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Laokos Jan 2021
i wrote that drunk
i was trying to bypass
an impasse
lucked out and
circumnavigated the
rabbit
ran into the fox
he stole my color
only to find it again
at first light
and now i nod
to the speed of life
the unceasing turning
of greater and greater
wheels
the lightness of death
as it passes

there's no
circumnavigating
that
Phi Kenzie Sep 2018
What kind of non-human:
makes a bowl of oatmeal
adds chia and flax seeds
with a little bit of
light brown sugar
and eats it for breakfast?

What sort of creature:
packs a snack lunch
and eats it on a bench
before going to work?
nihiliti Jun 2018
I can call upon myself
but it's just a shell

bones break surface
offering quilltips
for forging poems
with
graduated cylinder-strained
diluted-air grade
not from concentrate

ink

the mechanism's safe
as sealed secret tombs
are safe
an echo of disdain
for which I apologize

aquiver with paste-
like listenings
replicating histories
foreign and estranged
to taciturn gaze;
functional, but
glazed

shells function as people
but not as well
words wish but don't tell
what awaits ingrained
in bones broken
for blessing

pop! but distressing
echoing, echoing
pain empathetically parsed
but cannot relate
it's too late

I'm walking
but not talking
I'm listening
but not communicating
I'm dead
but not yet down

entombed in my head;
all that might have been
still can, but
a refusal to bend
is found
in my own pen

I've built a prison for myself
The writing's on the skin.
Appearance of the New Courier
(with namesake "Georgia Ives")
flew into the courtroom
faster than Bold face WingDings!

After the judge opened
the waxed sealed envelope stamped
with the official legal imprimatur
sound of silence filled the courtroom.

After perusing highlighted principle details,
a noticeable con jug gay shun
didst Impact countenance of attired judge.

Recess announced at authority decree
(spelled out with quotation marks high
lighting dotted i's and crossed t's)
figuratively a nouns sing moratorium
for those accused of run on sentences,
split infinitives, then versus than...
incorrect usage of ellipses, et cetera.

The justice of supreme court
critically espied quotation marks
(underscoring reductio ad absurdum
Times New Roman regulation)
against stiff penalty asper those
who commit rhetorical perturbations!    

This lenient fiat occurred immediate
by innocent omission of a colon,
which subsequently, naturally,
and immediately affected
every future jury presiding over
a defendant applying incorrect punctuation!

A favorite comma cull anecdote
often repeated by my late english
grammar (a palliative to me psyche
despite the multi-generational
difference in age) happened
when she celebrated twenty  
and counting punctual marks, whence time
in utero came to an end period.

Many question marks still abound
as per the specific circumstances
of this generally uneventful birth,
only that she seemed to dash
from the womb (of her mother –

mine great grandmother christened
Latina Greco) with a pointed
exclamation declaration
of independence while ****** constitution
adorned with supposedly shimmering
invisible golden braces
and a full set of teeth.

Somewhat averse to authoritarianism
and mores of assuming the sir name
of the groom, she maintained nom
de plume affixed on her birth certificate.

If born that way today, and ready
to pledge marital vow, would
probably follow the common custom
and hyphenate name of beau similar
to newlyweds of this day and at this very moment.

Back in those days though,
town’s folk exclaimed with
pointed superstition that a baby born
after being bracketed nine months

within the womb (which seemed
like an eternal sentence), and equipped
with the means to chew would
most likely experience little colon difficulty.

As a dignified divine dowager,
she willingly shared her cradle
to graveside tidbits (populated
with many wisecracks and
marked quotations from a life
that spanned more than a century21.

Smart as a whip or pin
(the latter term somewhat out of vogue),
this independent woman
(who married into nobility

from humble roots) frequently evinced
el shaped lips when the un
suspecting recipient ensnared
of her harmless ingenious pranks.

Aside from what many considered
childlike antics (which characteristic
salient trait appealed to this grandson),
she excelled at verbal adroitness

and could spin a jesting lightly
mocking pun, which seemed
to quiver with an invisible
apostrophe shaped blackened barb.

Though privileged per parochial parents,
her inherited empire and peers, the people
of the proletariat class felt
figuratively parenthetically
included as persons of concern
to this genteel dame.

She exemplified and wore that moniker
noblesse oblige with utmost
august excellence, and whenever
the need or wont arose to address
the madding crowd (this
crowned empress) resorted
to non-verbal communication ala semaphore.

Her lily-white hands (most often
remained sheathed in Palmolive
clad ding silken gloves - exuded
a faint patrician touch) partitioned

the air with arabesques accentuated
with sign language for those
among the teeming masses
unable to hear or in fact deaf.

Regular adherence to being grammatically
(yet not necessarily politically) correct
witnessed the air being sliced with even
less familiar punctuation symbols
such as the emdash, en-dash.

Even doctorates of English and
strict task masters (whose
frowning scowls strongly resembled
semicolons when even minor indiscretions,
infractions, transgressions, et cetera
with english language observed)

never found fault with this
former bohemian, whose rhapsodic,
melodic, linguistic voice ameliorated
dark memories from dereliction dis
played by former queen.

She also received the treatment of
a champion lyricist, whereby every lyre
(got set on fire) from utterance akin
to a choir of hells angels, yet this

chanteuse voice rang thru the
azure vault causing the small hairs
of the spine to experience a pleasant
electric shock therapy.

— The End —