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  Nov 2023 Bardo
Anais Vionet
We’re playing the long game.
We share things, we’re lovers,
we slip in and out of each other’s lives
like jackets hanging on the back of a door.

Relationships are like instruments,
they must be played, kept in tune,
the carnal and the corny balanced,
carefully, like sections of an orchestra.

Sometimes, I feel that I have to bring the energy,
BE the entertainment - and I can do that - in spades
but not forever - I’m not a tireless-giver - in fact,
I'm atavistically Parisien (we admit loving nothing).

I’m learning that when a relationship’s conducted,
at great remove, the basics - like punctuality,
dependability and preparation - become a big deal.

When I’m in an optimistic headspace, I think we can do it,
maybe, that we know what we want and who we are.

That we’re playing the long game
My BF started a job in Genieva, Switzerland - it’s an ouch.
  Nov 2023 Bardo
Edmund black
Sometimes
I give more love
Than I have to give
Like I have God in me

Sometimes
I showed too much hatred
Towards people I supposed to love
Like I have the devil in me

Sometimes
My mind won’t stop burning
Throughout the day
Like I have the sun in me

Sometimes
I just can’t stop shining
For others to see better
Like I’m married to the moon

Sometimes
I’m just too generous
With my everything and everything
Like I have an angel in me

Sometimes
This life is just too much for me to bear
Like I have too much vulnerability in me

Sometimes
I need to remind myself that
I am only a man……Just breathe
  Nov 2023 Bardo
Lori Jones McCaffery
Awake too early once again
Afraid to read myself to sleep
Because of badness always hiding
In the bushes of my dreamlands.

Filthy restrooms, windows where there should be walls
People that don’t seem to like me
Things I need and cannot find
My life’s work an apology.

Tortured pets and wounded hopes
Mazes made of halls and stairwells
How fast I can’t run away
From dangers with their faces hidden.

Can I drive on narrow rails
And not fall to the canyon floor?
What happened to the coins I found-
All mine for the collecting.

Who is it I’m letting down
As I discover that I’m late
And all that should have been arranged
Is still locked in the closet.

Who are all the nameless faces
Everywhere not helping me
But mostly getting in the way
Of what I need to finish.

Wide awake before the dawn
I stumble from one nightmare
Hoping not to find another
When I go crash upon the sofa.
ljm
This may  be a re-post. It's from 2012 and it's happening all over again.
  Nov 2023 Bardo
Donall Dempsey
AND NO BIRDS SING

ahhh little one
the only wrong
you ever done

dying before
you were born
never to know

the blue of a sky
the whisper of a sea
the laughter of one who loves you

I tell you of these things
create a world
for you in words

since it is
all the world
that I can give you

forgive my tears
this is not the way
to greet you

*

This grief...every so often I have to speak of her...speak to her...not let her fade away into a nothingness...to us she was our child...our promise to be. She was our love and our love still holds her. She is part of the warp and weft of us.
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