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Sue Dunhym Apr 2011
Grounds of caffeine and capsaicin
Surround my feet.
Tiny specks spilt
From a nonchalant cupboard.
Effective, yet useless
Down by me feet.

Gather the specks
And boil the concoction!
Mix the beverage
And pour it into a cup!
Drink, *******, drink!

How morose. How macabre.
The dog has moved to another tree.
The ***** merely ignores it. Rejects it.
Give a visage of violence.
It’s alright now, you’re safe.

She calls again.
You answer.
The tree is not the tree.
But a special tree.
A sip, a sip, take another sip.

Gulp it and see.
See the busy bumblebee,
And the ascending anathema
And the cacophanous ****.
It is all beautiful. Ambiguous. Curious.

How odd, the drink I consume.
And there you stand. Oblivious to me.
I call and you turn, briefly.
Are you a ghost? Angel? Demon?
I don’t know.
But you begin to blur.
It cannot be stopped.
I will miss you.

Grounds of caffeine and capsaicin:
What a beverage. What a drink.
No bricks. No lemons.
Just my serendipitous spill.
If only I had
Grounds of capsaicin and caffeine.
copyright of TP Flusk
Ryan Bowdish Jul 2024
Crystal clarity at a cacophanous volume
Like decibel demons devouring depression,
Deep sobs drowned by Cranberries...
Yes, I have to let it linger...
Just a little longer.

The rug really tied the room together, did it not?
Its wool surface flays my face
As the smears of tears clear my cheeks
And vault from my visage,
The only human touch I feel now flying,
Cascading carelessly, silent and apathetic,
To smash in this rug, breaking a house broken home...

All lost,
"Like tears in rain,"
Blown away by the cymbal crash
The strumming of strings,
Screaming of someone's sandcastles
Swept away by shoreline showers,
Scraped from the shivers of my spine
Sloped like a summer puddle of slime,
Contorted like circus freaks...
You made a snail of me
No.
A slug (a happy home was my shell)

And now
If I were to curdle my blood
And destroy my lungs
There would be no shockwave
No sudden surrender of shame
Only stories scratched out
Severing slumber from my soul

And in the end,
The stereo is my lover.
Low ends learning my loneliness
Mids melting away my murdered marriage
Highs heaving with my heartbreak

It's good to be here.
No one can hear me shriek.
Not even me.
An electric wave
Of inescapable laughter
And unwavering nostalgia---
Something like love, but all-encompassing---
For all the people I've ever met,
Who have ever hurt me, and who I hurt,
Becomes the only visceral truth
That shines in front of me like
A sunset, in endless empty fields.

This is the cumulative impact
Of meeting a personified tsunami.
A woman I have never seen
And barely heard,
But who has made me feel more alive
Than so many of the cacophanous,
Immeasurable, conflagrative, relentless
Chaotic blends of memories
Drowned by self abuse and the
Scrambling power of years,
So untrustworthy, like a picture you stare at
Through tears.
Impressionism and abstract mania
Have assembled the puzzle of experience
That is who I am.

And yet, when the projector clicks on
And we all sit in seats separated by
Miles and wifi signals, there is an
Immediate connection,
A pull of sorrow and whimsy.

It feels silly to put your influence
Into words, when all that really comes
Is imagery.

Grass tall enough to lie in
Like a lion, and disappear
Endless blue skies and the warmth
Of a sun that loves you
And wants to keep you alive.
A person with such ferocity of presence
That an explosion can hardly compare,
But with compassion and embracing
Flurries of acceptance.

Words flow from you like petals
In a spring wind
And the world seems more colorful
When you speak.

With all the sincerity I can muster,
I can honestly say with all the love,
That no one appreciates life the way you do.

And you deserve everything.

I'm really glad I met you.

— The End —