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Allyson Walsh Feb 2016
My car rumbled
Outside your house
Last night

Searching for
The bedroom light
Through your curtain

Knowing your car
Was cold behind
The garage door

Unsure of why
I decided
To drop by

Perhaps I believed
You would feel me
Looking in

Maybe I thought
You were merely a dream
Nonexistent

Wondering if we
Really continued
To live separate lives

I was back
In Bloomington
Last night

Loudly playing
Your favorite
Rock rhyme

Swore I could smell
Your e-cig
From the driver's side

Maybe I stopped by
Bloomington
To beckon you

Thinking I was
A siren
Able to lure you

Perhaps I accomplished
Whatever I
Set out to

Sang my
Sweet song
Led you to doom

But I don't think my call
Seeped through
Your bedroom walls

Either I
Was too quiet
Or you were
Preoccupied
For NM

"My life is moving forward in the right direction and I can't be more happy."

You'll regret your selfishness.
Moon Humor Nov 2013
Dry brown cattails fall over one another in autumn
each year crossing on the forest floor,
waiting for spring rain.
Trees line the neighborhood street but true beauty
lives in the swamp down below.
We ran through branches, slicker boots in the mud
crunching through the tall grass and fallen leaves
exploring where the deer sleep. Graceful bucks
peruse the land. I try to catch a glimpse at dusk
when the silent fog begins to rise.
Forgotten streams dart through the reeds where
shallow water is perfect for spawning Northern.
Fallen tree trunks, ominous giants are the
only way to cross the creek
with dangerous swirling currents my daddy
always warned me about.
Poplar bridge is covered with graffiti and scars
the place I got my first french kiss
while the sun sank down into the swamp’s horizon
and the sky filled with precious stars.
The childhood place you yearn for
after the years go by
When every dark thought drives the car down the road,
ending up on that bridge just to watch the creek flow.
Stillness in the middle of a city
isolated from the corruption outside
curlygirl Jun 2016
His love confuses me,
it came on fast
and hit me hard
so that I'm left spinning.
He took me in his arms
and practiced Russian
by whispering sweet nothings
until all hours of the morning,
until his lips could do nothing
but kiss mine.
He took me dancing,
and tangoed with me
until dusk,
until his hips could do nothing
but dig into mine.
He loved me over time,
in ebbs and flows
like the sea loves the sand,
until he couldn't help
but fall into my tide.
And now he's away,
he'll always be "away",
today Bloomington,
tomorrow Berlin.
And now I'm aching,
I'll always be aching,
today for Indiana,
tomorrow for Germany.
Phil Lindsey Apr 2015
PATSY’S POEM.
(Composed while in Bloomington jail)

While sitting in this silent chamber,
And nothing else to do,
I thought I would compose a song
And write it, friends, for you.

I am not much of a poet,
Though I’ll do the best I can
To try to keep my courage up
And bear it like a man.

I was born in Cincinnati
And in Ohio State—
Little did I think, my friends
I would ever meet such a fate.

I was brought up by honest parents,
Who thought the world of me.
And this is the first time I’ve been
Deprived of liberty.

It was on the fourth of August, in 1879,
From house to house the news was spread
That Aaron Goodfellow had been shot,
And soon he would be dead.

Suspicion pointed toward me;
They rushed upon their prey,
And I was forced to prison
To await my trial day.

They took me to the station-house;
From there to the county jail,
Where iron bars surrounded me,
There my troubles to bewail.

I never did the cruel deed—
God knows I’m not to blame,
Although I have been convicted
And must suffer all the shame.

A word to my old mother,
And my sisters kind and true:
Remember I’m innocent
Though I must part from you.

Any you my kind relations,
I know you wish me well;
But my feelings at this moment
No human tongue can tell.

Before I close this rhyme
I’ll not forget to mention
My good jailer,
Mr. Franks.

And now, my kind friends,
‘Tis all that I can do
In sending this, my song,
To bid you all adieu.
Patsy Devine, in a Bloomington, Illinois jail, sometime between 1880 1882
I found this poem a few years ago while doing genealogy research on the internet.  My GG Grandfather's name was George Hartsock.  He was one of the jurors that convicted Patsy Devine of the ****** of Aaron Goodfellow.   Mr. Devine professed his innocence until the very end, and composed this poem, in jail, awaiting execution by hanging.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ildewitt/aaron-goodfellows-******.htm
Allyson Walsh Dec 2015
I bet your hardwood floor
Still supports that shirt.
Your maroon one I wore
After losing my skirt.

Now, your roommate is telling you
To help clean up your place.
Blaring "R.I.P. 2 My Youth".
Searching for what's been misplaced.

The dusty floorboards creak
Under the weight of it all.
It's only been one week
Since intimate nightfall.

You're wearing ***** clothes;
And you can't bear to do laundry.
Because once you start a load,
You'll have to accept the palm trees.

The desert that awaits you,
And the life you're leaving behind.
Telling me that, if we bump into
Each other, we won't be ill-timed.


I bet that maroon shirt is precisely
Where I left it.
Before you decisively
Determined we were unfit.
For NM

Thinking about your empty promises.
Wearing the Christmas present I bought for you.
I know you're not done with me.

Soon you'll being playing Greetings from Califournia. You'll be singing along to the bridge and thinking of me.
Dagoth I Am Jan 2012
i'm tracing pentagrams with chalk on to my floor
i'm lighting candles cookin' curses casting spells to bring a storm
that will cloud up over Phoenix, and make black
the southwest sky i'm pushing pins into the map to mark the points for lightning strikes
may the ashes of the university make their way out to the sea
and may the bones of the invaders mix with the bricks of burned buildings
we will make them in to mortar and we will build this town again
i'm calling on dark forces to take me back to phoenix
we'll dig some holes and plant some seeds and grow trees
back in the park so the bums will have some shade to drink and a place to sleep when it gets dark
nick will get his job back when we re-open the Vonlee
we'll watch movies and eat popcorn but this time we won't have to sneak
we'll make music in our basements we'll play 4-square in the streets
we'll carve hexes in our our highways to ward off the wicked beasts
and this time we'll keep our city safe we'll keep our city sweet
we'll keep our city free one by one and block by block we watched it slip away
the towers of our enemies grew taller everyday until at last i cast away
and tried to find some better place but it's wings are wide and cast it's shadow down on everything
so i'm praying to the lord and every other god i know to give me a flaming sword
and some extra lightning bolts and the power to destroy the ones who took our town away
and the strength we need to build it back into something great
and this time we'll keep our city safe... and sam will come back from california
and she will know just what we need to do and all the cool kids that i've met
in all the places that i've went will hear the booming of the battle
and come too and we'll make this place into the greatest place there's ever been
all we want is a place to live the kind of lives to want to live
so i'm rubbing every lantern that i find and i'm chasing every rainbow that i see
i'm searching the clovers trying to find one with four leaves
anything that could grantone wish tome and portland will not save you
and olympia will fall too and gainesville will surrender someday  
and i know phoenix will never be the same
bloomington will never be the same
Joseph S Pete Nov 2018
As an IU Bloomington student,
I frequently made the drive back to
the fraying rusty fringe of Chicagoland,
the land of greasy-dappled gyro joints,
of Italian Beef, and Italian Sausage,
and Italian Beef and Sausage.

Some described it as one of the most boring drives
in America, lamenting the flatness and unvarying
scenery, but I always drove it under the shroud of darkness.

Nine Inch Nails, My Life With the Thrill **** Kult, and
the Revolting ***** spilled through the stereo.
Al Jourgensen growled his strange Rod Stewart cover,
his ode to crack-*******, and his heavy industrial soundtrack
that makes you feel tense, like a prime time victim show.

As the aggressive beats and resonant past washed over me,
I realized my cozy hometown offered comfort
but could sustain no credible
fantasies of the future.
Sam Bowden Mar 2019
In a rush and dash,
you left the bustling and thoroughly coursed New York streets,
paved smooth by the administrators of your newly proclaimed home.
There I stood,
as I watched the Lyft carry you north,
as if on a cloud,
away from me.
And here, I find myself:
having left behind the sun and surf and sandy roads of my home,
which seemed so narrow but always felt a place rich with possibility.
Having left behind too, the parochial, working-class life of my forebearers, in search of something more.
In a city, foreign and yet familiar to us both,
we caught a glimpse of one another on a chilly night in November,
that sweet, sweet November.
Miles from the places we used to call home, Tehran, Bloomington, Boston, Philly... Nashville, Tampa, Chicago, New Brunswick,  
gone are the comforts of our mothers' kitchens and fathers' protection.
You, gracing the tiniest grain of sand with your presence as you carry your doctorates on your breast pocket,
and your mother's dreams in your hands...
Me, occupying the academy,
without rhyme or reason but ever searching for the latter.
Against the winter's breeze,
your tempest of black hair flows in the wind,
fluttering around your face like the Whirling Dervishes,
making me lost in the ecstasy of the Divine.
Clad in black,
and with no adornments nor jewels,
save the crimson lining your lips...
to my eye, your beauty has nowhere to hide.
And on that night, I breathed it in,
even as your mechanical chariot carried you away from me with deliberate haste.
A brisk wind caught my back, pulling me back to the pavement,
though as I strolled my mind drifted like dandelion seeds blown to the wind...
Back in Tehran, long faces wrapped in linen would grow despondent,
if only they knew my thoughts of you.
Sure as the pious, I knew:
a splendid love story began between us that night,
propelled by the tenor of laughter,
and the strike of piano keys,
and the belted lyrics of strangers sharing merriment well into the small hours.
My romanticized childish hopes swelled that night,
that a heart engulfed in a forlorn sea might make acquaintance with such a passionate soul...
As I strolled back to Harlem,
I couldn't shake the thought of your dancing silhouette next to me,
the feel of your hair around my fingers,
the warmth of your jean-clad leg pressed into mine,
the strength of your hand atop my thigh,
nor the magic of your smile which could spark the ire of miscreants
or calm the rumblings of a tumultuous sea.
Sure as the pious, I knew:
This was the beginning.
And only the beginning.
Suns rise and sink,
the moon melts and grows;
So too does our love.
Days and nights have since past,
ever spent caressing one another,
while the wheel of fate spins a web of love around us.
Tucked away in our cocoon, we are,
away from the eyes and envies of the world.
Resplendent in your timeless beauty, you are.
Know that the gentle kindness between us will never fade.
Know that the thought of catching your gaze,
even if only just once more, sustains me,
And it always will.
Kagey Sage Dec 2013
Lying in bed
with an abyss in my head
Abyss in my hand
being abyss

Bad faith with options
I can do so much, but here I am toiling without valor
I’m not oppressed enough to count
Almost guaranteed free meals for life
Respect for parents keeps me on the line
I’ll stay near it to get us a notch up
in Americay’s championship belt
But, even Ma knows the façade is tearing away
Wishing we could be the fortunate Chinese kids
We used to send our food to them, when
we couldn’t eat our vegetables. It’s unfair
I hit the books instead of wandering India
or Bloomington, Indiana
The unexciting part of an epic
starring myself and a one handed handful of friends
Usque incorruptibiles aeternum vivet in aeternum
                                         (356-323 B.C.)

The Regressive Legend tells that this good piece of muscular meat and brain too, was born to write his entire story dying with the blood of Etruscan Steeds, each one had golden piercings on the internal hanging of their six paranasal sinuses, to seal life by this blood-tightness. Franciscan timeless swordsman, so that with his last four molars it would give way to amalgamated crystalline light and overflowing from the gums of the period that soaked blood in the equestrian fields. With which from the ventral turbinate he would be in the first row giving pendency to the Troops of the Great Darius, from where his Alikanto Horse, dressed in degrading dust, changed his Etruria marble saddles with his paranasal attributions, and his brain roots of the hypothalamus pillar who gave them super alchemical excitements and compulsions, super powerful attack to arrive at Tel Gomel 7 days before, supported by the elixir of the Fires of the reinforced steel legs of his Alikanto, with whose entity they came out in droves looking like when they ran at great speeds pretending to be more than a thousand equine Etruscans escaping from the Culture of the Vulture war in a rectilinear scourge of speed in an inordinate trajectory by the Gaugamela tapestries.

Vernath; in one of their lives he was aware of broker comments. Along the long avenues there were countless soldiers who had taken possession of their regression! Many spoke loudly through the pavilions of their stateless conscience. After putting their good feeling of great good sufficiency, they called to him to loud voice which with little will he could hear. Then he heard himself say saying ...; They talked about me? Sooner or later I will be with my therapist, she says that before going to her office she was already dictating to approach her great Christus Martial test in Gaugamela. From the six strings of his devotional he came, taken with both hands with great force, to bend from the eyelids of his intruding Sibyl, to travel through the minimum must of the Solstice to reach the point of apogee closest to his epic, which I rescued with Eternal Life an obese arm from wars won by the peaceful Death, in the Way of oblique perpetrated committed soldiers that from Mosul swept him swirling with high bravery mounted in his Alikanto, before arriving at the low meadow forest of the Lid.

If it was a boy ... it was a Man. If he was a Man ... he was an offender of the fortress. If he was leisurely unfolded he always carried his sword, he never left it. Even his reconciling dreamed would be damaged if he deported him from his daily Christian offices. Vernath, is a living survivor precedent to the resurrected Alexander the Great, after 323 BC .. But when they breathed the same glorious air, both looking at each other, brandished cutting the sharp rudeness that divided them with the 6 Golden swords, from 6 angles of strategic fords to die. several times to challenge the pain that surpasses all life the golden strings with blood "Hexachordia Caelestialis Mortuorum", From the musical scale of agony of the sheep plains that are prey to the melodies of the scythes strengthened by the fear of the trembling of the charismatic migrant .

Vernarth was raised as befits a Greek prince, with heroic tales from Joshua de Piedra's epic poetry. He was part of a culture that demanded that great men despise personal danger and take risks to gain experience. His genealogical ancestors came from Sudpichi, near the Talamitense / Chile reign.
He also received teachings from Kalavrita's Etrestles himself in philosophy and science (Kometerium Messolonghi / Editorial Palibrio - Bloomington USA). Since childhood he was a charming guest for the guests of the court. Etrestles was named their teacher, largely to control recklessness and aggressiveness by at least tempering them with more philosophical and civilized values, far from all insomniac excess.
In this he did not achieve complete success, because his obstinacy led him to run around the world barefoot and without clothes. Vernath, far from obeying his parents. He would go out at night and chase the Moon pregnant with pale Solar light on foot to attack it and tame its silver enclosure on its Etruscan steeds, exuding the naused locked in its loopholes.

He learned a great deal from his tutor and became a highly scholarly man watching for Messolonghi and a keeper of the confines of the Kalavrita macro heavens. But he remained essentially the brave boy who spat too blasphemous atomic alcohol on the Cyclops, who wanted to be Hercules surrounded by himself without parallel. Alexander's inspiration was Etrestles; Homer's accounts of his exploits inspired Vernath in his general attitude of putting his books beyond his memoirs and bibliographic insights.

It is likely that he was seen as a brand new version of the classic Greek heroes with divine blood in SudPichi ..., good piece of muscular meat and brain. To a large extent, this was true more than her own Sibyl lying in her lived regression in the decadent heights of Gaugamela's flushed proximity.

Vernath was an extremely aggressive commander who considered any type of defensive preparation as a sign of weakness, so he dared to speak out in opposition to Saint Augustine; The personality of Saint Augustine of Hippo was iron and it took very hard anvils to forge it, attributing to her apathy not to proceed with the courage of the great Maker, for her encyclopedic fervor and scientific rigor. Perhaps in cowardice, for not facing the mysteries of the word of the present Gods. He was therefore encouraged, rather than dismayed, when the Persian army rallied behind the Gránico river, forcing him to stun across it in front of his predicted opposition, like a sovereign crusader. It is the cross of the plain that in oblique route, can rescind the old word task of the ritual punishment of the sacrilegious Pharisee death that lacks.
Vernath with more than 180,000 faithful followers, declared that the ******* did not have confidence in the victory of the greatest affront, and they counted on the pronounced banks of the river to restrain the intensity of their attack enough so that the Persian cavalry defeated him by accumulating centimeters, to gain deadly meters. He launched his cavalry across the river at the point where the enemy seemed strongest brooding, degraded soldier, and after a fierce skirmish he succeeded in driving the Persian cavalry absent from twilight elixir value alongside the extermination of the voiceless I neither sing nor sing.
The second Persian line expired, the Greek mercenaries, held firm, but was slaughtered in less than five variations of the Sun as a declaring manifesto. Depleted of jubilant water resources, the Granicus established the moral dominance of Vernath's army over his enemies and forced Darius to adopt an even more attitude. Local populations Halicamaso, a nearby port moved their lines more than 5 kilometers in their retreat retreated, before the victorious siege since he was awarded by the natural immensities of the forests of Sudpichi, together with his beloved father Bernardolipo, after consonating suspicious corners from the Osho Tarot, when he drew his sword and upright lunge on the first card, on the instep of the undefeated and naive ignorant warrior, versed strenuous mercenary.
VERNARTH ETERNAL LIGHT
tricky dick Jun 2014
good morning
toothpaste mouth water
slug juice armed wrestler
though the thought about water
was a yellow snapper
a formula for not being
in the same room with different people
slug on the keyboard
making trails and
i saw you in bloomington
that's where it was
and holy ****
how did that happen
?
you usued to be a drunk
talking about
how **** was going to hell over there
and now you're a
guy about the age of my uncle
smoking j's out of the ventilation fan
talking about how ***** giong to hell "over there"
and i'm saying yea...it sure is man it sure is
and you're thinking about how
how i talked to you and left you
because that's the way it happens in the movies
and you gave me a free bike tire
and i thought you were quite fun
for someone who
was a drunk and a pharmacist at the same time
but that never worked out because
you lost it all to alcohol you said
and that's some scary **** how
close my city is to that city
kenye Feb 2017
Like lightning striking
tenses my chest
with regret
at night

Every time I hear John Mayer,
I think of how I pirated
Battle Studies
in an attempt
to get down your pants

And as I drove down
to your school in Bloomington
it was the soundtrack
when I was inside of you
for those couple minutes

Giving whiskey-****
disappointment
a name
Like Heartbreak Warfare
Summer Oct 2018
winters in indianapolis with you
the places and the strange feelings they give off,
the music plays in the streets as the snow falls.
the mattress is on the floor,
it’s cold.
you take up most of the blanket.
skipping class to sleep in your bed,
warm showers
skin soft and fleshy
ignited
a text read at 2:30 a.m.
i miss getting ****** on the regular.
now all i have is pbr and silence at parties
autumns in Bloomington without you.
hugging the blanket after you leave.
it’s a hazy Sunday morning
looking at an empty seat across from me on the bus
how dark your eyes are in the moonlight
a void expanding
it felt like we were on the edge of a nuclear war
as the smoke from outside the brick house covered your face.
i don’t know how to tell you.
as if it really means much.
you always have to leave in the morning
no matter how much we both want you to stay.
but there’s an urgency,
the world might end for us tomorrow
and you won’t know.
the next week i am laying on decker’s cold apartment floor,
missing winters in Indianapolis with you.
forgetting how all of our favorite coffee shops closed down,
and the icy streets that never seemed to melt.
the sun will rise tomorrow and it will sit in the back of my head.
dark eyes long hair and the box of hamms you lugged up to nick’s apartment.
the old couch you slept on.
our drunken laughs.
how I wouldn’t tell you
because I wanted to do it sober.
the way you say goodbye in the morning.
you might be it.
you might be.
Brandi the Brave Jun 2021
You walked into youth group like you owned the place with your mother not far behind you. It was the 6th grade. I couldn't stop staring at you. You hung out with the gothic kids in middle school.
I hung out with the nerdy kids in middle school. On my birthday we slept over at your house in town. You chose me to be your best friend. You came from a rich family. I came from a poor family. You were an artist, I was a creative writer.
In the 7th grade you brought new friends who came from rich families to youth group. When they started bullying me, you fought for my honor and starting bringing your gothic friends to youth group. You the creative indie, goth girl and me the creative nerdy girl. We broke societal norms. I never doubted your instincts for one second. You moved away to Bloomington-Normal and you were excited. But you kept coming back for me. On my birthday we went to the Rockin' Lockin'. You brought a crowd and I adored every minute with you.
In the 8th grade you moved back to Ohio, you came back for me. You had your spark in your grayish-blue eyes. Girls wanted to be you and boys wanted to date you. Yet you chose me as your best friend.
In my freshman year of high school, church wasn't the same without you even youth group seemed empty without you. You were my missing piece. You came back before my birthday. You slept over at my place and went to the Rockin' Lockin' together as always. 5 days before my birthday I loss you, my best friend.
“Boil my *** in rancid butter,” said the king of Canada. “I enjoy elf
& ****** lore.” Three months later his ******* got caught in an es-
calator at the Mall of America & he died from an inoperably-torn &
ruptured low-hanging sac in a bankrupted Bloomington Sears store,
that precipitated heroic B-cell & genetical alignment at Plum Island
to give Canada's king the Herculean push to thread teen debutantes,
in a sinking Samar Sea boat with 416 crates of polyurethane Trojan  
latex rubber supra condoms that will float longer than 341 shackled Mohammedans in his alligator-stocked west Manitoba palace moat.
“Boil my *** in rancid butter,” said the king of Canada. “I enjoy elf
& ****** lore.” Three months later his ******* got caught in an es-
calator at the Mall of America & he died from an inoperably-torn &
ruptured low-hanging sac in a bankrupted Bloomington Sears store,
that precipitated heroic B-cell & genetical alignment at Plum Island
to give Canada's king the Herculean push to thread teen debutantes,
in a sinking Samar Sea boat with 416 crates of polyurethane Trojan  
latex rubber supra condoms that will float longer than 341 shackled Mohammedans in his alligator-stocked west Manitoba palace moat.

— The End —