In times gone by, now recondite,
Neanderthal, *****, upright,
spoke softly, tones so lily-white,
and tried to put the world aright.

He taught us how the flame ignites
that wearing furs will warm the nights,
just why the rolling wheel excites,
and how the beveled flint stone bites.

Before the days of dynamite
he fought his foes with spit and spite,
and swung big sticks with all his might,
and rendered death with stones in flight.

Engaged in never-ending fight
(arenas were a global sight)
he forced his forces to unite
to sate his oily appetite.

To quell rude thoughts that may incite
he ruled the realm with fly-by-nights
and culled the winds of words in flight,
and darkened minds to anthracite.

With fairy tales of evil sprites
and how the fist of freedom smites,
he washed the world with flames alight
to vanquish hoards of parasites.

Each dawn the damage brought delight,
the foe was bent, a bit contrite…
yet battled on with no respite
until the dusk and evening light.

Encamped beside the firelight
Neanderthal, that shiny Knight,
awaited morn while sitting tight
assured the end would be alright.

Yes, conquest seemed his sacred right…
Forevermore?… well, no, not quite…
Neanderthal's extinct tonight
and lies beside the Trilobite…


MORAL
The Oreo is round, not bright:
while rolling near the candlelight
at first the searing seemed so slight,
the molten cream an oversight…

~
Lipstick to void. She is a race against time. The beveled past a disruption in her lines of influence.

Travel is dangerous, and tonight it darkens the highway of blood vessels coursing through her extremities. She wants to be luminous and under the skin.

While Dorothy dreams of tornadoes in Kansas, she dreams of remote climbs in lesser Glasgow, of party drugs in Tokyo. How many lights does she see?

In her hair are sixty circuits. But she waits, religiously inclined on the hotel bed. She drove through ghosts to get here wearing nothing but Las Vegas.

So strange at this hour, in a city full of sleepwalkers for the taking, she now dreams she's a bulldozer, she now dreams she's alone in an empty field.
~

I've bent my mouth up to my ear
Believing in the stuff belief is made of
Milk replaced by silky biers
Losing my fingers to the Barren Baron Dove

Hurts to admit I'm stealing away
A curly knife held to my ear
Simple, crimpled, waning days
Throw unto the heart of the pier

Lark and tumble
Bark and fumble

Still those tired eyes of dust
I have found the beveled rhythm
Among the pristine clouds of rust,
Entropy's daily rhythm

Wake away the roaring morning
Rising heat in waxing dawn
Spend the many days adorning
The beating pulse of the fawn

Stupefied, nullified
Numb and in crumbs
A stump to the vein
A lump of sweetened pain

memory sleeps
beneath time’s blanket,
closes its eyes,
and disappears in dream.

life is leveled, edges beveled
smooth and regular.
days pass.

thirty-seven years later
a helicopter is shot down
in Afghanistan.

men are lost

and fear chokes me
again, high above hills and jungle,
taking fire from below,
a Chinook just like theirs,
frantic to fly
away.

.
(20 minute poetry)

What gives that we lack when we fall through the crack and I drop through the mirror again?

It must be he that I see stood back from the crack, the mirror just laughs or could that be me, each imperfection is magnified and the reflection dare I say it is sanctified or should that be mortified?

So I pick at it
kick at it
I am
altogether sick of it.

And if I squint at it or
add a tint or a hint of a smile to it,
It mocks me and
takes the ****'

It's level one,
out with the toe hold
and put a beveled edge
on it,
time to be bold.

Secret committees to squander,
the crack in which through falling I wander.
It doesn't make sense to me either
neither to you I suspect,
But
that's what gives when we
lack turn our back on the pack and introduce a joker to the deck.

So I pick at it
kick at it
I am
altogether sick of it.
And if I squint at it or
add a tint or a hint of a smile to it,
It mocks me and
takes the ****'
It's level one,
out with the toe hold
and put a beveled edge
on it,
time to be bold.
Secret committees to squander,
the crack in which through falling I wander.
It doesn't make sense to me either
neither to you I suspect,
But
that's what gives when we
lack turn our back on the pack and introduce a joker to the deck.

It’s beneath daydreams You have heard it
The faint sound of wind chimes Not belonging to a tangible source
You blindly own it  When your left thigh tingles
It’s the shape-shift powers

So please

Come down from your towers
It no longer makes sense An apparent pretense
Come down from your towers
Where the air whispers doubt Each time your heart shouts
Come down from your towers
Endemic eternal internal  The cyclic encounters
Come down from your towers

It’s the unknown driver That wakes you when
Her hand is waving as The waters’ abating

Like a still frame / Not knowing why  As you read through the lines

You belong In a parallel world
Where the sky’s painted  By a gentle sun
The rock is beveled and smooth  So that tumbled stones
Joined with dark cord  Can roll and move

The victim and the perpetrator  Hold interchangeable hands
Where you sleep  Where you keep  The spaces
Where the walk  Steps heavy  Voice distorts  Breath ready
Here you stay  Seized by false compartments
Buying into ulterior motives  That choke your flowers

So please

Come down from your towers

dog eared books stacked on dusty window sills with warm laughing light spilling through beveled glass a grandmother's plate of gooey cookies staining teeth and lips with sugar kisses and wrinkled feet from barefoot running in the streets sing me to sleep paint a picture of outer space make sure my star collides with yours so we become a blazoning life form of galactic fire

Into nerves
and cleaning up
ever nerves Into as beveled as the digit, then burn.
with a new youth itch
I gotta read electric view down your spoons
one eye of a cross legged serpent
come  grabbing hoping the badly or worse
got bathed, mother stuck them into two pieces,

There is a place i cannot go anymore.

A place where memory drives ten- ton trucks down the streets recklessly and with violent intent.
Run over in plain sight, bothered by smoke and cold with rain on-top.
Foggy and damp, with bright and sunny aperture.
There is a place i cannot walk anymore.
Sidewalks bent and twisted out of shape from people running away.
Streets too narrow and steep to breathe.
I cannot stand small talk,
I cannot stand memory,
I  cannot stand so i'll lay down like everyone else here.


My mouth makes sounds like a firing range.
But instead of bullets there's spit and instead of fire there's just air.

And you firm and buttressed gorgeous scarlet
your health,like venus i timid and glut upon,
is also a god. harder than smooth and softer
than rough. a cool like steam and hot like
summers wings. a bird, charming and immense
she's nothing compared to you noble
to you
           t o           you
                                          there is nary a season more supple or lovely than the
undark shout of your plain and spectacular plume
      of resolute arms
                 on your shoulders
                                                   on your bones
                             your muscles
                     on them
                                      thy skin
                                                              who i dimple most commonly
          on saturnday mornings
                 when you peak beveled luscious havoc
in my brave and capricious bed
                                                           and you tousle my senses
        byTheFastStaggerOfYourMarvelous lips
      bounding pink
                                     and flush
                   madrigals in the infinite cavern of my
       very
                 and very
                                     smallest
h
  e
      a rt

I sink inside my head
and think about the things I said.
But I often find myself in bed,
catching a wink.
If the world really lies on a thin thread,
am I a fragile link?
If I blink,
will everything I love
and hold dear disappear?
Why do we use such an expression to perpetuate the fear of loss?
Here I thought I beveled and embossed
the impression but it’s just another load
of dross.

© Matthew Harlovic

i liked the night
         a morsel of arguing light
     with the morose chimney stacks
and gratuitous roofs
they wetted with creamy distilled lunar ****
and whisper beveled nothings
at the screaming silence


  !

The waning lines etched on the roof
A chair swinging in only two directions

Neither of which I know

brief echoes of the past
arrange themselves in my present
like shadow puppets on the backs
of my eyelids while i sleep.  

there is an uneven fulcrum
digging into my lower back no
matter how i turn my long
body.

my eyes open into
the same familiar room, with
the same familiar speckles on the
ceiling that they always do.   the
shadows resume their innumerable
forms and i wake
to write another step towards
the beveled edge of immortality.

WALK THROUGH

Awake at 4 AM in a dark and silent house
There are ghosts and wraiths afoot in other rooms
And chimera dance across the walls.
Time has worn it’s foot steps into paths that lead the way
From one space where the sun shines morning rainbows
Through leaded beveled diamond glass
To rooms with shadows in the silent corners of regret
That fail to yield to hopes and promises of light.

Walls newly shorn of photographs and art
Stand in mute recrimination of the crime
That robbed them of the proof that people prospered here.
People blessed with messy lives that ricochetted like
Pinballs through the good times and disasters.
People who never learned to cheat but studied how to care,
Who gave a measure and a half for a quarter measure’s pay.
People who walked the narrow road until it ended in abyss
And now they have to find a way to to finish out life there.

The smell of tears still lingers in the lattice covered
Meditation bower in a corner of the garden
The little fountain proves unable to provide the only falling water
And the tiny pet grave markers remain resting there in peace

A bulky box with double doors commands most of the driveway
And things too valuable to leave are prisoners inside.
Clutter is trapped in cartons sealed with packing tape
Or hidden in the cupboards no one dares to open.
Untidyness moans softy in the newly emptied spaces
And the dust no longer has a place to land.

The winnowing is almost done and things will find new homes
In a sad bazaar of letting go the past
And turning to the East to meet the rising sun
Where somehow in a diferent place they all will learn to dance.
ljm

you were beveled glass
carved out of sunlight
and you burned into my irises
contracting against the intensity
of your presence.
sometimes it still gets like that.
brief moments where your beauty over powers
and in more ways than one
i'm lost in a temporary blindness.

When I was a baby
They christened me with water
Mother said I screamed ****** ******
I must have thought that I was drowning
While they thought they saved my soul

The Sisters all wore golden crosses
Slapping us with wooden rulers
The beveled edges brought down hard
Bruising bleeding knotted knuckles

The day I first confessed my sins
To the Priest behind the screen
We children received holy cards
With glued on plastic crucifixes
That glowed when you turned out the light
Like Christ's eyes, always watching

The Sisters all wore golden crosses
And they said we were not worthy
On our knees in holy terror
We prayed in vain for our salvation

On my First Communion day
Jesus' body was a wafer
Dry as bone, thin as paper
Adhered to the roof of my mouth
My tongue dry as red hot sand
While I tried desperately to swallow

The Sisters all wore golden crosses
As they dispensed God's corporeal mercy
With a backhand to the head
And a black mark through the soul

All the children feared God's judgement
Certain we'd be cast to Satan
In His hell eternal burning
Our salvation lost forever
Plunging from eternal rapture
On paper wings alight with fire

The Sisters all wore golden crosses
Smacking us across our faces
Because of this I still remember
All the useless Latin verses
And their ugly, screaming curses

I am from chipped beveled glass
from hand-me-downs and prideful hearts
I am from the burning cities of Perth
where art is a way of life and beaches are home
I am from a peaceless nights' sleep
with covered ears and whimpering cries
I am from closet thoughts
from the "what ifs" and "could nevers"
I am from the empty holidays
with lonely living rooms and booked flights

newly first pressing flesh
your firmly enamor
(thighs and cheeks)
you dangerous and
clean beveled dainty
stuff
        
         you're the very
eatage o' devils and
god

i am beveled glass
without a setting
ragged edges
and no beginning

By Arcassin B , soul S , Richard L.A



SS : Bars on windows ,Bars on doors
Metal ceilings ,Beveled floors
Come in folks!
There's lots of room!
It don't matter it's a tomb...
A prison cell of bone & hide
You won't know Til you're inside...
Here I am, I'm in the lobby
Locked within a broken body
Makes me want to scream & shout...
I'm just dying to get out!
There's the rub... just want to cry!
To get OUT I have to DIE.
There's just one way To be free.
But I don't want to die, you see.
I guess I'll stay & just be ME.
AB : To posses more ,empathy,
Weeping over dead bodies like the anniversary of
9/11, God bless each and every person in this world to
live long and prosper, this is hostile,
waiting on Jesus to descend to us and preach the gospel,
there's not enough empowerment to help the weak,
And there's not enough food here to feed the homeless,
Not even enough  friends around your child to see her smile
and you always treat her like nothing so she thought her
life was worthless,
looked into the barrel of the gun And, POW!,
Didn't even say her last words , not even a letter,
you should have spoke to her,
could have been a better nurturer.
RLA : Living In  the Projects. ...

I learnt my name.... I learnt my fame...
Living in the Projects....

Learnt how to skillfully write my name in lights.... All over the place. ...
I was living in my own mind when it happened....

You....
Happened to Me...
From where you came, I had No idea....

I was lifted up, above my feet...

Don't leave me hanging ......
Around for too long.....

At night my eyes do bleed into the undercove

Such clouds of darkened ichor mask my vision
I saw the great respite wherein you bode
took hands upon your form and shouldered myriad of blight

Spat then a tongue into my mouth
though it was not your own
as your apparition, dense, did disappear
I came to know the truth with clarity
for you were never here
in that dream did I call dear
to your admittance lost

For she came to fill the void
in faces squat upon the isles
when I was sat there on the floor
only one was nearer to my truth

In the beveled floor
I saw motion
in the map of self
a shroud of stars

For what is worth beguiled?
For what is measure spent?
Beseech my innocence
nostalgic loss of breath

Love is not a thought
and not a dream
It is the sleeping mind’s
one haven in the dark

I woke
to you beside me
speaking cheerfully of days unworn
readily acceptable
there to be adorned

In our unity
a dance
which grants me levity
as we romance
an absence of the ****** past
as pains should die again
where we go forth
in union
with our star gate skies
not alien or human
having not a guise
simply We

Do you ever imagine
      you've lived this day
long ago

only under the beveled glass of a dream,
and now,

you're just going through

      the motions using muscle memory?

A sad saw of a tune
worked on my nerves
always a bit too soon
(if not now then when?)
I am my worst friend
Saw saw saw
away at this tune
careful steps with
a hunk of beveled
glass
(easily clears the room)
If not mine then who's?
I drip onto the carpet
Red (red red red) as
my tune
Love and life comes
in drips and drabs
(I have marked
on a calender
my impending
death)
Soon

She started
the race
recital
She changed S-
words
Shameful
Star-pull for
herself

Lost
Where is
every(one)

The cost
oneself
the host
Selfish but he
wished
she was his
flower
not just
any flower
something?
Powdery*

Cheeks.com
Dom and Rosy
Horizon
Self-righteous
Love hours staged
with flowers red devilish

The designer wicked
eyeliner
one can see
Getting closer
she shined
uniquely
as something
else
Yourself beveled
((GodFlower))
mirror glow her
all by herself
The man with
exotic Tiger Lily
delivered
By the ray of light*
Sabotaged by fright
Shining on her shelf
Somehow he didn't get a
chance
to see **

Her at twilight only she
no-one else
Flowers are like people
Smells of a floral page

Rage___
Outrage
Engaged $$
Flowers all staged
People that are people
Are the luckiest people
in the world Twin Towers
not forgotten
Wait for the
Forget me not?
Nothing is planned
Tie a flower to not forget
Bouguet fall from his hand
landed on your lips

Two couples of Tulips
Hips of a Sprinkler
By herself took a
Polo Horse slim her
Lovely Rita in May
Beatles with Lady-bugs

Reminds herself when
she was hugged
The Stirrups flower daisy cups
He passed with the halo
of hiccups
Rose command him on
Lending another hand
Beautify hair strands
The beauty splendor
of love does it stand?

She grew "Self-Reassured"
Her plant beds gleamed
Beflowered by him

"Lumination"
"Divination"

She could have used
more height to bloom

With sunsets, their lips
needed more $$
room
He towered over her flowers
a self-sabotage
She loved names of
"Sage"
He ruined her flower
friendship visage
Left her with one he planted
The mystery of flowers and love
We take so for granted