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Kyle Kulseth Dec 2014
9:13 p.m. on Wednesday
sitting, bolted to this bar,
next to tired tropes and worn out jokes
I've met a million times or more.
And the drinks all swirl together
and they start to taste the same
               going down
               or coming up.
          It really doesn't matter much.

If the streets looked any different,
they'd still bear familiar names:
trees and states and Presidents--
Left turn, snowfall, sitting fences,
               walking home
and getting old. These towns all
look alike, with weeks spent walking
                in the cold.

And the salt on the sidewalks
might season your footsteps--
                                       sure--
a steady, frigid cadence
carried through like a threat:
shallow and petty, from downtown to home.
Alone on the sidewalk,
               it's 7 below.
And I don't know
               what that is in Celsius,
but I know there's no home
              
               for at least
               another block or 2.

I came clean in muddy puddles,
***** slush and snowbound streets,
     in towns that looked alike.
Tonight, I'm headed for clean sheets.
So close the doors, unbolt the patrons
          Thursday morning, 2 a.m.
And it never feels like half an answer
when I push my front door
                                                shut again.
Frisk Nov 2014
from this distance, the town looked like paper shaped
into origami buildings. you could tell that everything
has it's own hue of smoke and mirrors, even though
all of us are made out of the same material.

the buildings were built to fall apart eventually,
like a tooth pick and marshmellow tower, and
it's all because the fragility of these things we
don't notice. we do not notice the frailness
of these things because we are desensitied
to the idea of things lasting forever.

you could see how fake everything has became
like a fog enveloping the town from this distance.
nobody notices the big picture because the small
things are always more difficult to ignore.

everything was made of plastic and paper, and the
only thing that wasn't fake were the memories
behind this town. people don't strain their necks
when looking back at this flash frame town.

they don't feel the need to.

- kra
axr Sep 2014
Oh John Green!
Why must you see me this way?
You make me weep
and wish they would live another day.
You are so witty
but you do lack certain skills
Killing the main character is so unfriendly
But chocolate will solve the problem anyway
You make me think a lot of things
but they don't have a lasting effect
I know you throw a lot of paper in the bin
But in all due honesty
I feel like setting you ablaze.
Much love,
J
I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST JOHN GREEN.  Meant for humour.
Henry Chambers Aug 2014
Break the past alive
with positive thoughts trapped
in a maze of stale laundry.
You can’t bake your mind free.
Drown in your sugary sorrow
and eat the impulsive results.
© Henry C.  //  Inspired by Anne Carson's "Towns"
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
Always thinkin' bout somethin
Always talkin' bout nothin'
Always doin nothin'

quit talkin' bout it

Just keep sing sing sing sing sing sing singin along

don't make no decisions.
counter productive tunnel vision.

we're spinnin wheels, never shiftin gears, diggin ourselves deeper in the rut.
trying to escape the black hole still covered in regional sludge.

but what are ya gonna do?
the last line is a cop out as i found this in an old notebook unfinished and lazily added that... my apologies.
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
There is something to seeing small towns at night time.
Unpopulated it seems and yet,
there people are.
Asleep,
watching tv,
dreaming or awake thinking of life,
love,
travel.
The unfortunate ones occupied with
work,
loss,
stress.
You are there unbeknownst to them all,
on the other side of so many man made giant cubicles
out living your life.
Cassidy Vautier Jun 2014
something about that town
all the kids dropped like flies
year after year
here
you don't come across beautiful people
with
whole hearts
genuine smile
because
scars on the road where john flipped his bike
mark the one mile
from the house where tragedy struck
his kids on the head, a little too hard one night
and we don't swim in august anymore,
memorial sign hanging
almost like all of our heads that sunday a few days after
coming ‘round the corner just like john,
a little too fast
heartbreak is due
shaking hands, we clamored amongst the kids we grew up with
weeks after
only to be tipping the bottle back
a little too far
pushing the gas petal down
a little too hard
after five years,
falling falling falling
the kids stopped caring if God was knocking at the door
because opening that mortal door between the great beyond and earth is a
handshake
and
a kiss on the cheek
from your best friend
whispering welcome home
Martin Narrod May 2014
Hallucinating Bureaucracies and auditory Hallucinations : When the voice in your head speaks when you don't want it to, to head's of State not present. I could snuggle in bed if I wanted to, but I've got to orchestrate and reorganize the Clinton dowry. It started outright with trying on a purple, yellow, and blue button down shirt that had Scabies in the sleeve- and now you're all going to know why Mr. and Mrs. Obama don't want to talk to me about potentially increasing livestock traffic across the Americas. I think could practice will follow from such a manure, I mean maneuver. I pick up 10 or so bottles of plastic single-serve water for consumption in my apartheid room. It's awful in here. The gold disappears from the mines, and even the hands I used to work with are blurring up in the twister, and as much as you call or don't call I have no business managing your intentions- only mine. Some barrge of women over thirty. But still there isn't a problem. The river is beginning to flood, and the fishery's stockpile is running low. Maybe we ought to empty out an African mass grave and fill it with blacklists of co-conspirators and then make a drake or a flume out of the narrow walkways between the cities. Then maybe we'll have water to last us through the dry season.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------------------------- Where in the world is Sam in Hammond, Can Diego? Forklifting pillars, bribing monkeys, playing with his Mickey Mouse and Michelob, catching the taller, eighteen and up crowd catch the last car riding the rapid drop from Space Mountain through, "It's a Small World After All:"  

It's a world of laughter a world of tears, it's a world of hopes and a world of fears. There's so much that we share, that it's time we're aware- it's a small world after all."  

And then he takes the biggest gulp of water into his mouth that I've ever seen the man take, and he puts it in a small cooler that's strapped to the back of his calf, and he swears to me that the aeroplanes are going to come loop around, and when they do their glorious water-landing, he and I, or rather, the both of us, will be saved. Saved, hm? I don't even bother sharing insights or my insides. I quickly flash him the most-pod horrific a tryst that irons down a photo of Egon and I back in the Old City, what was it, Chicago, or something that very much sounded like Chicago. Could be totally awesome and I'll chime in that now is the time when we do our work best. That's all. Intrepid,

— The End —