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I'm a lucky guy,
Thanking the heavens above,
All my friends,
Are junkies for love.
I
I stand alone beneath the shadow,
My heart is heavy, like a crossbow,
Silent tears begin to overflow,
In pain and loss, I’m left to grow

The night is dark, the winds do blow,
Whispers echo from long ago,
Memories sharp, like arrows throw,
Wounds that time will never slow

I load my soul with silent woe,
A burden only I can know,
Through broken dreams and ebbing glow,
I face the fight, no place to go.

Yet hope remains, a fragile glow,
Beyond the pain, the crossbow’s bow,
I’ll find my way, though slow and low,
To heal the scars and let tears flow.

II
My hands grow numb, the cold winds blow,
No strength to fight, no light to show,
I drop the bow, let silence grow,
The end is near - I feel it so.

I cast aside my crossbow's frame,
No war to win, no one to blame,
Just hollow breath and fading name,
And one last thought - a sparkless flame.

No cries remain, just quiet snow,
I close my eyes and let it go,
A final breath, a final blow,
And down I fall, so cold and slow.

Now earth shall keep what sky won’t know,
A soul once strong brought far too low,
A silent grave, no sound, no show -
Where once stood one with a crossbow.
 Aug 7 CJ Sutherland
Asuka
Under the sunlight, I am only a candle,
shaking in the arms of the slightest breeze.
It’s pretty, like youth they speak of in poems,
but it never lands the same on me.

Anger, comparison, insecurity, my heavy breath.
Tears and these headphones
are the only air I know how to breathe.

Loving myself
harder than teaching fire to bow to the earth.
Gravity feels kinder than grace.

Yet in the caves where no one remembers the way,
I can still paint the dark in gold.
I can still make the cold feel warm.

I am needed.
I am loved.
Sometimes.

So tell me
do I give my light to this moment,
spill every flame into the night,
or keep it sleeping in my chest,
fearing the day when morning arrives
with a sun too cruel to touch,
and a rain too tender to notice
when it drowns me?
"some lights aren’t afraid of darkness — just of running out."
The porch sags beneath me,
its gray boards sighing.
I light a cigarette,
send my breath to the wind-
maybe White‑Shell Woman
will carry it to the horizon.
He's fired again,
last kitchen inside forty miles
that could stand him,
bridge burned behind.

At lunch I’ll call,
say get out
or Daddy and Jimbo
will haul your whiskey bones
to lie with the rattlesnakes.

I swore to Mama and to Owl,
I will keep the night honest,
I wouldn’t spend my years
driving a man to dialysis,
watching Irish blood unravel
like wet lace.

But I remember the long Covid winter-
two bears in one den,
one soft, one starved-
when Spider Grandmother
wove us together
in the dim blue light
of tele-novellas and snow.
I almost believed
it was love again.

He pops up like a coyote
in the truck’s passenger door,
smelling of smoke and ruin.
Eighty‑five down the prairie road,
bug‑spattered glass,
sky bending blue,
fields gold as escape.

This isn’t working, I whisper.
We want different things.

Don’t, he says,
fingers crawling my thigh

No-
I shove.
Sweetness peels,
the sleeping volcano wakes.

Before his hand
can teach me the rest,
I already know:
there is no leaving.
The road is long,
lined with white crosses,
and Ghost Buffalo
has been leading me
down it all my life.
''How wondrous it is to be read by someone
who appreciates this gift given,
A kiss, a tear, a poet's religion.
A friend made, words displayed, a song, a poem, hello, goodbye, or maybe Shalom
"
patty m
<>
look, it's not like I lack for inspiration.
138 butterscotch chips
already exist,
full poems, titles, couplets, bare naked (ladies) notions,
(men, women, children, asordid genders ageless-survivors)
all demanding rescue,
their cry of SOS, undeniable, but their
lamentations defied, asided, when miz patty m writes,
and oblivious to all else,
attention must be paid!
even when it is 2:55am
even on a Tuesday! (1)
<.>
to the meet, to the mess, to the beating heart that refuses to keep,
a doctor's orders of de minimus seven hours sleep,
when commissioned, when ordered without permission,
you drift into the sunroom, where the night outside
is holy dark, the silence raucous and overwhelming,
and utter inaudibly in his mind,
and piety and poet repeats:
"Yes Ma'am, Yes Ma'am, sir!
<.>
we write for no one in particular
for there is no one who is not particular,
all!
special, sharp edged, distinctive,


and there is no limit, yet,
to how many poems
can be created in a day,
except for the foolish delimiting, irritating
science of 24/7/365+1;
but mercy and insight is demanded,
when miz patty m
does not insist, but commands it
<.>
''A kiss, a tear, a poet's religion..."

indeed, in deed, in deep,
these the elementals of the one true religion,
perhaps the shortest excerpt that ever summarized
the humanist's
faith and the One Commandment,
that summons us & Grace to the table
where we compose and create,
not by fate tempted, but by a fate commanded,
by a faith so grounded & profound,
that every human
regardless of identity or language
each has in their possession, a heaven sent
something important to say,
which is why,

''A kiss, a tear, a poet's religion..."
is the largest tent ever constructed
after the Tower of Babel
where languages were created
(4)

a half hour has passed,
a period of absolute measured time,
that cannot be recreated, recsptured,
but like energy,
nor can it be destroyed,
for this
poem, this kiss, this tear,
marks the moment, the neuronic iconic synapse (2)
of our interactive minds believing and breathing
as one,
and even the atheist  among us
must to no one in particular
(well, maybe to the Angel Leonard)
must whisper most utterly,
hallelujah

'''''''''''''
poem dispatched
at 3:44 am EST,
from the
current latitude and longitude for where natty is,
approximately 41.05° North latitude and -72.33° West longitude.
(1)
In Judaism, Tuesday is considered a special day, often referred to as a "double blessing," due to its association with the creation story in Genesis. Specifically, on the third day of creation (which is Tuesday), the Torah states, "and God saw that it was good," twice. This double declaration is interpreted as a sign of Tuesday being a day of double blessings or auspiciousness.

the boy knows hiz bible
(2)
https://www.google.com/search?q=synapse&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS1169US1169&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
the cutest gap ever drawn of a kiss
(3)
nah, no note, just a parentheses and a Trinity
(4)
The Tower of Babel story, found in the Book of Genesis, is a biblical narrative used to explain the origin of different languages on Earth. According to the story, all humans initially spoke a single language. They decided to build a tower to reach the heavens, but God, seeing their arrogance, confused their language, causing them to speak different tongues and preventing them from completing the tower. This divine intervention is presented as the reason for the diversity of languages we see today
Mother can you hear me,
Mother can you see me,
I'm alive, I'm still breathing,
But my heart is still bleeding.

I try to be strong and crack a smile,
I thought time would heal me, guess I was in denial.

I'm sorry mom...

I TRIED!
I TRIED!

Tell me can you relate?
I gave them love, in return they gave me hate,
Every achievement I've made,
They've called a disgrace,
They're testing my faith.

Lord forgive me,  
Have mercy on my soul,
I've prayed for you to **** me,
My pain, is something I can't put into words, I just can't tell it all.

My dreams fade to black,
My dreams are filled with silence,
The bloodstained fields glow like violets,
Blood flows from the cuts on my back.

Mother I'm sorry,
There's no need to worry,
Lead me home, where we belong,
Where the eagles cry,
Where we can fly,
And forever I'll be by your side.
 Aug 5 CJ Sutherland
Jenna
I've got a beat in my head,
A Song in my heart.
It sings like a whistling bird,
And coos like the softest of the dove's
sweet voices,
Alit with prose in a foreign tone.

I've got a beat in my head,
An idea in my heart.
It hammers with a beat all its own
And takes the pen outside my hand,
A true work of art like a flourish of the wrist and a movement of the hips.

I've got a beat in my head,
A fire in my heart.
It burns like a wildfire
Tearing through a forest in the midst of summer.
A burning hot smoke blasting into the air.

I've got a beat in my head,
A drum in my heart.
It makes a sound like a call to war,
A soldier's cry accompanies
The marching of the many boots.

I've got a beat in my head,
A whisper in my heart.
A life of beauty to be lived,
Like the little one's sweet nothings
In the dead of night.

I've got a beat in my head,
And ink in my heart.
A desire to write,
The stories that inspire
The life that we all so fervently chase.
I'm writing a book now. It will be the first of a series. I can't wait to see it through... We all have dreams, aspirations. Things that cause our heart to beat again. For many of us, writing is a way of life, a way to live, a way to exist.
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