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 Sep 2021 Alexandra
Rainswood
problems of others
are not mine to own.
they are their very own
My new daily mantra
Give them to me.
All the pieces of your broken heart.
Give them to me.

I'll take them.

All the rough-hewn misshapen bits of your shattered dreams.


Give them to me.
I will take them.

Give them to me.


They are wanted here.


All the parts of your misspent childhood. All the regrets of ticking seconds behind you.

Give them to me.

And we will build a cathedral. A stained glass window of who we are as tall and as beautiful as it should be.

Let me have them.

And we will make a mosaic that stretches as wide as the sky. Showing every color your heart gained from the bits and pieces left on the ground.

I will take them.

And forge a sculpture of how beautiful the ideas are that we cast out in our failings and we will cast it in our failings.

Let me have them.

And we will ***** a monument of all the small things in the shape that you remember them.
Towering. Looming. Striking. Beautiful.

Let me have them so we might bind the words said and regretted, (or worse) left unsaid in leather and call it scripture.

Our Psalms. Our Proverbs:

“The tip of my finger dangles like my tongue. Wanting to touch something beautiful.”

“If it were not for him, it would have been us.”

“You were all my brightest colors.”

“I wish I were more like you.”

“I wish I were less like me.”

“I am sped.”


And we will read them at dawn like litany.

Stretching our voices to the corners of the universe. Asking for the wishes you make when you are scared. Or alone. Or both.

That we may take them.

And make a blanket.

A blanket to cover our childhood and let it rest at last.

I will take them.

All the parts you no longer want.

Give them to me.

Because they are what make us beautiful.

Give them to me.

That I may forge them into pitch and feathers and craft mighty wings.

That I may take flight from your worry. And soar on the updraft of your misconception.

Give them to me.
I will take them.

Because I would rather burn like Icarus than to have never dared to fly.
This was a birthday gift to myself. I am giving it to you.
 Feb 2021 Alexandra
Arlene Corwin
It Never Lasts

TV ad:
A girl with gorgeous legs
Steps from a gorgeous car,
The gorgeous car the star.

The gorgeous car will rust one day;
The gorgeous leg change, decay,
The shifting muscles waste away.
It never lasts.
The leg, the car.
The gorgeous things we long for.

But bad things too -
They go also, so
Don’t despair.
The hair that falls from top of head
Will start to sprout from parts instead.
The rusty car - the modern-est
Will sadly or indifferently turn into rust,
Crushed, turned into plate,
To use, become a roller-skate.
Jaguar, Rolls, Mercedes Benz,
Converted, crushed, a concentrate
Become the answer to a cancer.

Nothing lasts.  It simply changes
As each atoms strangely dances  
To a different tune.
Loony as it sounds,
To quote a song I’ve often sung,
“It all goes round and round.”

It Never Lasts 2.19.2021A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Our Times, Our Culture II; Arlene Nover Corwin
 Jan 2021 Alexandra
Emily
Sea
 Jan 2021 Alexandra
Emily
Sea
I am the deep, the sky in reverse
I have what you seek, for better or worse

I am the blue of infinite depth
I've swallowed the crews and cleared the decks

You are afraid or maybe intrigued
Of the place where you played and also was freed

Kiss me now like you did before
Give me your vow and the ocean is yours.
 Jan 2021 Alexandra
Mr Shankley
I kissed a girl with a broken smile;
nothing could come near.
She carved it with a pocket knife;
slit from ear to ear.
And she wears it like her favourite scarf;
it keeps her from the cold.
So I told her its only woven by
her enemies of old.
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