She saw the world through a camera lens
And that's just how it was
With filters and Glares from strangers
Who didn't feel the sun
She took photos of the rain
And dewdrops on the grass
Of smiling warm faces
And things that were just crass
She dreamt of her pictures
Under bylines and over books
Her documents of others
Filled with stills that could speak words
She took pictures of her girl
Who was black and blue in depth
Who wanted to be colored
But her filter shown red
She captured her in pain
And in her rare bright smiles
She told her that things
"Just take a while"
She made portfolios and scrapbooks
Of their adventures and their muse
She never knew that her girl would take her life
At a quarter after two
She cried and cried weeks to days
Until the tears just stopped
When she took a photo of the rain
And felt her sadness drop
It shattered all around the floor
And she fumbled with the keys
She printed all the pictures
And posted them with ease
She scattered them around the town
Then fell down to rest
For she could feel a burden being
Lifted off her chest
she went to the school
Of the boy who had hurt her
And her girl
She stood up
She told them
"Has she finally done enough?
She ripped her skin with blades
And fasted for days.
She lit skin on fire
Just because you are liars.
Look at this picture
Do you see her
Look mister
She was beautiful
Yet you made her feel
Like she was void of zeal
You're the ones who told her what to do
And she took her own life
Just like you told her to do.
Are you happy now!
Or are you feeling blue
Are you regretting what you told her to do!"
And with a single crack
Of a baseball bat
she took a picture
Of there bodies cracked shells
As she plumbed them to hell
She saw that red filter
And she felt the pain inside
She could feel herself laugh
Mania arise
The she took one final shot
A picture with the the two
Then killed herself to rise anew
And she got her picture under bylines
And became famous for her art
For everyone loves the artist
Who kills for their art.

We've been around
We've been around
to every reach and place so common and yet never talked about
We've been around
We've been around
the streets paved with the teeth of hopeless lying underground

Watching at ley lines
Walking with flow of the crowd

Heaven is merciless with decision
You might want to scream low
and on the inside if only to provide
your stealth from the jury
Born any time it's hard to believe
with the droves in dead zones
written in bylines, that real estate is prime
but the line for our kind is off
kilter at best

Don't pity us, wager up
Just double down, and on the other side
Don't pity us,
Just double down,
Wager up and on the flip side of winning
we all have these lines to lay

You've been seen between trees broadcasting that look
It says every word that you mean to speak, expressly open book
To who live the drabbest day with the brightest faith and take your
comfort away while enduring hell on earth

We've been around
We've been around
right to the edge of blasphemy's reach and have the greatest fortunes found

In every sequel to the barstool sits an evening philosopher
chugging beer and crisps dreaming of a damsel
in distress to recue and carry over the raging waters
of a lonely evening. The froth in the next glass
confirms the frenzy of waiting patiently.

I suspect beer drinkers are adept at making plans
to snare the right woman with catchy bylines
and brisk one-liners. Mostly recycled ones work well.

How easily some evade the trap and the cobweb,
sticky as it may seem to, draw the best ****** ones
into the nectar laden larder of niceties.

They have their  own connecting sentences
which, safely guarded, like intellectual property
gets them zooming into a net of naughtiness.

Author Notes
Browsing.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You

If he’d known
The world would mourn his passing,
Would he have overdosed on ******?
How much self-love does it take
To break the habit?
Would you grab it, if you could?
I think I would.
Even kids and wife
Can’t make that change in life:
The skid, the slide,
The gliding down and down
And even more…
Until you’re on the floor,
A needle in your arm,
Unconscious of your heart’s alarm
Whispering “Stop
– or else your time is up!”

SPH, you never knew
They’d mourn your passing
As they’re doing.  
That it would cry: the bylines, headlines
Sounding, bounding, ‘round the world in living print.
If you’d been more intuitive, more self in-touch, less self-indulgent,
Drugs might have been out-of
Thought and need, thought and greed, but…
Habit feeds on thought
And you were caught.  
And so,
We throw
No stones at windows,
Even if and though
We know the world will not cry at our passing.
We’ll mourn
And learn.

Seymour Phillip Hoffman: The World Is Crying For You 2.3.2014
Special People, Special Occasions; Small Stories Book; Birth, Death & In Between II;
Arlene Corwin
  



https://arlenecorwinpoetry.com/2017/02/03/seymour-phillip-hoffman-the-world-is-crying-for-you/

Read all about it in the bylines
they don't make headlines
like the benefit scroungers,
I'm talking hard times,the sign of the times, times,
them on the street with nothing but time
and there's nothing like time for
saying it is time and squashing you up like
you've ****** on a fresh lime.
I'm looking at legs on page three
wishing that gal was with me
but I'm under a tree in the park,onto
page four,they're talking a war
what's it all for?
For old times sake
I take the paper for a pillow upon which I'll lay my head and tomorrow I may be dead or be eating bread and butter in the gutter with Frank and Sally,she's a ****** but that's not relevant,nothing is,
not even the headlines,
when you're living and dying and falling on hard times.

Sing

I plead with you not to speak except to break the air and sing
Bring forth the heart that is listening
Dutiful to your passion, fulfilled, holding aloft that which can never be still;
The jagged heartbreak, the quavering schill calling plaintively, "Are you coming for me?"
...
"Are you coming back for me?"

And you reject the old bylines, criticisms, cataclysms of popular opinion
Noise buzzing within you turns to vibration
And you know
I have always been here

X
X
X
X
X

Grasp that which they say cannot be held
And continue as if no one is watching

Hail the laborers at the mill, hail the jokers with witless tastes
I ain't going to work on any ordinary farm, of the ordinance and well-ordained
They sabotaged lifts and all walked but nothing was gained
They huffed and puffed and blew themselves to absurdity
They planned and plotted only to see boredom engulf the crowd
Ne'er to do the foot-slog, ours is to laugh at the Wigan pier
What is idle rest, I laid my hay long ago and made my peace
With the catatonic curses, and scatological invective

If the mill laborers know what I know
They will see wasters working hard to make more waste
For theirs is to work and fret, berate each other and work
From birth till death to ghosts already remembered
Above the antique mantel
An educated mind would entertain the thought of numinous reminiscing
An excellent habit, to focus at the elephant that cumbered the room
The dearth feeling that was filled with scarcity, memoirs lay strewn

Like the law and edicts, that flustered the mind
Clinton and his economics liberalized my mind, but, piqued the market
I read these in papers of the age of dying punk, and gregarious bylines
Witty writers pen their names in bold, on pen and paper meant for the literate
A kind spirit lies in the artist within
Reminders and unneutered plants are willfully disregarded, with the milk untouched
Spiritualism is stolen from my doorstep, sold to ragamuffins and rapscallions

Exchanged for the dream of more reading, with an understanding of the antiquated climate
Dostoyevsky, a small-time Russian who stole the hearts of many, living by his word
Told us of crime and punishment, with a large intelligence and deep heart
The darker the night brighter the stars
In the empty sky, I offered my confusion
Failure is not our punishment for laziness, its other people’s success
It’s our hunger that floats on the surface of other’s hatred, more like oil and water
Russia was a bed of gelid ice, unable to tell the approximated difference
I make approximated decisions with calculated assumptions, and all my dreams turn to ashes
Years past, and this knowledge brought me peace in my last try at catching the sky
Catching falling stars, and preserving nature
Some poets of the fall, prefer the winds of change instead of sprig icicles of spring lust

skin broke
bone cracked at an angle
you watch thoughtfully as my arm bends
and i'm still feeling thankful.
your eyes hold tight, and steady
my ears are thumping with a tremor
this isn't a one time error
this is merely an example.

i'll just push on through
cause what else can i do
pretend i saw the lightning-strike
turn hard around a sycamore
i'll meet you soon at
lover's lane, for a quarrel.

i'm holding down but there's no
ground game left
the sky is tossing and turning and
i saw the lightning bend
around a sycamore, i think
i can't feel my teeth
am i doing this right?

adrenaline
burnt by bylines
takes my mind to the moon and back
fears giving way to days
dripping like years
shove a fist in my death-crammed jaw
pray to wake up safely
ignore the crack in the sky
pray to wake up safely

something nice about a day job
to get away from it all
something about long sleeves that are
nice enough to cover yesterday
but i can still hear the thunder slapping
with my busted ears.