perhaps a subject already well covered. but I consult no one else,
who can expertly summon the artificial artifacts, no better yet,
art~i~facts of prior expert~tease, and speak only and wholly
for myself, blatant, and openly undisguised

it is the spilling, the upward sensory explosive detonating,
in a pressured chest, the eagerness
to race, to complete,
find the next line, to define, to refine to get the balance tween
elegance and simplicity, to have the ******* sensory totality
of completely having spun off a piece of me and let it free float as a balloon, that may fly to China or get stuck on a telephone pole
just beyond my front door
                                      =============
^ I write this midst the composition of another poem, wherein
unusually I feel the need to pause, collect my thoughts which are bombarding my atoms internal, causing  a new fissionable element,
distinct and unique, my poem…next…

the moon lights a bed of frost.
the wind a storyteller.

are the stars and the sea
still there
when the sky weeps white?

the moon lights a bed of frost.
the wind is a storyteller

and the griffons know the failure
of flesh, flesh and bones

and feeling the bones
in my crooked nose,
I understand sunrise
is not a guarantee.

the sky weeps white.

but the nightingale sometimes
sings to me of you in my dreams.


...(if the nightingale sings of me
then know I hear her too.)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                               Everyone Has Advice for Writers


      There is a man…hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on        
       brambles…

                                      -As You Like It, III.ii.377-380


Who is your target audience, they ask

A pair of clevers on the telescreen
Giving their audience suggestions for publication
Ideas for making it on the writing scene:
“Target audience” is their incantation

Who is your target audience?

Is your target moving or stationary?
A paper bullseye or something edible
An enemy, a thing, an adversary
A carnivore’s luncheon spreadable?

Who is your target audience?

But a reader is not a target
She is not the object of your life -
She is the subject of her own

Respect your reader

Respect

The world is the same

for you and for me—

What we see

depends on

where we stand.

In a loud corridor
Full of young people
I move slowly, reconciled.
I have lived a little longer than they have.
And yet I do not know how
They recognize my face,
They smile at me so calmly.

On the walls
Reproductions of masters.
One calls me,
Face distorted,
Naked in his suffering.
I stop my thoughts.
I look.
I see his bitten soul.
Too many sunsets
in blood-red color.
He and she,
They lost everything
And yet they still see
so much love.

I am already with them,
on their portrait.
I am part of these colors.
I search in a corridor of eclipses,
Flashing hopes.
To soothe their dignity,
To save the bond between them.

I take this story in my hands, so gently.
Together, we look into earthly wounds.
We allow them to scar over,
Day after day,
Year after year.
Until they grow over with life.
Until they grow over with green grass.
I will be happy.
Observing how they grow in true strength
Of human fragile beings,
Of impatient humanity, longing to be reborn.

First, I wanted to play.
Then, I wanted to make friends. Next, I wanted to cry.
Eventually, all I wanted
was for the loneliness to end.
I stayed alive for my family.
But it got harder every day. Because I didn't know how to say "I need help. I'm not okay."
Now, it's been years
since I've been in such a bad place.
But if you're reading this,
and you're wondering if you have anything left to give,
for what it's worth,
it's not too late
to decide you want to live.