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Terry O'Leary Mar 2016
The typewriters tap,
with a rat-a-tat-tat,
like a fourth estate rap
to provide us the pap
(that serves as a snack with a rat-a-tat-tat)
in a newspaper scrap
crammed with meaningless crap
from the editor's yap
(spewing flimflamy flak, booming rat-a-tat-tat)
after gashing a gap
in the daily recap
with a snip in a snap-
sounding thundery clap
crackng rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat.

And the talking heads speak
with a rat-a-tat-tat,
of the news of the week,
tweaking tongue in the cheek
(with a click and a clack like a rat-a-tat-tat),
thus ignoring critique
'cause they're mild and too meek
in the midst of the reek
to report of the wrack (except rat-a-tat-tat)
whilst the pundits (oblique
when protecting the chic
of the upper class clique
at the top of the peak)
chatter rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat.

The NRA ghouls
plug a rat-a-tat-tat
while their blood money tools
fill the Hill’s vestibules
(where deceit behind drapes drips a rat-a-tat-tat),
spreading folly that fuels
frenzied hands of young fools
bringing guns into schools
(at the drop of a hat there's a rat-a-tat-tat
splashing blood in warm pools)
for now anarchy rules
(which the hype ridicules
'til the temperature cools)
hailing rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat.

Lawless cops, cutting loose
with a rat-a-tat-tat
spraying bullets profuse
without any excuse
(just a split second splat with a rat-a-tat-tat),
splay a rattled recluse
like a Thanksgiving goose
gushing cranberry juice
from six slugs in the back (with a rat-a-tat-tat).
To redress such abuse,
bend the branch of a spruce
with a neck in a noose
while Death's drums beat diffuse’
rolling rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat.

War brings freedom to all
with a rat-a-tat-tat
(well, excluding the thrall
with fear, facing the wall
[ often smacked with a bat, throbbing rat-a-tat-tat ],
until feeling the call
to creep out of the kraal
biting back with a gall
[ with a *** for a tat and a rat-a-tat-tat ],
or to mangle and maul
if still able to crawl
and be part of the brawl
in a freak free-for-all,
midst a rat-a-tat-tat and a rat-a-tat-tat).

Holy warmongers praise,
with a rat-a-tat-tat,
any soldier that slays
and all rockets that raze
(the drones zoom with a vroom and a rat-a-tat-tat)
leaving smoky arrays
of gray ghosts in the haze
cloaking mute cabarets
(hushed, the hip and the hop, by the rat-a-tat-tat)
while ol’ Cerberus bays
with mankind in his gaze,
so society prays  
as it rots and decays
(Satan's trumpets of doom blare a rat-a-tat-tat)
until one of these days
in a flash through the maze
mighty mushrooms will blaze
with invisible  rays,
fin’lly braising the craze
of the rat-a-tat-tat,
   and the
            rat-
                 a-
                    tat-
                          tat.
Martin Narrod Apr 2014
I remember you like a famous brachiosaur, ensconced in the terrible street lamps of west county apartment block row. That swaying bronze gate to your three flat two room apartment. Skinny legs for the couch, the backroom bedroom, and the bunk beds in the master suite. We studded me for excellent squeeze; one trident pull switching time against a baited lock. "I'll swallow you whole," you brushed off into my ear while I passed your cheek with my lips, braising your skin with dew drops of our rushes and sweat. Even for April this was alright. Your brother had already moved out, and listening to Hall and Oates and going fishing was all you wanted to do. So I made us two root beer floats with Almond Milk ice cream, and settled into you for five hours and forty-five minutes. It was before 5:00a.m. when you turned to the night and spilled the last ounces of your naked body out to me beneath the satin sheets. I pressed my lips hard against your nose and whispered I'd be leaving soon. Still I do not recall if I woke you when I left, but I remember that next day when you questioned if I had.
Written for Elizabeth Huff
My tireless candles grow shorter still and yet they burn
Waiting for a gaze from skies so blue
Every joy of life slowly comes in a form which turns
From tears into heartfelt lighted views

Dreaming within a ring of doubts, yet thinking not
I sleep at last while my candles burn
The faintest flush begins blooming flaming hot
For the joy of life for which I yearn

In a land blotted out of the things time is haunting
My tireless candles burn ceaselessly
While every joy of life comes in the gaze
They are awaiting
I still dream as they flicker next to me

My tireless candles grow shorter still, from my dreams I wake
To hear my name braising within their flame
Every joy of life for which I yearn
I awake to take
Outside the ring of doubts
That called my name
Copyright *Neva Flores @2010
Isilwen Grier Oct 2012
This is enough.           1
The water, a dark, cold river,    
will hold me underneath it.     3

I've boastful thoughts, "I'll be delivered,"
while floating down.              5

I'm a worn raft, broken off of a boat.      
You cannot hold unto me.             7

My wrenched, sadness, could pull
everyone; anyone, from above,                   9
into the cold.

No, I'll think nothing above the blinding surface.   11

Waves come from below the surface.
But, they seem swallow the sickness,      13
and cure me, free me, "finally."

But, can the sea hold my melancholy?      15
The waves roll, fast away, driving pain away
There is no deliverance, from the land, for this man.            17

Please, push me under, so that this is enough.   18

Now, I'm a fish.
In the blue world.          20

"I mean, I can breath!"         
Beneath the red, scorching land.   22

But, with a broken fin, 
and a heavy body,               24
It seems I cannot hold me, my fury

And, I was once a man, hurting, and tired.   
But, I was once whole, soaking up the sun.       27
I stood upright, but I began
to die in the heat.                 29

That is why this is enough.        30
A wave, a fish, a man in a dark river.
I'll show you what I'd be:  
drowned and wretched,

a raft,                  34
that pulled me under,
a wave
that made me flounder,    37
and now, a man 
beneath the surface.     38

The ocean. It's flow will hold me, 
this dark inside me...
"This is enough."           42

I will sink don't try 
to raise me.             45
Don't send something, 
like a burning rope out    47
to save me.          

The cold sea current is what becomes of me.
Sinking down to get away,        49
a fish is meant to die this way.

Don't hold me, in the heated hell      51
of the sun.                         

Don't hunt or raise a drowned man.  53

Don't burn a pyre, or bury me in the sand.  
I'm delivered from sitting in the,          55
braising day, hurting in the sun.

The water in this vast blue ocean, that is enough.  57
Left Foot Poet Jul 2014
they came around
this early morn,
asking for you
they always do,
check in regular,
especial in the now
disharmonious waking times,
ever since you checked out

a different path,
your own,
wanted a kitchen
with no His aprons,
where you were
chief chef,
braising simmering, shucking
of your own choosing,
and the cooking accessories
were yours, initialed,
so you stated

in your
'so short, so long' note,^
a trifling amuse-bouche,
for me to consume,
for you,
to be amused by...

so long,
now soloing,
duo thing wasn't working,
two sopranos,
in one kitchen
trying to out
high note each other,
a creatively strange way to say
I love you but,
I am Top Chef

thus is the human way,
to err for what we want,
to err for what we had,
err for what we now need
and the long and the short of it,
long for...

the smell of your voice,
the song of thy fresh creations,
wafting, enticing and now
in hind-sighting,
mesmerizing me awake from
loving bed to contested kitchen

now I only sing and cook professionally

which is another word for mechanically

the voice,
thine cooking smells,
cinnamon and cardamon
that resided in our skins,
check in,
looking for refreshment,
have none to offer....
ever since,
we were
so short, so long...
I loved you, I sang  for you,
I cooked us into everything,
but it was not never enough.

A short note, to say so long....
8:06am  Sunday
Adellebee Jan 2014
I am feeling more and more hopeless; the things I work for seem to be slipping,
I cannot remember the last time I was stress free, or smiled without force
Baking and braising seem to have become some of the only words I can muster
Whipping and traying are the only things I can get too
I have forgotten what it is like to achieve a dream: dreamt


At least I still have the power of solace, and the memory of time
The death of my childhood, and the birth of responsibility
I have become something my mother is proud of, and my father disowned
Empty spaces within the fridge magnets of lands afar,
The farther away, the closer to home,
Its slipping, life, loss, lust, its falling

Nothing to show for the things have done,
Killing myself and a hold over my lungs
I stopped eating when it slows me down
Shut my eyes, the doors are closed
Third Eye Candy Dec 2020
braising photons on the bone
a plump star rotisserie
in the palm of my begging bowl
at the hearth of an eye
with all the chambers
of sunset
with a Phoenix
Mind.
Sequoia Sawyer Mar 2016
Seraph and Ephedrine*
     or *colliding, and by ash


Blond rain, hot, braising a brunette burn.
The stage was taking turns when she turned up
beneath me; meek petite, turned out to be
a wishing well while I adored the ring-
song of another southern belle. "Fall in,"
our notes implored to me and I, delighted, did.

She astride, we twisted up in splendid
flow, the baby blue's and sultry auburn's
nightly sojourns. Tucked unknown inside
her chest's soft comfort, lazing, I'd wake up
and glow. Two autumn lovers racing spring's
escaping tide, colliding, and by ash besnowed.

Scottsdale found me prey in unbecoming
news of winter crimes. I learned of didoes,
sickening grit, soirees of summer scoring
lines and picking pits and nursing burns
and being crooked all the time. Upside-
downing and dying, still, I bided her decline.

Bushy tailed and bright eyed, I entertained
elides not all bright white inside. I climbed
Sioux Falls and foraged for seduction. Lit up
and afflicted? Fix: a sick and sordid
sort of wickedness, a Pyrrhic forfeit's burnishing
reduction. Spurred, I galvanized, ceased her ringside

and matured. I'd drift immersed in suffering,
so, and surface shown not shore or certain
earthen berm; soon I earned my sideburns,
emerging taciturn, eternally, to her. Beckons
chirped at first, then mewed, then roared, candid
advents went ignored, an epoch couped

with cruel and sober sword. I suppose
the years assuaged the ache enough to wring
my rage awake and tough; seeing the iodide
wraith herself, withered and rough and raked in
such concern, she saw me unperturbed
because I finally wasn't shamed how things had burned.

I was always proud of her suffering; her ruin in bedlam by design,
but burned-up notes and buried bedding didn't seem so tragic at the time.
I'm always seeking crituque.

This is a sestina that I've been working on for 10 years. It's still far from any good, I think; but I like it more every time I revisit it.
Left Foot Poet Mar 2020
<>

she raw whispered, edginess deep in her throat,
combo of delighted annoyance coated in
wary weariness of she-wanted-wonder,
what he wants that I can keep/take?

my untold secrets he knows how?
needy aches unsatisfied uncovering,
his knowings creates unfamiliar needs,
accentuates secretions of secrets discovering

did not ask for revelations without no resolution,
how dare he tense me in private places hid,
my properties aren’t his, my neck, eyes,
tonguing my senses is crazy senseless

this schema, this tracing of a figurine,
braising my body in his, its own sauces,
while perfume of mine unrequested are mined,
taken away in railway cars to his treasure houses

left utterly gagging and gasping
to hell with him, unbounded gone,
to heaven by him, I went bounding up,
giving me that everything I never desired

but only knew him as the my-mysterious,
tales unwritten yet tensed in the familiar,
poems elucidating, all that I didn’t
write, knew,  but never uttered


now, now! all are freely spoke aloud,
outed, foundering, highlighted and now
decomposing me, I’m honestly betrayed by
what he calls the sense, the knowing of the unknown





Friday, March 6th, Twenty Twenty,
2:47am
Gigi Feb 2020
There was something so melancholy in the way she stood there, sun rising behind her  bedroom window
as she carried the trash of yesterday and let it way heavily upon the metal beams of her heart
How the weight of the past and the humdrum of her every day routine, carried her like a rusted crane would a large sack of bricks
And so I watched her mesmerized from the small and narrow space between my eyelids and my dreams
A brown eyed girl, heavy and hurt
I watched how she wrapped her wet hair in a scarf and scrambled out for the subway with a protein bar
I then waited patiently for her to come home and watched how she fidgeted with the keys
And when she finally got the door open, she threw her heavy bag down
I watched how her dinner, as she cooked it seemed to melt onto her solemn face, braising her forehead like burning hot coals
I saw how she then went to her room, laid her hefty head down on her pillow, for yet a fraction of a second, to release her mind from all the heaviness, and cried tears of grey cement
Tears that quickly rushed downward and inward and hardened onto the patchwork once known as her heart
And as she remembered the food cooking on the stove, she ****** her head up, brushed off the remnants of her cemented tears; naming herself a ruthless criminal for ever feeling at all.
I then watched as though she tried to lift herself up, she could barely move as she stumbled over the boulders of yesterday and across the collapsing bridges of years before 
No matter how hard the sun would shine and no matter how many birds chirped songs of the future,
Everyday added just a little more weight, another half a pound of regret, a couple ounces of misery, boulders of abuse and bricks of insecurities
And as her grief hardened into stones; stitched into the seams of her pockets and as her anger stuck to her heart like a bunch of neodymian magnets,
she became a prisoner, cemented into her past and bound by the iron chains of fate
Left there, so terribly hard and heavy, to live together with the grief and mistrust, to neighbor the heartbreak and to commit all the rage into her wretched soul
I watched her constantly, from her tired Monday mornings to her even lonelier Saturday nights
And she slowly become apart of me, clutching onto her past for dear life, in a world full of such infinite freedom
I dreamt so many dreams for her, lived so many times her beautiful life, cried her tears, feared her fears, and ate away her deathly misery
Until I couldn’t bear to watch it any longer and I yelled a desperate yell at her from the space between my eyelids and my dreams
A yell that shocked her so much that she tumbled out of her doorway right beneath the rising sun of dawn, which slowly saturated her heart and melted away some of the misery
And after days of laying in bed, carrying the weight of the angel death on her shoulders, she picked herself up and ran
Out of her foggy apartment, across the rock solid city streets
And as she ran the small broken pieces of the past began to loosen and fall from the hinges of her bruised shoulders
The faster she went, the faster it got ripped off by the harsh and yet beautiful autumn winds
All those false hearts and broken vows, the iron chains of hatred and the bindings of regret, all loosened up just  a little and then crashed boomed onto the harsh pieces of cement that made up the sidewalk
She as if grew wings, beautiful angelic ones that lifted her off her feet into a beautiful dance, which only the bluebirds of paradise could one day mimic
And she frolicked throughout the traffic and amongst the song of the winds, with her cheeks colored pink from the rays of sun that gently kissed her soft skin
Her body and mind became one, allowing her to embrace her vulnerabilities and only once she had that unity, could she begin to feel at all
And so she stood there, like a goddess, her heart pulsing poetry and illuminating a strong light, a light so harsh that it blinded me
And when I opened my eyes, I woke up from my dream and stared back at her and she stared back at me
And I was startled to find myself looking at a familiar face
Brown eyed, brown hair, and a subtle smile

— The End —