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 Jan 2023 Eloisa
Caroline Shank
Did I help you at all, those long
months of clawed pain?  Were
you my soul search and did I fail?

The reach beyond the cuffs of
poetry.  Did you tell me so I
would pull out of some bag of
broken metaphors
a salve for your aching limbs
swollen with unheard prayers?

You lost your balance and fell
against my sorrow.  Did you
mean to throw me out that
night you pushed all the
furniture against the door.

I ran my irritation along the
upside down days of your
disease.  The sleepless in
the living room chair was not
enough.  I took your frail limbs
to myself when you did not see.

Did you smile that ghastly smile
to scare me? Or then I did not
exist in your dementia.
I was so ill myself that I couldn't
climb the ladder of your need
anymore.

Did you die alone in that room
of helpful people and did you
see me frightened and alone?
I could not watch you in your
emptiness, your shell of lonliness.

I am still crying for the memory
is in my soul of your departure.


Caroline Shank
1.28.2023
 Jan 2023 Eloisa
Ken Pepiton
If wishes were prayer

Saturday, January 28, 2023
12:06 PM

let me go wry or right, let me
be as one you witnessed falling,

and for that breath, believed,
wishes work as wonders do,
with very little help from things
thought truer.

I think of you, reading words I write,
I thrill a little at the intimate point of wedom,
the thoughts I fit to words, and sent into the
other
state, to wait, and wait, and become too tiny
to make any change not made,

at the time, when we touched as words do,
and held the hope that words hold.

Being as an event, we be apart, we be all one.

And we cannot unbecome.
----------------------

Inner being, being in me, other than I,
guide me, today.

I am willing to be useful, I do not have an aim,
I hold no hope of fame and recognosis,
I live to become a memory, at best,
and less than a memory, eventually.

I lie if I deny the joy I take from any sign, I see
you, thinking whys atop wherefores and how comes,

sudden otherness
occuring in a wedom framed by grand imaginations,

a new form of governing mankind, a new reason
to be defensive…

earnestly contending for pride of place, top of the pile.
------------------------

My Saturday, as all my days are now,
a day of rest,
a day of being after growing old enough, not, too;
but plenty old enough,
to reason with war,
face on face, as if, war
and I were forces of the same sort.

Ideas, grand wads of thought threads, spun
from times last chances,
grabbed with all I have to hold, huggishly,
for comforting knowledge,

I am not alone in wishing prayers were left being,
answered on reception, now, then, left being
alright. Amen.
-----------

It is in the thousands, tens of thousands, even,
Even, everish, same old, same
balanced on the upright,
walking,
past any hope to become one of those, the greats,

not even a billion to one, the odds of me becoming,
by the time I survived, the odds were even worse,
not a chance.

I bet, I said, I bet I won,
my race already run, by now, you know,
the results are pending
review,
and then I died,
and the results were these remaining
lines you take in,
as though you heard me talking, and thought
you might
over hear and know, all the songs of us, are about you.

The most self-centered man I ever met, said
my therapist to me, as I spun dervishly on my point.
------------------
In the hope of doing good by being ready to give account,
all my idle words wait in lines linking now to the cloud
which cannot withstand the constant collection of all we think or ask.
 Jan 2023 Eloisa
Marshal Gebbie
Object or subject, a misogynistic twin
Sewing paradigm shift’s generational whim.
From exceptional woman to pedestrian man
Flows abuse from birth to beyond the pram….
A seismic shift in entitlements class
Paints a Promethean twist to a white camels ****.

Martyrdom’s surrogate threat is at rest
When ubiquitous *** is put to the test,
Where ardent desire is balanced by blame
With the hint of precociousness tinged, with shame.
Gentility sacrificed, shabby at best,
As virility's vanity fails the test.

Slumming in alcohol, hookers and drugs
Worming it all with the snails and the slugs
Tasting a virginal, transcendent plan,
Proffering opportunities chance in a man
Offering she, now…. to give it a whirl……
Magnanimously, Babe, in his ****, fool world.

M.
A surreptitious observation of “they” at play.
29 January 2023
 Jan 2023 Eloisa
Nicolette
ethan
 Jan 2023 Eloisa
Nicolette
wilted roses
on my window sill
and bittersweet memories
printed on film

moths are eating
at your clothes in my closet
and the picture of me
is in the back of your wallet

do I miss you
or just the love you gave me?
do I dream of us
thinking it will save me?

I know it’s over
please don’t misunderstand
you don’t have to love me
just take my hand

I don’t want to use you
and I don’t want to fight
but my darling I can’t take
another lonely night
the love letter my lover will never read…unless
 Jan 2023 Eloisa
Chloe
little light
 Jan 2023 Eloisa
Chloe
When, oh when
did I stop smelling your head?
3 months in
and my life is already flashing
in your eyes
Oh, my little kin
It will never be the same
as it is right now,
as it is right now

Why ask why
when I know you are the answer?
You give me reason,
so much joy
and light
Oh, sweet child
You move me with every smile,
with every smile

Your daddy’s son
You are the reason
I fell in love
Oh, you gentle soul
Do you even know
how you’ve rocked my world?
With the sweetest sound
I’ve ever heard,
I’ve ever heard

My little me,
may you always know
the joy you bring
Oh, how I dreamed of you,
I dreamed of you

Goodnight
to you,
my little light
Tomorrow you will light the world
You will light the world.
For Leo
touch of red

suggested at dinner, to make
a photograph splendid, i noticed

the same in paintings at exhibition.

looking out, the grave yard, noticed
a touch of colour by the white.
 Jan 2023 Eloisa
SUDHANSHU KUMAR
You thought, this life's a game of chess
And you're the queen of this play
And everyone else is nothing more than a pawn
Who's only there to die for your victory...
But you never cared for those little hearts inside those walking pawns
Which always craved to get embraced
But fell for your tricks of use and throw...

You're the grandmaster of this game
So you caught another pawn out of me
Played with my emotions, manipulated my empathy
And you hid behind my back to escape that battlefield
But I understood your tricks the moment you made potions out of my riddled heart..!

And now that I've realized your true intentions
I won't be that pawn for you anymore
Your manipulation won't work on me
And the armor that safeguarded you won't protect you any longer...
But I'm not saying, you'll stay unarmed in this game
After all, you're the queen of chess
And I'm pretty sure, you'll catch another pawn out of someone/somewhere..!
 Jan 2023 Eloisa
Salmabanu Hatim
Some people just don't like you,
For no reason.
Some are indifferent to you,
And some try to find faults in you.
29/1/2023
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