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Atlas, the Titan who was punished by Zeus.
Burdened to carry the heavens, he walks slowly,
His muscles strain, he grits his teeth as the sphere full of stars continues to grow.

Above him, constellations dance, unaware,
Unmoved by the weight they press upon his back.
Atlas’s shoulders bear worlds that he’ll never touch,
A universe of light bound to his bones in darkened chains.
He remembers freedom like a song half-forgotten,
The days before duty sealed him to this fate.
Yet, no one looks back to see the man bent low,
The silent guardian of the stars’ cold glow.

I was his lover, his friend
Yet, he kept pushing
Refusing to let go
The heavens kneeling his figure more and more
As others pass by him without a single glance

“Why?” I asked him “Why not let it go?”
He looked at me with his sad eyes
And said,
“Someone has to carry them”

A star shot through the space within the sphere
As he fell more and more in love with his burden
And slowly forgot about me

So, I, too, became a shadow among the stars,
Watching him fade, bound to his fate.
I whisper his name to the heavens he bears,
Knowing he’ll never hear me through that endless weight.

Years later, I saw him again, set in stone
Those beautiful sad eyes I fell in love with
Permanently fixed forward
Until the end of time.
<•>



for all the Ella's of the world,
who wonder
"what the seagulls talk about all day long. while looking up at the gentle sky mixed with blue and purple, their white feathers glisten from the fiery sun."


<•>


one day when you arrive,
visiting, at my isle,
of Where Shelter,
(with signed parental permission slip),
resting upon weathered worn, Adirondack non-slip covered thrones,
in the official Poetry Nook,
a seashell throw from bay and dock, where the seagulls
thrive and dive, in between pooping, pollinating, and
rest up after day trip visiting the town dump

then,
together we will write a poem about
what the seagulls talk about all day long

having employed them long time as co-conspirators,
editors and a test audience (assayers of my essays),
sadly must report they
occupy themselves in mostly matters culinary,
local gossip of my neighbors and other avian interlopers
(geese and osprey)

hoping this doesn't disappoint,
but know this,
it was the sand, the breeze, the trees,
the moon and setting sun, the waving waters,
animals of all kinds,
that together, taking years,
taught me to write like this:

<•>

the sun 7 o'clock afternoon sky low,
warmths the world, as did its morning glory reciprocal,
a dozen hours earlier,
both a low heat,
a sky stove top
'keep warm' setting,
a desirable global warming temperature

recall that promise not to burden you
with a hundredth scribing of his
lottery luck, this poetry nook and the
idyll of its surround,
but!
its childlike insistence,
while stomping on the greenest sea grass
of this portly world, insistent,

"write of me, attention must be paid!"

the lightest breeze of excellent sufficiency
asks the trees to shake
their compatriot leaves
as if to applaud,
one more time, a lord of the ring serenade,
an evenstar song of
the solstice of perfection

a cloudless night but for
an occasional wispy white blemish,
hinting that the orb's final bow tonight will be
a forever remembered,
standing ovation performance

in an hour, to the dock we'll go,
joining  the congregant gulls
in appreciating the edging lower of
an immaculate inception
of a dying day's deceptive departure conception

my troubles, those that
furrow and till the brow,
105 miles away, as the crow flies,
for now,
suppressed into non-existence,
as we drink to la vie en rose,
our wine glasses, ****** the salmon pink
of suns rays rippling, tippling and reflecting
upon humans, who too reflect,
upon their good fortune,
this single and singular
peeking at the peaking of their perfection,
each wishing this be
their journeys end, their final solstice

to walk into a funnel upon the water,
into the sun and the
horizon in attendance faithful,,
alighting upon the wings of the most glorious of  inviting,
dying rays of setting,
answering the question, at long last,
a finale,

here,
here is shelter!
  ^

<•>

so be quietly patient and never
write in regret,
for you are but sixteen years old,
and could teach to this old grandpa,
(who, by the by, has an Ella-all-his-own that is
of your proximate age,)

how to write
with the simple grace,
and the fresh wisdom,
of being
sixteen years young again
^https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2044967/the-solstice-of-their-perfection/
<•>

https://hellopoetry.com/ellapopov/

f r e e l y.
all alone on the evening beach. able to take in the moment alone.
slowly falling back into the sand. as if I'm trying to sink and hide into it. grabbing the sand in my hands and counting each grain because I have all the time in the world.
  letting the ocean crash unto the shore, slipping me it's deepest secret. making me laugh as the Novembers chilling air plays with my hair, trying to convince me it's secrets are much more scandalous than the waters.
  wondering what the seagulls talk about all day long. while looking up at the gentle sky mixed with blue and purple, their white feathers glisten from the fiery sun.
  I stand back to run freely, away from my daring problems. as I run, the wind whips my face, blowing my hair back. making me feel the need to let my arms back.
 Oct 20 caity
Sawyer Gowans
I can flirt with the best of them
and maybe I have
I can lust and desire
I can move mountains to impress and cross seas to give smiles
I can dance and spin and dip and dazzle
I can wink and smile and buy you a drink
I can get the door walk you home conduct myself with all the chivalry and charm of your favourite rom com

But to love

To love in the way I wish to love and be loved
Both feet deep end too fast too much overwhelming nonsensical hopeless love
I fear it will be a fools errand to search it out again

….but I’m glad I know it exists
….I'm glad you know too
 Sep 11 caity
Donall Dempsey
TRYING TO EXPLAIN HUMAN
LONELINESS TO INANIMATE THINGS

stares at the wall &
cries & cries & cries:
the wall doesn't understand

lonely  basement flat
the 5 o'clock train rattles
the broken teacup

apple on table
your smile bitten into it
you...no longer...there
 Apr 16 caity
Carlo C Gomez
~
It feels like the anesthetic is wearing off

This circus of machines

From coin-operated hostility

To wholesale apathy refineries

They tell us it's winter down in the subdermal

They tell us the foundation has grown weak

Dislocation is a incoming storm

Mirrors are distorted screens

Placeholders really

In a city without children

Even the statues weep

Snow upon the ground that was once blood

Now an empire without heirs

Even the trees hate us

~
 Jan 31 caity
Olga Valerevna
if I am unbecoming all the words you’ve never read
then I can take my time while I go walking through your head
you’ll never even see me and you’ll never even know
I’ll speak into your body, may it reap what it will sow

if I am unbecoming all the traits in me you knew
then I will be the mountain you will not know how to move
you’ll never even feel me and you’ll never even think
I’ll be with you forever, every single time you blink

but

if I am unbecoming all the words you’ve ever read
then I will pick my body up and bury it instead
you’ll find me in the in-betweens, in laughter and in sighs
I’ll be in every single breath, you never will know why
who you think i am or who i am
 Dec 2023 caity
guy scutellaro
"A" has all the men
40 and up
in love with her

"M" is most likely
a nun

"C" is in the CIA,
or the witness protection program
perhaps a quantum physicist

( you all know
the people
who who I'm talking about)

for all the forlorn
lovers,
who've been spurned,
I share the advice
my mom gave me
"you'll find someone else"
and so, please
don't write you are
*******
angry
or sad,
tell me you
want to ****
the son of a...*****
write about something
else...

(...you can never
go wrong
writing a poem
about
***

men,
make all the women
have big *****)

and for the paranoid poets
just because you are
paranoid
it doesn't mean that
people are not
following you, so,
BEWARE

we have a separate life
here
we exist on comments
we live
on the internet,

we:
the psychotic
the lonely,
lovers
and perverts
and dreamers,
some poets
some mystics
some saints,
most of us, tortured souls
trying to find solace
in the words we write,
and to leave a piece of us
and not fade away
like a shooting star
into the nothingness
of thin air
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