Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Pretty girl Jul 2018
:I am the taste of stale lemon cookies from grandmas pantry

I am room temperature coffee staining your tongue and stomach lining

A small tickle in the back of your throat causing gigantic miniscule sweet baby coughs

Not enough

A shower that just can't seem to get warm

I am entirely too underwhelming
Me.
Indelicate angelic **** up
Beige walls to match my mild touch.
I do not burn
You're feelings never hurt
Id say I'm sorry but my voice is a humming of drums on fingertips
Sticks beat the vibration of voice off it
My slushed thoughts slashed into I have nots caused you lots and lots of boredom so you stopped listening to me accept i don't think you were ever listening for me cause you just wanted to hear a story about a **** girl whose hips made circular movements not innocent but there were pink cotton ******* and i hade baby lips
Draft. -pretty girl
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
The smell of dettol permeates way down the street
even as I approach the  clinic in terror
death stalks every step and my pulse races
with the knowledge of impending doom.

Try as I might, to stay calm and in control, bugs don't think-
they eat their fill first
and talk with high temperatures and tantrums
coughs and splutters
chills and tingles and tantrums, probably knowing
that murderous pills on their way.

dettol has a distinct sensation, it matches sterile
spongy clean sop and maternity wards
yet I know if you smelt dettol in the deep woods
you would question every dark spot on a leaf
the bark the tree!  the wind and the root.
That's how it got associated with death.

I could never overcome that smell
at times it felt safe, at other times it felt like
alarm bells were ringing of an approaching enemy
facing a firing squad. How could they fire us
to the next world with a smell?
But that's what it always felt like. But today
I need to get my flu sorted out.
Dettol wont do the killing fields any good.

Its hard to have a love/hate relationship with a smell.
Dettol and Women! They are alike! That's it. Yeah.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11613999-dettol-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#sthash.J5CFBwXf.dpuf
Taylor Apr 2014
i have seen scarred wrists and burns and bruises marring the bodies of beautiful girls, countable ribs and thigh gaps and jutting hip bones.

boys destroying themselves in puffs of smoke and empty pill bottles, dry coughs coming from ruined lungs.

but nothing triggers me like you do.
You bring out the absolute worst in me and throw me so far off the edge I can't even see the sun
Mitchell Mar 2014
A month passes. I've gone on a date with a girl named Destiny. We ate and had a couple drinks, then I asked her if her real name was Destiny. She tells me of course it is with her face all twisted. I couldn't tell if she was angry, intrigued, or disgusted. A few more drinks and the night goes on like that. What I mean is that we talk about our parents, where we went to school, and what we do to make money. Her hand sat on the table in the lamplight looking like an invitation. I took it and she let me. It had been a while since I had felt somebody else's skin on mine.
I remember her ***** blonde, shoulder length hair and her smooth, light skin like a doll in a toy shop window. Her frame from the front and the back was nice. It was the first thing I noticed as I walked up to her from behind when we met at the restaurant. I didn't scare her, if that's what you were thinking. What I did was politely put my hand on her shoulder and ask her if she was indeed Destiny. The whole engagement was lacking any true spontaneity anyway. The dots were all connected beforehand. I took that as a bad sign. I guess she did too.
Claire continued to text me, but I let them sit there, buzzing away on my night stand. I hadn't heard from Hane once after we had spent the afternoon together and talked about Claire. I didn't put much thought into not hearing from Hane. I only did when I heard from Claire. That was a diseased connection I never wished to be tied to. Part of me wanted to answer, to solve things, to fix things, to make everything better, but my vision of perfection were petty illusions of grandeur. There were other lives to worry about. Other souls to carry through a field of poppies to a dock by a river with a ******* boat bobbing alongside it.
After a fury of texts the night before from Claire, Hane calls me the next day while I'm on my break at work. I'm surprised to see his name on the screen of my phone. It's been a month. My first thought is that he knows about Claire texting me at night, so I brace myself for anything as I head outside to the smoking deck. The sun blinds me as I walk outside. They're used to the fluorescents overhead nine hours a day, not natural sunlight. I've missed his call, so I call him back, slightly hoping he doesn't pick up. He does.
"Yo," he says, "I just called you."
"I'm at work."
"Oh. I'll call you later then."
"We're good," I tell him, trying to cut him off before he hangs up, "I'm on a break. We're good."
"Oh, cool. How much longer you work for?"
"Couple hours. I should be off around 3:30. Where you at?" I ask. I hesitate to light a cigarette for fear of missing anything he may say.
"I'm in the city looking around for a job."
"Jesus," I say, "I never thought I'd hear you say that."
"Thanks," he laughs.
"You just rarely ever have a job."
He laughs lightly again and coughs. There's a long silence where we both wait for the other to say something. After a beat, I ask, "What's up?"
"Claire had to get going."
"What do you mean?"
"She wasn't happy anymore and she had to go. She left."
"****," I exhale, "I'm sorry to hear that, man."
"There's something not right about it."
"I'm off work around 3:30. Where you going to be around then?"
"Don't know. I'll be in the city, probably. I'm just walking around."
"I'll come get you wherever you are. I've got a car."
"Alright," Hane says, distracted. I can tell he's looking at something that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
"I'll call," I tell him. I fix a cigarette in my mouth and light it. "Make sure to pick up when I call, alright?"
"Yeah," he says, "Yeah."
Pink Halverson Feb 2011
There's a choke in my gut
That just must be released
But the open window
Will not let it free
The itch in my throat
           leads to coughs
Will make them think
I hear their whispers
And I loathe them
A bit more than I
loathe the rest.
My chest
Catches the rock
Like a child
in a basket

'why?'

No one can answer
They don't know either
They cannot
even hear
Their own thoughts
drown them loudly

How can I step
back up to where I stood?
I know what I must do,
But I cannot.

Spring must come
Because the sun is missing.
Jeremy Betts Oct 2019
{Political}

I can almost guarantee the powers that be own a most coveted secret
A key to our mortality, a complete rid of social duality, a newly constructed exit on the set of this twisted skit
Can you imagine it? That'd be one heck of an achievement, almost a magic trick, especially for this government
But a magician never tells! They keep it so far under wraps you can't even peep it like some area 51 type sht
Like buried treasure at the bottom of a filled sand pit, no map, no opportunity to find it
You're not even allowed to know about it's existence much less that the stories of it are legit
It's right there, in the small print on the bottom of every voter pamphlet
I don't know if that part is true but I wouldn't put it past them or doubt it for a minute
They never speak it out loud, never leak it nor tweet it #youdontknowshitaboutsh
t
You feed on your feed, the algorithm arithmetic, all the mind numbing bull sht
You forget the outrage over something like Charlotte too quick, makes me physicaly sick
I'll point out that it's largely due to strategic fluff stories from the puppet at you're local news outlet
The same bigot that's probably got an audio booklet cassette on deck
Explaining in detail how to be completely wrong and still politically correct
I get more credible info on current events from the cashiers down at the corner market
The talking box force feeds you this toxic banquet, I've seen it prepared so I'd steer clear of the brisket
They flood the market to keep you off target, to stop you from forming any kind of argument
To stop you from asking yourself if they are the solution to the problem or a part of it
Truth and lies on both sides inviting me to sit but I run the gauntlet
A tactical gambit, there is no quit like a bad habit, I've kicked the social media vise, you haven't
Fear is a typical sidekick but that's what got us in this predicament, permanently visibly upset
Messing up the placement of priorities, becoming complacent with corrupt authorities and it's evident
We offer up our thoughts and prayers then get distracted by an ice bucket?
Subconsciously saying f
ck it I guess as they hurd you off topic with the rest of the simple minded public

Here's a challenge to get behind, why don't you try to expand your mind?
"But I have guy, I'm color blind" a preprogrammed "progressive" response strategically timed
But you'll find that those mindless sayings quickly become the shackles that bind
And cause a divide by the combined efforts of trying to confuse and misguide
And trying to cover up the line they should have never crossed but you can't be kind and rewind
Any and all opposing views or educated ideas get disregarded like a watermelon rine
You look at this dysfunctional timeline and say it's fine? Are you out of your dang mind?
This problem defines the word problem but our county lying in a chalk outline is too real of a news headline
Fear is again what's driving mankind as credibility starts a fast decline, like a Boeing Max airline
It's more like a drop off, a Saturday morning cartoon kind with a cliff edge right before the finish line
Stuck in first gear as we redline through the confines of what they try and say is benign
Can't enjoy the ride while blind cause that's when you'll get blindsided, now paralysed with a broken spine
I saw the sign but you're oblivious every time, tweeting comfortablely from table nine
Soaking in a brine of lying swine, greedy bovine, salt from the grape vine but no thoughts you can claim as "mine"
It's a sad history we say we've left behind but we're still riding it with the thrill of a first Valentine
We redesign the facade after every indecent like Columbine and think that'll do fine but that thought in its self is asinine

An empty statement with good intention deserves no attention, not even a mention
But that's what is given over and over again and some don't even see we're headin' in the wrong direction
Directly to gettin' skull ******, takin' ***** to the chin and we've given permission
Here, just for you, let me paint my vision, my interpretation of every villain within those white walls of sin
Yup, that's right, turns out it's modeled after the famous painting of the last din-din
That's to say it's a portrait of every Democrat and Republican, from now to back then
Back from the moment this little experiment began, way back when
They welcome your frustration hoping that by the end you'll abandon your mission of self preservation
By throwing in the towel with the sink from the kitchen
Yoda esq sage advice can't be given if, for one, no one seems to listen and two it's all gone missin'
Ahhhh, that's cute, your all insistin' you had a hand in each and every decision
But you're just siftin' through fake news, wishin' for break throughs, this isn't livin', this is survival and the lines thin
And hand on the bible I can't promise or pretend we'll win cause once we get that tail spin a goin' it's out of our control again
Got you btchin' about it the entire time but never taking action
A worthless, regurgitated post now brings a job well done type of satisfaction
So while the world burns around you you're convinced you've done your part and mastered the equation
You've gone and put your 100th phrase in, time to sit back relaxin', waitin' for your empty praise to come in
Self worth and entitlement bought for a bargain, actually, you glide in and take it when no one is lookin'
It doesn't belong to you but of course you deserve it more than him, am I right? Sure I am
A moral compass no longer a good life's linchpin, good and evil lookin' like twins in the same discount bin
But when you start conversatin' about how bad you've got it, I hear the worlds smallest violin start playin'

THIS SH
T IS NOT GOING AWAY ON ITS OWN FOLKS
As our world coughs and chokes and everyone pokes and breaks the rotten yolks
Sitting in a rancid environment, we take tragedy and twist it into jokes
Then back peddle saying everyone copes differently with the hopes that the real you stays out of public scopes
It's crazy that facts seem to be what provokes outrage from one side as the other side claims it's a hoax
An abundance of fake news cloaks the real issues and gets us to turn on our kinfolks
We see them toss the stick into our bike spokes but still believe when they say "it was definitely those other blokes"
How is it we know it's smoke and mirrors but everyone still takes it in with deep tokes
What we witness everyday should be what invokes change but we can't change anything with empty keystokes
It's good to stand for something but now we need to move forward before we're clear cut like old growth oaks
And it won't just be one side or the other that croaks, no, this divide stokes our collective demise as our head bloats
It somehow strokes our ego as we think we traverse the high road but can't steer, flying with no yokes
We pray that we can at least stay above water but nothing so poorly put together floats
Take notes cause if history repeats itself we're on a crash course with diminishing hopes
Which will leave only a shell of what we use to be as a country, nothing inside like empty envelopes

©2019
Amongst the wreckage of your memories
In the oceans of my head
Simply biding my time
Until it coughs me out dead.
...
The splinters of my sanity ride the waves
while the sun burns my skin
awaiting for when the weight of my actions
pulls me deeper within
...
And when I finally sink
I'll save my final thoughts for you
And when the sea devours my heart
I'll give my last heartbeat, too.
All of our politicians are a blight on our society
These self important people do possess a lack luster glow
Governing for themselves is their number one priority
Telling porkies is the way that their rhetoric doth flow

It is our misfortune to have so many of them in our halls of power
We're paying them a fortune for mismanaging government biz
Not a one of these pollies are worth a left or right bower
They should be thrown out of our parliaments and into a tizz

We're heartily sick of the whole lot of them
As they do so leave us with a feeling of contempt
Not to forget our coughs indigestion or phlegm
We so wish they were from our taxes exempt

If only we could do without this undesirable lot
Our countries would most assuredly be less on the ill side
They have a reputation as bad as a staining ink spot
And we'd be only too happy to toss them all well aside

Moaning and whinging will not relieve the constant bane
We've got to take things into our own hands
We cannot endure anymore of their burdensome strain
Government benches would be better off being rid of these bands

Acquiring a repellent to spray on them is one of my notions
Then we can relax knowing that they'll no more blight us
These thoughts are just me musing on a few suggestions
I'll leave you all to ruminate on this poetic piece thus
Marsha Lenihan once wrote, "People with BPD are like people with third degree burns all over their body, lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement."

I used to cry when I said goodbye to my father after our weekly Tuesday night dinners
I'd play out games of Go fish and Rummy like there was no winner, but I was victorious next
to my daddy.  
His eyes still crinkle in the corners and his smell will always be long car rides with blankets, books on tape, and a wide range of conversations even though he was always late
But I'd weep like he actually just dropped dead every Tuesday night because I was petrified

My small but portly frame would crumple and I would mumble the worries I was too scared to say
I was afraid I'd see my daddy for the last time that day
I thought I had asthma because I was always fat and sometimes choked on the air in my lungs as if it was strangling me but I had my first panic attack in grade three

I was sitting in Mrs. Arlotta's classroom ladida
just like any other story about a schoolday when I was punched in the stomach
with a fist of "I miss my ******* dad"
there was this bully beating the **** out of me with no prologues warning
Just to remind me Despair
is not some abandoned pit people place their pity into
Despair, can be like an earwig, you use hope like tissues to squash out intrusion
but earwigs are smart, experts at delusion
earwigs know where to hide until you go to sleep

Every other weekend I used to sleep at my dads house with his british girlfriend
and his lovely cats and soothing hot tub
and his british girlfriend
and the fireplaces and the tribal music
and the british girlfriend
and the beautiful homemade pond and the greenhouse
and the british girlfriend

I liked roasting marshamallows until their crisp outer layer began to bubble but not for too long for if they fell in the fire there was trouble
Bort are you seriously letting the girl eat sweets tonight, god knows she doesn't need them

I liked riding my bike through Elizabeth park their flower garden was absolutley breathtaking
"you know Haley if you got off your *** more often moving your legs wouldn't be such a chore"

And I loved dinners with freshly picked herbs and seasonal tablecloths tucked in the curbs
"go ahead, have another helping, you're just like your mother, disgusting"

Well Karen I hope I'm like her and I hope she's disgusting
I hope she tasted disgusting on the leftover edges of my fathers lips
when you two were thrusting, could you also taste the hasty goodbyes he tossed like
rubber ducks to a family
waiting in line for him to come home
and waiting and waiting for him to never ******* come home

I loved my dad.
yes despair was everywhere but seeing my dad was like finding religion
if a child could comprehend the task of going to church

Christine Ann Lawson once wrote, " The borderling queen expreiances what therapists call oral greediness.  the desperate hunger of the borderline queen is a kin to the behavior of an infant who had gone too long between feedings.  Starved, frustrated, and beyond the ability to calm or sooth herself, she grabs, flails, wails until the last ****** is planted securely and perhaps too deeply in her mouth.  She coughs, gags, chokes, spits eyeing the elusive breast like a wolf guarding her food.  Similarily, the queen holds onto what is hers taking more than she could use, in case it might be taken away prematurely."

Did my eyes taste sour when you few times you kissed my lids goodnight maybe that's why there wasn't one ******* hour without a glass of wine, another beet, hide your shots of tequila behind the birthday cards I made you.

There was an ache of despair that you wouldn't always be there that when you decided you wanted to participate it was way past the expiration date
I said goodbye to my dad after dinner last night without a second look back, I forgot he could be dead when I was blowing lines to stay alive

Experts say a key symptom of borderling is chronic emptiness
Maybe if things had been different dad, I wouldn't be such a ******* mess
and you would have to pay Connecticutcare less.
Donall Dempsey Jul 2018
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW

I lived my life as if
I had been written
into a Barbara Pym novel

so prim and proper lady I
my soul smoother'd in camphor
yet my life...wot the mot hath got

and here I be
curled upon the Persian rug
in the foetal position

being born
into my dying
as it were

me an elaborate motif
beside an exquisite phoenix
oh the warp and woof of me

so this is death
rather nice
as these things go

not too much( ouch )pain
more easeful and slow and
when ya gotta go...ya...gotta go

rather like that Manx man
was it Brown...or...something
"...if thou couldst empty..." oh what is it?

"...all thy self of self
to be a shell dishabited..."
bit like ha ha that...innit( agghh )

wonder what an anthropologist
from...say...Borneo
would make of me

I'd guess I'd be
so quaintly ever so English
so cue-cumber sandwich

settling down with a Pimms and a Pym
being one of those Excellent Women
**** this dying....haven't even read the book

only got as far as
p.15...how mean
the great unread

the words sticking in my brain
something being "...a welcoming
sort of place...

with a bright entrance..."
as if Mr. Death were saying
"Why...that's what I am!"

"Yeah, yeah...sure sure'"
I answer all Film Noir
another of life's little pleasures

the stuffed bird
stares at me sternly
deigns to speak

"Now that you are going to be
as dead as me...may I
have a word?"

it coughs unaccustomed
as it is
to public speech

"It's not so bad
being dead
it's being stuffed that hurts!"

the cat joins in
with its customary "I'm starving...
ya couldn't open this tin?"

now the cat howls
oh to have opposable thumbs
or a can opener at least

the stuffed bird and the cat and I
singing along to Beverly Kenny
smiling from the record sleeve

"Oh this used to be
my favourite as a girl
'I Never Has Seen Snow."

"Oh the girl I used to be
she ain't me no more!"
I could always carry a tune

the stuffed bird can't
sing for nuts but
the cat's got a good tenor voice

me...I'm letting go
the world is walking out on me
the world don't want to know me no more

I've even forget
can you Adam and Eve it
how to spell... fo'c's'le

my garden looks in
the window at me
well here's a howdy do

I never was '...a lovesome thing..."
even when young
"God wot!"

hee hee hee T.E. Brown
appears to invade the mind
when one is dying

and what would that Borneo
anthropologist make of that
or my love of Jazz

grabbing the music
by the tail as it shape-shifts
improvises world upon world and beyond

oh to be dying
in a smokey jazz club
thoughts climbing a spiral staircase of smoke

"All that is...is not!"
now I wonder where
I got ha ha that

would the man from Borneo know
that is Phil Woods on
the Quincey Jones arrangement

"Oh I love sax me!
never could say the same
for ***

well - enough of that
better get on with
my death

and what better way to go
than with Beverly singing low
always thought I looked a bit like her

she smiles that record sleeve smile
the one I tried to sculpt
upon my own features

"I saw a new horizon
and a road to take me
where I wanted to be...needed to be.... took"

"God! I'm only starving!" yowls the cat
"Ya couldn't feed me before ya go...no
**** those...**** those cans!"

"Oh ****...oh ****!" she purrs
the record's...the record's...the record's
stuck
INDWELLING

If thou couldst empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf,
And say — "This is not dead," —
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art all replete with very thou,
And hast such shrewd activity,
That, when He comes, He says — "This is enow
Unto itself — 'Twere better let it be:
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me."

T.E. BROWN

I Never Has Seen Snow Lyrics
I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW

done lost my ugly spell
I am cheerful now
Got the warm all overs a-smoothin' my worried brow
Oh, the girl I used to be
She ain't me no more
I closed the door on the girl I was before
Feeling fine and full of bliss
What I really wants to say is this

I never has seen snow
All the same I know
Snow ain't so beautiful
Cain't be so beautiful
Like my love is
Like my love is

Nothing do compare
Nothing anywhere with my love
A hundred things I see
A twilight sky that's free
But none so beautiful
Not one so beautiful
Like my love is
Like my love is
Once you see his face
None can take the place of my love

A stone rolled off my heart
When I laid my eyes on
That near to me boy with that far away look
And right from the start
I saw a new horizon
And a road to take me where I wanted to be took
Needed to be took
And though
I never has seen snow
All the same I know
Nothing will ever be
Nothing can ever be
Beautiful as my love is
Like my love is to me

Harold Arlen/Truman Capote

from THE HOUSE OF FLOWERS musical

MY GARDEN

A GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot!
Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Ferned grot—
The veriest school
Of peace ; and yet the fool
Contends that God is not—
Not God ! in gardens ! when the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign;
‘Tis very sure God walks in mine.

T. E. BROWN

She used to sing along to the Quincey Jones arrangement with Phil Wood featuring....yea he of that famous alto sax solo on Billy Joel's JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.

Beverly Kenny is now more remembered for her I Hate Rock 'n' Roll but was a young  up and coming singer who died too early by her own hand.

My lady in the poem did indeed look very much like her and one was often disconcerted by a record sleeve looking back at one with my lady's young face. I never cared for her much except for her version of I Never Has Seen Snow. Curiously the Japanese to this day adore her. I was more of a Julie London man don't ya know.

The rather excellent Barbara Pym was another stand by or go to...EXCELLENT WOMEN was her second book and on p.15 there indeed occurs the line...

"A vicarage ought to be a welcoming sort of place with a bright entrance."

She was Philip Larkin's favourite novelist.

My lady was the very model of a modern curmudgeon and not everyone could stand her but I got on well with her seeing as I knew both Brown and Pym and could sing along to I NEVER HAS SEEN SNOW.

fo'c's'le was necessary to complete a crossword and she was getting very cross at not being able all of a sudden to spell it.

The forecastle (abbreviated fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le)is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase "before the mast" which denotes anything related to ordinary sailors, as opposed to a ship's officers
Cecilia Rose Jul 2011
You laid in a ditch.
Blood splattered on your body.
It collected in a puddle beneath you,
soaked into the dirt,
turning the ground crimson red.
No one could see this scene.
A truck was  pressed upon your body,
crushing every bone,
pressing organs through your skin.
You died instantly.

I,
on the other hand,
did not have that luxury
when I died.
The shock stole my breath.
My body shook.
Deep raspy breaths attempted to slide past the barriers in my throat.
My legs collapsed beneath me.
The wretched tentacles of the ceramic tile floor entangled me in their grasp.
I was stuck.
All I could do was sense:
the smell of burning dinner for three,
the taste of bile on my tongue,
the cold tile against my cheek,
the kick of the child within me,
the overwhelming feelings of dread and loneliness
that seeped through my skin and penetrated my internal organs
until I, too, died.
Yes,
I remember all too clearly the day we died.
We died together.
I,
on the kitchen floor.
You,
on the right side of the road.

The world flew past me.
I stood next to a wooden box,
sealed shut,
no one could see the chunks of you that still existed.
The collectors missed a piece.
It was in my heart.
No one saw that piece though,
because my heart was as tightly sealed as the other box that held you.
That day,
hundreds of hands touched me.
They patted my back,
embraced my body,
gave my hand a gentle squeeze.
I don't recall whom the hands belonged to,
but they all held an emotion,
compassion.
I seemed to have forgotten that feeling.
In fact,
I forgot every word spoken,
the weather,
the people that came,
even what I wore that day.
The only memory left from that day is embedded into
a pillow.
It holds the secrets of that night
and many nights that followed.
That night I rolled over to feel
your warmth,
your heart beat,
your soft skin.
All I found
was cold, starchy sheets,
and a puddle of salt water on my pillow that accumulated through the night.
  It was a nightmare stuck on replay.
The only problem is,
I never woke up.

We were supposed to have a baby together.
You always wanted a girl.
You wanted to love her.
You were going to be a good father,
the best.
That is why I love you.
All you knew of her was the gentle kick.
All she knew of you was your voice.
You never saw those eyes:
identical to yours,
deep brown,
penetrates the soul,
causes the heart to weep in love.
You never felt her fingers wrap against yours.
Her soft innocent  skin
would be a breathtaking contrast
to your wised calloused skin.
The beauty would only be seen in the early morning hours.
You would hold her against your bare chest as she cried.
Slowly,
You would erase her fears
and she would fall asleep in
your caressing love.
I would lean against the door frame,
holding a cup of coffee
for you.
I would marvel
at how the newborn light would dance across their skin.
Your face would look toward me.
Our eyes would meet.
You would give me that look that I could describe for years.
The look that some people call love,
but too me,
it was always so much more than that.
Yes,
much more than that.
It is in your eyes,
the love,
but those eyes faded...

I find myself looking into a new pair of eyes,
yet,
they are the same.
I'm oblivious
to the sterilized white walls,
the smell of chemicals,
and the coughs and beeps that echo through the hallway.
All I see is those beautiful eyes.
She will be so much like you.
You'll never met face to face,
but your souls are old chums.
I came to a realization at that moment.
I am alive.
She is alive.
You are alive.
I live in you,
you lives in her,
and she lives in us.
She was no longer a baby,
she.
She was
Calanthe Thuraia,
beautiful flower,
star of my life.

That night I went to bed.
No tears stained that pillow,
because I had you by my side
and she lay in the crib beside us.
You were a great father,
the best.
You taught our daughter so much.
You are the reason
she is a beautiful young woman today.
  You held her in your arms
as a child.
You wiped away her tears
when the boys were means.
You never let her
give up her dreams
You walked her down the aisle
to a man that you knew was good for her.
She never knew you
but you did it all for her.
You just did it through me.
You held my hand
You kissed my cheek
and there was never a night without you by my side.
You gave me strength
when I only wanted to cry,
and you always told me,
“You are a great mother,
the best.
That is why I love you.”
Joe Cole Feb 2015
A follow on to I Got Natural Eemunity

You know when I was a kid in a large family
We never had much money
So we had a bath only once a week
Simply because heating water cost money
Something we didn't have
A simple way of life eating simple food
Anyway days at school were spent alongside rich kids
In their spotlessly clean uniforms
With their sniffles and coughs and runny noses
Spluttering over their hygienically prepared lunch boxes
But
Us poor kids with a cheese sandwich in a paper bag
Rarely got a cough or cold
Cassis Myrtille Jan 2014
Shadows loom in the dark
What were you thinking?
No voice, coughs coughs
Never seems too good
Maybe not that bad either
Mind's such a whirlwind
in the dark
dark
dark
Sometimes, I just wish I could ask,
Penny for your thoughts?
Robin Carretti Jul 2018
The natural you and what about him
The Zen  gold egg climber Prince
Got his "Godly" rinse of the hen
We always knew their way upon
our thinking "Jumping Jack Flash"
But to be the change the day single
let's be feasible naturally, we mingle
The Holy water medieval drinking
By the night call, something is moving
Like a creature not in human form

We need to meet our expectations
More spoken revelations and terms
Naturally, we were born to be told
we have the fire to move any force
Even when our bones are getting old
  That powerful love but someone is
watching us above

With higher hopes will make
it through lovesick she coughs
The Passageway like a click of her heels
Feeling the beauty but climbing high
Naturally being cool with her sigh
Or the carriage day vintage wine
Her lucky wheel

World’s are invitation the engagement,
The sweet words or the terms of endearment
Be the Higher lover up in the Prince bow to her
A need to get higher inside the
Castle what a love hustle like a stampede

The rampage turning the ancient pages
Rock and roll ages or the Gothic pale
Victorian beauty her name Judy
Sir page the Grand Marnier
or change of pace human race
The drink Moet                            
High Mighty King singing

Her heart shape ring beating

Fresh-cut or worn out smoke put out
Brighten her pleasure the rose repose
To be born  not a piece of paper torn
Like a Queen reborn

For love how its spoken not just
City Girl with her token for-God-sake
can you look through her
wing turned up she is curled up
in her new threads of sheets
eyes please she is not ready
to hear goodbyes to your beat
What do you read is she naturally
beautiful than or now

Her naturally glow lights up
The Shakespearian castle
   Two nature healers, not the
same as card dealers

  Butterflies the fireflies
Her love shape naturally
that's no lie

  It comes naturally to be loved


    More like homed bakes muffin _


Google the nature of things spoken but
they may not come
Please don't wait too long
Perhaps there is always someone
to copy your song


Be the climber love for who she is
Her vegetables her sensuality is quite
organically raw
She loves her side dish coleslaw

How nature made us in the womb
Naturally spoken things like her sub combo
This is a meditation we need a salvation to feel free and have our own wings to fly even if you get so close enough to realize the goodbye just climb higher in your spirit to live it
an aquatic plant
flower syrup for bad coughs
the lotus flower
Chloë Fuller Oct 2014
I dress and hold you
like a child
your pheromones intoxicating me
coughs
snores
gentle moans that require attention
bed shifting
the texture of the sheets subbing together
this is our symphony
I'm drunk off the scent of your hair and skin
artists created Gods in your image
shadows highlight your emaciation
static.
vibrato from sing-alongs
red wine and irish whiskey are bringing us together
and tearing us apart
we are both pilgrims
and
we are both savages
grabbing at my shirt like a little baby who needs his mommy
we sing to your body so
ceremoniously
nuzzling, rolling, blushing, adjusting
our souls require choas
clumsiness excused
something i wrote last spring for my boyfriend
Quinn Oct 2015
I wasn't even a day old when I was first injected. Into my arm spilled the life I was bound to have. My mother watched my eyes fill with hope as my body filled with youth through this tube I grew to know all too well. I had come to love the sting through my veins and the taste of not tasting. The punctures in my skin felt like a fleece blanket but no one second guessed why they didn't scab over when it was no longer raining. And no one thought twice about the times I stomped on pins and needles hoping to feel the comfort of that old fleece blanket. All those fake coughs and stomach aches just to be wrapped up in something softer than tums and motrin. Do you know how it feels to be cold in the middle of June? To walk around with thick fabric draped over your shoulders like an invisible cloak, nobody saw the bruises. Well sometimes I get warm and I toss it off like I invented the throw blanket. But as soon as I reveal my purple skin, the surface begins to boil and I can feel myself evaporate. I can feel the division of my cells as each particle tries to escape. Piece by piece, my body is trying to break away, I need to get away. But my only safe haven is stuck in the syringe thats triggered my decay. Nirvana bullets shot through my veins and as I melted into a blank state, it told me I'd be okay. When I began to shake, it told me I'd be okay. When my body ached, it told me I'd be okay. When my skin started to wash away, it told me I would be okay.
Thou hast nor youth nor age
      But as it were an after dinner sleep
      Dreaming of both.


Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,
Bitten by flies, fought.
My house is a decayed house,
And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,
Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,
Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.
The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.
The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,
Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.
                                        I an old man,
A dull head among windy spaces.

Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign!”
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger

In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas,
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk
Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room;

By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door.
    Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,
An old man in a draughty house
Under a windy ****.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.

The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use them for your closer contact?
These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled
Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear
In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn,
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To a sleepy corner.

                    Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.
Kathy Z Nov 2013
A mother who listens to soft classical Mozart
Reclined against the soft, worn pillow from ages
slender fingers easily flicking through a catalog,
while a father is hunched over
in the cold den, racked with coughs and pains, trembling fingers trying to hold on to the metallic foil of medicine.
And a child, barely 4
playing with stuffed animals on the couch
a victim of Tay Sach

A car, and a windowpane, that have both seen too much,
ragged advertisements fluttering in the wind,
advertising a movie coming out yesterday,
A burger shop ad that had already long closed,
and deals long gone.
The downtown urban forest, turned into a junkyard
full of scraps of rusted silver and infected bronze.

A bystander who can do nothing but laugh
as a boy's nose gets crushed in,
a ****** lip,
A swollen, purple eye
A boy of 18
who is still waiting for her somewhere
to see her colored smile
and eyes of glass
bitter and emotionless, glazed over with sterling silver,
who has a family, siblings,
who is now turned into nothing but a ragged playtoy for the sick, sick entertainment of others

A broken air conditioner that can do nothing but clack clack clack over and over again, metal blades spinning vainly for nothing,
while a broken family is screaming in the other room,
and a child is crying, hands to his face, covering his eyes
as a father hits his wife, knocks her against the sharp, tiled kitchen counter,
and the screaming intensifies, accompied by the hurtful insults that are thrown at each other-by the father and the teen.
and still the air conditioner goes on and on
oblivious to nothing.

A world that is so breathtaking and cruel at the same time
where little, insignificant families are torn apart without a second thought,
where the 'strong' prey on the 'weak'
Where the most beautiful sprawling cities turn into rejected second handers just because of a rumor
And,
A mother who listens to soft classical Mozart
Reclined against the soft, worn pillow from ages, ages ago
full of tears and stiches  
slender fingers easily flicking through a catalog, searching for the most effective medicine, eyes flickering in worry
while a father is hunched over
in the cold den because
he doesn't want to risk spreading his sickness to anyone else
racked with coughs and pains, trembling fingers trying to hold on to the metallic foil of medicine.
Working hard to support his family because the economy is going down again
And a child, barely 4
playing with stuffed animals on the couch
a victim of Tay Sach,
dead at 6.
Daniel Handschuh Oct 2015
A bird glides gracefully whilst the discolored leaves are aflutter
   In the wind that rocks the cold rotted wood of the window's shutter;
   All while the obstructive trees cause the wind’s speech to stutter.
   Yet she still howls with an intense pressure on me chest; I can barely utter
   My feelings toward this heavy air of eeriness about me—
   Nearly as heavy as the insignificance in the noose of the tree—
   A decomposed mutilation of all that is good, hung for all to see—
   A shriveled neck and half-dissolved eyes that still long to be free—
   The blood long lost, the body now pale—why does it stress?
   Why is life in its eyes, why does it shrug off Death’s caress?
   And as the sun is fully blotted by the black clouds, unfatigued,
   A hot stench like the enhancement of rotten fruit—yet I am intrigued—
   Descends upon me with the force of a vise equipped with knives—
   ‘Tis the horror of what only the spirits of the dead can contrive.
  
   And visions—horrible visions!—overwhelm me and present terrors:—!
   Rain steadily falls and patters incessantly upon an accursed Earth;
   Surrounding the hanging man are graves—and so begins the second birth:—!
   The tombstones crack and crumble into hundreds of jagged stones;
   An earthquake manifests quickly, and violently rattled my bones
   And remorselessly disembowels the Earth of the trees’ roots;
   Suddenly far more prominent is the awful stench of the fruits;
   An unsettling revelation is brought to my undivided attention:
   The tombstones’ collapse and the earthquake are not in relation,
   But the earthquake is a result of monsters unleashing their power.
   And the tombstones—but what of the tombstones’ fall?
   Startled, I see that replacing the hanging man is a voodoo doll,
   Dancing with its tiny limbs and smiling nonstop, locking its black eyes
   On my horrified self; I cringe and tremble in this demonic guise.
   A screeching note erupts from its unmoving mouth; it hovers in the air
   While I am frightfully dehumanized by the doll’s inexorable stare.
   While the screech lingers, the wet soil of the graves shifts quietly,
   The noise of splitting, wet dirt drowned out by the screech of cruelty.
   As it becomes clear the voodoo doll’s dance is one of conjuring,
   ’Tis revealed to me that the tombstones fell because of remembering:
   The dead do not believe they should be remembered, reflected upon...
   The second birth’s process is agonizingly long as I become wan.
   But before I nearly faint—and leave the visions—I receive an unwanted help:
   The doll’s gesticulations are directed toward me; even so, she raises Hell.
   My mind is frightfully clear to see all before me, and the dizziness has left.
   Oh, why these visions? Why with this horrible curse I am blessed?
  
   I am met with the most terrifying sight of all; my heart quickens.
   As the rain falls harder and begins to puddle, my blood thickens
   And very nearly ceases to flow as I watch the dead come to life.
   Gnarled fingers, some broken and some missing, ignore Death’s inflicted strife.
   Fingers—disjointed, protruding in random directions, treelike;
   Grime under the fingernails—fingernails, chipped or long spikes;
   Hardly any flesh on the old, ***** bones; muscles dripping off.
   Bodies, mutilated by natural decomposition, burst with raging coughs
   From the eviscerated Earth, black with age, red with dried blood.
   The dead, limping and holding what organs they still have, slip in the mud,
   Fall, fill their empty ribcages with it, and scream as limbs are torn away;
   Scream, as they are free from the grave, the path that led them astray.
  
   Oh, the feelings of dread that are eroding my scarred mind!
   What awful horrors have I stumbled upon, what did I find?
   One undead woman is staring at me with unfortunately soulless eyes;
   A few long hairs messily fall from her shriveled head, infested with flies,
   And her eyes—oh, her eyes!—are as small as raisins, wrinkly and white;
   They hover in her sockets, the skull only half-covered—pure fright!—
   With dead skin. Why is her toothless skull grinning mischievously?
   Is she enjoying my terror that leaves my trembling grievously?
   Abruptly, the still, deformed grotesquerie releases a sickening gurgle
   And violently shakes, as if under some overwhelming mental struggle.
   Her jaw falls open, unattended from the necessary muscles’ absence,
   And screaming laughter flows out of her agape mouth; malevolence
   Seeps from it in the form of pitchy black smoke and tightens the air.
   And all the while is still her unfailing, gut-wrenching stare!
   Her chest, dilapidated from the Earth's engulfment of her, explodes—
   A black skeletal hand, emerging from the body that was its abode—
   A demon, a black skeleton, blood gushing from its mouth, fire in its eyes—
   And tattered wings spread as the screamer takes to the hellish skies.
   It hovers around the dancing voodoo doll, circling her,
   Worshipping the smiling thing that was sewn with maleficence and fear.
  
   “But what are these things?” I ask as the undead congregate.
   “Is this how horrible life will be beyond Hell’s gates?”
   But it is made revealed to me that the people are eternal
   Inhabitants of Hell—Hell inside me; the spiritual realm is internal.
   “Why do they gather around the doll and bow in submission?”
   But, to my dismay, there is no answer to this deathly war of attrition.
  
   “Vultures!” I hear, a thunderous, wicked voice from up above.
   “You do not know what you are to believe, or what to love!”
   The dead dance in slow, uncoordinated movements, circling
   The doll. Even the shadows ominously flicker, no longer lurking.
   The black demon floats and gestures to the moaning dead,
   Beckoning them to rise from their permanent deathbeds
   To chant and flail their measly arms in worship of the voodoo.
   What have I done to be cast into this dangerous world askew?
   “You are a vulture, searching helplessly for something to feast
   “When the desperate hunger is turning you into the demons’ beast.
   “And when the food is gone, you search for your next dying idol.
   “For you, the inevitable conquest for falsities will never be final.”
  
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
  
   The room of a once peaceful dwelling is a victim of an apocalypse:—
   ‘Tis as if it has mutated into the imagery of a drug’s dangerous trip:—
   The walls are bent in, threatening to collapse under the pressure;
   Books are shredded, shelves are upturned, and obliterated is the dresser;
   Blood drips from numerous cracks in the ceiling and paints the walls.
   ‘Tis many moments of being awestruck before I realize the mirror calls.
   Vision is blurry, a hollow ringing sings, and my surroundings fade.
   My legs of jelly drag my heavy body into the dark hall’s shade.
  
   I yell at the sight in the cracked mirror, but my voice is painfully missing.
   It appears as if my entire face is losing its grip and is slowly slipping.
   Gravity’s grappling hooks have taken a strong hold and are pulling.
   The entirety of my eyes is almost visible from the disturbing lack of coverage.
   My jaw refuses to rise back up, as if the muscles have lost their leverage.
   It adds to the terror—how unsightly I am! How revolting!
   I am no longer human but an otherworldly, disgusting being!
   A scream that is not my own bursts from my agape mouth and shatters the mirror.
   It deafens my ears like a knife; I feel the fiery tearing of my vocal cords.
   “Vulture,” I vaguely hear but clearly curl my dry, thin lips to.
   “Go, find your food, find your idol, bathe in what you think is true.”
   Violently, desperately, crashing into walls with wild, uncontrollable limbs,
   I purposelessly search for the spirit that will welcome my immovable sins.
Yes, it's gory and has some disturbing elements in it, but I use these to instill certain emotions into the readers. On other forums, I'm known for how frankly I put my words, so if you enjoyed this, expect me to post more without being afraid to say anything.
Paul Hardwick Nov 2013
Today the germs came around
now do not get me wrong
I love my grand children
but today the germs came around
there snivelling noses
and coughs
just dose not help us old people
when the germs come over for tea
just know I will catch something see
NO NO KIDS
I love you really.
When the night coughs lightly too
The misty, humid air
Between the dark harvest of shadows
And that long eerie croon
That rides upon the winds hollow flow
Filling the night to the desperate
The lonely, painful cry and tear
That still resides to the dream world
Half lost, half forgotten.

She sleeps her deep
Where once the lavender tones confided
And laid the will to blissful tones
In serenades of fancy and delight
That ravished her form
Teased each aching throb
And rested the deep metaphoric Ideal
Of crashing waves and the fireworks explosions.

Now she wanders these dark narrow paths
That daunts her horizons, entwine her thoughts
With that haunting image of her faded heart
That weeps upon the pools, midnight's facade
And pours down to empty upon those long lost seas of hope.
How far the soul travels in its long despair
Its desperate want to feel once again
The tranquil night of passions embrace.

How bitter the flow of the tyrants love
That wears the mask of truth
She hovered upon his every tale
Lingered her breath there to his
And danced the purple rays of dreams
Where love so opened her free
To dance, to dream and blindly see.

She sits alone in her tiny room
Fearing the images that fill her so
Tired for the want of blessed rest
Yet fearing where dreams shall carry her soul
To those old grounds of loves demise
The painful moments, silent cries
The day the world was torn and rendered barren
The day her tears filled heaven.


Alisdaire O'Caoimph
Mark W Meehan Mar 2017
Water erasing stone,
Color uncovered with each intimate drip
Sandstone? Granite? Clay?
Always shifting.

Life shaping faith
Beauty revealed with each piercing drop
Belief? Truth? Hope?
Oh, how it keeps shifting.

Life sanding stone
miles traveled
conversation, laughter, grief
all sacred sanding, dripping, cutting.

Absolute? Sorry. Safe? Please.
African refugees
and Muslims and holy characters of all walks
sorting, sifting, shifting me and my deepest held belief.

Kneeling on a roof in Delhi, bearing witness
to a thousand rasping coughs offered to heaven
as one desperate prayer,
ascending with the eternal incense
of countless cooking fires.

Simmering in the Carolina sun with Waleed
warm words and a tender heart
intimacy, intimacy with Allah
present the way Aquinas could only hope
for all of us. For me.

Certainty may resist dripping
but the cost, the cost.
Forced, formal, cheap, and cold.
A fearful response to the stunning destruction
of being created.

What if your faithfulness is foolishness? Who are you,
if you miss
the beauty of every drip?
Thinking about faith a lot lately, having wrestled with Christianity and its role in my life for years. Perhaps a step forward.
Terry O'Leary May 2013
Well, Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
his wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
and boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams are filled with screams; Bob knows he needs to hurry.

It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry,
He chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.
Robert Zanfad Feb 2012
a new morning huddled
over the small stove set on snow
cold-numbed fingers
fumbled with matches
to light it

coughs punched at a dust rag sky,
the dull rasps
embarrassed near neighbors might hear
how the weak
body heaves, wracks
they'd smell kerosene on hands and clothes
if they came too close

the bent over figure
counts ashes afloat, relics
of fresh disasters wrought high,
loosing tally at one in hope it was the last;
restarts the reckoning -
it might be a tempest this time

fire fed by collections of poems,
old histories of things with no purpose,
expired quickly in overnight darkness
cold, gray their corpses still lay
beyond brushed bricks of the hearth

even a grocery list,
its page neatly erased under flakes,
chases after vapors escaped an empty fuel can,
hunger replaced by craving to be warm again

inside, behind the door
they bow heads and say grace at the table
praying over slices of light from a window
intoning with cotton puff voices
still
God gives tomorrow to continue the counting
The Street is pretty empty
Just the locals out tonight
It's New Year's Eve and chilly
Seems this time, that all is right

No drunken revelers on the Street
All the buildings are shut tight
Except the bar and Gianni's place
On the Street, that's just alright

The Blues Man sits out back right now
And he's looking at the moon
No fireworks, or crystal *****
Say the New Year's coming soon

He coughs a bit, a little harsh
Grabs his medcin, and guitar
then he gently starts to playing
Looking at a single star

There's a few folks in Giannis
Watching the ball drop on tv
The bar is full of locals
Where the New Year's shots are free

But out back of Gianni's
The Blues Man sits in peace
Singing gently to the midnight sky
Sitting besides the drums of grease

This year he found his daughter
Memories of years gone by
And he sings tales of their meeting
To the chilly, midnight sky

His daughter is his lodestone
She keeps him grounded, always did
No matter where he ventured
He always loved his missing kid

She's drinking at the bar now
While The Blues Man sits out back
Singing tunes in Winter Darkness
He lets us in...but just a crack

The door behind Gianni's
Is open, just a bit
It's open for the Blues Man
To go get warm and sit

But, for now, he sits here playing
As the New Year ventures in
He sings songs about redemption
And he drinks his medcin

An hour in and locals
Leave Gianni's and the bar
They venture to the alley
Where he's playing to that star

They join him in silence
Hear his prayer for the year new
They are swept up in his magic
And let him do what he must do

He smiles and keeps on singing
Fills the night air with his voice
For no matter how his life is
He only had one choice

He's the Blues Man, always will be
He's the teller of the tales
He sings songs out in the alley
He's the wind in the Street's sails

He finishes his last song
His daughter standing, smiling wide
She gives him a kiss upon his forehead
And she ushers him aside

He'll wake up again tomorrow
In the alley, cold but free
That's the life of The Street Blues Man
And that's the way ...that it should be.
Kuzhur Wilson Aug 2014
On the 9th, I was driving in a hurry from Jerusalem to Jerico, laden with kisses for you.  A cop waved me down at the Bank junction at Aluva. Unnerved, the car hit something. All your kisses scattered on the road. My hands, legs, face and ***** blushed with gashes. My kisses for you lay around in the middle of the road. The orphan kids from Janaseva were picking them up. They packed them in their sling bags. A beggar woman who was passing by picked up one to smell it. College going kids make fun of my kisses for you. A cop tramples one of them with his boot.  A pock marked tipper truck crushes it under its wheels. A procession agitating for drinking water marches past it. My kisses for you are strewn in the middle of the road and holler for the moistness of your lips. Covered in a sheet woven with wounds, I lie on a hospital bed. Lamenting 'my kisses, my kisses’, you catch a flight and land in Nedumbassery.  You come to see me. In haste, you forget to buy me oranges.

I kept looking at you.
It was raining outside.

I looked at your lips.
Then, all the flowers in the front yard roll in laughter.

I look at your throat.
Then, a white dove takes off from a mango tree.

I look at your ears.
Then, a thrush flies off seeking its mother.

I look at your strands of hair.
Then, the plumeria leaves pick lice from each other.

I look at your eyes.
Then, the well in the court yard gives a missed call to the sea.

I look at your nose.
Then, the glare outside sketches the spring.

I look at your arm pits.
Outside, yellow woods sing a song.

I look at your *******.
Outside, bird’s eye chilies stand sharply *****.

I look at your cleavage.
A mother who bore six squats outside and coughs.

I at your navel.
Outside, a thousand bats.

I at your feet.
Then, a sweet gooseberry falls on the yard.


At knees.
At tender thighs...

Always
Always then
Outside, the drum beats of a road show grow in crescendo.

I trace pictures of our kids on your lips.

Then, in the middle of the road, the souls of kids crushed under wheels queue up with oranges to meet us.

When you and I wail without a sound, a slice from it falls on the ground. I make up a simile that tears are the slices of oranges that drop from the hands of those who have not had enough of loving. You give me one more kiss. I stash it away doubting whether you will be near when I die.  Our kisses attack us asking us whether we will abandon them again. We lie on the hospital bed covered in wounds from the kisses. A bunch of angels come with syringes and bitter pills. We run away without paying the bill. Our kisses follow us like a procession of bare bodies with running noses. Unable to bear the sorrow, you hug them right on the highway. I buy a cigarette from the petty shop nearby and, puffing on it, watch you.



Translation : Ra Sha
I’m nothing more
Than a bore
As all my stuff
Are shitfully sad
Can’t make you laugh.

I’m just a plain bore
For almost always
I knock your door
With a mourning face
Not finding laughter’s address.

I wish I could write stuff
To make you rollingly laugh
Belly ripping laughs
Choked in coughs
Yet never enough.

I’m a bore
A failure
Time and again
Only sketching sadness
Pity
Deformity
Never giving you a laughing recess.
Simon Leake May 2015
Two white French girls
smoke a Turkish hookah
and listen to three black
African Americans sing rap
the hookah bubbles
the mobile smacks out
the emasculated music
their mouths relinquish
their language to the jam
the pencil makes no sound

The clouds scoot
orange and pink bruises
across the skyline
like the weather can’t wait
can’t change quick enough
it’s October already
and we’re still not done
with summer;
cling to every humid evening
hang around every last beam
of the too punctual sunset
 
In the club the beats begin
but it’s too early; no one’s inside
One of the French girls coughs back a dud ****
the bar door creaks
the traffic whispers
with bored engines
the beats want to sail
off with the clouds
but are kept echoing
between four walls

Time overcomes space then
the beats are cut
a siren wails, a seagull screams
the traffic streams
the awnings rock little trees
my concrete idyll

……

Two Spanish men arrive
and have a three-way
food talk
with a mobile

A piano begins
to sound out
Aquarium by Saint-Saëns
the beats return
then stop
a door opens
a door closes
the hubbub returns
 
The Spanish settle on
an Argentinean
the French girls switch to
a chantress

I digress

— The End —