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TheMystiqueTrail Sep 2018
Darkness dredges deep into the soul,
tempest gouges out my stillness in manic vengeance,
lightning in fiery wrath
rips up the mind’s horizon.
Thunderous sky roars in scaring rage.
Panicked,
stars went hiding
in the pall of gloomy clouds.

My soul too blackens out,
O Shepherd,
where are you this night?
Gale L Mccoy Jul 2018
began with the end of your sentence
the dredges at the bottom of the mocha
fool yourself into thinking
you are not running on less than nothing
accept it doesn’t make sense
read the symbols you find
at the bottom of your reservoir
day 1 of 31 days of poetry challenge
Wanderer Jul 2012
Waking up startled, to battering wind and rain.
Tide marks surging to great gasping heights.
Catching breaths stolen by the wind.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Watching idly by while pieces of you dissolve into the shadows.
I want those clouds weaving through my fingertips.
Their curious renderings like powdered ***** sugar.
Taste it and they fall heavy with gloom like **** death in the aftermath of such storm.

Counting the miles to the storm.
Ticking, tocking, and clicking.
The clock waiting in anticipation for the next thunderous sound.
Cold shivers up my spine like a thousand Carolina insults.
Your ghost still haunts and seeps into my pores lastly at night.
I taste defeat in the way you love.
It's like weaving clouds between my fingertips
Trying to grasp and hold onto every flowing motion of you pulling away from me

My cold, cracked walls are surged.
Towered over in their crumbling decay.
I want to taste your rain.
Your lips gently sink into mine.
Crushed velvet smooth and warm waking up the army of dead hearts ready for battle.
I am no warrior but there's blood painted across my sky.
Red sky in the morning, sailors warning, as I float on out into your turbulent seas.
Looking back on shore I realize that I'm finally home.

These seas roll uneasy.
Queasy.
Watching thru the mist towards our lighthouse that guided us to these depths
Trembling away like an afterthought.
The land has disappeared into the mouth of the shark.
Digested in the belly of a whale of angels.
Our sorrow holds us here, anchoring us to the tumultuous waves.
We battle our sea sickness with kisses of death lingering.
The soft pull of our exile turned oblivion.

Navigating with open wounds the silky expanse of midnight unwinding above us, within us.
Knowing us through and through.
An island of quivering vulnerability breaks the static horizon.
Lights, smog beginning to choke the sea air in my lungs.
Too long you've been left unkempt, grown comfortable.
That will change with new currents,
North winds bringing the frigid breath of winter.

Licking the sun off of the salty expanse of our sunburned red flesh.
The ****** of desperation lingers thru our moaning fingers
Feeling and pleading for our SOS call to be heard by anyone’s ears but ours.
The shores of this icy water leave my mind beneath the dredges of polar sleep.
We've grown strained, frost bitten, and distant in the few feet we are able to part.
The growling of hunger satiates our parched thirst.

I am rendered speechless adrift without you.
Hurricanes a coming.
Stand fast.
Secure the riggings.
Solaris brightens to light the way into calmer seas.
Those tepid shores of wonder and new beginnings fade into the horizon.
It's just you and me left to face the swelling tide.
Hang on.
The water is rising.
No one left to pull us saturated and insatiable from these waters of shadow and secrets.

The siren's song will bring us to our sharp shore end.
Resist the silky flow of nocturnal snakes wrapped around chilled flesh
Pulling closer to our aquatic hearts.
Hades and Persephone bond.
Glowing abysmal rage.
Holy grail veins.
Bleeding back into the orange crush dawn.
Night gives way to hollow rebirth
But once again we are inside one another.
Infinite.

These waves crash on overboard.
Trying to drag us back into the frigid depths with each ebb and flow.
With each crash of wave I can feel our resolve growing weaker.
The sensation of just letting go and giving in.
Should we let go and just give in?
Leave ourselves at the mercy of shipwrecks.
This hurricane dance we've perfected on the endless depthless ocean
Left us weak and willing to pull ourselves apart.
To taste our insides on the outsides.
How many times I've wondered have you noticed my stare.
The lustful licking of my sun blistered lips.
I want to taste the way you think and feel the warmth of your life to keep me alive.
The oceans call, I have heard, brings out the worst in sailors.
Always searching for the elusive siren to sing us a song.
A song from the depths of mythology to lullaby us away from our status adrift.

Our bodies collide in the tide once more.
Salted skin heated and torn
Latching on to something greater than just depths of starless prose.
You were a wicker man, weaved strong and whole.
I was a water girl, slipping straight through your bowl.
Wishes flow to and fro on tepid air laced with promises.
Our fingertips will never lose grip again,
the melody writhing between us like staccato heartbeats
Seeking solace on the endless seas.*

These waves rock us to shoreline.
Rock strewn and littered with the ribcages of whales
And the bows and sterns of shipwrecks long ago.
We pick up these pieces and hold them closest to our chest
Realizing the possibilities of a new home and a new start to this oceanic life we've drifted into.
We build a fire to warm our hearts and suspend our thoughts
Cradled and nestled in the crook of each others arms we leave our sea and our island
Soaring high into the clouds and the sleep we’ve begged for with our parched lips and swollen tongues.
Our dreams at night are the call of the sea begging to be drowned in our sand encrusted lungs,
To be one with us and our failures
The bequeathing cry of the seagull wakes us dully from our slumber
We peer out with sea salted eyes and realize it was all just a dream
We shout for help with all the voice we can muster
Letting in lungs full of icy ocean and dead crustaceans
Filling our bodies like bags of sand immobile
We’ve been sleeping with our anchors held closely
Down in the depths of the endless ocean rolling.
Plain text BK Barnes
Italicised text Brook Ilges
Darbi Alise Howe Jun 2013
It's a sweltering night, a sweltering morning really, and my body is tattooed with spider bite kisses and bruises.  I smell of park grass and chlorine and someone else's sweat, my lips are chapped, swollen, my eyes encircled in crimson undertones.  The people on the street stare- I am blonde, a dead give away, slighter and taller than the locals.  Men are confused, women are scornful, police are helpless.  My legs cramp with the dawn as I walk back to the apartment in my hospital-gown green tunic, sobbing openly, hair tangled with twigs and dirt.  It's still dark enough for that, but too quiet.  A milkman stops his work to look up at me and whisper ciao in the most kind and gentle voice I have ever heard, especially here, and I want to throw myself into his arms and sleep and scar his white uniform with the black stains of my tears, though I restrain myself and nod, shuffling forward, shoulders slumped, no eye contact, his gaze a hand stroking my back like the father I never had but always wished for, and I cannot help but cry harder, though I try harder to restrict each sob until I sound as though I'm gasping for air, but I would rather seem asthmatic than week, rather be strange than pitiful.  It is always better to be unknowable, much more simple than openly vulnerable in my experience, though my experiences are drunken from the bottom dredges of a half empty glass, so truly I do not know if this is true, and and every day I understand Hamlet's letter to Ophelia just a bit more, because every day I doubt truth to be a liar just a bit more.

Still, there are some things I know, enough to be called intelligente by a man named Simone, whose eyes shone with solare during the day, but at night became dark and hungry.  I know now why my friend chose to fly off a building in Spain without his wings.  There is a disconnection abroad, no sense of security or protection, demons are awakened and restless, dreams colder, and more cruel; the heat drains one's essence, melting the glue that keeps us who are broken together.  I know that expectations are sad reflections of desires, shadows of my own inadequacies.  I know that I am afraid, that heaven and hell are not places but permanent conditions, that my head is the prison guard of my heart.  Blame and guilt come easily.  There are no distractions, just meaningless directions, and I seem to have forgotten those I brought from home. Here, I am concerned with physical threats, trauma that can be shaken off with a block's worth of strides, yet I cannot seem to lose my naked shadow between the buildings.  I thought I hid it well behind frozen gazes, but the mirrors say, no, no, they know you are all wrong, you foolish girl, you poor little lie, they see through you, they sense your fear and feast upon it, you ignorant child, you are as small as the motes of dust drifting through the beam of a forgotten projector, the film torn and tangled, the screen stuck on one frame

I should have stopped when the milkman spoke. He knows that it is not mirrors who lie, it is us.
short story I wrote about something that happened when I was living in Florence.
Isaac Grimm Feb 2013
This twisted sandman
strangles the sleep
of the guilty mind.
The over-exposed cycle
the why conjoined with I.

Persists, persistant, perspire.

He self-develops in your spine.
In black shadows, as he
dredges through memories
and dredges through memories
and dredges through memories.
All recalled, and in pain
sorted, distorted, and wrought anew.

But never quite to
a wholly dissonant cognition.
For these prints
These prints hold images
impossible to crush
or cast aside.

For there he stands
in his and your own dark room
in screaming defiance of the false.

The light thrown on
He smashes your funhouse mirror
and chemical-burns your closed eyes.
Brandon Jul 2012
Waking up startled, to battering wind and rain.
Tide marks surging to great gasping heights.
Catching breaths stolen by the wind.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Watching idly by while pieces of you dissolve into the shadows.
I want those clouds weaving through my fingertips.
Their curious renderings like powdered ***** sugar.
Taste it and they fall heavy with gloom like **** death in the aftermath of such storm.

Counting the miles to the storm.
Ticking, tocking, and clicking.
The clock waiting in anticipation for the next thunderous sound.
Cold shivers up my spine like a thousand Carolina insults.
Your ghost still haunts and seeps into my pores lastly at night.
I taste defeat in the way you love.
It's like weaving clouds between my fingertips
Trying to grasp and hold onto every flowing motion of you pulling away from me


My cold, cracked walls are surged.
Towered over in their crumbling decay.
I want to taste your rain.
Your lips gently sink into mine.
Crushed velvet smooth and warm waking up the army of dead hearts ready for battle.
I am no warrior but there's blood painted across my sky.
Red sky in the morning, sailors warning, as I float on out into your turbulent seas.
Looking back on shore I realize that I'm finally home.

These seas roll uneasy.
Queasy.
Watching thru the mist towards our lighthouse that guided us to these depths
Trembling away like an afterthought.
The land has disappeared into the mouth of the shark.
Digested in the belly of a whale of angels.
Our sorrow holds us here, anchoring us to the tumultuous waves.
We battle our sea sickness with kisses of death lingering.
The soft pull of our exile turned oblivion.


Navigating with open wounds the silky expanse of midnight unwinding above us, within us.
Knowing us through and through.
An island of quivering vulnerability breaks the static horizon.
Lights, smog beginning to choke the sea air in my lungs.
Too long you've been left unkempt, grown comfortable.
That will change with new currents,
North winds bringing the frigid breath of winter.

Licking the sun off of the salty expanse of our sunburned red flesh.
The ****** of desperation lingers thru our moaning fingers
Feeling and pleading for our SOS call to be heard by anyone’s ears but ours.
The shores of this icy water leave my mind beneath the dredges of polar sleep.
We've grown strained, frost bitten, and distant in the few feet we are able to part.
The growling of hunger satiates our parched thirst.


I am rendered speechless adrift without you.
Hurricanes a coming.
Stand fast.
Secure the riggings.
Solaris brightens to light the way into calmer seas.
Those tepid shores of wonder and new beginnings fade into the horizon.
It's just you and me left to face the swelling tide.
Hang on.
The water is rising.
No one left to pull us saturated and insatiable from these waters of shadow and secrets.

The siren's song will bring us to our sharp shore end.
Resist the silky flow of nocturnal snakes wrapped around chilled flesh
Pulling closer to our aquatic hearts.
Hades and Persephone bond.
Glowing abysmal rage.
Holy grail veins.
Bleeding back into the orange crush dawn.
Night gives way to hollow rebirth
But once again we are inside one another.
Infinite.


These waves crash on overboard.
Trying to drag us back into the frigid depths with each ebb and flow.
With each crash of wave I can feel our resolve growing weaker.
The sensation of just letting go and giving in.
Should we let go and just give in?
Leave ourselves at the mercy of shipwrecks.
This hurricane dance we've perfected on the endless depthless ocean
Left us weak and willing to pull ourselves apart.
To taste our insides on the outsides.
How many times I've wondered have you noticed my stare.
The lustful licking of my sun blistered lips.
I want to taste the way you think and feel the warmth of your life to keep me alive.
The oceans call, I have heard, brings out the worst in sailors.
Always searching for the elusive siren to sing us a song.
A song from the depths of mythology to lullaby us away from our status adrift.


Our bodies collide in the tide once more.
Salted skin heated and torn
Latching on to something greater than just depths of starless prose.
You were a wicker man, weaved strong and whole.
I was a water girl, slipping straight through your bowl.
Wishes flow to and fro on tepid air laced with promises.
Our fingertips will never lose grip again,
the melody writhing between us like staccato heartbeats
Seeking solace on the endless seas.

*These waves rock us to shoreline.
Rock strewn and littered with the ribcages of whales
And the bows and sterns of shipwrecks long ago.
We pick up these pieces and hold them closest to our chest
Realizing the possibilities of a new home and a new start to this oceanic life we've drifted into.
We build a fire to warm our hearts and suspend our thoughts
Cradled and nestled in the crook of each others arms we leave our sea and our island
Soaring high into the clouds and the sleep we’ve begged for with our parched lips and swollen tongues.
Our dreams at night are the call of the sea begging to be drowned in our sand encrusted lungs,
To be one with us and our failures
The bequeathing cry of the seagull wakes us dully from our slumber
We peer out with sea salted eyes and realize it was all just a dream
We shout for help with all the voice we can muster
Letting in lungs full of icy ocean and dead crustaceans
Filling our bodies like bags of sand immobile
We’ve been sleeping with our anchors held closely
Down in the depths of the endless ocean rolling.
Normal text: Brook Ilges [http://hellopoetry.com/-brook-ilges]
Italicized text: B K Barnes [you're already here]
Bold text: Written by Brook, Edited by B K.
Bryce Aug 2018
It is early.

and the world hangs silent, but the birds chirping their chime,

An angelic choir of vibratos
And tenor beaks
humming sweet
to the early tangerine crest of sun
slivers a powerful bar of light over the peaks
to a newly brilliant horizon.

Sweeping the dredges of darkness away
as the stars fade
like coal dust
back again, packed into their cupboard of night
one by one,
lanterns snuffed and sent
into the vibrating blue
as if the whole sky should erupt into fire
azure, hallowed morning pyre

Encircled by the gradient hues
of coral pink and castille yellow
Mediterranean teal
A symphonic
cacophonic
**** of birth

Good Day, Sweet mother earth.

Squeezed through the valleys
canals
allies
every nook and forlorn cranny
kissed with her blissful photonic army
And the infantile creatures cry with glee.
The dewdrops clutch the blades
the tender palasade
of petals
remembering their darkened escapades
slipping tender rain
to feed the dirt,
the lonely detritus
elixirs of the lovely night.

And the world bursts into a veritable
kaleidoscope of life
With a trillion pairs of eyes
accessing the mother dream
Sonorant Nov 2021
I. Phasmophobia
I am the innumerable gloom of dim, long-buried anthems.
In wistful suspension, I shadow over a living loft in silence.
Tethered between lines, my fog bleeds on panes in knocking
Hawking your dimming faces in the lamplight of my genesis.
Torn the tunnels of their astringed throats, a requiem is reaped.
— ”I was a shape moving rapidly, nervous at the edge of your vision.” -Cynthia Huntington

II. Claustrophobia
I am the small match ignited from the depths of your mind.
My walls blanched absent of evacuation, self invite into
Your personal and private violation, invading every fissure
With icy burns, solidifying your chrysalis on hungry bark.
Your frozen God of smothering doom, a willow devours you.
— “But then I remember the universe was closed, and so very small. There was really no where else to go.” -Peter Watts

III. Ommetaphobia
I am the stricken, scarlet cloth coalesced of cruelty and ichor.
These rawboned talons, cloaked thereof, overtake embrace—
In coarse delight— a piety of prisoners’ silver stark sights.
Perceptive cavities leak my garb as my artistic blade sweeps.
Plucked from the dredges of a briny skull, two diamond orbs.
— ”The hearts hushed secret is in the soft, dark eye." -Letitia Elizabeth Landon
.
IV. Monophobia
I was the cherished friend to you, my twine stitched in your grasp.
A golden balloon unaffected by tides of time and distorting gales.
Alas from this intimate atmosphere shot an arrow, poisonous
Where silently I erupt into a missing memory upon the wind.
As your curtains close, you breathe for me, without a hand to hold.
—”And all I lov’d, I lov’d alone.” -Edgar Allan Poe

V. Arachnophobia
I am the legion of soundless beholders aloft your dormant dreams.
An itch scattered over the crooked spine, arid for pulsing melodies.
This fruitful sapling beckons each dark, angular limb near your neck.
As my lighting strikes erratically, your foolish impulse slow to clutch
Creeping necrosis bestowed by the guardian who claimed your home.
—”The Spider taketh with her hands and is in king’s palaces.” -Proverbs 30:28.

VI. Agoraphobia
I am the ancestral abductor of this rotting womb you deem a shelter.
As the embryo held within, I contract you into tides and bid ‘swim’.
Directions devoid, beyond bolted doors, you plummet to my depths
Where you wish for comforts’ wind but mislaid the method to breathe.
My otherworld encompasses you, whilst I drink in your suffocating.
— ”Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.” -William Thackeray

VII. Ecclesiophobia
I am the black shepherd in martyric masque and a mitre casque.
A discrete imminent sheep cowers, hanging on the hook in my gallery—
My chalice congregates your pure liquor of laments for libertine luxury.
I rise where you fall and smother the lantern of your last mortal minutes
Instilling final grace in the stillness of your veins, my kingdom reigns eternally.
— ”Suffering can be a gift.” - Abbie Bernstein.
grumpy thumb Mar 2017
Clawed back from the dredges of deep self-pitty
"woe is mine" and "abandoned" and other such decrees.
Raised head aloft above self and had a good musing of this one grain among many.
others are far worse
and others faring better
but most
grains fare the same.
Is there a parculiar comfort in sorrow?
An odd warmth to loneliness
Perhaps it's a strange familiarity that forgives lack of energy.
Though the choice of circumstance maybe beyond our persuasion,
how we deal with it
is in our control.
Or so I heard someone say
Sleepy Sigh Sep 2010
He knows what lies below.
This is where it all began: here
Beneath the bubbling sludge and ******* mud.
This is the home brew, the cocooning grounds.
His sturdy boots trudge through,
Hefting questions and glasses askew.
Somewhere to the side a fat swamp prince
Composes bog rhymes in ribbit meter.
Each squelching step sets a buzzing bunch
Of crystal dragons zipping away to
Slick peridot pontoons. A loon swoons
The expeditioner with a sobbing cry. He
Has said goodbye to reservations, to the
Long-dead preservation rights. He slogs through
The buzzing night. Yellow daggers clench
Between scaly steeltrap snappers and stones
With eyes blink in languid surprise, unnoticed.
He is lost, dying, unsure of his quest. He needs a
Cure. He knows it lies here, in the beginning place.
Their faces haunt his deathly guts and crush
His straining heart with need - need for the solution.
Need to survive, to prolong his life - alone!
So alone: the last. If only he could rest.
His nostrils quiver with the homesick stench
Of tails becoming legs and nipping lips sprouting
Sticky tongues. The answer, he is here for the
Only answer. Something below, below, down
In the dredges of history - in the slime of
Centuries, rotless and preserved. He will find it:
Some link, some closer thing he can revive
And test and rest as bedrock for his life.
A foot sticks in the overfriendly tar. No,
He will not pause. He has come too far.
In the birthing grime, some hungry memory wakes.
It knows what lies above, it thirsts to cease it.
It reaches, roils, pulls, rips with smelly squish-fingers -
Thirsting and thirsting to slake. It longs to reveal
To show, to make known to the traveler.
(All he has searched for is found here, it knows,
Organized and close. Held and safe below)
It reaches, grabs - thirsty - presses him into
A false step. A slip. A skritching clipboard
Of statistics curses in rustling indignance
As it flutters to the mud above a splattered head.
Science-frozen lungs fill with dread -
With life-giving peat. (It will show him) He ***** in
And burbles out a scream. (what he wants, show him)
This is where it begins, (this is his dream!) where it ends.
Now he knows what lies below. He lies - curled -
Quenched from growth. The eyes of unnoticed
Stones blink in surprise. Soaring swamp lyrics
Rise, a loon swoons with a sobbing cry.
He curls in peace and drifts alone
Now he knows what lies below.
Share, don't steal, blah blah

I like this one. It's been percolating for a while.
Eiram Jun 2013
A sadness deepens itself into the center of my body
An uncontrolling undesired sadness
That meanders my heart
& perturbs my mind

An uneasy feeling of grievous loss heaves into me
I feel repulsed by these unfortunate feelings
& I'm trying to will them to leave
I cannot explicate this harrowing pain that dredges in my mirthless soul.

I am crying out for comfort
Because my desolate-being is overwhelmed with grief
For I have been mislead by someone I thought I could trust
But they were disgraceful
& abused my solicitudity

And now I'm sitting here baffled
Because who knew.. That you could make me feel so terror-stricken
I trusted you to keep me safe when I told you my sacred secret...
The one secret that ruined me completely

But this goes to show, that you cannot trust anyone
But yourself.
madmen fools and nothing,
the mien — brazen, stupefied glance
and hungry for light, our words gutted
like our enemies in our ill-thought.

this road dredges, the aporetic line
sifting through new divisions, something
an equation forgets the dividend
and almost always a salient permutation
of men and women and the "takatak" boy
peddling cigarettes to claptrap ***
of metal envoys,

  reciprocating some chances of restive
dreadnaught, diffusion of sweat in
scalding heat of 12:41 afternoon sun
and smoking with bystanders
unaware of the doldrum and the ennui

   it was a fine day in Ortigas.
Victoria Oct 2014
The impurity of my soul is what attracts the dredges  of the earth to me

The false,  the pretentious, the idle, the egotistical
They all hide behind a slight swagger and yet a frown of insecurity

They creep in with their words
and disappear leaving behind the sediment of their pungent contamination

But why me?

Am i only the company I keep?

Am I more than this delicate mystique?

Or do I hide behind the name sake  of succubus and lover in fear of what's underneath

I dare say ........it may be to late for me
A hand springs forth
from the dredges of the pit.
A hand failing to knowledge its worth
with a will to deny it.
The blinding light of things to come
bright in its possibility
Chemical baths render sludge undone
clearing the way for eyes to see.
The weight of the land has tipped the scales
orbiting in its gravity
Quickening the mind that hails
and objects the dark's depravity.
Realize the void is important
yet small in its relevance
A calmness to lay dormant
for freedom is the recompense.  
The stranglehold on the soul
will be released only when
you forgive yourself
for not being able to fill the hole.
Clone re Eatery Jan 2015
Thee Artiste Carvó's "Fumility"*

I am a tróubled Tróll, yes I be
draped in bonds of turgid fumility
endowed with a mind's inanity!
Indeed, I fantasize the glóry of Thee
floating like a cork in lunacy
at the edges of the dredges of futility!
But then, as I hallucinate visions of greatness in I and me,
the Vóices come, singing fóllies of my destiny
buzzing in my head like a bumblebee!
The mystic maggóts envelop the I, the fartistic see
birdies tweet to coo coos in the jujube tree  
while the lónely Lóg swims in I and Thee,
counting buttons, deviant in insanity!


Some souls are just simply shallower than others. There is no shame in recognizing I's ówn drabness, and appreciating the bóredóm Thee'self has unleashed upon the world. When Thee writes crap about the greatness of I, Thee is displaying I's disappointment for I's lack of gifts...
Would you yourself not feel pity for the finest fartist alive?


Original ('Humility') by:      Thee Artiste aka Logbrain Crappó
Reworked by:    CrE aka Trollminator
This is the fifth in a series of reconstructions of the drivel of "Thee Artiste" aka Logbrain Crappó which has been previously posted on HP.

True, nothing could possibly make Thee's mindless nonsense less lousy, but at least it can be put into a neater, though still steaming, pile...
Martin Narrod Jan 2017
L'heure verte

The mountains. The heaps of their bountiful gravels, and earth, and soil, large oversized masses of half-frozen water teetering on the precipice of subzero masculine *******. Francophilic cleavage jetting out of this deserted white pastoral dressing. The inaugural bawl, wanton fixations of putting the imperialist foot on every spot of tree, each and every shrub, until the limbs' cast reaches each dimple that foliage braves, where that blue eagle of patriotism dredges its claws to form every river, rill, estuary, creek, channel, flume, littoral, and waterway where the iron-rich gullies once brimmed in the interamnian basins, rich crimsony waters riffling through fruitful and extravagant aquifers. Beyond that, where an inexplicably feral wind rips vines from their dendritic housings, where barely an eye can see, this place of exsanguination and abysmal phytocide.

At the end of this lamentable torture, only a desert of human interest remains. There is no reason to laugh, or smile, or cheer, or put a leg up, to call on a friend, or to have ice cream. There will be no more ice cream. There is only the loathsome incredulousness and avarice in the semblances and familiarity of those with whom we thought we once knew. Little can ever be known, for there is much to gain in the absence of knowledge, and even greater that can be acquired in the alms of wisdom through patient examination and thorough silence. Here on the buttes and cornices, the thwacking gavels of evil power deities throw down their lust for more and soon become adjoined to these grand discrepancies greed mistakenly loses to a lack of awareness and to self-aggrandizement.

Power is the weapon of inexperienced wielders. Passion is the immortal frequency that is worn by artisans and artists, poets and painters, it is the business of quietness to learnedly evolve to protect our tomorrows from personal needs, but to instead preserve the integral parts of society. The words of languages, artifacts, and cultures, rather than the skeletons of ****** and the deeds of possession. Each who sleeps knows their bedfellows to equally be at peace. For no wealth can exceed that of comfortable pillows, soft quilts, and sheets. We are all the same while we sleep.
Bounds and bounds of names of the forgotten,
I wandered through the dredges of solemn
Wastes that had entangled my thoughts,
The antagonistic braves of loss,
The ones who’ve left ones petrified,
The ones who’ve died, left crying alive,
I have also forgotten each name,
The false memory of these people, all the same,
Dead is dead, this flair for the living,
This selfishness bears no arrogance deceiving,
I am one who welcomes death,
This fortitude alarming to some who step,
Along the edge of insanity,
I am the abyss, the abyss is me.
So strong I was, walking head high,
Disregarding tokens left behind,
Until a sight then stopped me cold,
A sullen grave but marked ”Unknown.”
-
I couldn’t move,
I was frozen in place,
I was then proved,
My heart, indeed, was laced.
Not even I, who so asked for sleep,
Could even stop tear
From escaping me,
I couldn’t stop but wont to weep.
-
Aside from the sorrow ”Unknown” had caused,
What’s worse is that he had someone,
Here I was, alone and hateful,
Someone remembered, and was grateful,
For the stone had upon it but five little roses,
Alive and well, not dead like the others,
Some person some where had remembered ”Unknown”
So that not even ”he” was left alone.
-
Destroying everything I have believed,
Spiteful, hateful, and aggrieved,
I stepped back and cursed him in jealousy,
Fell back, I tripped, shocked, and conceived,
That perhaps I was thinking like a child,
Everyone deserves there life so mild,
Who was I to curse anyone?
All in all, I wanted everything undone.
-
The real beauty in this situation,
Is that no one earns stagnation,
No one knew him when he was buried,
But someone now shows care and hurried,
To his site to show their love,
I just hope he’s diseased, but Above.
Mitch Nihilist Jul 2015
The fuse towards self destruction has finally been lit
it’s a slow burn to the moment to where i finally quit,
i’ve had everything I’ve ever wanted, yet not needed
I’ve sat listening to these demons whispering
as i pleaded for them to stop,
I’ve made a name for myself within this city
one that drips across my sanity and carves
paths for demons to tip toe to the back of my mind
and surface whenever i seem to find
a situation of serenity, or an instance robbing identity,
numbness has conquered inclination with help
from lacking reciprocation,
a scarred back easing into a bed
with dangling threads from a home knitted
form of stability, a bed that straps any form
of mobility, leaving a struggling being
beneath the shackles that confine
a mind that finds time to rewind to when
sleep was sheep counted and not a moment
where peace was surmounted by nihility,
where the only versatility comes within
which ways are easier to **** me.
each day awoken leaves the demons’
mutters unspoken
aesthetics show nothing but a painted
demeanour that dredges only when
the edges of the bed tremor as the
pillows inhale every scream and plea,

mornings are mournings for
how much I died the day before
and how each night brings
awakening as nothing to ever adore,
paralyzed limbs, everyday, find way
to slide off the mattress,
stand up feeling backless,
stare to my hands and see
shakes as the burden of
consciousness snakes its
way through aspirations
like rolling fog that weakens
foundations for social relations,

step out the door to broken
pavement, and whistling trees
that shower leaves to the dampened
green, bringing the melody of
tires to wet gravel
crushing the goal to unravel
this falsified disposition
writing todays edition of
“why the **** didn’t I stay in bed”

the sun goes down with the *****
so smooth to my throat keeping this body
staying afloat for one more night,
bottle after bottle, drink again and
feel this swaying ocean of liquor
rip an anesthetic of amnesia
knowing i can never please her,

the time has finally come where
i dip my hands into the keyboard
and plea for a release as my
eyes hide under a blanket
of stained glass masking
a pained past;
toxins flow slowly to my brain
through the uneasy flow of
each vain, poising every figment
of liver, as I ***** up every promise
I failed to deliver
bellahina Jan 2016
it was
                                                                ­                                                              Des­demona




                                                 deceiver of new Edens
                                                           ­ 
                                           left black fields        flooded
           by the sewage coming from the open wells cut into her skin.
I've been here before. A place where saints can be violent, and still   pleading
                                              for father, please, let me go?

he releases.

Desdemona follows,
dragging her corpse
through the minds
that unhinge
for the cold mechanics
of violence;

how the Savage
                            tick
                            and sputter
their jagged gears.        how the human bits,
human bang bang
counts to an unknown number,
waiting
for Desdemona to click her tongue

to spit out
to splatter
wingless
hysterical angels
across the walls of liberty

who with flaming swords
in their hands, slay
to the bellows
of a martyr's sweet rendition,
muttering
words of annihilation,
scavenging for faithful men

that
from the droning
of hissing solicitors
become fettered
to the yin
of fractured knowing
underneath skies
of starry nobility

                                                       ­                                                                 ­ Desdemona



sees this country
through a thimble

knows the name
of every state,
every citizen  that assumes
today, they will be protected
by glory
and that tomorrows
list will not get longer
with each new birth
stamped
American,
maybe It's American.?

this fleshy
and gentle
citizen soldier

quickly taught
to remember
their place
In this

grand Nation,

already paying
the tithing
of mind
and
body
cleaned
in a kitchen sink
       baptised

in the plasma of terror
with the wet
hands
of good hearted parents
commercially radicalized
by tv frenetic
freedom mobs,

fleshy

gentle

soldiers

remember to take
until swollen, because


there lives a longing,
and there lives
other monsters
caste in lighter
shades of violence.



                                             America. You eat your own children.
                                                America­, that dines more divine
                                                     when there is a different
                                                                ­    heathen
                                                     ­      at the dinner table,
                                          
                                                             Land of the brave,
                                                              yo­u worship fear.


                                                         ­                                               American Desdemona
does not know
of her own death song,
she leaves the grieving
alone to paint a tableau
of future Gods
to spring from barrels
sprouting
beheaded bouquets of metal
seen in the slow motion chaos
crawling in the gallery
of methadone media.

the harbinger of all things
seemingly unimportant,

who's orders
are definite



urging stillness.    



to sit with them in the   quiet   room
where lamenting will not be heard

told hush in the morning,

why the **** are you screaming.?
this is the ******   quiet     room

this is existence, this is what surrounds us.
                 "What did you see?"

said
the ones warned to behave
in the silence of tragedy,
But are still sent to the
purgatory
of tin rooftops
in the midwest
or a brick cloud by the shore

bouldering their fists
to beat bright punctures
into the sky
before the eleventh hour
pushes them down eternal twilight.

here again
are the bells that toll
with the kind sound of ammunition

with the voices of
all those disagreeable people
moaning
their grim
disenchantment
for yesterday's sorrows


who stay up late, dizzy
and red faced, shouting
about the guns
of politics,
shouting
about the guns
of politics,
vomiting guns guns guns
and political despair
throwing their voices
out of windows
broken
by
expletives
twisted in the
left over red lights
that bathe rallies
in mayhem
to be taken back
to small boxes
where
young
and numb lips
smoke turpentine
   after *******
to political ****

No longer shocked by politicians
who remind the masses about
9/11 jumpers
falling
to the concrete
in ten
second
intervals

they want you to
remember terror in the 10,000

Terror.

get down on your knees
and bow to obsession--


accept this
as indulgence

for what it is,

you live to be whole
but revoke
the thoughts
you inact in a soft blanket
of cerebral vices.

This is what purity
seeks in the wilds,    

bloodwood virginity
wet with the constitutional lust
of victimless moaning
victimless crimes

oh

holy holy
I arch my back for you
I bend for you
I writhe painlessly
with every moment that passes
your gun can lay at the alter of my temple,  surly
it will be an anointed dimming

a secret that is kept in the chest
of dual gatekeepers
who yearn for unison
and longs to tell the other,
     do not be afraid

Or,    Don't you dare
stand in front of
a podium, condemning
slaughter like a daily prayer
at the dinner table,      prayer

that sounds like faith
and God splitting in half, prayer
which has always been
a plea to change life
into what we think it should be

like the once happy

Elitists,
now soft belly sickened
by the obscured notion
of protecting
the people they
claim as their own, if only?

apostates
of folklore,
weren't so full
with grievances,
with their
own wars

brooding and
burdened by lax limitation,
seething angry
at
the great agenda

utterly raging

against the talking mouths
too loud with
freedoms thoughts,    swelling
with maddening repetition
and promptly ridiculed
into the execution
of sentimental insanity,

crazed

enough
to arm themselves with something
that does not feed the machine
in the pursuits of destroying it.




                                                         ­                                                                 ­  this is
                                                                ­                                                       Desdemona

that seeps into the burrow
of a throat

is the auditory creeping
that dredges a chemical longing

until everyone is gasping
at the horrid image of death,
or in the middle of a vitriolic
death cry

only accepting finality
if the afterlife
proved to be as infinite
as a blue sky slitting itself open
to let in the burnt offerings of the sun.

And no one will ask,

what have you taken to the inferno.?

flesh and blood,
That which is not yours.


bodies for the dead, you say.
well, how many?

not everyone
has a key
to the quiet room

away from the decidedly
unlucky,

we
Will be the ones
behind the locked door
pretending
she is not
on the other side,
unhindered by her cracked skull,
she is listlessly
heaving
dissected torso
through
junkyard corridors
collecting the dead
for tomorrow's congregation

who have become
sinfully reincarnated
by the flesh
of their own belief,
or fed into zombie culture
to sing and sway
in the pews, reciting

My people
I love you.

my God!
do I love you.
do I love you.

My God,
my Desdemona, I love you.
Wednesday Mar 2014
1- Alex S
You were a rough hit to the stomach
a cold and ***** baptizing
I ****** you twice and never again
because of you I stopped eating
I haven’t seen you since I was 14
and that’s okay with both of us

2- Alex F
Your name still gives me chills
you remind me of a fox in winter
I really did love you like the waves love the ocean shore
I really would have drowned myself for you
im sorry I took your virginity

3- JJ S
It was a drunken hookup on a ***** couch
in a smoke filled basement that I had to sneak out of later
and you were 27 and should have known better
and it was really just too awful to talk about

4- Garrett F
In a Chinese restaurant parking lot at 9 pm
we used your backseat like it had
rose petals and candles
and you were my best friend
and it’s still one of my biggest regrets
and we stopped speaking after that

5- Michael H
Really I just wanted the free ****
and a place to spend the night
so, did you enjoy the taste of my tall black soul
that tends to smell of tar
and the dredges of a coffee ***?

6- Julian R
I don’t know the first thing about you
besides the fact you are from New York
and 25
and play basketball for a college
and you pushed me down on the bed
and swallowed me whole

7- Sean E
It was Halloween
and we were drunk
and we undressed in the back of someone’s jeep
and laid under the stars at 4 am on a blanket in a backyard
the first time you were ever inside me

8- Johnny B
24 and never someone I’d normally ****
but I stayed at your house for 2 weeks
and we became connected on every piece of furniture
and I still never got enough of you
and god I miss you

9- Aaron E
You are the end of it all
and with you I am butter melting
I am grinding my teeth down in lust
I’ve never seen anyone look so perfect naked
and I’m wishing you were the only one in this list
Alan S Bailey Aug 2015
A painting of the future, a grandiose world of adventure
Awaits us all beyond the call of the mid-morning
Blackbird, filling with the sunlight of ages past,
A dawn of a new era approaches. Her voice heard.

The air, a scent, camp fires of the joyous years of our youth,
Of when we all used to run and laugh, puffy clouds, skies blue,
The sight of such clarity, yet to be mistaken for another
Dream, it will light the path that we used to follow, in truth.

Sky-full of color, drowned out this filth! This city curb with
Alcohol and drugs and needles pouring down into the
Hideous dredges below through a crack, it's disturbing,
Like a tumour, a world of wicked witches, fear, and lack.

Let the scientists try to explain it away, the myriad of colorful
Hues balancing and bouncing off each other in the skies...

Sterling silver the moon, her crescent to become
Full-like a white-gold orb, the backdrop sparkles star dust,
In the light there is a vibrant halo, delicate and full,
Explain it away! The earth is waking up, eventually...**

She will again be whole.
Dean K Jul 2021
It’s bones echo as her song is sung in sorrow
Petrified eyes wander aimlessly until they’re hidden
Reclusive below an endless sea of regret engulfing the path to forgiveness
They swell like flesh that’s been kissed by the blazes of hell
Rising above the intoxicating waves of silk and misery
To gaze upon the sun until it rests

Her head of protruding thoughts ignites while she rests
Inundated in everlasting sorrow
The variables given only result in misery
It’s soul once residing within is now hidden
Lost forever it dredges forgiveness
Such tragedies must only exist in hell

It’s destiny slips through it’s weak hands reminding it, this is hell
Reminding it to cherish each passing moment it has left with her, envisaging forgiveness
Letting all be know and nothing hidden
In hopes for redemption and a life free of sorrow
Yet alone her broken body rests
Reflecting its misery

The black of night is its cloak of misery
And her misery and brokenness is it’s Hell
Her song harmonizes to its sorrow
Putting their calamity to rest
Revealing sprouts of change which lay beneath the ash hidden
Waiting for a new tomorrows light and the rains of forgiveness

Time heals all things so in time comes forgivenesses
It tells itself so it can rest
Perhaps times cold slumber will extinguish it’s hell
Perhaps it will sit and wait still in misery
Remembering the circumstance which brought about such sorrow
Letting it be shown and not hidden

It prays her love is not lost, only hidden
Prays for growth and happiness exchanging misery
It prays so that it can rest
Her smile and warm embrace prove the existence of forgiveness
Or is this still hell
Is this inevitable sorrow

Forever in sorrow the light is hidden
This dark hell torments it’s heart with misery
Forgiveness illuminates it’s consciousness putting its demons to rest
To the one I may have lost forever.
Keith W Fletcher Jan 2016
Empower me
With the keen edge
Of cathartic sagacity
And I will dance
In exalted  tribute
To daybreaks invincibility
Double time
While quoting  rhyme
To the downbeat slash
Of the scarecrows scepter
While compatable
Emulation
Exposed to rarefied
Imagination
As the keep of the keys
Pounds out
The scathing expose
That dredges up
Those
Benumbed and bewildered
Riders
Who have been
Constantly
Overexposed to the negatives
Developed
In those darkrooms
WHERE
Expedited promises
Secretly enacted
Enabling
Blankcheck *******
Of any and all
Faithful believers
Of our beloved Carrousel
That we have
Always  insisted
Is the keepsake
Bequeathed
To all the concerned
Caretakers--once empowered
With the keen edge
Of cathartic sagacity
Now just
Trying to keep dancing
To the fading  calliope music
As too many
Once - synchronised
Elements
Of our revolving
Carrousel  
Are going wrong
Breaking down
Erak Freeze May 2015
Feral mood swings give the elastic momentum to soar from the dark dredges,
As it was previously unthinkable.
From the glorious misanthropic lows, to a euphoric revelry or youth.

These golden days are replete with vicious change,
The growth plates of potential prosperity ease close with a snide unforgiving sentiment.
The bright orifices of the sky plunge into obscurity,
Only the imprints leave us dazzled, thinking the dream still holds an office.

But the endless chapters are truncated,
until the only thing left is the devil's ****, or his charity.
Bubbling youth to grim compliance.
Shannon Jul 2014
And the jejune...just like that
it leaves my life.
And the mundane of it all?
The looking of both ways and crossing,
The tieing of shoelaces...
the washing of hands.
And the dullness of it all suddenly shines like a sharpened knife
on a darkened shelf
in a forgotten home
That is now just a house.
Glistens like that. Out of place and unexpected.
And all of the sudden
the sun lifts her goddess body
stretching forth her sinewy limbs,
just for me ...playfully fondles my skin with heat.
Undeserving, inconsiderate me.
And without any predisposition
the ocean dredges the finest, tiniest grains of sand
for me,
          for me.
Vain.
Reckless me.
Turns over an hourglass glistening with his diamond dust
and just like that...
And I am grateful, yes I am humbled.
And I will clutch it, I will seize it.
I will patronize, I will hoard.
And I will covet it, herald. Proclaim.
And I will know that time? Seconds hands, he stroke me now. Hours wind around my wrist and bind my eyes with red slithery silken sashes-
And Love? Fickle stroke of her pen and just like that
I am chosen.
Moved from the side of the street where a damp mold covers the crumbling bricks...
and the people I pass, they look up at me now
nodding with a secret knowing. Because
we are chosen for this love, We are the elite. Plucked from the remaining pugilists.
And just like that he loves me.
Just like that it swallows me whole
...And just like that, love.

Sahn 7/2/2014
as always i am humbled and grateful. i write because i have to but you read because you choose to...thank you for choosing my work.
Beowulf Mar 2020
Oysters they're out there - somewhere,
Everywhere,
as the oyster men slowly drift through the inlet.
Heaved by sail and oar;
sinews of sheets and sails stretched.

Driven by hope and anticipation
the patina of time etched in weatherbeaten faces;
Like a lure for life the longline stretches and dredges, expectant evermore.

Drifting from catch to catch where the ardent prosper;
Achieve and believe the addiction and alchemy of the aspirant,
"Dream big" of the world the unenviable oyster of youth,
Dictums of the desirous drifting from goal to goal,
and chore to chore.

Mantras of men mourning forgone missives of the masculine.
The dredges of disconnected men's minds to sea.
Destined for despair.
Ryan P Kinney Jun 2015
Ego Storm
by Ryan P. Kinney

Do you see it coming?
There! On the horizon…
A selfish **** storm of pretension and superficiality.
It’s inevitable.
So why fight it.
Welcome to the Ego Storm.
----------------------------------------------------------­--------------------------------------------------

I say unto the non-believer.
I am Ryan.
You have never known one like me,
Nor will you ever

I burn, I shine,
I flash so bright.
With every color of the rainbow,
But I do not sparkle.

You can’t stop me,
Or help me.
I am a sickness.
I am average,
But, Oh so much more.
I NEED to be different.
No matter the cost.

My thoughts are perpetually incomplete,
Ever evolving,
Never to be understood.
Like an alchemist,
I will make the ridiculous a reality.
Anything is possible at any time for no reason at all
Hell, Even I don’t understand me.

I am constantly unsure of who I am
But always confident and cocky that I am.
I am an adult child,
Never fully grown,
And I refuse to mature.

I never control my emotions.
I channel them.
And express them with color
I bleed liquid color.

I attack everything with a sharp tongue and a soft heart,
Pushing boundaries and pushing buttons.
I am sorry,
But not really

I will turn everything into a *** joke,
Because life is one big sensual sense experience
It is meant to be felt,
Not thought.
Created,
Not forced.

I’m in love with a fantasy.
Obsessed with an ex,
Who dared to leave me.
Romance in a dream.
An unfulfilled, unrequited devotion to the imaginary

My memories are my scarlet letter,
A crimson “A” for *******.
Sure, I’m a bit of a *******.
Pain is preferable to feeling nothing,
Experience is superior to the void.

I’ve witnessed the birth of beauty
Where others only see trash
I’ve created it.
I’ve also watched it wither and die.

I survive on the decadence of our society.
Your **** is my sustenance.
I turn nothing into something.
Then give it sweet oblivion in the hell of my dreams.

I am plugged in,
But only on the original analog connection.
I prefer the nuisances that inconsistency provides,
And refuse to let the tech think for me.
It is a machine.
You control it.
It does not control you.

I befriend, commiserate, and comingle with the dredges of society
The downtrodden, broken, abused, freakish,
Overlooked and underappreciated,
Geeks and intolerated deviants.

I force the shy to rise up and speak out,
To slice the crippling fear of looking foolish.
To prove the biggest fool among us,
May be the most brilliant.

The unpopular are my cool.
I love the weak and pathetic,
Just like me.
Equality through adversity and diversity.

All of you are pieces in the art that is my life.
Some are darker,
Some are brighter.

I will get inside you,
Around you and through you.
I will **** that which pleases me,
And **** that which does not.
But nothing more than your mind,
The most brutal tenderness you have ever had forced on you.

I will swear with one hand on my “Bible,”
With the sweetest foul mouth you will ever hear.
I laugh at the stupid,
And weep at the unintelligent

I will force you to know me,
And force harder for you to know yourself
I will take your words,
Make them stronger than you ever could
I shall throw the full weight of my genius behind them.

I will question everything,
And make you question yourself.
I will annoy you with a thousand “y’s,”
And swear out every other vowel.

I will make you give till your hands bleed,
And on occasion your ******.
I will challenge you to succeed.

Your clock is ticking.
So do it,
Or do me.
Too many are lost.
Go find yourself.
Or go **** yourself.
-------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------
I think,
Therefore I am Ryan.
I am better than anyone I have ever known.
As the clouds begin to part in my mighty presence,
I can see the only one I have ever truly known
Is myself…
Caitlin S Oct 2014
The greatest of the greatest pieces of art come from grief. The grief of death, absence, lost love, and defeat. Grief is a phase of sadness, a substitute for when just being sad is not momentary and the word not good or strong enough, the sadness from a specific departure from our lives. In a life so full of grief we dread the sadness, it hides in the shadows of happiness when the fleeting moments of bliss are pulled from under us. Even though we expect it, we never expect it.
  Often though, in the dredges of depression brought on by this great and terrible grief it allows us to see something we other wise may have over looked in the moment.
  That is happiness. Even when shrouded in the pitiful emptiness of grief when we look back on that person or thing or idea we so miss, finally we see our happy moments. We remember more fondly, and it dulls our regrets for things not said or deeds not done or ideas that never came into fruition because for someone or something, the clock wound down.
  The gift of sadness is it makes us know which moments were truly good, which memories we will hold dear to our hearts until our own clock, our own heart stops. Just when you think your heart is about to explode in your chest some relief comes from looking back, then going on. It comes from knowing you were happy once.
Austin Sessoms Mar 2023
The washer and dryer mask the sound of Nana and me
Down the three or four steps to the garage
Of the Blackberne house
Her hands on my hands or more likely
Gripping my forearms
As dimples take over my chin
Voice shaking
As she dredges the grief of the day out of me
brooke Feb 2017
he jokes about tuscaloosa
and being buried in dixie
shot in his truck near the border
or set on fire for a better purpose
had gone down in a tomato fight
somewhere in texas,

and when he's mad he dredges up
all the things he secretly hates about me
but'll ne'er admit, 'cause sometimes he doesn't
even know what he's feeling, has got all his
spirit out in ten arms searching for the best
way to put down one sentence--

he's pretty scary when he's angry
looks like might just lash out or
shoot through my redwood patio
'specially with the threat of his truck
runnin' in the background, rumbling
in the driveway ready to take him away--

he used all my favorite things to get inside
but starts to take them away one by one
I tell my mom same, same cause it's
the same story, different page, different chapter
same book, same shelf, same dust

he once said I was what he was tryin' to get back to
told me he was takin' his mom to church
once brought up the Lord in a dim light
but now he don't see the point
I'll tell you what,


I'll tell you *what
(c) Brooke Otto 2017




pretty much.
Nite May 2016
I thought the wounds had closed
But they've merely been covered by scabs
Scabs that needed no picking for the wounds to bleed again
Bleeding with renewed pain

Pain that I had hoped would have disappeared like the passing of the years
Yet the mere mention of your name
Dredges up my most agonising memories
Memories that I thought I had suppressed
Memories that could never be repressed

Memories of you breaking my heart
Of you healing it only for you to break it into even tinier pieces

Memories of claw shaped fingernails
Scratching my neck, my face, my chest
Of a razor tipped tongue that cut me to the bone with your insults
Of your poison laden honeyed words that turned my own friends against me
Of heavy hands that always left me bruised and battered

Memories of me walking away again
and again only for you to reel me in with your promises and your declaration of love
But your promises were as empty as your heart
Your profession of love was as false as that smile on your face

I see that now

I see that the only reason why these wounds have never really healed
Is because I have never truly let you go
Somewhere deep inside me
I had always wished you come back to me
For you were my first love
And for all the bad memories, we had some good ones too

And now with my heart slowly mending
And light banishing the shadows in my cave
I have to tell you this

*I am letting you go
Probably the most tumultuous time in my life was when I was with this girl. She was abusive both physically and mentally. And I never realised just how deep the wounds she left me with were. It's been 16 years.

Thank you to the person who opened up my eyes.
I wish I was a novelist
I could write this into a fairy tale
With love triumphant
While birds sing
bring me songs of simple bliss
I'm sick of something sweeter than this
I'll settle for the dredges at the bottom of my coffee cup
No need for excessive amounts of honey
I'd rather brace myself for the bitter than cover it up
So what's the purpose of money?
I mean really what does it do?
Besides turn me and you into simple creatures
I mean collecting shiny things, storing them for later
That's something the crows do
But even the crows know why they do it
They do it because they like shiny things
do you?
Do you love what you do?
Do you let it consume you?
I'd rather wake up under a bridge with a little chill in my bones
Then in a warm house that doesn't feel like home
So what about you?
Starting fires in a old coffee can, a gift from a friend you've never met
Not quite what you picture happiness to be?
Is it?
But sit down, pass that old sweater around

I'll tell you some story's

Some of the things I've seen even I don't believe
The magic of this city
It still gets to me
Subway tunnels are the damnedest things
People walking around in such close vasinity
Some of these people don't even look around
Have you ever admired the ridiculousness of it all?
What about that guy next to you?
Having troubles at home
Doesn't know if he can finish college
Not because he can't afford it
His trust fund has that settled
But he can't get that one girl in introduction to statistics to say hello
So he picks up his phone more often he used too
Just to look at it
What about the old man
The one all the kids on your block said was crazy
Have you ever seen evidence of those false claims?
Ever thought it was all just hear say?
Pass the message along

Life isn't about all the stuff we stockpile store for a later than never comes

So don't wait for life to hand you what you want you have to take it

go up and make your **** demands

Because this is not some fairy tale

This is not some song and dance

This is life and it'll knock you around

There's a few differences between me and who I want to be

I let it get to me, I fall down

And it takes me much longer to get back up than it should

But that's the key I get back up

I make a stand

I keep the crowd cheering in the bleachers

No matter how small they seem

Weather it's just God watching me, or my family

I'll keep it real

If reality keeps on keeping me
Life
Lilly Gibbons Jan 2015
For once do not endure,
Do not stay so discontent.
If you have learnt anything,
You know not to repent.
In days of sorrow past
You would find a way,
To make giant strides,
That lie beyond the bay.
It is not to much to ask
For a rounded train of thought,
That covers all of the basics,
You are strong now that you fought.
Don't succumb to distant dredges,
Those waves that broke the tide.
Remember to jump through them,
It's the old you who would hide.
Robin MacCuish Sep 2017
When you walked into the room
I instantly wanted to be you.

Cause she had no one to judge
  she did drugs
Talked like a lawyer
smooth and silky
like the smoke from her breath
She was always burning bright
like the embers of her cigarettes

She drinks to the perfumed liquor
of  her adventure
running on the beach
driving into trees
Listening to thirty-year-old beats
she with unlimited freedom
each with a different color of rubber
Latex next to pills
Freedom like the dredges of gas in her truck
the art on her dash
Raw feelings of a guitar
smiles worn like strings
into partying nights

How could I even begin to ask for just a kiss?
Just to be a little like someone who feels risk?
Stefan Michener Nov 2016
I cross the bridge to nowhere, in the cold, in my underwear
Intense winds push me to edges, where I contemplate ledges
Looking down, spirits swim and stare; icy waters are their lair
I levitate and meditate; medicate with mental dredges
Such mundane nonchalance; my bridge leads to idiot savants

I would be crowned their King, kindred soul of unsound meditations
We've left our lost souls unburied, unhurried to right the carriage
Take a deep breath of the ether of dregs and suppurations
Take the one whom you love, not in marriage, in *******
On the bridge, I pass a young ponce and hear echoes of "Bon Chance!"

Purple rags greet me at the gate, royal flags of highest distinction
Winking my eye, scratching my head, the dead are now forgotten
Deep in my pit, so deep I forget, a pang of extinction
In my palace of darkness, no light will shine on the rotten
In the court of fools, coarse avowals can't be washed by the fonts

So lines are drawn by idiot courtiers and indigent warriors
Cities with no regret or sorrow, tomorrow trampled to tatters
Through smoke and burnt flesh we *****, we hope to soothe the worriers
We are all Babylonians, babbling on as if nothing matters
The bridges to nowhere we cross, we cross bridges to Babylons
Sam Nov 2017
So it’s fall, now.
It’s fall, all sweater weather and Halloween and chilly but not quite cold —

the weeks are upon us and not long later it will be winter.

It’s still as-of-yet-changing color of trees fall, though, for now, yet I’ve never fallen so fast as I have during this one.

Flowers, grass, began to fade, began changing their colors away and so did I, ending summer with misery, uncertaintness, and almost passing out (no, not drunk, never touched a drug in my life) in a place where no one knew my name - but I clutched at walls and forced breath through air ducts until the colors rearranged themselves in my vision.

Rain started falling, then, fast and furious of a thunderstorm turned typhoon and hurricane, while I caught insomnia full blast, caught utter misery too, the kind where it takes all of your energy to look apathetic, and you can’t smile - it took all my energy not to cry.

There are warm days too, when ****** it all to hell because sometimes things are beautiful. It taught me I had friends, but more than that how to hide well; how nothing ever goes away, how things get worse - but if they aren’t hidden people will just worry more, and fading to the background is a blessing in disguise - constant scrutiny is exhausting. And lack of pain (fake or no) is beautiful.

At the ****** of fall, the trees are bare, and daylight is scarce. And I’m here all hung out dry, not even waiting, now, just watching it all pass by.

And sometimes, the most inevitable things contain the most dread, too.

Winter ends. Spring follows it. Cherry Blossoms bloom and everything else just grows, until summer sneaks up on them. And by then, I’ll be long gone, uprooted by the last dredges of cold air.

Sorry.
            Goodbye.


                            ­  Thank you.


See you again, maybe, if I’m lucky?

— The End —