
And sighs of rain—alert, at her thunderous applause—
May as well be daggers for the damage they cause.
We’d barely survived her, so I now lay beside her.
I wrap her in lullabies, so life may thrive despite her.

I feel her stir, and stroke her hand.
There was only ever this feeble plan.
The seas are calm; it’s barely dawn.
I hold my breath and she slumbers on.
This poem was written after Hurricane María  ravaged Puerto Rico in 2017. It denotes my fruitless desperation to control the uncontrollable. It's one of my first.. I hope you enjoy it.
Kagey Sage Aug 2020
Let's pretend we can enjoy the world's decadence
like the oblivious do
Let's do chaos magick
to make our dreams come true
and grow closer together as
the monkey claw closes too soon
and we sit on a pile of
decade old what-if situations
stamped down by unintended consequences
Let's cash in our paltry spoils
and toast to loving fate
Here's to staying together
just for the story
We used to say: predictable, finally
Now we're thinking: routine, help me
The wheel's spinning so fast
it's a blur
Sameness
We're shamans of samsara
cautioning against becoming gods
Fear change
but can you please spare some?
I forestalled enlightenment
just to help you all become
one mushy blob
and now I'm bored

I'm not uptight  
I'm just a bodhisattva
waiting to die so I can leave this world
Wish someone would just give me some spoiled food
so I'll be done for good

When life gives you rotten produce
make banana ***
'Cause it's no use sitting
and ******* about
how our world isn't another one
Drink up
store extra slurp in your tum
Make society so no one's starving
and the kids can have some fun
___________________

­**** your pie factories in the clouds
Bulldoze churches to build parks and playgrounds
Make it illegal for stores to throw food in dumpsters
just so some homeless guy will learn
how to fish in a desert sandstorm
caused by industrial emissions
that our overlords refuse to pick up
themselves or even pay the bill for

You bamboozled fools
just want to watch subliminal *****
on your shiny screens
all to trick you into drinking the
venomous ***** milk from plastic straws
It's all the slaw that the marketers peddle
Indecipherable hacked bits
your mind fractionalized
and trained to keep coming back to bliss
The endorphin kick of these brainwashing clips
Can't read anymore cause I got
a worse attention span than a goldfish
Me and Skipper tried to save the Minnow
but she was no match
for the ocean
Now we're stuck on an island
where we don't even consider
the headhunters human

I forgot what we ought to do
I keep ******* up the signal fires
and coconut powered sonar systems
'Cause I look all around
and all I wanna do is clock the Professor
cause we're fighting over Ginger
It doesn't take a brain surgeon
to season your oil
and if you forget
the vegetarian oyster sauce
can it even still be considered a stir fry, smart guy?

**** it
let's just eat the octogenarian and his wife
'cause I read a study that said
the rich would willingly give up their life
for the economy
Last I checked, sand dollars aren't tasty
so your bone marrow's much more valuable
than your bullion and Nasdaq arrows
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