Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Ksh Nov 2019
In high school, I'd wear Converses.
Or Chuck Taylors, whatever you called 'em.
I'd remember going to a new school, proudly wearing
a pair of Converses with the same blue shade
as my new school's uniform skirts;
how I'd attend Phys Ed with the same trainers,
even though it wasn't a good idea to use them
for physical activity.
I remember riding in the back
of my father's motorcycle as we
did errands around the town,
and he'd indulge me by parking near
a road chock full of thrift stores --
and we'd go in, under a false pretense of
"just checking, just a quick look-around"
and my father would surprise me
by buying me a thrifted pair.
They were either pink, or magenta,
and I was at that age of rebellion --
"no girly colors", I'd shout --
but I'd always wear them out,
and it always made my dad smile.
I once came home with my friends
without telling my father,
and he was out in the front porch,
half-naked as all Asian dads are,
and he was clipping some brand new Converses
on the wash line to dry.
I had been so embarrassed, because this
was the first time that my friends
had seen my father, had seen my house
but all they could see was how kind he was
by surprising me with a new pair.
I had a total of seven pairs of Converses,
one of them he paid his sister to buy for me
from the United States.
I keep them in a box, under the sink,
because even though my feet have grown,
I'm still unable to sell them nor give them away.

In college, I wore Palladiums --
big, thick, chunky lace-up boots
that looked out of place in a college freshman's closet
and more at home tied by the shoelaces to a soldier's bag.
I've moved to the capital city,
away from my little brother, away from my father.
I lived with my mother, who worked and moved
until her body gave out and she'd have to take some days to rest.
She bought me my first pair when I asked;
because she told me that
"first impressions last; but shoes are always what stays in a person's mind",
which was funny seeing as how
Palladium was, first and foremost,
a company from the age of the Great Wars
that manufactured the tires fitted for airplanes;
and that now, decades later, rebranded themselves
as a company with a recognizable design --
channeling urban life, heavy endurance,
and the soul of recreating one's image,
rising from the ashes of the past like some sort of phoenix.
My mother had wanted me to fit in,
yet be unique at the same time,
in a world that moved so fast that I had to run just to keep up.
And she'd buy me pairs not as often as my father did,
but it was always in celebration.
Either for a job well done, a reward for good grades,
or simple because it was my birthday.
Those Palladiums became my signature shoes,
and I was the only one to wear them
inside the university.
At one point, I was recognizable because
of a particularly special pair --
Palladiums that were bright, firetruck red
and had the material of raincoats --
that people would know it was me
even from far away, just by the color of my boots.
I had six pairs in total; all heavy, all colorful,
with different textures and different price points,
and my mother bought me these special shoeboxes
which we stacked til the ceiling, right beside
her own tower of heels for special occasions,
because that was what defined us.

I've started buying my own shoes,
and I'm not as brand-exclusive as I was before.
There's a pair of no-names, some banged up Filas,
even a pair of Doc Martens I'm too afraid to bust out.
They're also not as colorful; because I know that
black pairs and white pairs are easier to style
in any day, in any weather, with any color or material.
Most of them were for everyday use, and it required
a certain level of comfort, a certain level of durability,
that was worthy of that certain retail price.

I look at my shoe rack, and realize
that I am not as colorful as I once was.
I do not have that sense
of colorful, wild, down-on-my-luck rebellion
that my father put up with in my adolescent years.
I lost my drive of being
a colorful, unique, instantly recognizable upstart
as my mother had taught me to be.
My shoes have no stories to tell,
no personality to express --
a row of blacks and whites, the occasional greys.
And when I look internally,
it's the same, monochromatic expanse staring back at me.

I am in a place where
I am everywhere and nowhere at once.
I can't tell whether my feet
are solidly on the ground,
or pointed to the sky, toes wriggling in the clouds.

In an ever-growing shoe rack
filled with old, ***** Converses,
and heavy, attention-seeking Palladiums,
I choose a comfortable pair of plain, white sneakers
and head out in the open,
paving my own way.
I take comfort in the fact
that it's just the beginning.
That I am at the start
of my designated brick road,
an endless expanse before me.
My shoes will acquire color,
my designs will develop taste,
my soul will be injected into the soles of my feet
with every step I take --
forward, backward, it doesn't matter
so long as I keep moving.
Stanley Zakyich Oct 2013
I spat out quotes and poetic verses,
Despite how everyone else converses.
I hoped that brains will win the war,
But I never had any brains at all.

I spat out quotes and poetic verses,
Despite how everyone else converses.
I hoped my brains will take me far,
But I never had any brains at all.

I spat out quotes and poetic verses,
Despite how everyone else converses.
I'm stuck here, ****** here, quoting still,
But I never had any brains at all.

I spat out quotes and poetic verses,
Despite how everyone else converses.
My brains are gone with atrophied will,
But I never had any brains at all.

On my tombstone lies a quote
From verses other people wrote.
A lackluster creative must
Existed within; my internal, eternal, rust.
I've always tried to sound smart by quoting books or poems, reciting history books and retelling stories. It takes some intelligence to memorize, but it takes a lot more to create and to constantly push yourself to be more creative.
Aria of Midnight Sep 2014
On a comfortable breezy evening,
my mum converses with her sister via Skype
exchanging quirky tales

They broach the subject of her lemon tree.

"It's the most peculiar case;
it was growing so divinely
until, suddenly, it stopped."

Silence. Then the punchline:

"Reminded me of your daughter."

They exchange hoots of laughter
Meanwhile, I sit in the corner
arms folded, eyebrows knitted
unamused
An actual true story. "How rude," I remembered thinking, but ended up smiling anyway. Family --I forgive them so easily. But still, it was a pretty heavy burn; I grew at an exceptional rate in fifth grade and then just... stopped.
1

Ever musing I delight to tread
The Paths of honour and the Myrtle Grove
Whilst the pale Moon her beams doth shed
On disappointed Love.
While Philomel on airy hawthorn Bush
Sings sweet and Melancholy, And the thrush
Converses with the Dove.
2

Gently brawling down the turnpike road,
Sweetly noisy falls the Silent Stream —
The Moon emerges from behind a Cloud
And darts upon the Myrtle Grove her beam.
Ah! then what Lovely Scenes appear,
The hut, the Cot, the Grot, and Chapel queer,
And eke the Abbey too a mouldering heap,
Cnceal'd by aged pines her head doth rear
And quite invisible doth take a peep.
Bekezela May 2017
The wind whispers to me in my sleep.
"How much longer shall we wait", it says to me.
The thunder roars at it and commands it to be silent.
" Shhh, we don't want to wake her up, she is not yet ready"
She is not yet ready?I wonder!

For a moment it appears to me as if the universe has invaded my dreams
I hear the skies discussing about me,
Are they not aware that I hear every word that they utter?

Could it be possible that the voices I hear are nothing but naive thoughts of my imagination?
Could sanity be taking over my sane?
Perhaps the madness makes us sane,
But perhaps my sanity makes me go mad.

My surroundings become unfamiliar.
Slowly but surely I drown myself into oblivion
Whilst I get drunk on what my thoughts have assumed for me.
I guess one never trully knows what the heavens have in mind for him.

Here I was planning my tomorrow,
Whilst the skies had already made a rulling of whom I would become.
I guess it is now safe to say that God is the only one who makes me sane.
Every night I lay there knowing that the the earth is at again.
The earth converses whilst I sleep and now I know why.
So I wrote this because I kept on waking  up in the middle of the night, so I thought to myself what could be waking me up?...hmmmmm
Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.

The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate.

Gloomy Orion and the Dog
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees

Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganised upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;

The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;

The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;

She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,

Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;

The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,

And sang within the ****** wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid siftings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
J Warren Sep 2013
Shards of sail staple sky to sea as fingernail-thin boats lean in to the horizon.
The surge of surf converses constantly with the silent shore, urging its message upon the oblivious beach.
My children scramble on the man-made groyne, a facsimile of wild rock, in which they find caves 'with a proper rock on top' (Bea) and 'a hundred miles deep' (Willem).
We are here on bikes, salt wind in our hair, and my *** slowly absorbing moisture from the almost-dry sand as they unburden their youth upon the rocky playground.
And then come the treasures.
A flat shell the size of my palm and worn pearlescent smooth.
A fossil pebble of concentric ingrained ripples.
'Something amazing Mummy,' comes the cry. 'You have to see this stone; the colour of Coca Cola,' shouts my boy.
More treasures emerge and are grafted on to the sandy pile.
Quartz-like lumps and a mussel entangled with tiny seaweed strands and miniature white shells, like micro leaves and hints of feta in a fancy restaurant.
The boy wears welly boots, no socks, and a plastic medal around his neck. 'Batman, Batman, Batman,' comes the cry, while Bea determinedly scans heaven and Earth for jewels to stud her imagination.
ryn Jan 2017
He doesn't see past the horizon of his life
He doesn't indulge in the myth of the hereafter
He doesn't believe he is worthy of such a notion
He doesn't make it a habit to put pen to paper

But with her...

He envisions the future like he's lived it before
He sings of his plans that span several lifetimes
He romanticises his thoughts as soon as they're conceived
He converses in paintings and writes only in rhymes
Joshua Haines Mar 2017
There's a reckless wind
whipping 'round the
frayed ends of my hair,
its exodus from the sides
of cars blurring by.

Jazz drummers cycle
flurries of taps and nods.
Twitching wrists for dollars,
their cornflower blue suits
rising with the street sound,
becoming a tent for sweat,
reaching for the dangling dark  
held up by clouds and the
screams of horns and the
chimes of chatter.

And here I lean, inside a corner
between an entrance and an exit.
My dreams are starting to
last as long as these cigarettes,
I probably spoke into the chainsmoke --
being pretentious and afraid
under the spill of streetlight.

And here I am, harmfully hoping
my friend comes back, that he
didn't suffer, that he is with god,
that god exists, that I grow into
something that would make
him proud, my parents proud,
make me proud.

All the pretty girls trot the walk,
like surreal thoughts with
white converses and high-waisted
jeans holding the eyes of the few
guys and girls going home alone.

There's no proper way to end this
besides for raw ***, real violence,
and more money.

My government only cares about me
once every four years.

My bank account controls me.

I can't buy anything unless
it wants to **** me or love me.
Isoindoline Oct 2012
Anesthesia seeps into me and settles
like plaque into my arteries
where it converses with my blood.
I let its ugly yellow fingers swagger through,
waving their malicious banners
proclaiming my surrender.

My lungs breathe chafing dust
that conspires
and leaves me suffocating
under the silent sands of guilt
that build up into graceful dunes.

My mind loves the desert in my lungs
despite the lifeless contours;
it is far away, removed and sees
a sweeping landscape, patterned
by the winds, my rattling breath.

But my heart lives next door
to that forsaken terrain.
It feels the pain of the parched *****,
gone unacknowledged by my mind.
It feels the lecherous caress
of the ugly yellow fingers
that violate my blood,
stroking, disgustingly, inside my veins.

Still my mind remains
Doorless
Windowless
Refusing to see.
Serenely smooth, impenetrable Reason.

My heart has no hands
to hold a hammer or a sword.

Yet Your tongue is a sword,
Your words a hammer of consciousness,
Your expression the oil to reignite
shimmering embers buried under ashes.

My mind’s shield becomes an eggshell—
it shatters, flinging shards away,
letting the newly lit inferno roar
through every capillary, burning away
the ugly yellow fingers.

Winds from within gust through my lungs,
force the desert from my chest.
The sand rends my throat and lips
in its storm of escape,
and the blissful tears that rain from my eyes
quench my arid lungs.

The fire recedes into my heart, where it burns
white-hot and pure—
My eternal sun that gleams within,
to You, I surrender.
Ni5ha Mar 2015
Splattered paint on jeans like a mural cover cold pale legs on a moving train
Converses beaten with color show a rainbow of hard work done by the feet it keeps warm
I don't know the face beside me and I dare not look
I don't want to judge a book by the cover fot it is more important to judge their shoes
The sneakers cry creativity, art, and passion
And his body remains as still as a painting
The sneakers finally shift and leave at 14th Street
Only for a pair of black boots to take its position
Bye bye motley Converses
Terry Collett Jul 2013
As you sit in the cafe
in the shopping mall
you see Sophie
and her man friend

smooching across
the table
he with moustache
and thinning

combed back hair
and she
with dark black hair
straight to the collar

of her white blouse
they purse their lips
he closes his eyes
leans forward

she likewise
as if
in some French cafe  
in some 1950s film

you sip your latte
watch the show
he once worked
pushing trolleys

in some super store
she unsure
but with a carer
sometimes seen

walking the mall
or in the bank
or shops
and some days

she’ll come up
and say hello
in a loud voice
as if she’d not

seen you
in a thousand years
other days not at all
or she’ll tell you

some news
about her life
or some small trouble
that’s got her down

today she sits
and kisses
and converses
with the man friend

and he’ll laugh
and maybe she too
and hold hands
over the cokes and cakes

you sit back
in the chair
and watch them there
repeat their kissing

or holding hands
the Romeo eyes
now open
leaning near

mouthing words
you cannot hear
she lips still pursed
says loudly

of a love
she feels
or how hot
the weather is

or how his scarf
untidy looks
or unbuttoned shirt
others who do not

know them sit
and gawk
and make snide comment
behind their hands

make judgement
in their bourgeoisie world
but you like others
who know them of old

sit and drink
and make no judgements
of what they say
or do but watch

the kissing
and holding of hands
like in a B feature
at the cinema

waiting for
the real thing maybe
but content to see
the movie through

having no where to go
or other things to do.
Jemimah Jun 2013
The first thing I notice are the wrinkles, reflected like dark dancers, moving and bending with the contours of my face. Dully reflected in the vase they join hands and circle around my eyes, my tired lips, my forehead, nestled alongside wisps of silver grey.
Stretching out my own hands I imagine that each line holds a secret, more mysterious than fortune, more real than the future.
I refold my napkin and his, into perfect triangles.
Perhaps some wise prophet could read; not my future; my past - from these creases - and yet I wonder if such a thing could ever be interpreted, translated.
I set them in customary place beside our two bowls, dinner warm within.
I know if it ever were the story would be only half written, most of the paths find destination in those of my husband’s wiry hands.  Those strong and gentle hands – our lives intertwined with a complexity of memories, hardships, pleasures.
I straighten the cream table cloth, draped over loved and well-worn oak.
Those creases remind me of the sand dunes before we leave slow footprints, the rain-trails down our caravan window, Harold’s shirt before pressing.
I watch him return from the stove balancing our hot tea with a delicate concentration, 51 years familiar.
I wonder if his favourite red shirt actually is fading, or if it is just my eyes, or the candlelight.
He calls me darling and sets down my Earl Grey. I smile.
It does seem as though much outside our dining room is waning in its pastel thrum, and I can almost hear the resonance of grandchildren’s gadgets from here.
Just to announce my thought, the telephone rings. And again. And once more.
Technology whizzes around my ears like an unwanted fly.
He says, like he always does, that we will answer the world later, it’s not going anywhere.
He is right, as usual, and I ponder with amusement that we might be going somewhere sooner. A holiday, perhaps.
I smile and nod in gentle agreement.
Perhaps forever.
Unspoken we bow heads in perfect symmetry and he murmurs blessings, move our hands to a perfect cross.
With a sincere Sunday love, he tells me I am beautiful.
I do not reply with words, I cannot. My voice; gone with the tumour.
Reaching out to hold my hand, he turns it over in his. Rubs my ring. Like he always does.
He says he loves my wrinkles more than when I had smooth, porcelain hands.
One single tear, abashed sneaks from my eye.
He says that every one reminds him of another year together.
He converses with my eyes, and listens. Like he always does.
Our hands meld into one in the soft light.
One flawless map
Completed.
my first short story!
thanks for taking the time to read... hope you enjoyed :)
AngelBella Jul 2013
by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

PENECK Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.

The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the horned gate.

Gloomy Orion and the Dog
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees

Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganized upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;

The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;

The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;

She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,

Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;

The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,

And sang within the ****** wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid droppings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud
Jennifer Staples Mar 2014
Road of Life
Slippery from the ice that lay’s under the thin sheet of snow. I can hear the distant sounds of animals that I can’t even imagine naming. This road is long and narrow, it even has it’s occasional twists and turns. There seems to be houses that look vacant, however, they only appear every two to three hundred feet. Those two to three hundred feet feel like miles. I feel as though I have been stuck on this same road for years instead of hours, or has it been minutes, I guess I will never know. I saw one other person walking on this same road, he passed me on the opposite side of the street. But, when I turned around to get another glance he was gone.

2. Key of Knowledge
I continue to walk down this road and stumble upon a key. Who just leaves a key sitting in the middle of the road? Especially this road when it seems nobody even lives in these houses, not to mention that I haven’t seen a car pass me once. The key seems to have a name on it “ Dorothy.” The name is engraved in it. The key is what looks to be a bronze color with an almost puzzle piece like end to it. I wonder what it goes to maybe a diary or a hope chest. Either way I don’t think I really want to know that badly. I put in pocket anyway and continue on down the road.

3. Cup of Emotions
I get maybe a couple hundred feet from where I found the key, and then out of the corner of my eye I spot a cup. I go over and look at it even though I don’t really know why, I mean it’s a cup. Maybe it’s because of this road snapping at my senses. Anyway, I look at it and it seems to be a class cup that looks like it has been hit with rain a lot because of it’s yellowish,with a pale tan tint to it. It’s not broken so I pick it up and break so that way I can use it as a weapon or a tool if I need to protect myself or find food if I am on this road any longer. I say this as my stomach growls so loud it echoes off of the tree’s.

4. Tree of Relationships
In the faint distant I can see a broken down tree. It doesn’t look to be too big, however, as I am getting closer it seems to be getting bigger. Even though it isn’t big enough that I couldn’t lift it up and move it so that it’s not in my way and any car that decides to drive on this road, not that there will be. So I pick up the farthest end that is in the road and I drag it back towards the side of the road, this thing is heavier that it looks. I end up having to use my feet to kick the tree over a bump in the road, I should have worn better sneakers instead of my converses. I eventually get it to go over the bump, after numerous attempts, then finally the job is done and the tree is out of mine, and whoever decides to drive down the roads, way.

5. Wall of Death
First there was a tree in my way and now there is a wall. I can’t even find the top of it, or the ending to it. The reason I can’t see it is because I don’t think it’s even a normal wall. It seems to be made out of glass or plastic, I can see through but there is no way of getting on the other side of it. I am so frustrated at this stupid road and all of the things I have found, heard, and seen that I need to take my anger out on something. I punch the wall as hard as I can, and it shatters. A couple of pieces fell out of it, but instead of seeing a way through it I found a backing to it. This was no ordinary road, this was no ordinary wall, obviously. Then it hits me, this wall was a mirror. Instead of seeing through it I was looking at what I have already accomplished walking down this road. However, now I am stuck with nothing left to do but go back the way I came.
The thing is we had to write about a road, key, cup, tree, and finally a wall. Everything in the paragraphs are only about those 5 things. Then we found out what those things were to us. The funny thing to me was that all of mine were true about how I view these things. Enjoy and if you want to do this, I totally suggest it because you may learn a lot of things about yourself.
Andrew Dunham Jul 2015
I awoke from pseudo-sleep to frigid sweats and an unhealthy heartbeat
my mind snowy as the television opposite me, morning, half past three.
I dreamt up a personal narrative, reflecting on dreams forgone
time deferred, potential memories collecting dust on a suburban lawn.
Similar to that of books gifted to me, never read, and currently locked,
Vonnegut converses with Hemingway within a cavernous box.
Tucked neatly beside the dehumidifier, bottom level of my fortress
My once-manicured front yard so overgrown, you'd expect wild horses
galloping about like I once did before my femur weathered like sea glass,
leaving me like my alabaster figurines, just more stationary mass.

I've grown accustomed to drawn curtains and opening them at nightfall,
my eyeballs have grown to love staring contests with my blankest wall.
Not-quite-yet-discarded alcohol bottles have become my closest fellows,
kind enough to let me grasp them as action figures between my yellowed fingertips. We'd make dates to watch Local on the 8's together,
humming along blissfully to the muzak without regard to the weather.
Since my everyday life now remains a comfy 72 degrees, accompanied
by a soundtrack of leaky faucets and turning pages of AARP magazines.

Now completely alone I float, clinging to life in a sea of unknown
Clawing a barely buoyant lifevest filled with styrofoam and rhinestones
If I were still as spry as a spring chicken, I'd walk ten paces in the kitchen,
I'd draw my nine and snipe a mirror for displaying an unpleasant image.
If my eyes had less cataracts I'd be in the process of shredding them to bits
because I never wanted to peer through lenses so dull and spiritless.
If my ears were better, I'd hear fewer phantom telephone rings,
answer every telemarketer, hear more synthetic voices advertising things.
I'd never touch my college sweaters for the regrets they would conjure,
But now I'm finally grown up, wasn't that what I always wanted?
i dreamt that i was an old man one day. scared the bejesus out of me.
Glenn Sentes Jun 2012
It was the rhythm of the fingers
Running through the black and white keys,
The feathery strum of the hollow guitar and
The beat of the arms that converses with the melodies.

The voice of the soul is not lyrics but song
That slowly lured the tie that has grown so strong.
This poetry’s not aimed at singing the tune
But only to hum the memory that began in a June.

You lit the room where the poet longed for a brother
And lay a hymn to the unsung dreams.
You strike a chord at him not to grieve and bitter
About life’s shrill discordant volumes.
Ayesha Khan Nov 2012
I waited while you reached to my aphotic depths,
Felt you caress my heart of hearts with your being,
Even as my breathing came in gasps,
And sweat beads on my collarbone,
My tensed body, quiescent at its core converses of,
My irrevocable, unhinged addiction,
To the way you weave into me,
The fiber of life in intricate patterns,
Beautiful, like you.
It hurts.. ecstatically,
Like my soul in cimmerian delirium,
Trance-like;
When you take my Eldunari,
With you,
When you leave.
Might make more sense if you've read Eragon :)
AngelBella Jul 2013
by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

PENECK Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.

The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the horned gate.

Gloomy Orion and the Dog
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees

Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganized upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;

The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;

The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;

She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,

Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;

The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,

And sang within the ****** wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid droppings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud
Dess Ander Jul 2015
A woman walks down the pavement
An image of beauty
With a red dress and the adoration of men
Her black heels click on the tarmac

A man converses with his mates
The definition of charisma
With a suit on and a beer in one hand
He commands the respect of a crowd

A little girl plays on the seesaw
With her friend who is without a name
But when others walk past
They see the little girl is alone

The old man looks at the photos
Reminders, memories of him and his beloved
Framed permanently in sepia tones
A tear rolls down his cheek

The woman walking down the pavement is lost
The man with his mates is close to breaking
The little girl feels rejected
The old man is laying flowers on his beloved's grave

For though the sun shines today
The pain remains
Their loneliness a constant reminder
A constant tormentor
Steele Sep 2015
Worn converses scuff the floor.
     The crowd sings, and they roar
     his name. Things aren't the same
     like anonymous Mondays before.

He pulls out his strings. Silence.
Steel vibrates and sings; Violence
erupts and again he hears his name.
It isn't the same... but he finds it
strangely fitting; On this stage
he's the benefactor and the tyrant.
He's the laughter, killing quiet.
It's not your average Monday
but no surprise, he finds he likes it.
LJ Chaplin Jul 2013
Beneath the bridge where I found my summer love,
We drank tequila and listened to The Rolling Stones
While sitting on the bonnet of an abandoned car.
Ripped jeans
White shirt
Scuffed converses
The heat

I felt truly intoxicated
By the brunette curls,
Blue eyes that were fixated on the creases in the palms of her hands,
The tequila was just the numbing remedy of the inevitability,
The end of summer.

We talked until the heat of the sun had fallen into the Earth,
Listening to the cars above our heads,
The sound of sirens in the distance cascading between buildings and the darkening sky.

I want to get away from the City she whispers, The beach.
I want to feel the sand between my toes
Feel the sea foam bubble around my ankles and the gentle pull as the waves retreat from the shore

We will, tomorrow I promise her.
I'll be gone tomorrow she replies.
Why?

She turns to me and smiles faintly, the tears in her eyes glistening under the street lights,
Tomorrow is the beginning of Autumn. I have to go.

My heart sank like an anchor plummeting to the sea bed.

I'm sorry, I really am.
I traced her jawline with my fingers,
Down her neck and onto her chest.
Her heartbeat was soft,
Pulsing like the very waves she yearned to see.
Her hands intertwined with mine and she sighed.

*Don't be sorry. There's always next year.
Aaron Goldstein Jul 2013
The wind moves at a slow pace
Creating a whispering voice
Talking to shadows as they creep
Through the eerie and morose night.

Deep in a graveyard, the wind comes
It whispers untold stories to the dead.
And as the wind converses, death replies
With its own gruesome story.

It whispers the stories of the thousands dead:
Fighting wars, giving birth, protecting citizens.
As death continues to tell the stories,
Wind begins to whimper, until it becomes a storm.

The storm rises into the dreary night,
Until it bursts into tears,
Giving the landscape a glistening effect
And gives life to the seemingly dead planet.

Death becomes quiet, no longer whispering
For life has taken over the Earth
And the wind comes in at a slow pace
Creating a whispering voice.

— The End —