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trf Mar 2018
Teeth chatter and butts raise above seats,
Riding pickups atop the corduroy road,
Thunder claps of rubber bass beats,
Slapping the undercarriage's rusty odes.

The tires rhythmic riffs are risky,
Clavinet keys echo wood beams over muddy water,
Walter Murphy drinks a Fifth of Beethoven's whiskey,
Leaving superstitions for Stevie to Wander.
Heather Butler Feb 2018
another sleepless night my red
eyes tired and tried
i let your words fall
over my body like ashes

dust to dust i have buried
the bodies of those i have
loved and carried their dirt
under my fingernails back home

three thousand moths will settle in
the brickwork because the light
was on we hold our hands

against the ceiling as we drive beneath
a train a superstition when you laugh
i see the shape
of your skull behind
your skin
Blois Dec 2017
I know my mirror is broken, I know.
As long as the ocean keeps coming back
and it's blue, it's like you were here.
And I can feel you and be blown
by the wind, and be brought back,
and be tossed around. What a tiny
vision, I know, trying to save yourself
from yourself. And the future bleeds.
I know I'm wrong, I know I am.

When I try to go out, -but you try.
When I try to turn white.
I like to imagine you
looking at the back of my head,
collecting flying leaves,
sitting inside the empty end of time,
transformation, like a butterfly
bursting the bubble, just reaching out
and grabbing trees, and sins, and this is
your way of saying I wont be around,
probably, I wont.

Dear me, I became aware so suddenly
that a self fulfilling prophecy is like
a cloudless sky and it gets you down.
That there is no empty space left
in the darkness, and it gets you down.
Who can say how much prettier you will look
tomorrow, distracted, playing your part,
learning how the flapping of your wings
affect the world around you; who is to know
if you are going to rule this out
as a superstition of a heart.
Ron Sparks Dec 2017
My green-eyed first wife -
fiery temper and hair to match -
slid the wedding ring on my
finger.

Twisting on my knuckle, it
never left my hand.  I grokked
with certainty borne from intuition
that BAD THINGS would happen
should that tri-colored gold band
leave my touch.

Years, a decade and change, passed
and one day I took it off and set it
on the bed beside me.
For two seconds I was fine, but then
I couldn’t breathe.
In a panic, I put the ring back on.

But

I put it on backwards.

BAD THINGS happened.

Weeks later, soul-weary and
tired of constant fighting
I remembered my
misstep and I
flipped the ring on my finger.

Things got better.  But now I knew.  
Like peeling blistered skin after a sunburn,
I couldn’t stop.

Flip. Fight. Flip. Make up.
Flip. Scream. Flip. Sweet nothings.
Flip. Slammed doors. Flip. Makeup ***.

I forgot which direction was safe and
which was dangerous.

That marriage - that ring - is gone now.
I’m married to a blonde angel now
with a temper as cool as her hair; who
loves me more than I deserve
and knows me better than I’d like.

From day one, I refused to let the
flip
of the ring mar my new marriage.  

I flipped it on my wedding night.
I flipped it the next day on my honeymoon.
I flip that ring every day,
daring
it to curse me again.

Another decade has passed,
I flip my new ring daily.

And cringe a little each time.
Blois Oct 2017
My heart could be out getting yours.
Should be.

But superstition is what kills love.
And I'm not.

I mustn't be the music that you hear.
The lights.

I ask myself if flying also means falling.
Eyes closed.

Silence is a never ending statement.
All in vain.

While I watch you passing by the sun.
Outshined.

And you are also the moon, invisible.
Can't reach.

I undress better with words, completely.
All the leafs.

Protected by an untouched bubble.
Like a kiss.

Memories can also be driven by fear.
And the future.

I'm always found by dawn, when I'm an angel.
Maskless.

My heart could be out getting yours.
You know?

Every birth is pain, violence, and love.
Even light.

Every new love is and empty handed heart.
Until you go out.

You are inside the dream, behind the glass.
And you smile.

A No is better than a lie, you know?
You know?

When is the right time to shoot one's bolt?
Never was.

Is the mirage in the eye or in the mind?
Oh, but it is.

My heart could have been out getting yours.
It is lost.
Sally A Bayan Sep 2017
::::::::::::::::::::::::


Nary a frog croaks
terra cotta garden lamp
selfishly, glows dim.

a striped gastropod
stretched longer, out of its shell
braver....in the dark

neighbors' dogs howl deep,
gecko sings its night songs loud
bats crash...swoop their prey.....

unseen black cats cross
there's no wind, yet...leaves rustle
shadows multiply

the dark feeds the mind
superstition lives...it breathes
moon hides...........i shall, too...


Sally

copyright September 22, 2017
rrab
...it's like, my dead folks are still around when observing
    these superstitious beliefs...they had such great influence on us,
    we never forget....
Hannah Apr 2017
I have superstition
written on my bones.
It courses through my veins,
and consumes my gypsy heart.
It controls the tricks
of my stealing ways.
If the moon is full,
It's your lucky day.
I'll leave you free,
and be on my way.
Brent Kincaid Jan 2017
Christ, religious people are boring,
Just like the nutsos in the street.
Half the time they start me snoring
So I run away in abject defeat,
Because reason can’t get through
A wall of defensive superstition
Which gives us back nothing but
Mumbo jumbo to every question.

If the neighborhood catches fire
It is only but a holy God’s will.
(It would be great we victims had
A place we could send God the bill.)
When innocent children die off
Is that what a loving God wanted?
That "God sees the sparrow" stuff
Gets rather quickly blunted.

What kind of wrathful *******
Lets genocide have a field day
And doesn’t make widespread disasters
Permanently dry up and go away?
If God created all of us people
In his own best saintly image,
He sure must be an ugly sod who
Needs to go back to scrimmage.

If a country had a dictator
As capriciously vicious as him
It would surely trigger worldwide
A call for a God with better whims.
For thousands of years now, it seems
People have been issuing prayers
To some kind of entity at large
That is constantly taking us nowhere.

Maybe it is exactly as possible
That this whole show is erroneous
And the big guy on a cloud is fiction
Made up out of fear and just bogus?
Isn’t this just some cave-dweller dream
To explain what folks found frightening?
Should we be running our world today
By ideas of folks afraid of lightning?
Joshua Dougan Dec 2016
In introspect,
hindsights stumbling over intuition.
Guts hard as a rock.
Minds eye coupling with superstition.
Feeling lost, without a paddle, up the stream facing tomorrow.
Trading calls, seizing, coughing out a scream. Laced with a sorrow.
Silence escapes the harrowed moment.
a siren: opaque.
Privately shamed, a borrowed atonement and a giant mistake.
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