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 Apr 2020 Vervain
Pagan Paul
.
Pain should be written beautifully,
achingly displayed upon a page.



© Pagan Paul (20/06/19)
.
 Apr 2020 Vervain
Agatha Prideaux
Embracing the symphonies of midnight
Carefully sewn in between silence's guise
As salvation from this perilous plight

Shallow breaths as they clasp their bent knees tight
Crass caprices brim their minds in surmise
Embracing the symphonies of midnight

Ardent baton flicks to get them just right
Quietude, serenity—ode in reprise
As salvation from this perilous plight

Tinkering bells escorted by dim light
Yet shrill shrieking with menacing disguise
Embracing the symphonies of midnight

Soft, steady beats aloud, to hear I might
Lone martyr forgives in between my thighs
As salvation from this perilous plight

In low weeps, choruses of tears recite
Here I stand, dawning upon raven skies
Embracing the symphonies of midnight
As salvation from this perilous plight
Day 7 of #NaPoWriMo 2020. Been practicing fixed verse forms and today's a villanelle. Prompt is writing a poem with three things you hear at midnight.
 Apr 2020 Vervain
Henry
Shall I compare thee to a broken watch
A piece of garbage all but twice a day
Existing to be broken on the rocks
Remember the father and where he lay
But gone is the age of the stoics babe
Now rust and rot control the fall of glass
Not one was witness to the violet grave
Except the people in the razor grass
But nothing's nice under an ochre sky
Although your sickened tick is worse than most
And you betray the father with your lie
As if his sacrifice was but a joke
A life in the waves could pay all your dues
Best get comfy in your new concrete shoes
1/17/20
The Yellow Sky #1
 Apr 2020 Vervain
Mark
(I)

If weary eyes about this classic form
Intake each part; as syllabled before,
Then by such mind here meaning shall deform;
Equal'd the lay of bareness white it wore.
Is time as spare as air is plenty free,
That need bestow deception with what read?
Such reading glass forbids that beauty be
A script of heart; a sight that's better dead.
Yet beats here still and still you lasted long,
Now pity rules behind that centred stare?
To scorn this amateur's own state and song;
Summounting lines with mere a boorish glare?

If here by some of tradegy is true
Then wish you never read, nor wrote it too.

(II)

Enriched upon the riddance of your doubt
Comes comfort you're the old you thought myself,
Now you to fade and shall you fade without
The fame that gifts the older works their shelf.
New beauty now; adds you with further dust;
How knew the wise this antidoting cure:
That pleasures eyes and lets dissolve the rust
And bid this very heart here write her lure.
Yes! She by here account, withholds no lines
But flourish thoughts! Like leaves by April's spring;
That chatter sweet on limbs of sugar pines
In rustling, rapping ode: 'for her we sing'.

By merit due her beauty takes this hand
And writes new love not you in this withstand!

(III)

This poet's eye awakens in her grace!
Abiding treaty's of the sun and dawn,
That sovereign's sight reveal her blessed face;
Entrancing loyal ink that beauty's drawn:
With homage to the Nyx for hue of hair;
There woven rare as silk around a star;
To gently patterned curls of rippling flair
That becons yonder beams from moons afar,
To crystallize her pupils; aqua blue
In clear cut waters found no longer there,
With sensory of sight that pierces through;
Where waiting greets the words of love to bear!

'Oh not another sonnet!' Yet, by three
I have denounced your worth by praising she!
My shiny snake, you inspire me to write.
I hate the way you slither, look and hiss,
Invading my mind day and through the night,
Always dreaming about our first real kiss.

Let me remember where I went astray,
When you turned creepy, clever and awful.
Do you realise just how much evil dismay,
You caused me with your plight oh so painful.

How do I hate you? Let me count the ways.
I hate your terrible smile, tongue and eyes.
Thinking of your woeful words fills my days.
My hate for you can only grow in disguise.

Now I must away with a weepy heart,
Remember my cruel words whilst we're apart.
 Apr 2020 Vervain
JAM
Their gears twist and turn, cranking tirelessly
Round the mortal coils of a mellower
Art and content of games played wirelessly.
The game boards are awash with bellowers,
Slighted pawns too bound by echo tubing
Passed around to fortunetellers frightened
By town criers trying to throw heartstrings
Of lovers obsessed with burdens lightened.
"She is trapped and he the trapper," they say.
Shall he free her and see her twist and break?
Maybe that is her choice," but not today,
Or tomorrow or the next," he risks fate.
      Their goal is obvious: parting those two.
      Too bad their love is a folie à deux.
 Feb 2020 Vervain
Trevor Gates
The Obsidian Theater XV.



Welcome to my nightmare
Welcome to my show
The audience awaits your praise
And your stage light glow

My, my, it’s been too long.

[Walks across stage; light follows. Curtains pulled]

Where have all of you been?

[Audience laughter]

Oh, forgive me, that’s not the right question
To ask

Where have we been?

That’s more fitting


Where


Sipping Champagne with Bing Crosby among undead poets
With a casket made for two
“Brother can you spare a dime?”
He said,
“Lift me from this tribal paradigm.”

And

For many days I wandered the wilderness in the threads of
My carnivalesque grandfather
Ripping and tearing in the clinging trees
Hands of branches
Groping and pulling the garments off my body

In the middle of the Serbian wilderness was The Manor
Draped in dead trees and blackened ice

The valet stood at the gate in prime condition
Waiting

But for who?

“Why, you sir.” He told me, guiding me through the entrance, to the front door.

And inside were wonders to be held by the
muster of my weakened eyes

Ladybug dancers tossing their legs up to *****-tonk fanfare
Swirling magicians pulling rabbits and naked men from the shadows

Allegorical usurpers coated in a filmy residue of
Herzog dreams
And
Lynch fantasies

Perpetuated by my longing
My lost soul
My parched thirst
My growling stomach
My throbbing manhood
My forgotten affliction
And severed diction

A man slivering into the skin of a woman
A Lady donning the cowl of a man

Skins shivering with afterglow effects

And dreams woven by old witches with intestinal thread

It was eloquent darkness in the belly of the manor
Fit for a King of Devilish glamor

Brothers of Grimm
And
Sisters of Mercy

Told from the pages

From the books

Of frozen Gods
And forgotten Titans

These are the happenings of a great story
Fiction or not
You may tell it
And believe what you will

It doesn’t matter as long as it is strongly retold

From the lips of another

The wandering bard
Or
The pub crawling drunkard
To
The enamored *****
And
Bookworm report
It needs
To be shared
To others
Even impaired
To celebrate
Gasp
Giggle
Scare
Love
Soothe
Disrupt

My impeccable, capable
Hands-down sensational
Tour de force
Troupe
A la mode


Cherries on top of whipped screams and drinks
Juggling heads and animals over coals of fire
Give them a show
Give them a feat
Give them something to remember
Give them something to crawl back to
Give them a performance that will beckon the applause
For years to come
Show your audience
And readers love
And
Sorrow
The likes of which
Cannot be equaled
Or even compared to
Lesser
Congregations
Of silly-billy pud muffins
And their
Street-smart guff

Let the institution of your mind become a corporal being
Teasing and pleasing those eager and waiting eyes
Staring up at you with
Wanting
Drooling
Wanting
Begging
Wanting
Affections

Don’t you want to see a show worth seeing?

[Audience cheers; laughs and applauds]

Watch a movie worth seeing?

Read a book worth reading?

How do you come by this?

Create what you’ve always wanted to see, read, watch and say.

Those performers
Once peasants and beggars

Stood up from the grime and ridicule of the trash and rose above the
Plateau
To conquer their hearts

Look and see!

Those people balancing and singing with fluffy dogs
Magicians and warlocks summoning spirits to dance among stars
Poets on stage reading mixed words to nodding peers
Directors blocking actors on stage with unparalleled enthusiasm
All these creatures of the ubiquitous night
Gather and produce
The whim of their lives

But many of these masters
These

Unknowing

Are

The bus boys cleaning up after your meal
The mother alone at home with the kids
The unsociable man on the park bench
The frigid girl in the corner of the classroom
The nervous boy wandering the circus
The stern librarian in Brooklyn
The blogger in the studio apartment
The hard working abroad student on a farm
The homeless man cradling a dying dog
The celebrity chasing photographer
The undergraduate tutor
The ignored substitute teacher
The bullied Muslim student
The underprivileged south side coach
The Turkish cab driver


More and more

These warrior poets and victims to racial slurs
Commonwealth bigotry
Ghetto endorsements
Faulty criticisms

From hosting countries

And sheltered, over-privileged, disillusioned

Politicians

Bureaucrats

Religious figures

Dogs of War

Angels of retribution

Demons of industry

Ghosts of the hours and days past
To sympathize and cry for the world
Thrown into invisible and subtle chaos
Like an ocean littered with the blades of
Broken glass
The sludge toxic waste mixed in molten lava over craters of dead bodies
Or
The sand dust covering the thousands of bodies in the earth

So



What teams won the World Series?
Which movie star dates who?
What’s the latest trending diet?
What new pop sensation has been manufactured?
What new insult can talk show hosts say?
Is there someone new to blame for all the bad things in the world?

What are the things the media has told you?
And
The things it hasn’t?

It’s a
Bitter sweet symphony

A
Crucible for the faceless grins
Pointing fingers everywhere but themselves


Let’s leave the worries to our kids
I’m sure they’ll figure it out.
Allow me to thank my esteemed colleagues: Meryl Streep’s skeleton, Freddie Mercury’s ghost, Doc Hammer, George C. Scott, Doctor Emmett Brown, Marty McFly, Easter Eggs, internet message board administrators, Robert Redford, Aviator sunglasses, Don Cheadle, The Coen Brothers, the Dukes of Hazzard, Billy *** Thorton, Hammerfall, Saxon, Klaxons, Lou Reed, Spike Jonze, Michael Gondry, Guts, Son Goku, Tinkerball ***** force, the Die Nasties, The Iron Maidens, Judas Priestess, The Runaways
And many more I simply don’t have time to mention.

Now Get out of my theater.
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