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Paige White Aug 2020
Three wilted transplants
Kiss dirt as squeezing vines choke
On midday sunlight
Patty M. has a divine drought collection of haiku. Made me want to see something beautiful in my pitiful little transplants today.
Maria Mitea Jul 2020
I needed a heart and my kind mother gave me one, while caring me on her shoulders through the midnight light, telling me to be brave and that it will serve me well.

I believed with her heart resting in my chest I'll never feel pain, but the pain is there up to now burning grief and regret. I am questioning in tears “Is this pain born from love, or is this love born from pain?”

How can I know?
When I am the child that took Mother’s heart and departed for the promised land without looking back at the baskets of black grapes we picked in our vineyard before me leaving, Mother’s hands squeezing the grapes all alone making the red wine that was served with everyone, but me, at her funeral.
She did the impossible to protect me from grieving. Right now, I wish I can find something I could blame her for.

Mother,
you gave me your heart,
and it serves me well. I want you to know,
I never had so much pain,
and I never had so much patience.

You gave me your heart, and it serves me well.
We blindly follow our dreams. ...
Ken Pepiton Mar 2020
In the youghurt,

you can be the cream,
i'll be the culture.

Let's make good sh*t.

afterthought
(what if i made so big a difference in everyth-ng?)
what if i made so big a difference in everything
Jashn Jan 2019
Hidden in your eyes
the only portrait of mine
Wish I could see it once
through my eyes
which were yours earlier!
Lucius Furius Aug 2017
Never transplant a poet's heart.
It wouldn't start.
Or, if it did, would stop
at some seemingly minor shock.

The vena cava is much too slender,
the endocardium, much too tender.
It takes a life-time to learn to live
with a heart so horribly sensitive.

Graft the skin and kidneys.
Interchange the brains.
But never, never transplant a poet's heart.
Hear Lucius/Jerry read the poem:  humanist-art.org/old-site/audio/SoF_094_transplant.MP3 .
service failure the ***** will offer
there's something medically askew with it
the usual role is proving so unfit
a second chance in a transplant's proffer
another dies to bring life back again
wellness being redeemed by precious gift
the recipient receives a big lift
living's joy restored out of the rain
someone's kind donation affording breath
so that the period of existence stays
a healthy liver performing its job
for not to have this giving there'd be death
the bestowment allows those future days
gratitude felt within a person's cob
Wren Djinn Rain Sep 2015
So what I drink all my calories
I'm sane and you're not, bruh
It's never enough even to wear
what you're wearing and talk
like you talk, do you even care?
Killing myself keeping things legit in your sphere
Black sheep combine forces to feel
wanted, keeping your company
I feel blocked when you're nodding.
Yes, I'm acting just like you want me,
bruh, I'm coming up short to your haughti
ness, blessed with a sense of self
stopping just short of your level and
what the hell, what I am doing here
fighting for otherness, concerned
with the purity of water of my brothers
and my sisters of the covenant
You talk about faith when it comes
to prey that you're stalking, keep
it strong, yolo, fleek, and a hashtag
To be honest I'm scared that my hometown
will be infested with those the internet
claimed and ingest, swallowed with
speed of light, people spit out as pesticide
turning the verdant green such a ****** brown
Yes you're so on top and classy, lacking
purposely the tenets that turn a body fancy
Cool *** beard bro, girl that's a freak ***
hairdo, up in the midst short sides a pool cue
locked in your hands up inside a ******* dive bar,
midnight drive holding a pipe 'hind your
headlights, Yes you're mixing with the best
making them arrogant, such a lens to view
the struggles they been through, Weird queer
younglings in their late twenties and homeless
at some point, only the noise of the sirens
and blue lit bathrooms, keeper of the needle
rights, and happiness,5-0 lights blasting on naito, picking
on the kids white/brown outside washing
the day away with the kiss of the pabst
taking a nap on the grass on the waterfront
blessed with lives with beards and queers
passing by as they want one.
Clamp the red march onward!
Cut the winding trench!
Mask a visage for protection
from the visceral drench.

Light the forge in battle!
Keep the battlefield alive.
Hear the laborious drumbeat
of a heart trying to survive.

Stainless steel and knowledge
in the forge are fired
Gone are human needs -
Death is never tired.

On each second rests a lifespan.
Each minute gambles years.
A surgeon only has two hands
and no mortal fears.

The battle surges forward
as blood is forced right back
from the heart it came from;
a heart still under attack.

Even as the battle ended,
with blood, tears and sweat,
the war raged ever onward,
Death remains a threat.

Every day a battle.
Every life a war.
Against Death and the ethereal
survival is the score.
This poem was written after meeting a heart transplant survivor at the museum dedicated to the first successful heart transplant (at Groote Schuur, Cape Town)
Francie Lynch May 2015
In Italy in 2017
A medical miracle
Will be seen;
A transplanted head.
They'd better get it right.
They didn't say which one.
Above the shoulders?
Below the waist?
Another ****-head
To dinkthink.
A hard-headed
Limp-brained head-banger.
Or did I misunderstand.
Perhaps it's woman's to a man.
A new species.
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