De-winged and flightless
         is the dragonfly
              that tried to slip by
                       in my slipstream,
It found instead the pickup
          traversing the alleyways
               of my convoluted imagination.
I don’t know why I’m driving,
          ever driving someplace
                unrealized and unexplored.
I feel so disconnected,
I feel so disrespected by the world
                sometimes
But that’s not fair
           it has been good to me.
I feel so disconnected
        sometimes
and yet it comes in times
           when I’m most consumed
                most surrounded.
Maybe I’m just tired
        and the walls around me quiver only
from the struggles of my waking eyes,
Maybe I’m just bitter
        that I can’t have the perfect life
                 and feel as if nothing could be better,
Maybe I’m affected
        by this liquid life I’m draining from my cup
                 in hopes of finding a different day
                                            at the bottom.
Is it jealousy that lingers in my mind
        or mere longing tinged with a heavy
                 dose of confusion?
I am confused.
And yet I’m still alive
        unlike my dragonfly
                  and so I stumble onward.

-*BRD

By Arcassin B. & Pretty Brd


AB: I was raised to not hurt a woman on any circumstances
Even asserting myself as dominant and setting boundaries for
The both of us,
It comes with trust,
PB: Unity draws lines together, in lieu of that, I'm left nonplussed

PB: For equal, we walk hand in hand Building a life with shards
of love and strands of hope Shaping a future,
we two,
together,
AB: aiming to see a couple like us fly , don't cut our feathers,

AB: whispering but not talking at all, only to your soul and
Your mind to a depth and an abyss of a broken past between us
Don't mean a thing,
PB: Echoes of the the mockingbird sing,

PB: Reflections of rubble forged into bricks A foundation
greater than the pieces of we On which the house of love was built,
AB: I've loved you since my great depression and when your time
Stood still.

Okay Brdies
Flap your wings and repeat after me:

I pledge to never leave a Brd behind:

♥ if you need a shoulder
♥ if you need an ear
♥ if you need to vent
♥ in times of fear
♥ if you need understanding
♥ if you need a friend
♥ if you think you need advice +
♥ if you're on the mend
♥ if there's any trouble
♥ if you're in a bind
♥ if you've gone all cuckoo and lost your mind
♥ if your soul needs healing
♥ if you're a moody mess ++
♥ if you need SHOPPING to heal your stress
♥ if you feel alone
♥ if you're out of sorts
♥ if you need a laugh we're all good sports
♥ if you have writer's block
♥ if you need distracting
♥ if you need a break we'll escape through crafting+++

Now we Brds are bound in honor
With a heart of a poet to guide our flights
Never again in isolation
The Flock is here with great delight :)

Dear PrttyBrd

I read your poetry specifically your poem " I saw the words" and I thought it was so amazing. I have spent days analyzing and reveling in your words when I have had free time. All of the contrasting ideas flowed so perfectly and created such an amazing image. Personally I love how you used such different emotions and ideas and brought them together in each stanza with " I saw the words on a page". Your words have inspired me to feature your poetry on the dear blank challenge and I sincerely hope more people will read your poems.

I saw the words on a page
And read their joy
Their hope
Their heart

I saw the words on a page
And it ripped my world apart

These two stanza are incredibly well written. To me they show the power that words can have and how simitaniously a few words can give both hope and joy and yet destroy your world. These stanzas give amazing description in their few words and are very powerful representations of the power poetry or words have over people.

I saw the words on a page
Penned before my heart was yours

I saw the words on a page
Of how your love for her endures

These two short lines portray more than a paragraph could! They leave the meaning and exact emotions secret to you ( PrttyBrd) and allow a sense of mystery for the reader and yet at the same time I felt a sense of imagery reading this as if I were there reading these words. To me it portrayed longing and unrequited love and yet the beauty is that it may be different for everyone.

I saw the words on a page
Kept with all your special things

As a poet words are so incredibly special to me, they mean hate, love, longing or sorrow. And so words are one of my most special things. Even if words are not as important to someone reading this this stanza is incredibly unique. You hold the image together by stating it is about words yet you never mention what these words are allowing the reader to form their own interpretation which makes this poems every sentence that much more special and personal to all of us.

I saw the words on a page
Read dreams of wedding rings

I saw the words on a page
Of a dream you never spoke

I saw the words on a page
They made my own begin to choke

I tried and tried to think up something to write for these stanzas. Of the incredible emotions, the metaphors and illusions, the personification and language and nothing I wrote could give it justice and so all I can say is that it is absolutely fantastic!

I saw the words on a page
Of a time when love was true

This stanza adds even further to the exquisite mystery of what these words might me, who they talk about ect. To you Prtty Brd they may be a character of imagination, or a memory re-lived, but the fact that you keep that keep this rather than frustrate me, made it that much more perfect. Of a time when love was true is also such a powerful line as it adds to memory and has the reader think back or imagine a time of true love, a simpler time that we all yearn for.

I saw the words on a page
And read what she means to you

I saw the words on a page
You claim love never dies

I saw the words on a page
Now I see it in your eyes

This is an absolutely stunning few stanzas and I could go on for hours about what this means to me and how I interpret it but I would hate to have others read it with my views in mind and I would much rather prefer they learn the meaning for themselves. What I will talk about is the last stanza ...now I see it in your eyes" to me this is such a perfect representation of when you suddenly learn something and you realize it was their all along. For example if you learn someone loves someone, after you learn this you can remember all the times they looked with longing and you wonder how you never saw it before. Maybe that's just me though. Either way I found this revaltion in your poems and the fact that it connected what to me are so common emotions to things not as common such as. "And read what she means to you" a wonderful contrast

I saw the words on a page
You know my hearts allure

It can be scary and terrifying to open your heart to another and to open your darkest secrets and allures to someone because I matter what there is always the fear that they might tell, or hate, or judge, or fear you. Therefore I commend your bravery dear PrttyBrd if this is a true memory.

I saw the words on a page
I know that she holds yours

I saw the words on a page
I see what you can't deny

I saw the words on a page
Your love for me belied

It can be hard when someone loves another and refuses to love you despite your emotions towards them which is what I feel this is about. But you managed to create these intricate emotions in but a few words, and I find it hard to explain but somehow you managed to create this while at the same time not outright stating it, leaving it open to opinion. So perfect!

I saw the words on a page
And read their joy
Their hope
Their heart

I saw the words on a page
And it ripped my world apart

These are the same two stanzas at the beginning, (though since you wrote this clearly you knew that) anyway I thought that it was perfect way to wrap up the poem. It tied everything back together into your original view and brought back our original interpretations. Though these words are the same they are at the same time shockingly different. Now that we have seen all the words and emotions. We are changed by your poem and our original impressions are changed as we attempt to figure out what the "words" were.

I saw the words

Perfect! This simple line was such a plain, yet creatively unique way to end a fanspectierfectical poem. That's right, it's not a spelling mistake, I loved your poem so much it needed its own word to explain how outstounding it was. Thank you PrttyBrd.

Teardrop                                                         ­       
                                                                ­  that
                                                                ­beauty
                                                          sits inside the
                                                     tears - sweat, sliding
                                                  down  your skin - slowly
                                               dripping  down  to fall where  
                                          memories lie awaiting - the smallest
                                        ripple  on  a  pond - a  wave  so  subtly
                                      starting - the  faintest  tingle  whimpering
                                  for  its life’s exasperation - wants some  simple
                                recognition, a tiny touch of reckoning - shed that  
                              drop  that  comes  to  cause­  the  wave’s  unbridled
                            movement - be  the   pin’s   undying  call  in   a   room
                          plush packed in silence - that  saline  drip on weathered
                           floors   that  saw  this  life  worth  making - gives  this
                               road   a  worthy  end,  or  bend  since  path’s  are
                                wending - ride  the  bead  that  singing  tells, the
                                    ticking,  tocking  resilienc­e - the  glistening
                                        few that beating drum - through shine,
                                                with  ligh­t,  the  spectrum.
                                              ­                - *BRD

A thick mist twists about my childhood,
when it all seemed so much simpler.

Mammoth butterflies tickle
my imagination, I sit and wonder
at the minute grains of sand
cascading from my palms,
the naïve pleasure it once rendered.

These men are chasing dreams
on the backs of butterflies.

Soft driven airstrips blow away,
I have little expectation left to fly.

My mother used to tell me
I could do anything I wanted,
I would sign my name on the clouds
but I have no strength left to leave the ground,
time has left me reaching.

My sand has dwindled.
The butterflies have drifted away.

-*BRD

Just because the rose beats our blood,
Why does the violet come second?

I’m sure the lizard loves it warmer
Cold. His heart flies in a square, blue box.

They should sacrifice blue ribbons in
Stead. Martyrdom looks clean, sans crimson,

Sans blood at all, then we’re murdering
Statues, already dead, beaten me-

Tal, standing without legs or organs.
Sheba, just part of the whole shebang,

You look so depleted, staunchly there,
Staunchly not, and somehow I wonder

Whether you’d like the b or the a
Better, or nursery rhymes at all.

-BRD

Start with:
        Airway, Breathing, Circulation,
        easy as ABC
they said.
        Perhaps they meant
                clear my throat,
                         slow my breathing,
                                        check my pulse.
                              I could have used
                 the advice, but
        there wasn’t time,
for him.
        Perhaps,   no.
               His pleading eyes
               will not fade in time,
                             and his sand soiled body’s
               last electric leap
        seems to hover
        still longer
        with each
        repetition.
        His blue lips
        still murmur
        words
        to me
        from the
        water.

-*BRD

I am just paper,
Space, ink, and words,
But you are a dewdrop
Dangling from her stem,
It looks different through you,
A refracted beam
A density of color unknown and indecipherable,
Like a dried leaf in the wind
Move me,
I am a wispy imitation,
Blown by you, Zephyr
Take me.

Tears all dried and salty
I am uninspired
But you are rain,
Pitter-patter and replenish.
Puddle-up and reservoir
I’ll need you.

A page above tonguing flame,
I curl and crumble,
Make myth of me,
Give me grace to rise
And ask the night for morning.

-*BRD

At my feet are strewn the boxes,
filled and unfilled, waiting
for their cargo to be packed down,
the coarse rustle of newspaper
helps to drown the sounds
of my beleaguered thoughts.

These lingering thoughts
mate with memories in my boxes,
but soon the sounds
are filed away, and I’m waiting
for the next newspaper
to cover them, push them down.

Here it says a dog was put down
after running away from... my thoughts
are arguing again, the newspaper
tries me keep going with my boxes.
Don’t keep her waiting,
she gets like this, the huffing sounds,

her impatient, ruffled countenance sounds
an alarm, keep my head down,
but I can’t carry on waiting
for a place to settle my thoughts,
it’s nothing but boxes
for me, one for every newspaper.

Sometimes I feel like a newspaper,
scattered, and full of the sounds
and lives of many places, in long
rectangular boxes
on page two, continued on page four, no one point
to nail me down,
I’m lost until I find my own, thoughts
will get me nowhere, stop waiting.

But she’s been forever waiting
on me, I am her only news, paper-
less and live, her thoughts
are always with me.
In her every promise, the sounds
of beginnings and settling down,
traveling with me and my boxes.

Every newspaper-sheathed move, sounds
of uprooting, thoughts of stripping down,
she keeps it waiting in boxes.

-*BRD

I.
The humdrum whitewashed wall of my balcony
overlooks almost everyone here,
but it’s yellowed in the slightly
past-the-season holiday lights
winking behind my back.
Rip them out, and yet
the still flaming cigarette butts alight
the charred pupils watching.
Never quite willed away.

II.
Today I saw a hairy upper-ankle poking
out from a tie-dye dress
and out-of-fashion Birkenstocks.
Adam leering through
the straightened golden curtains,
and I thought: woman? No.
You wouldn’t catch me out like that.

III.
The end of my mug’s looming
and only now am I confident
in passing personal judgment.
The last drops smile while they cling
resolutely to the inner-rim.
How they refuse to fall!
The sprightly demon climbing
the wet, ridged inner-walls
of my throat is parched,
strumming on my vocal chords,
and I’m singing,
obscenely.

IV.
You can’t come into my house
before I’ve cleaned it up,
flipped the cushions, hidden
all the plastic cups and washed
the clear ones to look like glass.
I’ve gotta Lysol, Clear-ox, and detox,
then I’ll let you in, maybe.

V.
My balcony knows too much about me.


-BRD

Copyright @2012 by Ben Davies

Incomprehensible blankness screams
at my feeble marks that tumble
clumsily onward, undaunted.

I feel as if my world was plunged
under a hundred waves,
And all I hear is the muffled roar
in the ocean’s unfaltering rhythm,
All I see is the bubbling gleam
of a million unattainable breaths,
I’m drowning.

I’m drowning in dark, engulfing haze,
The muddled thoughts of teenage
Days, spent wandering after acceptance.

There are times I float. unseen,
The narrowing ledge
atop my day that’s packed
in the distraction of
endless possibilities.
I hide on it.

I cannot discern the voices
that guide my fingers with their visions,
Perhaps I’m better off alone
the chasm in my head,
I hear only that rhythm, the beating, a cadence,
I write to it.

-*BRD

A wraith in Monday’s spoon,
I’m pale to start again,
Winter’s dark in day lit June,
I’m maimed by blackened game.  

My skin so deeply grooved
With days of gritted muck,
I forget the face I wore in youth
On such temporal crutch.

With lonely else but waiting,
I’ve yet the time to count,
Eighty-eight in lines remaining,
As the bright of day, dims out.  

-BRD

Dear K,

I’m broken
With a half-empty toast rack and extra jelly,
Unground coffee beans and our unwashed dishes,
I woke to a cold pillow, but no amount of caffeine
Wakes your absence to my expectant lips.
I wandered down with the falling drops
From my tributary lashes,
Wondered why these pearls should dive
So much deeper than it seemed they might
When you said we’d be better off,
You’d be better off, alone.

I shook with clammy hands and nervous glances,
It should have been a sign of things to come,
Briefly entranced for brief romances.

With nothing to be clammy for, anymore,
I sit in the desert dry of unaccompanied rhythm,
Like these notes were begging to be written,
Written because I’ve no other river
Through which my thoughts meander so comfortably,
But stop, I know you’ve no desire to hear about
My breakfast, my day
   I linger.

-BRD