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Juliana Jun 2013
Tighten your braces with yellows,
UV lights in police cars,
your high socks and new crewnecks,
steep all your worries in the cellar air.
The kitchen crew necks you,
steps over your extra vertebrae on the floor.
Exchange Red Sox caps and collaged cards for
iron oxides and spare joints,
an apology gift for the knees of a Titan.

Gilt neckties and stockings
hard hits over first base,
infrared silhouettes waving goodbye
slip on the steep porch stairs.
Your personal marching bands
sleep in shopping carts.
Your postcards lost in the Andes
written in purple pen --
everything’s smells like guilt.

Harts stagger behind
stags that hope to tiptoe around your toes,
scouting the suites in South America.
Back roads hastily swept under dining room chairs.
Necklaces of burned out light bulbs,
players sock the suited callers.
My bird house is empty.
Your world map is crumpled,
stuffed into the left ventricle of my heart.

Knaps of your wrist bones
fill the endnotes of my biography.
Bottlenecked bus loops and
windsocks left deflated in broom closets.
Your left hand in my kitchen sink,
catches my pressed shirts,
your clothesline melts into the sidewalk like lightning.
Bracelets on marble sculptures.
After you, I need a nap.

Littoral instructions spelled out in sand dollars.
Purple sunflower seeds caught in my turtleneck,
ghosts of eyelashes begin
to whisper wishes,
sockets for wrenches and ankles.
Blue hair braces for the midnight smiles,
the low tide of flowers,
the daily newspaper full of ocean currents,
your lips were too literal.

Lumbar dimples and goose bumps,
the rubbernecking waiter waited for the lights
rubbing his eyes.
Your playful dialogue
makes my plate shake.
Your safety is never on,
eyebrows marking my fifth disappointment.
I usually hate piano solos,
your voice is unstable, charred lumber.

Mince the pages of the dictionary
to make kindling for your irises.
Necklines defined as jade stamps
at the bottoms of the Chinese paintings
above last year’s birthday card.
Connect the dots to see the ruins of Rome,
your arms after the final battle,
crude stitches on undone sweaters.
Your pockets still full of dinner mints.

Canvass the imprint on the inside of
your leg from where the stitching folds over,
your jeans, unwashed in my laundry hamper.
Still overflows from knee socks and potted plants.
Microwaves compressed into my glass of water
the high tide seashells in your pantry facing
your ego in mason jars on shelves.
You’re tired of white board marker promises,
your skin a poorly cleaned canvas.
Homonyms everywhere. First and last word of each stanza. Enjoy :)
palladia Dec 2013
some information cannot be found – you can only originate it. facts are often recycled in attempt to clear a logjam that has prevented us from finding ourselves. when i look at the billions of directions my life could have taken, you have to admit we're a very tough bunch, because, who else would have tagged along at this point? we're a recipe for disaster, but that's alright, because we already racked everything. we're bottlenecked. we're deadlocked in ourselves, and there's no way out.

strength cannot be given – it is only self-acquired. we can think of ourselves as vessels of change, but it won't be gifted to you. it has to be done by yourself. it's a real grabber. and once we take it to heart, it works.

axiology—the study of judgments. choice is so vital in postmodern culture, there's a whole branch of study attributed to it. should i take this opportunity, or should i decline it for another? should i rear success with my horns, or wait ecstatically for it to poke me? should i recline, take an easy ride, or work for it? – no matter which outcome, you're still going down the drain because you haven't established the most important part (yet).

i am struggling to understand economics, as well as applied mathematics. wall street certainly does not hang easy for me, but there is more to discuss than stocks and bonds. society has put us in stocks and keeps us in ******* – that’s wall street for you! there are still certain mysteries, such as you cannot put a negative number inside a radical. and all parabolas will have a reflecting twin, no matter how you look at it.

i fell asleep to a black and white movie, and it was still playing when i awoke. however it was in colour. i rubbed my eyes and sat there dazed until i concluded i was dreaming in colour. i woke up again and it was over. now i think that i watch the same movie, but colourized in my dreams, and that i can dream reality, while that reality is a dream within itself.

much reflection has been cast upon theoretical and unchallenged interest in scholars, for example. some presume we can only perceive one – ten-thousands of the universe but of course this can never be proven along with life's destiny and life's purpose, and indubitably, life's meaning. much dark and invisible matter perhaps comprise the rest, but the threads of an unroped cosmos are far from being knitted. can you prove your eternal existence by way of religiosity or science? Jesus rose on the third day and so did the interstellar medium situated in the midheaven. i sleep with a book of philosophy under my pillow, and i'm not in the least ashamed. Alexander the Great slept with a copy of the Iliad, and Mary Shelley, her late husband’s heart. at least philosophy doesn’t stain.

total uproar soars through the galaxy when i begin to think. the terror strikes, and i cower discrediting the truth. my trine is Jupiter, Saturn, and the sun. i’m an Aries, like the one of Judea. constant virtue is what i can believe but i speak in the revolutionary sense. i can enhance my life as long as i am able to try. there is always room to improve a man and i attest to that.

a literary device isn't useful at all until applied in context. an ambition isn't fully good until it is launched. Newton was right, after all. a body is motion will stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. you are an artist as long as you keep your creative process going until somebody threatens you. then you hide. you establish a force field, which protects you, and you trudge on, because all that matters is your art, in the end. it's everything.

think... Ω-style. one day lofty things won't take pleasure looking at you, because you’ll be confronting them head-first. machtprobe, a german word for showdown. like the one you'll be taking with yourself if you don't buckle down and unravel your weaknesses.

this morning i woke up and stared at myself in the mirror. i was depressed at the condition of my life and my position in the world. my reflection stared back and held up its ******* at me, saying "what are you going to do about it?" not knowing how to answer, i fumbled around possible responses, but it kept going, "it's not that simple, isn't it? life can be tricky when you've got no motivation. it leaves you in a rut until one morning you wake up, depressed about the condition of your life and your position in the world and your mirror's reflection holds up that *******, insuring you're completely aware of the awaiting consequences." it finally shut up and i stood there contemplating its message. "how bad do you want this?" were its last words i heard before i knew that 'initiative' was the one i would soon fall in love with and meet at the chapel to wed.

"either you take it all the way, or you're gonna go astray." it's either one or another, a choice that we have to make. and i don't my reflection to pose a threat to my self-esteem again, so i'm gonna take it all the way...because really. how bad do i want this?

i don't want to have a shoot out with myself again. so when you ask, i'll just tell you algol sent me.
I've been fostering this one for a long time: my ruminations that I've collected over the past year. It's a mini-autobiography of my life over the past year and what I hope to change in the future. It's those New's Years resolutions we keep for about a week and then banish until December 31 the next year. And now I'm taking a stand again and want to reclaim myself from the miserable ruts I fall into. So, it's more of a personal poem, as a sort of get up and go for the future of myself and my art. And I cannot fall back. Think: "how bad do you want this?"

This poem is written in anti-traditional form: no rhyme, meter, lines, or verses. It's more of an essay, because I am especially fond of writing them, when the topic is left up to the author to describe.
Molly Smithson May 2014
Dear Gwen Stefani Circa 2006,
The first music I chose to like that wasn’t
just my mom’s tuning of the radio was

Your solo CD, the first and best of two, which
I made sure to get on my twelfth birthday, after
I made sure to get my first kiss.

We were not rookie sixth graders anymore,
In soggy bathing suits teeming with pubescence,
So I publicized my plans to plant one on

Yeorgios Mavromatis, the new seventh grade boyfriend,
The first boy to buy me jewelry I would not like,
The first boy I used to make myself infamous.

Our hallway bottlenecked with twelve year olds,
Alone we sat on the bed, legs dangling above
The stained beige carpet. The kiss was damp and boring.

But the crowd that pressed at the door was an ******,
Surged voices told me my dad was walking up the stairs,
I arched around to throw the boyfriend in the closet,

My father caught me, and I wore the walk through them
Like your scarlet lipstick. The album of
My first kiss was not passion, but gossip.

I’ve seen you in red lipstick, bindis, and blue hair,
A pink wedding dress, and a Platinum Blonde Life.
I knew you were making art meant to publicize.

The songs and the clothes and the Harajuku Girls,
The boys and the clothes and the Children’s Theatre,
The day I made a scene was the day I knew.

Catholic guilt and couture gilt and creative goals
Took two West Coast girls, only twenty three years apart
And turned them into people you paid attention to.
Frisk May 2015
the stars were flickering, the moon was dimming out,
the sky was falling, and the earth was trembling at the
pulpit of your existence. but it was just me and me alone
feeling the earth collapse under the hypertension and the
world spun on an axis, excluding me from it's original axis
and i wonder if i gave you the rings so the earth can spin
on your schedule. regardless, i want it back. i want back
the reigns so this off course journey can finally settle into
its regular habits. if i have to live under a god complex
in order to verify that nobody will come close to breaking
my spine the way you did, then so be it. i will forge a
dystopian mark on myself and completely obliterate
any memory of you from that dystopia. when the time
comes, when i put my hands down and yours goes up
in surrender, you will realize how human i am in the
way i stretched myself out so much just to be your
optimal choice. i will sit back down on my virtual
throne, mend the craters in my chest, and leave you
without your gas tank floating through space. i am
not yours to control, to play with my puppeteer strings,
to have me bottlenecked with these desperate pleas. i
am a different person now, please understand this.

- kra
I've cried here...
haven't we all?
Did the tears dry on the
face?
Were they swept away by shaking
hands?
Were they evidence of void
plans?
Relax... come here and
walk these moonlit pastures.
The galaxy swirling above
swallows not only our planet,
but our disappointments, too,
if only for a night.
Think of how
tears aren't always the martyrs of
tragedy;
they can be the heroes of a
celebration.
Maybe... that's what we always cry
about.
In those moments when time does
stop,
as our hearts threaten to
pop,
maybe it's all the joy
bottlenecked.
The release of agony into
elation,
or the release of love into
transcendence.
As the sun invades the night,
carrying with him wondrous light,
watch the pastures transform.
The waters will sparkle.
The flowers will bloom and
the grass will glow green with envy.
The sky will turn a joyous blue.
When you cry, this also will happen to
you.
Sometimes (very rarely) films make me shed a tear.
It's usually at that moment of the ******, where the hero/protagonist has just achieved their dream or have been shattered by a realization of their own tragedy.

I've read that if a character goes through a trauma and doesn't cry, you will cry for them, but if they do cry, you don't feel the empathetic urge to do so.

The one tear rolls down my face and such sorrows capture my soul. It has to be a good movie, though, like almost perfect, at which point, it's more than just the moment that motivates the tear, it's the entire symphony of the movie. The movie "Jack", featuring Robin Williams, about a boy who ages 4 times faster than a normal human always comes to mind. I saw it when I was a kid and I don't want to see it again because it's so sad.

I don't know if it's because I'm brought to such powerful emotion, or if it's because my tear-ducts are so weak/sensitive, because in the winds of winter, or if I rub my eye, I end up tearing up for an hour, or until I wash my eyes. It really *****. If not the tear-ducts, I suppose I'm a very empathetic person.

Anyway, thank you for reading.

Enjoy!

DEW
Frisk Feb 2014
“The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else,
but keep heart, it will turn out all right.” ― Vincent van Gogh*

the grand canyon knows nothing of being hallow like the
depth of the space between my ladder ribcage, climbing
out of this rut would be like rock climbing mount everest
without the correct equipment, but beginnings aren't
supposed to be endless paragraphs of traps you made
me so oblivious to. my hands have touched hell's scorch
and have brushed your heart strings, but nothing compares
to the way you make everything seem like a dream, like
an acid trip that took you into outer space and made you
float, but i'm tired of gravity pushing me down and this
is just pointless suffering, i'm not healing anytime soon
and my wishes are for the closure i haven't received yet
i have reached my breaking point.
               it is a decaying cage designed for me.
                              i cannot see anything but good memories.
         h  e  l  p     m  e                                 i am going blind, i am terrified.
                           these monsters don't want to wish me adieu.
                bottlenecked like condensed traffic,
and stuck inside my head.
this isn't a place for you to call home, i am a prison.
you couldn't thrive inside of my heart, it would be
asphyxiating for you because my heart is like a snake
squeezing tighter and tighter, i am not a home for you.
leave before i take every good part of you and destroy it.

- kra
R Moon Winkelman May 2010
I have broken the seal
all the jumbled inside my
hand
bottlenecked in my trembling fingers
pours forth suddenly
and my blood ink stains
the pages black
This is the Great Flood
and the Black Death
This is the Renaissance
and the Dark Ages
That cusp of breathtaking proportions
where the long winter
is broken
and the dawn after the
longest night is come
The promise of fresh air
which does not hurt the lungs
Of warmth which pulls the sting
away from the frozen flesh
whispers through the soul
and the wait which
needs must happen
until Spring arrives
is even more agonizing
in it's first promise of arrival
than all the misery
the dark silence
ever
could
afflict.
RMRW 2007
Frisk Oct 2015
when the words stuck in my throat mature
slowly like honeydew and childish adults,
that's when a line has to be drawn. when
words are lodged in your throat, not by
accident, that's where the line has to be
formed. when the scars of their words
leave you bottlenecked, trying to find the
words to express the vagueness of that
empty feeling, the line has been crossed.

- kra
Regina Fable May 2019
another hull breach
most of her fortune slips away
suckled by the undercurrent
her shanties are bottlenecked messages
entangled in self-accusation
listing through distress and tide
she flags toward more sympathetic waters

love is the bright iris of balmy weather
a ballast for threadbare optimism
she makes berth in tiny lips
that pardon her insufficiency
emptiness, a welcome refuge
projected under the twinkle of satisfaction
mirroring devotion
Traffic light refraction , glass store fronts pan
the main avenue
***** , bluesy , defeated people in line for liquor ,
beer , milk and lottery tickets
Navy skies grow red to the West , streetwise
pigeons work overfilled dumpsters and city cans
Bus stops return workers from Atlanta , the-
local grocery methodically stripped of its inventory ,
children playing games on side streets beneath working-
yellow lamplight ..
Fire trucks fly by , no one even bothers to look up or wonder why
Porch lights irradiate the Westside , amber hues build -
over the interstate , cars travel South , bottlenecked in the race for home ..
Copyright April 3 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved

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