Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Jan Reest 26m
I work the rigging and draw the sails
on a life that rarely catches wind.
Blisters on my hands,
splinters in my soul—
I navigate uncharted waters
to reach a land unknown.

I gnaw on hardtack;
it feeds but never fills.
Each night I look into the deep,
unafraid it might pull me in.
Cannonball strapped to my leg,
should I ever let it.
Carry me anywhere
but this wretched boat.

The sea is life.
Life is unruly.
Of all the battles I’ve fought,
none as unwinnable
as you.

I retreat to my quarters,
seeking rest.
Dawn tosses silver on my soul,
jolting me awake.
Jan Reest 34m
The woman hesitates.
"I'm afraid of falling in love,
what if it doesn't work out?",
she naively asks.
Those that love,
have not the time or privilege
to scrape the bottom of a tar filled
jar to see if it shines.
Those that love—
love because they can't breathe
unless they do.
Those that love—
love because they starve
unless they do.
You are afraid,
not of love,
but of loving me.
You are a coward,
who cowers in fear,
not of love,
but love for me.
You are a prison
of flesh and bones—
one that traps the conscience
from waking.
You are a liar,
not one that lies to others,
but to herself.
I've seen the way
you looked at me.
I've felt the way
you felt for me.
Will you lie to someone again,
the way you lied to me?
Will you tell him of the time
you were emotionally intimate with me?
Or will you deface your conscience with lies
and ignorance?
Even though you don't like me,
I still don't hate you.
I feel bad for you,
not out of pity—
because you lie to yourself.
Perhaps my guilt was my capacity
to understand and see.
Perhaps you didn't want
to be understood and seen.
Perhaps.
Jan Reest 36m
The snails drag their beings
across this sodden earth,
defiling the mud that lay beneath.
Wild grass shall not grow
where they trailed.
Mourners shall not cry
over their open caskets—
not even flies shall gather
to sing a song of despair and misery.
The soil and the worms
shall not eat into their bones.
Their beings are a witness
to deicide.
Their breath is a testament
to humanity’s eleventh hour
on the cross.
I feel like a failure,
when I compare myself to people
who already died.
Time is but a dance
Yet we sit in chairs all day
I sat this one out.

I hate to say.
Diving deep in the pond of the sub-consciousness
I die everything night, you die every night too
This is our way of rejuvenating the body
This may sound crazy, eerily or even spooky,
However, this is absolutely or definitely true
Our body makes a special trip to correct the mess
Which takes place from a certain time to the other
We die every night to pay a visit to another crater.

We die every night, if we're blessed, fortunate or lucky
We return to our natural living state, feeling rested
God in his divine and genial way created us that way
That's a given, we have no alternative; no other way
To change things. Sleep deep tonight, die slowly and lightly
Hoping that we'll wake-up the next hours alive and resuscitated.

Drowning in a slow sleep is a gift, die a little tonight
God will not keep us. This is wonderful; this is out of sight.

Copyright © August 26, 2016 Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved
Hébert Logerie is the author of several books of poetry.
We are connected not by fate or chain,
But by the fire that runs through joy and pain.

When I dissolve, thy breath shall still remain,
Calling my name in air, in mist, in rain—

And from that breath, the world shall rise anew:
A flame from ashes, and the skies from dew.
Breath Into Being 23/07/2025 © All Rights Reserved by Jamil Hussain
Olive 10h
In the light of thy moon eyes,
thy heart screamed the depths of oceans,
while your tongue turned to stone,
bleeding words.
Olive—
Zywa 10h
When your life is tough,

you do need a tough language:


poetic language.
Autobiography "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?" (2011, Jeanette Winterson; normal means: heterosexual), chapter 4, The Trouble With A Book . . .

Collection "Inwardings"
Be very careful, because from your birth you can be only one of you at the gate of the Universe, where beating hearts confess their immortal oath as a sacred vow. Because you are a speck of dust in the vision-illusion of mortality and you would do better if you now mentally go through every minute of your pitiful, petty life, because maybe it will be too late when the Wheel of Fate comes to you. You would say: it would be better to finally bury every single sorrow of 40 annoying, sly years, every single spiritual wound that can be challenged, refuted - yet the memory that ponders the past increasingly prompts you to speak demandingly.

Your restless, restless Ulyssesian confusion, in the catatonies of initial apparent madness, your restless buzzing soul, that you. Those on whom I could once count and upon whom you could build your shaky, suspicious trust are no longer with you. Even today, you would rather live with the solidified point-candles of your memory than forget where you came from and where you went back then, when you could believe that man was noble and good.

You deliberately did not play a bold gamble, wanting to flirt with your fate; but what sense could there have been, when now the reward of fine words, promises and truths is possessed by usurping geneviers as a kind of intermediate laurel?! The yew-flower wings of your dreams will slowly fall into the sweet-sad darkness of oblivion if you do not take care to palliate and maintain your Alzheimer's brain with memory exercises.

– The pressure already gathered in your brain coils in many forms, like a network of secret arteries, gathers the instincts and methods of action for you, you just need to learn to listen to the rumbling voice of your inner echoes in a worthy way!
Next page