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Steve Page May 2019
We're all sound artists now.
Walking through our chosen concert halls, with or without walls, listening through public spaces, in personal places, curating our own shapes of combinations, constructions, concoctions of sounds and visions, an unwitting contribution to the contemporary audio visual world of sonic art installations.
We're all artists now.
And we're in charge.
Walking through London listening to my playlist.
onlylovepoetry Feb 2018
Parkland: Oh My divine, We Wrestle Over What is Yours



and what is mine

it took days for the after- shock and awe to arrive;

the bizarre tempo reversal, myself, out of order,
is my shame, after the mind’s pretense ennui of “yet another,”
had to slow seep away beneath the
firewall cutting off the pain of my the true self
and the I, of ordinary

how else, to keep the madness away?
it’s disguised in a well tended secured lockbox
chamber labeled, I, all about me,
deep hid in the rear, not too near the true self,
must keep the unseeing functioning, functioning

but bus-ted poet is triggered and the weep welling
in the eyes commencing that makes writing on a cell
on a moving vehicle an annoying frosting
on what is an inconsolable hell

everyone stares unawares that the shock,
is without awe, and the only awe is in awful awful awful awful

we sit at the Friday eve sabbath table to begin our negotiation;
but there is no negotiating though the excuses and the divine’s stumbling, flailing failings are pre-prepared,
we know this battle too well and the outcome as well,
it is mine true self’s to win, have me not
words and stanzas and music suffice
to convict the lord of the hosts, adonai

take all your seventy names in vain to crush the vanity of
omnipotence for your godliness degrades and your instant access to where the good in me resides is cutoff;
under My Contacts
you have been


blocked

we shall meet as always on the Day of Atonement
but this year no repentance to be granted, the pardons shared
with my kind only, none left for the lonely gone-gods,
no longer seek yours for me, there are 17 extra to be given out*

the left foot and the falsehoods join in the denunciation,
though some suggest reprieve and only reproach
for isn’t atonement possible for even gods?  No. not,
for a god who got human kindness installed in all his devices
but then never opened the app

my name was
onlylovepoetry;
but for now, till the culling of the agonies is done,
till the hollows are refilled and the curses fully final expended,
till the sudden eye tearing ceases to render me torn, messed,
you may call me nothing but this:

onlyreproachpoetry

should you come calling
there will be no beseeching,
just the stoic bearing witness of my silence,
my finger-pointing judgement,
and my angels presence

“May the angel Michael be at my right,
and the angel Gabriel be at my left;
and in front of me the angel Uriel,
and behind me the angel Raphael...”
and above me seventeen new protectors
whose names my true self will now memorize,

for now they are mine

~<•>~

2/16/18 4:34pm  ~ 2/17/18  3:34am
Beaux May 2018
If I die in a school shooting
I'll never go home again.
My room will sit unused,
A capsule frozen in time,
A snapshot of how I was.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my dog again.
She will sit at the front door
Waiting for me and wondering,
Why I never came home.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never graduate from high school.
My yearbooks will sit stacked
Stopped short of their goal,
Missing years that should have been.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my mom again.
She will sit distraught,
Planning a funeral
For a child taken from her.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my friends again.
They'll sit together, missing me.
One empty seat among them,
A constant reminder of their loss.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my little sister again.
She will sit through high school
Knowing I can't guide her through,
That she has to figure it out alone.

If I die in a school shooting
My school will be stained.
Pools of students lives will sit,
Blood tattoos on the brick structures,
Marks of death ground into it.

If I die in a school shooting
Everyone will wear black.
They'll send their thoughts and prayers
To a town marred by death,
Forever to be the home of a shooting.

If I die in a school shooting
Will the world change?
Or will I become one of hundreds  
Of kids who have to die?
What will it take?

If things continue this way
Children will have to live in fear.
They'll look over their shoulders
Always worried and wondering,
If they'll die in a school shooting.
The state of Florida is now home to the two most deadly mass shootings in American history. Pulse Nightclub was attacked in my city, I have friends who attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland. My little sister often fears going to school. I'm afraid to graduate and leave her. I want to be able to protect her if something happens. I hate that we have a reason to be afraid... That it's reasonable to have these fears. I hate it so f*cking much.
JR Rhine May 2018
There is a bullet in a box of crayons with really strange names like Parkland Perrywinkle, Sandy Hook Sanguine, and Great Mills Green in a place where children play Russian Roulette with their school supplies when they reach in to grab one and they’ve been learning about probability this week Forrest Gump will tell them you never know if you’re going to finish the lesson or turn into a statistic my sister likes to create mosaics by putting a hairdryer to crayons melting cascades of wax down a blank page sometimes she reaches in and it’s the one lead crayon at the top of the page and it’s only one color that seeps down into the crevices of the cafeteria’s tile floor that proceeds to wash away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers washes away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers I see another child reach into the box and I write another word problem I write another word problem: “Zoey reaches into a box of crayons. What is the likelihood she will not get to hang her drawing up on her kitchen refrigerator? What is the likelihood her funeral photo will hang there instead?” Draw students’ attention to the key word “likelihood.” Tell students This word shows that the question is asking whether or not you will live to tell your parents how your day at school was. and I wonder when school desks will take the shape of caskets in a place where both screams of laughter and screams of terror
are permitted
TRIGGER WARNING: My Fiance and I were just talking last night about how this poem, written at the time of March for our Lives, seemed a little passe. And here we are, another school shooting in Texas. On average, there has been a school shooting every week in 2018. Most kids are worrying about whether shrimp poppers is on the menu this week, whether it's an A or B week. They shouldn't have to worry about getting shot at. Never again.
matthew Apr 2018
At 10:00 am, less than 100 students walked out to the flagpole
for our school's second walkout.
While there was less than one fourth of the population from the first walkout,
it was so much more powerful.
So many voices were heard.
We screamed, cried, laughed, read poems,
and all silently wished for a riot; wished for change.
We all wished that we didn't have to do this.
Wished that we didn't have to fear being shot at school,
the place where we are supposed to be safest.
But in that moment,
we were one.
We hugged, rested our heads on each other's shoulders,
and were one giant support system.
We are going to make change.
Meg Apr 2018
I am alive by luck at this point.
I wonder if the gun that will eventually take me has been made.
Whose trigger will bury me.
How many bullets, like a flock of sparrows, will come carry my life to its final bed.
Today, I am alive but there is no law to thank.
If not me, then someone else.
Born into a game of chance we never asked for. Traded diplomas for obituaries. Traded graduation speeches for eulogies. Traded futures for an early grave. Forced to cash in their chips. We don’t want to play anymore.
And this too is eulogy. And this too is prayer. And this too can resurrect the coffin wood back to a tree. Can sing back alive whatever parts of you died with them. Whatever leapt in your throat at yet another headline.
Mourning until you, too, are a thing to mourn.
But we will no longer be martyrs.
We are the rude awakening to politicians who pawned out our safety, who bartered our lives for bribes.
You say “gun reform is not the answer” but all I can see is a bullet rattling like a pinball in an innocent student’s jaw.
You smell like gun smoke and
I can see the AR15 you're holding behind your back and
I guess it's easy to crack jokes about dodging bullets when you're the one firing them.
Give teachers books not bullets:
Kafka isn’t kevlar.
Bronte isn’t bulletproof.
And how sick is it that we must add school shootings to your list of proud american traditions.
Throwing opinions like punches.
How many more have to die before you decide your ego isn’t as important as you think it is?
And I, too, am buried alive
My soggy grave parting its greedy lips.
To you, my bones, when ground into gunpowder and mixed into water, taste like champagne.
My pulse, as thin as an obituary panting beneath sweaty palms, and sure
We are “just kids,”
But you are forgetting we are the next generation
And you autopsy your fists.
Call it reclamatory.
Lately, when asked “how are you?” I respond with a name no longer living.
And who knows if mine will be next
Performed this yesterday in my first poetry slam and won second place :)
The shortest distance between two points of travel.

The fastest method for achieving a result.

Quickest answer for a resolution.

Marrying equals.

  All terminology meaning essentially the same thing; synthesis. That is what the two-party system is meant to be doing. It is the point of checks and balances. A check is a stopgap. A balance is a measure.

  No one wants to ban personal firearms. No one wants mentally-ill people to own them. No one advocates violence by school teachers to assuage future potential violence. No reasonable person wants children to grow up in a police state school system. No American believes that State and Federal government can agree on what should be done in all states.

  We will not be arming teachers. Nor will we be banning guns. There will never be armed guards at public schools. States and the Federal government disagree on so many levels there will never be consensus on change when it comes to this issue. So, change the issue in a way that offers a stopgap as a measure.

  The President of The United States issues a proclamation that all land directly adjacent to the front of all public schools will be bought by the federal government at today's market price. That price will be fixed provided the states do two things. Use state eminent domain laws(every state already has them) to file a claim on said properties and assess the value thereof for the federal government.

  Secondly, establish police precincts on said property.


    Ask yourself;

"How many children would die if the local police were directly across the street from the school at the time of the shooting?"


And,

"Would Conservatives or Liberals be against this proposal?"

  
Also,

We should all remember that these shooters plan their attacks and would have to plan around the police being there immediately after they begin one.


  Problem solved...
                             ...and no one touched a gun(right) to do it.
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