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Esther Jan 2016
I woke today
tired, worn, drained
as if I had slept to the point of exhaustion
only to wake to an even deader city
for all I saw were zigzag avenues
and twisted streets
and broken boulevards
that led to nowhere
but dead ends.
Rien encore n'a germé de vos rameaux flottants
Sur notre jeune terre où, depuis quarante ans,
Tant d'âmes se sont échouées,
Doctrines aux fruits d'or, espoir des nations,
Que la hâtive main des révolutions
Sur nos têtes a secouées !

Nous attendons toujours ! Seigneur, prenez pitié
Des peuples qui, toujours satisfaits à moitié,
Vont d'espérance en espérance ;
Et montrez-nous enfin l'homme de votre choix
Parmi tous ces tribuns et parmi tous ces rois
Que vous essayez à la France !

Qui peut se croire fort, puissant et souverain ?
Qui peut dire en scellant des barrières d'airain :
Jamais vous ne serez franchies !
Dans ce siècle de bruit, de gloire et de revers,
Où les roseaux penchés au bord des étangs verts
Durent plus que les monarchies !

Rois ! la bure est souvent jalouse du velours.
Le peuple a froid l'hiver, le peuple a faim toujours.
Rendez-lui son sort plus facile.
Le peuple souvent porte un bien rude collier.
Ouvrez l'école aux fils, aux pères l'atelier,
À tous vos bras, auguste asile !

Par la bonté des rois rendez les peuples bons.
Sous d'étranges malheurs souvent nous nous courbons.
Songez que Dieu seul est le maître.
Un bienfait par quelqu'un est toujours ramassé.
Songez-y, rois minés sur qui pèse un passé
Gros du même avenir peut-être !

Donnez à tous. Peut-être un jour tous vous rendront !
Donnez, - on ne sait pas quels épis germeront
Dans notre siècle autour des trônes ! -
De la main droite aux bons, de la gauche aux méchants !
Comme le laboureur sème sa graine aux champs,
Ensemencez les cœurs d'aumônes !

Ô rois ! le pain qu'on porte au vieillard desséché,
La pauvre adolescente enlevée au marché,
Le bienfait souriant, toujours prêt à toute heure,
Qui vient, riche et voilé, partout où quelqu'un pleure,
Le cri reconnaissant d'une mère à genoux,
L'enfant sauvé qui lève, entre le peuple et vous,
Ses deux petites mains sincères et joyeuses,
Sont la meilleure digue aux foules furieuses.

Hélas ! je vous le dis, ne vous endormez pas
Tandis que l'avenir s'amoncelle là-bas !

Il arrive parfois, dans le siècle où nous sommes,
Qu'un grand vent tout à coup soulève à flots les hommes ;
Vent de malheur, formé, comme tous les autans,
De souffles quelque part comprimés trop longtemps ;
Vent qui de tout foyer disperse la fumée ;
Dont s'attise l'idée à cette heure allumée ;
Qui passe sur tout homme, et, torche ou flot amer,
Le fait étinceler ou le fait écumer ;
Ebranle tout digue et toute citadelle ;
Dans la société met à nu d'un coup d'aile
Des sommets jusqu'alors par des brumes voilés,
Des gouffres ténébreux ou des coins étoilés ;
Vent fatal qui confond les meilleurs et les pires,
Arrache mainte tuile au vieux toit des empires,
Et prenant dans l'état, en haut, en bas, partout,
Tout esprit qui dérive et toute âme qui bout,
Tous ceux dont un zéphyr fait remuer les têtes,
Tout ce qui devient onde à l'heure des tempêtes,
Amoncelant dans l'ombre et chassant à la fois
Ces flots, ces bruits, ce peuple, et ces pas et ces voix,
Et ces groupes sans forme et ces rumeurs sans nombre,
Pousse tout cet orage au seuil d'un palais sombre !

Palais sombre en effet, et plongé dans la nuit !
D'où les illusions s'envolent à grand bruit,
Quelques-unes en pleurs, d'autres qu'on entend rire !
C'en est fait. L'heure vient, le voile se déchire,
Adieu les songes d'or ! On se réveille, on voit
Un spectre aux mains de chair qui vous touche du doigt.
C'est la réalité ! qu'on sent là, qui vous pèse.
On rêvait Charlemagne, on pense à Louis seize !

Heure grande et terrible où, doutant des canons,
La royauté, nommant ses amis par leurs noms,
Recueillant tous les bruits que la tempête apporte,
Attend, l'œil à la vitre et l'oreille à la porte !
Où l'on voit dans un coin, ses filles dans ses bras,
La reine qui pâlit, pauvre étrangère, hélas !

Où les petits enfants des familles royales
De quelque vieux soldat pressent les mains loyales,
Et demandent, avec des sanglots superflus,
Aux valets, qui déjà ne leur répondent plus,
D'où viennent ces rumeurs, ces terreurs, ce mystère,
Et les ébranlements de cette affreuse terre
Qu'ils sentent remuer comme la mer aux vents,
Et qui ne tremble pas sous les autres enfants !

Hélas ! vous crénelez vos mornes Tuileries,
Vous encombrez les ponts de vos artilleries,
Vous gardez chaque rue avec un régiment,
À quoi bon ? à quoi bon ? De moment en moment
La tourbe s'épaissit, grosse et désespérée
Et terrible, et qu'importe, à l'heure où leur marée
Sort et monte en hurlant du fond du gouffre amer,
La mitraille à la foule et la grêle à la mer !

Ô redoutable époque ! et quels temps que les nôtres !
Où, rien qu'en se serrant les uns contre les autres,
Les hommes dans leurs plis écrasent tours, châteaux,
Donjons que les captifs rayaient de leurs couteaux,
Créneaux, portes d'airain comme un carton ployées,
Et sur leurs boulevards vainement appuyées
Les pâles garnisons, et les canons de fer
Broyés avec le mur comme l'os dans la chair !

Comment se défendra ce roi qu'un peuple assiège ?
Plus léger sur ce flot que sur l'onde un vain liège,
Plus vacillant que l'ombre aux approches du soir,
Ecoutant sans entendre et regardant sans voir,
Il est là qui frissonne, impuissant, infertile,
Sa main tremble, et sa tête est un crible inutile,
Hélas ! hélas ! les rois en ont seuls de pareils !
Qui laisse tout passer, hors les mauvais conseils !

Que servent maintenant ces sabres, ces épées,
Ces lignes de soldats par des caissons coupées,
Ces bivouacs, allumés dans les jardins profonds,
Dont la lueur sinistre empourpre ses plafonds,
Ce général choisi, qui déjà, vaine garde,
Sent peut-être à son front sourdre une autre cocarde,
Et tous ces cuirassiers, soldats vieux ou nouveaux,
Qui plantent dans la cour des pieux pour leurs chevaux ?
Que sert la grille close et la mèche allumée ?
Il faudrait une tête, et tu n'as qu'une armée !

Que faire de ce peuple à l'immense roulis,
Mer qui traîne du moins une idée en ses plis,
Vaste inondation d'hommes, d'enfants, de femmes,
Flots qui tous ont des yeux, vagues qui sont des âmes ?

Malheur alors ! O Dieu ! faut-il que nous voyions
Le côté monstrueux des révolutions !
Qui peut dompter la mer ? Seigneur ! qui peut répondre
Des ondes de Paris et des vagues de Londres,
Surtout lorsque la ville, ameutée aux tambours
Sent ramper dans ses flots l'hydre de ses faubourgs !

Dans ce palais fatal où l'empire s'écroule,
Dont la porte bientôt va ployer sous la foule,
Où l'on parle tout bas de passages secrets,
Où le roi sent déjà qu'on le sert de moins près,
Où la mère en tremblant rit à l'enfant qui pleure,
Ô mon Dieu ! que va-t-il se passer tout à l'heure ?
Comment vont-ils jouer avec ce nid de rois ?
Pourquoi faut-il qu'aux jours où le pauvre aux abois
Sent sa haine des grands de ce qu'il souffre accrue,
Notre faute ou la leur le lâchent dans la rue ?
Temps de deuil où l'émeute en fureur sort de tout !
Où le peuple devient difforme tout à coup !

Malheur donc ! c'est fini. Plus de barrière au trône !
Mais Dieu garde un trésor à qui lui fit l'aumône.
Si le prince a laissé, dans des temps moins changeants,
L'empreinte de ses pas à des seuils indigents,
Si des bienfaits cachés il fut parfois complice,
S'il a souvent dit : grâce ! où la loi dit : supplice !
Ne désespérez pas. Le peuple aux mauvais jours
A pu tout oublier, Dieu se souvient toujours !

Souvent un cri du cœur sorti d'une humble bouche
Désarme, impérieux, une foule farouche
Qui tenait une proie en ses poings triomphants.
Les mères aux lions font rendre les enfants !

Oh ! dans cet instant même où le naufrage gronde,
Où l'on sent qu'un boulet ne peut rien contre une onde,
Où, liquide et fangeuse et pleine de courroux,
La populace à l'œil stupide, aux cheveux roux,
Aboyant sur le seuil comme un chien pour qu'on ouvre,
Arrive, éclaboussant les chapiteaux du Louvre,
Océan qui n'a pas d'heure pour son reflux !
Au moment où l'on voit que rien n'arrête plus
Ce flot toujours grossi, que chaque instant apporte,
Qui veut monter, qui hurle et qui mouille la porte,...
C'est un spectacle auguste et que j'ai vu déjà
Souvent, quand mon regard dans l'histoire plongea,
Qu'une bonne action, cachée en un coin sombre,
Qui sort subitement toute blanche de l'ombre,
Et comme autrefois Dieu qu'elle prend à témoin,
Dit au peuple écumant : Tu n'iras pas plus **** !

Le 28 décembre 1834.
Kyle Land Apr 2017
Empty boulevards, redolent of scorched tears, stretched out
Across miles of broken backs and good intentions, and
He recalled times of parades, all before
This singular day, which had lasted decades.

His feet, painfully blistered, throbbed like a broken
Heart across mutilated streets lined with
Crumbling mansions that stood vacant, looking down
On beggarly widows absorbed by hot pavement.

The sun bore down on his dark brown brow, while
A bouquet of needles dangled from his arm, reflecting a
Message across the sickly sky:
“How young is too young to die?”

Then, as fiery dusk hurtled towards Earth, he wandered
Slowly towards the edge of the world,
Curled his toes in the dusty sand,
And threw his body into the Rio Grande.
Venny Mar 2016
She wanted to go home, back to stars. No more lonely boulevards and loud cars. No more expectations and broken promises. Just back to the place where her heart wasn't heavy and her soul full of darkness. Where the wonder and magic still tingled on the tips of her fingers, and no gravity pulled her down to the cold reality of the world. Just back home. To the stars, where the planets belonged to her and twirled around her, pulling her hair gently with care,  and her future yet untold was still promised  a galaxy of love, wonder, and no more pain.
up on Boot Hill
the sun sets early

the soaked anguish
of grieving mothers
swaddled in
twilight's vestments
mourn the death
of another murdered
child

we roll our eyes
and speak in tongues
tiny prayers
incant
RIP

these reflexive bits,
our shattered votives
litter city boulevards
on each solemn
street corner
new alters
of desecration  
are erected
then despoiled with
the wasted wax of
misspent novenas

our extended families
are bloodlines of fear
spawning
prostrate men
tattooed with
multicolored pain
who refuse to cover
body marks
bespeaking epic tales
of sorrow,
divisions
countless separations
also marking
righteous reasons
of seething
resentments
eager to settle
accounts

sweet vendettas  
clever ambushes
carefully deliberated
for generations
by discordant clans
believing in malice
exalting guns

shared loss
is our
common
affliction

uniting everyone
in envelopes of sadness
becoming live
Dear John letters
bearing news of dearly
departed loves

atop the coffins
of dead children
votives pile high
with scrawled eulogies
of fevered graffiti
solemnly pledging
“gonna make someone suffer
gonna even the score
never forget you
RIP”

and we all die
looking stupid as hell

lamenting
love don’t rest in peace
hearing
it scream from the grave
witnessing
the hallowed earth
churning with revulsion
accepting the bitter ashes
of another dead child

for the love of you
is your funeral march

love don’t RIP
it stalks the tomb
of indifference

it mourns
the ambivalence
of its devaluation

it haunts the
day dreams
of what could
have been

it restlessly
flits among
the playgrounds
of our minds

cluttering the rooms
of our homes
with grief

up on Boot Hill
we clasp the
small hands
protruding from
shallow graves
groping to find
a graceful sleep
for love don’t
rest in peace

Stevie Wonder:
Love Is In Need of Love Today

Written to honor
Love Appreciation Day

jbm
Oakland
1/19/13
Mike Essig Apr 2015
AT THE NIHILIST’S FUNERAL**

(Hope delivers the eulogy)

He was always so interestingly wrong.
I loved him, in fact for years couldn’t live
without him, he who helped crystallize
what I thought by being so opposed to it.
But it’s time to rejoice.
Some of the invisible roads
that run parallel to the great boulevards
can be seen now; the era of darkness-
as-illumination has passed. It was useful
while it lasted, but how nice to discover
that so few of us count on negatives
these days to preserve what we hold dear.
My friends, if you can think of me
as such, take heart. Meaninglessness
has ended its long run at the Palace.
Already, a few of us mere specks
in the universe have begun
to insist on our importance.
May the odors of lilac and laurel waft
across the river, and float over his grave.
The great nihilist is dead. He’ll rise again
when needed. He always has.
But those of you standing now,
having turned your backs to me in protest,
how right that you honor him so.
It’s the kind of negation that he, I suspect,
would have thought might lead somewhere,
might even have thought was hopeful.
dear elouise Oct 2016
look at me
please.
as i search for
as you search for
something real
something i can actually feel
silences -
too wide to reach
your evening shadows blue on blue
my empty starlit boulevards
gaps.
gaps and gaps and gaps and gaps!
gaps in my mind
gaps in your steps
gaps, widening
between your lines and mine
look at me
please!
do not fall back
back into
my make beliefs.
Ô lâches, la voilà ! Dégorgez dans les gares !
Le soleil essuya de ses poumons ardents
Les boulevards qu'un soir comblèrent les Barbares.
Voilà la Cité sainte, assise à l'occident !

Allez ! on préviendra les reflux d'incendie,
Voilà les quais, voilà les boulevards, voilà
Les maisons sur l'azur léger qui s'irradie
Et qu'un soir la rougeur des bombes étoila !

Cachez les palais morts dans des niches de planches !
L'ancien jour effaré rafraîchit vos regards.
Voici le troupeau roux des tordeuses de hanches :
Soyez fous, vous serez drôles, étant hagards !

Tas de chiennes en rut mangeant des cataplasmes,
Le cri des maisons d'or vous réclame. Volez !
Mangez ! Voici la nuit de joie aux profonds spasmes
Qui descend dans la rue. Ô buveurs désolés,

Buvez ! Quand la lumière arrive intense et folle,
Fouillant à vos côtés les luxes ruisselants,
Vous n'allez pas baver, sans geste, sans parole,
Dans vos verres, les yeux perdus aux lointains blancs ?

Avalez, pour la Reine aux fesses cascadantes !
Ecoutez l'action des stupides hoquets
Déchirants ! Ecoutez sauter aux nuits ardentes
Les idiots râleux, vieillards, pantins, laquais !

Ô coeurs de saleté, bouches épouvantables,
Fonctionnez plus fort, bouches de puanteurs !
Un vin pour ces torpeurs ignobles, sur ces tables...
Vos ventres sont fondus de hontes, ô Vainqueurs !

Ouvrez votre narine aux superbes nausées !
Trempez de poisons forts les cordes de vos cous !
Sur vos nuques d'enfants baissant ses mains croisées
Le Poète vous dit : " Ô lâches, soyez fous !

Parce que vous fouillez le ventre de la Femme,
Vous craignez d'elle encore une convulsion
Qui crie, asphyxiant votre nichée infâme
Sur sa poitrine, en une horrible pression.

Syphilitiques, fous, rois, pantins, ventriloques,
Qu'est-ce que ça peut faire à la putain Paris,
Vos âmes et vos corps, vos poisons et vos loques ?
Elle se secouera de vous, hargneux pourris !

Et quand vous serez bas, geignant sur vos entrailles,
Les flancs morts, réclamant votre argent, éperdus,
La rouge courtisane aux seins gros de batailles
**** de votre stupeur tordra ses poings ardus !

Quand tes pieds ont dansé si fort dans les colères,
Paris ! quand tu reçus tant de coups de couteau,
Quand tu gis, retenant dans tes prunelles claires
Un peu de la bonté du fauve renouveau,

Ô cité douloureuse, ô cité quasi morte,
La tête et les deux seins jetés vers l'Avenir
Ouvrant sur ta pâleur ses milliards de portes,
Cité que le Passé sombre pourrait bénir :

Corps remagnétisé pour les énormes peines,
Tu rebois donc la vie effroyable ! tu sens
Sourdre le flux des vers livides en tes veines,
Et sur ton clair amour rôder les doigts glaçants !

Et ce n'est pas mauvais. Les vers, les vers livides
Ne gêneront pas plus ton souffle de Progrès
Que les Stryx n'éteignaient l'oeil des Cariatides
Où des pleurs d'or astral tombaient des bleus degrés."

Quoique ce soit affreux de te revoir couverte,
Ainsi ; quoiqu'on n'ait fait jamais d'une cité
Ulcère plus puant à la Nature verte,
Le Poète te dit : " Splendide est ta Beauté !"

L'orage t'a sacrée suprême poésie ;
L'immense remuement des forces te secourt ;
Ton oeuvre bout, la mort gronde, Cité choisie !
Amasse les strideurs au coeur du clairon sourd.

Le Poète prendra le sanglot des Infâmes,
La haine des Forçats, la clameur des Maudits ;
Et ses rayons d'amour flagelleront les Femmes.
Ses strophes bondiront : Voilà ! voilà ! bandits !

- Société, tout est rétabli : - les ******
Pleurent leur ancien râle aux anciens lupanars :
Et les gaz en délire, aux murailles rougies,
Flambent sinistrement vers les azurs blafards !
Amitav Radiance May 2015
There is always a way
Hidden from plain sight
So many crossroads
We have to tackle
Surrounded by structures
And then busy boulevards
Higher and higher
Ambitions kissing clouds
Vertical limits not set
One feels dizzy
Like a minnow
Pushed around
Sprain in the neck
New phobias
And health scares
Spine gives way
To modern marvels
Can’t bear the load
Anymore
Duane Kline Feb 2014
I have a friend
Who draws maps.
He makes ancient cities
New,
Replacing the boulevards of despots
With streets
And avenues
And alley ways
That free people
Travel.

There is a cartography
of the heart,
Unseen on his work,
Blue streets travelled
by remorseful lovers
Parting,
Red paths
Showing the secret trails
Used by enflamed hearts,
Searching each other
Out.

We can find our way
and be lost
at the same time-
A map only helps
If you already know
Where you
are going.
Jake Danby May 2015
Layer, lick, stick, twist, ignite.
Exhale pungent exploration,
The dark taps at my window,
Beckoning me to join it,
Great snowy mountains broken by the tectonic plates of a Barclays card,
A burning nostril feels like home,
Search, locate, press play, enjoy,
My feet find pavement,
And the pavement finds people,
Great masses of weekend warriors,
Descend on the neon boulevards,
Sour euphoria engulfed with a wince,


Wait, watch, listen, feel,
What is that surging through me,
A storm of electric emotion,
A touch from Zeus himself,
I think the DJ has changed the song,
Or was there ever a DJ to begin with?
Look, touch, embrace, lips lock on my evening Juliette,
Or will she be my Bonnie?
My Iris retreats like a turning tide,
My pupils are the night now,
And we own the night,
For tomorrow will be Sunday,
And we all have responsibilities.
Roses79 Jan 2019
Everywhere, on the sidewalks, in the gutters, right outside my door. Flourishing in the streets of Tegucigalpa, like leftover confetti from Mardi Gras. Lining the paths, nestled in the gravel, the broken concrete, and overgrown weeds. Coloring the landscape with orange and green.

Proliferating around garbage cans, discarded bottles, tires, and take out boxes, liberated to the acrid landscape around.
  
Men, cutting back the peels, devouring the tropical flesh, delectable, united to pits. Dark skin and eyes, their accents singing, so different from my own.

I stepped carefully, but always underneath, a sweet stickness, clinging to my soles. A bond to the red dirt, platanos fritos, and cattle roaming the street.

When I returned to the wide boulevards, pristine and meticulously clean, I stopped watching my feet, looking for mango peels underneath.
Shelley Jul 2014
I stare out the double-paned window
of seat 9F, overlooking this
dollhouse world.

Some things below us are only
noticeable through a ginger-ale-laced
dream perspective.

My eyes trace the geometry of the boulevards
and buildings and baseball diamonds
that appear to have been drawn from above.

The motherboard cities, with ports and control
panels that never dim, cast orders
to faceless men.

Parks and forests speckle the firework sprawl
with inky patches of greenery where electricity dies
and minds and feet can wander.

I see squid-armed lakes and coral trees,
schools of cars in an asphalt sea, full of people
who forget that anyone else exists.

The world seems so beautiful and movable,
like blocks waiting to be knocked down,
rearranged, rebuilt.

But then: rooftop angles,
sidewalk divisions. Buildings rise
and the tarmac appears.

Wings shudder and wheels strike asphalt–
a collision you can never fully brace yourself for–
jarring me back inside my own head.

And I look over to the woman beside me,
only to find her still sleep-drooling
on a half-read SkyMall.
JM Romig Mar 2010
Nobody knows the boulevards
and back roads of broken hearts
better than he who has been there
too many times and counting.
He loved to get lost in this neighborhood
practically growing up there
seeing his fair share of roads in need of repair
bridges built up and burned down
and train tracks leading everywhere
and nowhere.
Exactly where he was going
before he was distracted
by a pretty girl with a flirtatious smile
in a pink Corvette passing by.
Occasionally he’ll come to his senses
and head for the city exit
but before he’s home free
some dame, with a dangerous name convinces him to stay
and play cat and mouse.
Nobody know the boulevards
and back roads of broken hearts
like he.
and he still gets lost
in familiar territory.
Copyright © 2010 J.M. Romig. All rights reserved.- From Destination: Detour - The Mini Chapbook
Reflections of Paris this morning , for all the inhabitants of the world , especially those inspired by beautiful works of art and architecture  ! Those fortunate enough to have dined in world class eateries on cuisine prepared by Master Chefs , marveled over the downtown skyline high atop prominent monuments ! Impassioned lovers perusing her avenues , window shopping store fronts , boutiques along famous boulevards ! Senior couples recalling their yesteryears with great joy , frolicking , happy children playing in parklands , feeding songbirds with euphoria and curiosity , strolling walkways along the riverbank at Dusk with great wonderment and personal reflection  
The poet and poetess , musician and thespian , ballet dancer and street performer .. To lovers young and old , the continued hope of gaiety and splendor at every turn !
She is lovely indeed , the Queen of all that is beautiful on this Earth* ..
Copyright November 8 , 2015 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Kyle Kulseth Apr 2014
Oneida says she's out of time
for mining lies from crooked minds
and spending nights
     beneath strange blankets
street-to-street, tab at a time.

She says she's wasted years
killing hours for days on end
turning bar booths into confidants
     and neon signs to friends
She's held on for so long
     to her town, to trust, to hopes
But when her shaking hands start sweating,
          she starts
     to think of letting go.

Oneida's got the map, a tank of gas
          and miles to drive
But she won't listen to her screaming gut:
     she's played deaf her whole ******* life
She'll be swearing at the stars
while her feet trace the boulevards
and the window lights shine yellow
bathing sidewalks in question marks

     But Oneida knows these streets
          like she knows me

Oneida says she's leaving town
her last dime spent on dollars down
she's hedged her bets
     on 1st and twenty-
fifth at the depot.

She wants to hear new chimes
where new bells ring in brand new climes
turning traitors into confidants;
          acquaintances to friends
She's held tight for so long
     to each hand that dealt her wrong
But when her cards start flushing royal
          she starts
     to think she might not fold.

Oneida's got the will, a tank of gas
          and time to drive
But will she listen to her screaming gut?
          She's played deaf
          her whole ******* life
She'll be cursing at the stars
while her feet trace the boulevards
while the window lights gleam yellow
soaking sidewalks in question marks.

          But Oneida knows these streets
          like she knows me...
Jowlough Jun 2012
As rain dripped the gutters
fluidly poured over roofs
and plants and flowers
nourishing the soils
of busy boulevards
and it washes out smoke
from cars and cigars and filled cups.

killing time, waiting for you at the bus stop.

As I observed over a million buses,
go swanky in a zap,
passengers, bystanders,
vendors going loco
as the rain blew harder
it made their heads nod.

As I still wait for you here at the bus stop.

As the rain toned down
as it trembled to whispers
like gushing bits of sprinkles
and droplets but so soon they are gone,
daydreamed the possibilities,
my head's deaf and stuffed.


As I still wait for you here at the bus stop.

As the sun shined its rays,
crisp yellow diamonds
penetrate my retina nerves
telling me to wear my sunglasses
along with traffic submerged
along with a reason that it is the same plot,
and everything has changed.

As I wait for you here at the bus stop
(c) 2012 - Up against time  - jcjuatco 6.14.2012
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
Welcome Back To This, Your Isle



The rabbits beneath the deck,
Even the pesky deer who eat the shrubbery,
Sea creatures, living and spirits of the dead,
Lying on the paths and in the creeks of Silver Beach,
All inquire:

Was it better wherever you went?

Were the:

Bears, hiding in the forests outside Berlin,
Eagles, double headed, of Russia
Herring, fried, creamed, wined,
From the vendors on the docks of
Helsinki, Riga, Visby and Tallinn,
Salmon, smoked and cured in Stockholm,
More impressive,
Tastier than our striped bass,
Island cohorts of yours, who waited patiently
For their chronicler to return?

Did the Little Mermaid and her Dolphin
Guardians of the Port of Copenhagen
Welcome you more warmly than your friends,
The ospreys, lizards, turtles and owls
Who overwatch your steps and safety
When hiking in Mashomack Preserve?

Are the interlacing tidal creeks,
Woodlands, fields, salt marshes and the ragged,
Irregular but charmed coastline of this cherished island
Any lesser than those of Scandinavia?

Are the sea-going ferries that transverse the
Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland,
More poetic than the Menantic or the Lt. Joe,
Who carry you swiftly home to us?

The National Geographic people say that in
Tivoli Gardens, The Amerikaner (ha!) waffle ice cream cone
Is one of the ten best in the world.
Guessing they have not made it yet to the
Tuck Shop for some Moose Tracks!

Were you unaware that our isle settled before
Peter the Great ever envisioned creating the grand
Boulevards of his capitol, St. Petersburg,
Route 114 was a traveled forest path,
By settlers and Indians, not serfs.

Of the Treasures, the Gold Room of the Hermitage,
The Amber Room of Catherine's Palace,
Wrote not a single word, we observe.
Your attentions, they did not deserve?

The answers all, self evident.

Here, surrounded by the gentle breezes of
Long Island Sound and Gardiners Bay,
Sweet and salty flavors of the Peconic atmosphere,
Words unlocked, from your eyes to the page fall,
Smudged by joyous tears, for the muses of the island
Have embraced you yet again and rebirthed
Inspiration, within their comforting, sheltering grasp.


Silver Beach

July 22, 2012
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2020
~for Lori Jones McCaffery~

Lori Jones McCaffery commenting on
“a new time (poetry in the time of pandemic)”^
“Tender and brutal at the same time. Like the times.”*

                                                     ­          <>
your observation, a commission, opens an incision,
bleeding out a Noah flood vision:

                                                        ­        <>

when we begin, to compare and contrast the movable tender and the unstoppable brutal, the poetry must rise to equalize the pressure of unbalanced times, the tender, and the brutal in an uneasy peaceful coexistence, at the same time, same place
                                                           ­     
                              
                              
                            
The Brutal                                              The Tender
—————                                             —————
life in the epicenter, the greatest,       in the darkened bedroom,
noisiest city, now landscape               she awakens, her hand quick
painting quiet,                                      comes to rest on my chest,
one lives/writes/eyesights thru       the quality of motion+volume
pink mask + a minimum six              of heartbeats, is it loud enough,
feet of separation,                                steady on, no need to dial 911!
a citified tableau of macro wave       she unaware that I can hear
forces in crashing collision, upon     her loud, tender exhalation
your skin’s cells                                   celebrating surviving day#?

newspaper images of Death’s            many volunteer, food delivery,
ministers applauding the newly        though I am asymptomatic
arrived mobile morgues, for 100        my request tenderly, firmly
died yesterday,                                      denied, for I meet too many
their brutal death rattles                      of the vulnerable criteria,
overwhelmed  the super-surround.   instead, offering food to me,
sound silences of                                   to deliver to me, to deliver me,
brutal emptiness of millions of           tenderly I say, no thanks,
sacrificial                                             ­    my tour of duty, almost done
                              
                                all of us isolate lambs, in day jailed,
                                for we still breathing the maybe tainted,                
                                oxygen molecules of no safe surety      

a consummate perfection,                    the same, taming words I tell  
the holy quietus of                                 my son, young father,
those no longer breathing,                   tender me necessary tasks that
they now rest up above,                        require outside journeys, say I
hid in a white cumulus                         send me into the red hot areas
cloud cover, a noise suppressing         insert me into the front line,
sky coverlet, moving across a               militarized zones, he replies,
bright blue pure background,              ”you’re too old, part and
a train of funeral caissons,                     parcel of the most vulnerable,
brutal noisy hooves clacking             better-write-you tender-poems”

daily, hourly, the statistical alerts,         why so hard, to write tender
brief résumés delivered,                         so easy of the brutal, their
drumbeating, look now!                         curses so readily supplied,
are you up to date?                                  is tenderness short supplied?

catalog the debris, organized with brutal necessary efficacy, quantify, qualify the costs, include even the tender ineffable, countdown and graph the brutal calculus of the curve infection, and you, numbed, past the point of eyes capable of what once was tender droplet tearing

highlight the unknown faraway, the tender hope of a distant apex inflection, while plotting the second derivative, the rate of change of the rate of a brutal yet trending upward *****, the ascending all-inclusive stat, infected, the rate of change of decedents, downed, descending, giving in...gowned in hospital blue, for the funeral pyre

a city of lines, crosswalks, velvet ropes, unused, unemployed, social separators, no one about to need to separate, anymore, only the living and the dead, both staying indoors, so neither in attendance, at the empty funeral services, everybody is on the out list...

the now newly indistinguishable, the irresistible collision of two one-sides polarizing poles of no longer opposites, the tender and the brutal in a single embrace, but no, not kissing, embargoed, as we are stationed from above, far, high up on the watchtower observatory, observing the contrast dye that flies so fast on people denuded grand boulevards, down narrow hospital hallways, body-lined decorated, tales of millions of lives isolatized, and don’t forget the brutalizing discovery of scores of elderly, dying alone, withering in the dark, counted, lumped in to the category of statistically irrelevant, if dead, who cares, matters not now, in the afterworld no one asks how,
                        in a fashion both tenderly and brutal,
                        what was the actual cause?
Hasan Aspahani Jul 2017
THE cypress trees there translate
season into color.

A line of boulevards for guests like
me: a hungry one.

I may know what it is
they plan.

Splash and swish. Sweet. Ripples and
breezy. Lyrical.

After the song I used to remembered
and always wanted to hear.

I may know what it is
whispered the water to the wind.


When you are near me
Like a feather, I float

When I smell your fragrance
Like a breeze, I blow

I lose my balance and fall
When your hands touch me
Like dried leaves of a rustic tree

I ROFL and tumble like a child
When your humor & sarcasm touches me

My eyes roll out tears of joy
With a glance of yours

I dissolve my being into
Your breathe that I smell for days

I sleep-walk for days & nights
When I can not see or feel YOU

I walk into the flower boulevards
To steal every type of flowers & musks
To smell your mystical celestial scent

You are unfair, but your LOVE is fair to me
You often leave behind a thunder & storm in me

Over your hidden calm ocean of BLUE LOVE
I rain my LOVE like torrential downpour

With the sparkling sun in your eyes
You revolve the planet constellations
And my whole universe around YOU

You convey little but show much LOVE

When it is cloudy and when it drizzles
Soon after the rain, when YOU see
The silver lining and the rainbow

That's how I declare my LOVE for YOU

Without YOU and your essence
Without LOVING YOU
There remains no LIFE for me now...



Oberon Feb 2015
i fell asleep
to your ticking bomb
of a heart
as you run your
cold metal rings
and weak skinny hands
through my hair
drenched with midsummer rain
you warm me with
whispers of
sweet nothings
empty promises of
happy endings
and a summer home
on top of a hill
you ever so lovingly
inject my veins
with a surge of life
enveloping my flesh
heat of your being

in my dream
the bitter cold air
contrast
the undying sparks
your skin against mine
enclosed by the safety of
four sand colored walls
thirteen feet tall
and wordless exchanges of
our favourite
three-word sentence
my now empty shell
is bound to crack
the moment i look
into your eyes
my trembling hand
intertwined with yours
i silently scream
my desperate pleas

to God
who is ever so lightly
loaning you borrowed time
when angels only deserve
tomorrows made certain
eternity pronounced
forever promised
the ticking clock
a sound i came to hate
as it serves as
our sailboat
drifting us
away to
withering magnolias
trees becoming bare
on sad empty boulevards
as winter called
upon growing fear of
taking one last breath
and not taking one
at all

my consciousness struck
a runaway train
found its way to my
winding track of a mind
my head still
soundly pressed against
your ticking time bomb of a heart
the ballad of our approaching farewell
its coda drawing near
it brings me to my knees
how a dying soul
can make me feel
so **** alive
"love takes hostages. it gets inside you. it eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness."
money bags, smokestacks, white powder and heights
on bent boulevards with brutal windows
reclusive silhouette stalkers hidden just behind
red mourners on charcoal ice
window shades plume, dust and ash diffuse into
twin horned rebels with sawed off exhaust pipes
ashtray dance/\clouds hover in the dark
as she tightropes straight down into the devils heart
the mirrors that surround
are as a shroud passed down
from the heavens to alter truth
all the cracks between the blue
are here resembled
love, dearly distorted
in the absence of breath or youth
B Young Feb 2015
You sit outside on your front porch, with nothing to do but look out on
The dream
Contemplations haunt these new, dusty streets
    intersecting in your mind are regrets not easily left behind
Loving the self inflicted pain produced inside
   Get up and leave that porch
   Make a left and walk until collapse
When will the music come back
A heart attack almost welcoming
A deer in the headlights
Swerve right
Durango has a high high
height

Grips me
Grabs me
Lusts me
Locks me a POP chorus run off rails
Unspecified Undesirable Unseen
But
Understood.
U-Turn leave the
Unholy
Otherworldly siege of temptations
Judas Iscariot ascending as Icarus
Only to realize inevitably dust settles

What becomes of one with a broken compass?
Who leads who in a world of acidreaming prophecies ?
An age of false promises and dot.com **** Bellaire
Ownership
My land of the free
Your home of the Brave
New World without bees

Sweat a skip in the record
Burn what you think you should do
Listen to the ghosts inside your head
Blur… just ******* blur EVERYTHING
Become anonymous
Become famous
Drop out
Knock out Lady Luck      AHHHH ****
Because it is importantly cool not togiveafuck


Lumpy lopsided souls stand in line
Don’t drug inject fluoride Put a plug in the self deprecating whines or get back in line with a gaze of blight
Beg for pearly whites
Everything conspicuous
Everyone a conspiracy
Eat WalledoffStreet as it crumbles
Cash in
Sell out
What?

Yourself.                                                                  (Ascend)

“Cultivate” your garden *******
Not you, Him. who? Johnny Flynn the Banjo God
I will tell you without being candid. You are Candide. And No one will give you what you need

Icy desolated deserted
Macdade Boulevards across lands of death
Induce a sigh of your own breath
Whispering
Eli Eli lama Sabachthani

In deduction
Of an ethnographic construction
I’ll stay in flux
From one State frustrating
Across the lines of another contemplating
The beautiful country Delco
Far! Far … ~away~ >forever inside
krista Oct 2013
the last time i waited for life, it hit me like a car crash.
glass ground into dust, bones playing off each other like
a skeletal rockshow; i was a human kaleidoscope.
when i finally opened my eyes again, i saw clouds in
the cracks on the sidewalk, found pieces of myself
smashed into concrete like a chalk-drawing anatomy.
skin met ground easily, like it always belonged there.

life must be the hit-and-run type, because i never saw
its eyes leave the road ahead; i never even saw it look
back. accidents happen, they will say, when they find me
unfolded like a street art snow angel. and maybe they do.
but more likely, the car windows were obscured by dirt
or the roads gave up on storing rain for the springtime.

or maybe it’s just me, a permanent fixture of boulevards
that smell like regret and missed chances, trying to predict  
changing street lights like they are signals for starting over.
just another halcyon disaster zone, entertaining the collision
of twin headlights on skin, the iceberg that devoured a ship
just for declaring that it had dreams to carry across the sea.

i will never stop turning myself inside out to see if the future
is something inscribed on dna, to watch the pieces of my soul
bleed into each other like wax in a technicolored lava lamp.
i will never stop filtering life through a maze of mirrors and
colors, tilting it this way and that until i can turn the pieces
of broken glass into keys that fit the lock of an escape car.

i will never stop.
Archana Shrestha May 2015
I am having a troubled mind and a lousy way of interpreting things going on around me. Never had I in my full awareness or complete unconsciousness thought that I'd be the alibi of the devastation in the place that is home. Today, people are homeless, orphaned, deranged. They stand alone even when they are together. Like a wrecked ship in the middle of a raging sea. To call myself lucky to have survived appears to me as an insult to those whose lives were taken like an ant stomped by a kid, whose homes turned to rubble- like a war field. No wars can be as destructive as the war declared by nature and no one can stand against nature when all of us are born out of it.  Nature gives us a new sunrise every day, a single sun but always a new rise. It has given us flowers and streams, sky and stars, earth and gravity. We know not the start of these all, nor do we know when it will all end. It just goes on and on until it doesn't. What is the point in living numerous hours looking at the stars every single night, constellating each thoughts, naming each satellite if one fine weekend's morning a family of four with smiles plastered like their house's walls on their faces are to be doomed in the grave of the ruins of their safe haven? Fuss as much you do about the rainbows guiding you to a sunny morrow; keep walking the labyrinthine tunnels with hopes to see the light on the other side disguised as wider boulevards, never fully aware of the breathes we've taken -as walking in sleep. Why live a life when you know not your time to leave?
Deepest sympathy to those who lost their lives in the earthquake that hit Nepal on April 25.
serendipity Feb 2015
Take me
Bury me
With the dreams I used to believe in
You could call me naive
Cause I couldn't see
An end to this fantasy
I thought this would last
But it's gone in a flash
And I'm left with a broken melody
I wouldn't know where to start
With this broken heart
A new beginning scares me
Cause I know deep down
You won't be around
And I'll be lost in misery
What could I have done
To keep you from
Wanting to live without me?
Why is it so hard?
Sitting on this boulevard
To find a place called home?
It's not warm any more
No welcoming doors
Not a place to lay my head
You used to watch me sleep
Lost in my sheets
And I've found you in hers instead
Still editing but hate leaving things in drafts, they never go anywhere
Robert Guerrero Jul 2013
We walked on boulevards
Covered by the filth of our dreams
Always wandering off
Straying from the beaten path
You were born one year and three months after me
I was born into a disfigured family
We met when your sister watched us
We would swim our little pool
Ride our bikes and race around the apartments we lived in
I would always win
But I let you win when you smiled at me
I fell in love with you
I was told it was just puppy love
But six years later
I still loved you
We would run away
When my parents were fighting
And yours were drunk
We would walk for hours on the beach alone
We watched the soapy green tide
Wash away the sand in between our toes
It was there I stole my first kiss
Your sister found us
Sitting on the beach in silence
You couldn't stop smiling
I had a slight blush in my face
We talked everyday
Played in the sand box at our preschool
Elementary was a blast
We would read to each other
Our favorite book was a picture book
Of a black puppy
Lost in the world trying to find his bone
Finding his way home was hard
But now that we're older
I want to tell you
Our home is with each other
But my home was destroyed
While yours in slowly crumbling
That story is the story of us
The ending unfortunately isn't happy
Because I never found my bone
And you found a new home in the arms
Of your heavenly father
Sydney V Nov 2019
There is a melody that sings,
of a dream lost in time, with music
that fits the space  
that can’t be filled.
She is as real to you,  
as the wood in your hands
and at night, beyond the timbre of your guitar  
that murmurs melodies about a world
too many understand.
What once was elegant boulevards
in Madrid, are now  
a melodic strain  
of fleeting moments, trapped  
in colorless discontent.
This is an attempt at ekphrastic poetry, which I based of the X-ray version of 'The Old Guitarist" by Pablo Picasso. I highly suggest looking up this image, as it speaks differently than the one that is commonly known, and it may make the poem easier to understand.
Audrey Apr 2014
Gone.
G-O-N-E,
Four letters that represent the hurt
In me,
Cold cold rain , don't care if it don't feel so nice
When everything it touches
Is already made of ice
You left me empty,
An abandoned house on a sketchy corner,
Cracked sidewalks running down the boulevards of
My heart
Gone,
And my life ain't ever coming back.
Oh, stand me on a pedestal,
I'm made of marble, pale and smooth,
I won't break when you drop me - ha!
That's a lie, just like the tears in your eyes
When you said goodbye - gone.
Mariah Jan 2015
They'll use Martin Luther King day to sell anything from mattresses to cars.
Even he has been ripped up and replanted,
capitalized, like Christmas or Easter,
by the people who give us images of a white Jesus,
but you bet they don't pay everyone equal.
We have boulevards, schools, and libraries named after King,
but streets over, we have Confederate soldiers carved into a mountain,
we call 'em heroes, that's what I was taught,
the ones who fought, the ones who ate lead,
But, they aren't talking about who really put a bullet in Dr. King's head.
What the **** is wrong with us?
America will go see Selma in millions,
this weekend, go back home to their all white neighborhoods,
thinking about how it was bad then, but now, it's all good.
Who are we really trying to fool?
Stand up for the pledge in school
Put your hand over your heart and forget
all this country denies you
telling you that there isn't a heart of a human beating inside you
because you're gay, you're black, you're not like that,
She was a flirt, she wore a short skirt,
Every day you try to heal the hurt
Justice for all? Like are you kidding me?
There ain't such a thing here as liberty
Do you know where you stand
was Native American land?
Ripped from their bleeding hands
And don't even get me started on Iraq and Iran.
You know that mountaintop?
The one I was talking about,
Did they tell you it was a KKK meeting spot?
Bet not.
I wonder, is the clay here red from all the blood?
We hide our history,
sing promises of liberty,
say that racism ended with slavery,
and it's Stonewall Jackson, he's a hero, they say
but never speak of Stonewall Riots any day
and I'm afraid for our children and what they will learn,
in classrooms, will they be silenced?
Come here kids, let me tell you a story,
of Ferguson, New York, Hong Kong,
about how people will look back and see they were wrong,
But some never did, some died with hatred,
some died because of it,
Let me tell you about homeless LGBT youth
Let me tell you about all these issues
Let me tell you the truth
And there are different ways of seeing it,
but only one way to say it,
you and I both know,
You just have to listen for it.
(The mountain I'm talking about is Stone Mountain, Georgia, btw.)
arubybluebird Jul 2014
I remember wanting to disappear
I remember not knowing what to write
Or how to feel

I remember wanting to be a whisper
And getting lost in the dark

I thought perhaps I'd be able to find solace
In the blur of Los Angeles karoake bars
I remember wanting to get lost
In its endless boulevards

I walked as though the moon
were trying to catch up with my feet
Breathing became difficult
I was merely a shadow

I came across a billboard that read "PARE DE SUFRIR"
A few blocks over proudly stood a church of scientology
I remember wanting to forget everything I had ever learned
About religion

Promises no longer moved me
Sincerity no longer moved me
I no longer desired the knowledge of restoring hope
I wanted to be moved

I remember wanting to be a hologram
So I could be at many places at once

I remember all the words running through my body
like a marathon
I remember feeling like the sound of a siren
echoing in the distance

I remember feeling so wild
I remember feeling like nothing
I remember inhaling the night
My paper lungs drenched in syrup

I remember not feeling like myself
I remember wanting to be somebody else

I remember
More than anything
Wanting
To be
Brent Kincaid Feb 2015
ACTING OUT

Trackdown, smackdown
Hit them with the facts.
Showdown downtown.
Teach them how to act.
Outloud, outproud
Backing down no more.
Outloud our crowd
Now we know the score.

It used to be we had to
Keep quiet about it or lie.
They could even jail us
So we didn’t even try.
We changed the gender
Of lovers when we shared.
We could say we married.
Nobody even dared.

We made up these stories
About roommates we had
Wanting any more than that
Could only leave us sad.
So, we used euphemisms
Like confirmed bachelor
To create a smokescreen
For our nosy neighbors.

Trackdown, smackdown
Hit them with the facts.
Showdown downtown.
Teach them how to act.
Outloud, outproud
Backing down no more.
Outloud our crowd
Now we know the score.

Nineteen seventy
Came up suddenly
And a few million of us
Wanted to be free.
So, we hit the boulevards
And sang the marching songs.
Out of the closet, into the streets
And millions more came along.

Trackdown, smackdown
Hit them with the facts.
Showdown downtown.
Teach them how to act.
Outloud, outproud
Backing down no more.
Outloud our crowd
Now we know the score.

Brent Kincaid
6/3/2014
gay love acceptance equality pride demands freedom honesty

— The End —