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Madison Aug 2018
Not all depressed cut,
Not all sad shed tears,
Not all strong fight,
Not all monsters roar,
Not all young are innocent.
Some just work harder to maintain a mask.
We are here,
And you have reason to fear,
We are the best liars,
We can manipulate the greatest con artist without batting an eyelash.
Watch out we are coming.
This is a dark and serious p poem but that didn't change the fact that In was tempted to put "and we're queer" instead of " And you have reason to fear" ****
Mitchell Sep 2013
The retainer where she was put
Was made of concrete. My father told me they had
Dug the grave first, then poured the concrete in, waited for
It to dry and harden, then hammered in six
Circular spikes in the four corners, two on either side
Of the middle. They lifted the concrete cast out with a crane.
My dad was going to be charged 300 dollars a day for the rental,
But because of the circumstances, Home Depot let us have it for free.

-

Where was she?
Where had she gone?
Would I see her face again?
Would she want me to
Meet her on the other side of the river?

-

I answered my cell phone.

"Make sure to bring flower's."
She had been crying. Her voice wavered the way sun light
Does on moving water.

"Make sure to bring flowers," she repeated, "And
That you wear what your father and I bought you."

I nodded my head with the receiver pressed up against my ear.
We both let out a sigh. My mom hung up. I put my phone in my back pocket.

-

Lately, I had been seeing a shrink about repetition. He liked to use the word cycle.

"Everything is repeated," I would tell him.

"Life is a cycle," he'd disagree so to get me talking.

"Can cycles be identical?"

"Technically not. Some cycles are extremely similar, but no two cycles are
Completely the same. Are two people's lives ever exactly the same?"

"I wouldn't know. I don't know that many people. Maybe."

"You know lots of people, Camden. You have told me about many of your friends."

"Are we talking about the seasons?" I asked, changing the subject, "Like fall, winter, spring, summer? We are born, we live, we die, and we are born again?"

"That's a very natural way of looking at it."

"I know it is." I inhaled deeply, swallowing air and wondered what time it was.

"If you are so sure, why look for validation from me?" He liked this one, I could
tell. I imagined him shopping for clothes and then exploding in aisle 16 because of a sale on jeans.

"The word cycle is used by people too afraid to use the word repetition. Everything is
Repeated for the next generation, the next group, the next of the next of the next. We shift things
Around, give things to one another to shift life to make it look different, but, things remain the same. Everything contains the primal function we were all doing and living from the very beginning, only now, there is more of a separation. Music is still music, words are still words, paintings are still paintings, love is still love, death is still death, only done differently and more intensely."

"We are talking about man furthering technology because we, as people and creatures, are
Statistically more prone to flee than fight?"

"Why do you think it has caught on so quick?" I touched both
Corners of my lips with my tongue and suddenly realized I hadn't eaten breakfast.

"It is a theory," the psych nodded, "A theory with, I am sure, many
Palpable facts you could make a very nice report with to prove...something." He
Was at a lost for words and I felt guilty that my mom was paying him $75 an hour.

"We are very split. There are too many of us. Too many hands spinning the china."

"Who is we Harry?" The psych hadn't looked up from his pen and pad of paper, until now. I could
Tell he was annoyed with me either because he was making no progress or because the session
Had just begun and I was already digging into him.

"Culture. The government. You, me, my dad, my mom, the taco bell cashier, the geniuses at Apple computers, a paper weight, my dead sister. We're all apart of these shifts, all putting in a certain amount of energy and lies to keep the protection of the projection going. The question I keep asking myself is: do I want to use my strengths to be apart of this cycle or not?"

His eyes flared open for a moment like he'd swallowed a firefly, not at the question I had posed for myself, but from what I would soon see was from the mention of my sister. He had something.

"I was notified by your mother that you may not want to talk about your recently deceased sister. Is It O.K. if I ask you some questions about her?"

I was leaning forward on the couch with my hands clasped in between my legs. The psych had looked up at me now. He was sweating at the top of his thin hairline. Observing that I was staring at his building perspiration, he, trying to be nonchalant, took out a thin, white napkin from his grey shirt pocket and dabbed the top of his head. The napkin looked like cheap toilet paper. I'd have offered him some water, but I had no water to give and I didn't know where the sink and cups were to give him any. I figured he did - it was his office - so I asked him for some. He pointed me in the direction of the bathroom. I got up and found a stack of paper cups. I poured myself a cup and went back to the couch, but instead of leaning forward, I sat back, relaxed, and let the expensive leather couch take the weight I had been carrying away.

"So," the psych maintained cooly, "Would it be alright if we were able to discuss your sister?"

I lifted the paper cup over my head and the psych's eyes, after I poured the water over my hair, my face, and clothes, was a mixture of what my mom's eyes looked at the funeral, defeated, confused, and with a loss of faith and hope. My father's eyes had only held hate, anger and the need to lash out at someone, but the only someone that would have fit the bill would have been God.

"Sure," I answered, "Let's talk about my sister."

-

I finished drying myself in the car. The psych had let me keep the towel.
I leaned out the window to look at myself in the side mirror. I looked fine.
Presentable. Accountable. Like I had been through something where I had
Faced my soul. Like I had used and abused my emotions. There was comb in my glove compartment, so I took it out and rushed it through my damp hair. Slicked back. The sun
Was out, no clouds, burning up the inside of my car. That taste that comes after
Finishing something that's supposed to do you good didn't come. I was left with an unsure hand.
Putting my keys in the ignition, I turned them, and felt the engine rumble in front of my legs.
The sun sat in the sky like a lazy hand and I had nowhere else to go but home.

-

"Let's go to the river today," my dad said over coffee and two over easy eggs on top
Of burnt wheat toast. "I'll drive and you and your sister can sit in the back and sing."

I looked over at Ally. She was gazing into her fruit bowl she had prepared for
herself because dad didn't understand the concept or how to make it. The lamp light above us
reflected in the smooth apricot yogurt and the flecks of granola scattered on top
looked like beige, jagged rocks. My dad's offer hung in the air and neither
of us bit the lure. I had just woken up and was unable to speak clearly, a decent
excuse. Ally was simply choosing to ignore him.

"What you think there Ally?" I asked her. I sipped my coffee. It needed more cream. I got
U, got it and brought the carton to the table.

"We can take the truck down there and load the back with the fishing poles and tackle
And inner tubes. We haven't...done that...in a long time," he said, chewing his food as he spoke.

Ally poked her fruit bowl with her spoon, silent.

"What you think, Cam?" My dad was desperate. He knew I'd say yes.

"Sure. I've got no plans this weekend."

"No schoolwork?"

"It can wait till Sunday. Only math and some reading."

"Ally, what do you think?" my dad asked, leaning over to her. I could see he was
Trying to be as courteous and gentle with her as he knew how to. I felt bad for him.

"Sure," she muttered, "That sounds like fun." I could barely hear her, but somehow,
I could tell she sounded happy.

"Perfect," my dad smiled, "We'll pack the car up Friday,
Drive up Saturday morning early, camp one night, then get back Sunday afternoon." He
Took a long sip of his coffee and swished it around in his mouth, then dug
His fork into the dry toast and ran his small steak knife over the eggs. A silent pop came from
The egg and the light orange yolk spilled out. "Perfect," he repeated, "Just great."

Ally poked a grape from her fruit bowl and dipped it into the yogurt.
I took another sip of my coffee and looked up into the fan, spinning above us.
We were going to the river.

-

"Your sister turns five today," my mom told me, "And that means
I want you to be on your best behavior."

I nodded, unsure what the point of a birthday was. I had had one before, or at
least I thought I did, and all I remembered was that I got presents and the colorful balloons
and the cake we all ate with fire kind of floating and burning above it. Somewhere
in that moment I remember thinking that the cake was going to catch on fire, then they, everyone,
some that I knew and some people I had never seen before, yelled and shouted to
blow the fire out, so I quickly did, but not because it was for a wish, which I later found out it was supposed to be for, but because I truly thought the cake was going to catch fire and they wanted me to take care of it. At that point, I was unsure what it meant to be alive or why to celebrate it all.

"This is her day, Camden," my father told me, "So I want you to be happy for your sister."

"I am," I said. I was wearing my favorite white and blue striped t-shirt and
New shoes that my mom had bought me for the party.

"Sometimes you have to think of other people," my mother continued, "And today is one
of those days. I don't want any crying because you didn't get any presents or that none of your
friends are at the party. There are going to be a lot of Ally's friends there, but not many
of your's...do you understand?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Do you understand, Cam?" My father repeated. His skin was the color of a burnt
pancake and he smelt like stale sugar and sun tan lotion. He was in front of me and was
holding a thin magazine with a man in a boat holding up a fish on a line on the cover.  

"Yes, Dad," I said again. I was hungry. I wanted mac n' cheese, my favorite food.

I had been on the floor, laying on my stomach watching Ren and Stimpy. They were standing in front of the television and I remember trying to wish them out of the way. Behind them were two, large bay windows where three palm trees stood in a row like tropical soldiers. I could see there was no wind because the three of them stood still, as if posing for someone. Their leaves were bright green, a mixture of the neon green Jello I used to love to eat and the orange Jolly Rancher my dad would always have in a tiny tray in the middle of the dining table. My mother hated having them there because it always tempted Ally and I, but he never moved it until he moved out.

"Do you like your show?" my mom asked, turning to see what I was watching.

I nodded, absently. Ren was licking Stimpy's eye because he was complaining about having
an eyelash in there. Stimpy was completely still and smiling like he does - dumb and content.

"Interesting..." my mother trailed off. She walked to the kitchen behind the couch and
Opened up the pantry for something. "You hungry, Camden?"

"I'm starving," my dad said, "Let me go check on Ally in the bedroom. She should be up
from her nap."

I got up from my stomach and sat back on my legs, "Do we have mac n' cheese?" I asked.

"Let me check."

She reached up for the cabinet over the stove where I could never reach and
Opened it. I rose slightly up from where I was sitting to see if I could see the glorious dark blue and orange package, but wasn't able to see over couch. I hovered there, still like a humming bird.

"You're in luck," I heard her say, "We've got one box left."

"Yay!" I screamed and got up, running into the kitchen.

"But," she smiled, stopping me, "You'll have to share it with your sister."

"No! I don't want to! I always have to share."

"What did we just talk about Camden?" she said, lightly stamping her foot.

I tried to remember, but couldn't. I shrugged.

"You need to learn to share, Camden. You also need to listen better when your father and I are talking to you. You and your sister are going to know each other a very long time and I want you to learn how to share now, so you two can be happy in the future."

"The future," I asked, "What's that?"

She paused, then said, "It's a time," she paused again, "Ahead of us."

"Do we know where it is?"

"Not exactly," she sighed.

"What's it look like?"

"No one really knows. People can only imagine it."

"Is it very far away?"

She opened the top of the blue and orange mac n' cheese box and poured the dry macaroni into a large silver ***, lifted the faucet, and let it run inside for five or seven seconds. She placed the *** on an unlit burner and turned to look at me. Her eyes looked far away and right there with me.  

"Closer then you think," she said and turned the burner on.

-

I turned into the taco bell parking lot. There was something I was trying to remember that was in my trunk, but I couldn't recall the picture. A haze blew over the windshield that was a mix of heat and wind; I wished to be somewhere else, someone else, someplace else, but, there I was, sitting there underneath the sun, like everyone else. If I was able, I would have unlocked the door to my car and opened the door and walked out - but - there was something else lingering underneath my fingernails, something I couldn't name.

"Two tacos," I said into my hand, "And a water."

"Pull to the window," the voice buzzed over the muffled speaker.

"Yes," I said through my split fingers.

In front of me, over a patch of clean cut green grass and a yellow, red, and orange Taco Bell signature sign, was a fresh gas station with a willow tree *** near the front entrance. He had a sign that hung around his neck that read Juice Please - Very Thirsty. How I knew this was because I had seen it every time I had been asked to fill up my dad's car every other Sunday. I had never given the tree a dollar, yet, I felt that I owed him something. I tried to pull up to the window, but my clutch was grinding and a cloud slunk overhead. I was tired and only wanted to eat.

"That'll be a two twenty-five," the voice said through the thick, clear glass.

"Yes," I said to myself, digging into my wallet for three dollars.

I ****** the three onto the thick plastic platform. A quick sweeping plastic brush pushed the bills toward the asker, and the bills were gone. I had no food. I had nothing. My money was gone and all I had was a gurgling car in front of me and an empty front seat beside me. A pair of clouds waded by my front shield window. A shadow drew itself out in front of me like a **** model. A beep. Sudden and behind me. There was sound. I looked over my shoulder and a black  2013 Cadillac was sitting there, windshield tinted grey, the driver a shadow. I was unsure what to do...so I pulled forward six inches, hoping the offer would be enough. I wasn't in the best neighborhood.

The window to the left of me slid open. An arm erupted forward with a plastic bag,
"75 cents is your change."

The hand dropped three quarters next to the plastic bag. I grabbed the bag with the two tacos and three quarters and quickly wound up my window. The face in front of me was a dangerous blur: smiling, frowning, not caring either way what happened to me next. The hands had gobbled up the three dollars and I was happy to see it go. Who needed money? I tossed the plastic bag onto the passenger seat and sped off two blocks for my grandma's house. Salvation. The holy land. A place with free hot sauce and two dog's that were stolen without paper's. Eden.

-

"What are you learning right now?" I asked Ally.

She hesitated, then said, "Something to do with science." She paused," Lot's to do with rock's."

"Rocks?" I stammered, not remembering a time when I learned about rocks in school, "What kind of rocks?"

"I don't know," she grinned, looking up at me, "All kinds."

I laughed and kicked a stone into the river. The sun was out and reflected on the water like an unpolished diamond. We had grown up a quarter mile away, but still, it felt foreign to us.

"I like it. There's some things you could see that you would never think to read about it in books."

I had read plenty off books. Most, I took little from, but Ally, I could see, had taken plenty.

"What are you doing in school?" Ally asked me.

"What do you mean?" I
rain May 2015
"Limousine Eyelash
Oh, baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet cakes and milkshakes
I am a delusion angel
I am a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don’t want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we’re going
Lodged in life
Like two branches in a river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I’ll carry you, you’ll carry me
That’s how it could be
Don’t you know me?
Don’t you know me by now?"

                                                          ­                     - From 'Before Sunrise'
This poem from the movie 'Before Sunrise'- I can never get enough of this perfection.
As abstract as it is, it holds all the more meaning and depth to it.

I just feel that it is worth sharing, hence.
Styles 12 Aug 2018


secrets at dusk
tasted vigorous as
Coltrane blues

in a smokey nightclub
under mysterious saxophone seas

this style is not my own
but it helps me swim better

I decided to adopt it
curious why it tugs ruthless
on spit fire sleeves

deliciously drowning me free.




forest moons at night

help you drop it all
bags of unwanted programs
flung from broken chimneys

violet threads pass perfect
through kitchen chipped glass

moth wings burning summer up
like her eyelash fluttering innocently on some other guy's cheek

shattering divisions snag
on moonlight betrayal dance

enormous sea hooks chop in
helpless lips seduced
mad quicksilver rush

reserve this room for my only friend

we have private letters to write
on a future night when
god dreams come true.

This is for you.





My only friend.


What weighs heavy is certain light
how it pierces
through troubled waters.

A million traces of faces
lit up in every beam.

One night I felt it bleed through me
using rivers of sun-fire screams.

Volcanic poetry spoke without a sound.

Jim Morrison breaking through doors
under spells of hypnotic waves
wild vibrant shimmering
on multi-colored sheets.

This style is not my own
but it helped me lava streak
across bitter shores.




Now,

my voice strays away.

Gone hunting

a broken well voice
picked up by an old cracked bucket
leaking simple worded wishes

deciding to voluntarily borrow her
stolen forest eyes.

I heard them speak translucent leaf
on a summer day
when clairvoyant kids
heard God speak

on pathways of brilliant blue lake

when sunshine
whispered us
in scintillating ripples

right before our astounded,
washed feet.




I am dripping funeral summer sweat
under tombstone studded trees

smiling while choking in
liquid clouded dark.

Alone but not alone.

Mighty Ghosts of heaven
holding my head up

making sure the Nile
doesn't gush out while
I still cannot even write or speak

turn my notebooks into confetti
nothing describes this mysterious sea

a new species of saxophone waves
has belted its killer wonderland
sound out across an entire broken stage.


*

I can picture us
walking barefoot
on star contacted sand

gazing out
under champion chandelier wonders

walking on Texas Lightning storm colors
bellies full on Rumi soul food

our secret flames
burning up
plastic playgrounds

violating propriety
on some nuclear guarded beach

schools of fish cut
by saxophone hooked seas

blasted by vaults of unwrapped poems
someone else wrote perfect
in our dreams

we hope one day
the unpredictable silence
of simple worded wishes

will help us

extravagantly bloom
new spring leaves
rain stamped on tender delicious works

after winter is done
savagely wishing us dead
we are touched by other worlds.
https://youtu.be/6xcwt9mSbYE

For Drew
Cheryl Mukherji Sep 2014
During one of my recent internet travels,
I came across a picture of a “minor”,
posing with tinted lips
and exposed *******.
What got my eyes
pinned were the thousand number of likes
by virtually hooting “boys”
and comments by other group of “gentlemen”
telling her how to dress.

HUMILITY: I have been asked to repeat the word
too many times to recall what it means:
the man on the subway cat-called
and accused me of showing too much skin
but instead of fighting back, I smiled
because girls ought to be nice.
I have been taught to survive
by using my body as a swiss army knife,
and I convince myself that
there is protection in being polite.

H-U-M-I-I am forgetting the rest.

The smoke curled up from between his fingers
and he blew out toxic, blurring my vision.
I gasped and wheezed
but I held my sneeze,
I cannot slap him across his face. HUMILITY.
So, I just pretended to cough, hoping he’ll feel ashamed.

I have been trained to flutter my eyelash,
clench my jaw at a whiplash
and business school boys,
who manifest success by refusing to take “NO” for an answer.
And for every time his prying eyes
scan down by body,
as if rating my inexperienced assets on a scale of one to five,
and every time his touch trails a chill down my spine,
I wonder:
Male kindness is so alien to us; we confuse it with seduction every time.

HUMILITY: the quality of having a low view of one’s importance
but, I fail to understand
when did it become synonymous to diffidence;
there is a subtle difference between
papercuts and shattered integrity,
holding hands and chaining souls,
building houses and creating homes,
humiliation rotting down to bones and humility.
HUMILITY, have you spelled it too many times to know what it looks like?
melina padron Nov 2014
maybe you didn’t feel it
when i licked myself
off of your lips.

maybe you didn’t feel it
when i traced the back of
your knees with my fingertips.

maybe you didn’t feel it
when you rolled over in the
morning and saw how well we fit.

i knew it when you
picked the eyelash off my  
cheek because it felt like a kiss.

i knew it when you
took the long way home so there’d
be a few less seconds to miss.

i knew it when you
would wake up and leave me because
my heart would contort into a fist-

all so i’d never have to let you go.
but you would never know.
Ann Beaver Sep 2014
A daisy chain
grazes scars lined up like dominos
I long to tip forward
a collapse upon collapse
a tumble down a long hill
down a long eyelash in the wind
your ebb
flow
weave
for this I heave
the mountains and streams aside
Joe Workman Aug 2014
The radio alarm is a bit too strong
for his afternoon hangover taste.
He goes downstairs, sets the coffee to brewing,
rubs his hands through the hair on his face.
As he sits and he smokes, he can't quite think of the joke
she once told him about wooden eyes.

The coffee is ready, his hands are unsteady
as he pours his first cup of cure.
He tries to be happy he woke up today,
but whether being awake's good, he's not sure.
Outside it's raining, but he's gallantly straining
to keep his head and his spirits held high.

As soft as the flower bending out in its shower,
fiercer than hornets defending their hives,
the memories of sharing her secrets and sheets
run him through like sharp rusty knives.
He decides that his cup isn't quite strong enough,
takes the ***** from the shelf, gives a sigh.

He goes to the porch to put words to the torch
he still carries and knows whiskey just fuels.
Thunder puts a voice to his hammering heart.
Through ink, his knotted mind unspools,
writing of butterflies and of how his love lies
cocooned under unreachable skies.

From teardrops to streams to winter moonbeams
to a peach, firm and sweet, in the spring,
he writes of pilgrims and language and soft dew-damp grass
and how he sees her in everything.
He rambles and grieves, and he just can't believe
how much he has bottled inside.

He writes how the leaves, when they whisper in the breeze,
bring to mind her warm breath in his mouth,
how when walking through woods he loves the birdsong
when they fly back in the summer from the south
because she would sing too and he always knew
he wanted that sound in his ears when he died.

He writes even the streetlights, fluorescent and bright,
make him miss the diamond chips in her eyes,
how the fountain in the park plays watersongs in the dark
when he goes to make wishes on pennies
and while he's there he gets hoping
there will be some spare wishes
but so far there haven't been any.

He writes that the cold makes him think of the old
hotel where they spent most of a week,
lazing and gazing quite lovingly,
and how he brushed an eyelash off her cheek.
The crickets and frogs and all of the dogs
sound as mournful as he feels each night.

He writes about chocolate and fun in arcades,
he writes about stairwells and butchers' blades,
and closed-casket funerals, and Christmas parades,
then sad flightless birds and tiny brigades
of ants taking crumbs from the toast he had made,
and political goons with their soulless tirades,
old-timey duels and terrible grades,
strangers on  buses, harp music, maids,
the weird afterimages when all the light fades,
the pleasure of dinnertime serenades,
sidewalk chalk, wine, and hand grenades.

He writes of how much fun it would be to fly,
and saltwater taffy and ferryboat rides,

sitting on couches, scratched CD's,
pets gone too soon and overdraft fees,

the beach, the lake, the mountains, the fog,
David Bowie's funny, ill-smelling bog,

jewelry, perfume, sushi, and swans,
the smell of the pavement when the rain's come and gone,

and shots and opera, and Oprah and ***,
and tiny bikinis with yellow dots,

stained glass lamps, and gum and stamps,
her dancing shoes on wheelchair ramps,
that overstrange feeling of déjà vu,
filet mignon and cordon bleu,

bad haircuts at county fairs,
honey and clover, stockmarket shares,
the comfort of nestling in overstuffed chairs,
and her poking fun at the clothes that he wears,
and giraffes and hippos and polar bears,
cumbersome car consoles, monsters' lairs,
singing in public and ignoring the stares,
botching it badly while making éclairs,
misspelled tattoos, socks not in pairs,
people who take something that isn't theirs,
the future of man, and man's future cares,

why people so frequently lie
and bury themselves so deep in the mire
of monetary profits when money won't buy
a single next second because time's not for hire,
and that he sees her in everything.

Then unexpectedly, unbidden from where it was hidden
comes the punchline to the joke she had told him.
He laughs -- it's too much and his heart finally tears
as a blackness rolls in to enfold him.
The last thing he hears is birdsong in his ears --
the sound brings hope and is sweet as he dies.
CC Sep 2014
What it's like
To be romantic
Is to feel
Like myself
Although
You are out there
And I am
In here
I see the moon
You created
For us
Or maybe that cloud
floated past me
as you blew a kiss
of an eyelash wish
into the direction
of the air
I breath
samasati Jan 2014
my lips purse to meet you
you are like champagne
unopened
are you sweet or are you bitter
are you spoiled
are you a winner

take a beat from my heart,
it accelerates and strengthens
if you pluck an eyelash from me
I’ll remember how to cry again
— and just in case you’re wondering,
I’m still inclined to hold my own hand

guess what
I bought this cactus
‘cos I don’t have to care much for it
we both know
I can’t admit I can’t commit
to letting something bloom
but I’m hoping you won’t notice
see my green thumb,
I am caring!
but see the cactus…
I am lying…
We come to a complete stop.
At a red light.
We wear our arms like seat-belts-
crossed for protecting our pilot lights.˚
I can't help but wonder how many airbags might deploy
if a meteor crashed headfirst and heavyset into the planet
and pancaked us eternally into this moment-
and how our fossils would look confused;
funeral flowers on a wedding cake.

None of this matters, we're both thinking it,
God is a foster child playing with his erector set.

You grin with as much conviction as a dented automobile,
breaking the months of silence to say,
"I miss you."

We can never fold these road maps back the way they came.

Somewhere existentially above this moment, there is an asterisk
that confirms
you- are here.

There was a younger version of me that you never got to meet,
he was here once,
stupid as a slinky.
Shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch.
Crooked as the question mark that punctuated his voice.
I looked good in hydroplane,
my eyes- bigger than my belly,
so I drank my weight in promises- I knew would be hard to keep within arms reach.
I also knew an encyclopedia's worth of how it felt to lie to myself.
I did it for twenty-three years
until I finally let go of stupid and held on to reason.

At some age I wrote letters to my favorite musicians,
using the sloppiest side of my penmanship, I'd ask for answers
and my mother, like a paperclip, used to tell me - she'd say,
"Kiddo, just because they don't respond
doesn't mean they didn't get the message."

She kept her chest of hope upstairs, away from the living room.
She only opened it on the hallow end of October;
that's where she kept the blankets.

Shy, I kept my hope chest covered in a T-shirt-
at the very least.
I never opened up.
I emptied my toy box of all its fiction, filled it with voices.
Deployed an army of rubber wrestlers, martial arts amphibians
and those inanimate toy soldiers with plastic parachutes attached
in search of the confidence I knew was supposed to belly-flop inside of me.

It hid, unfound for decades.
Until you entered.

Hawaiian domino effect, circus of chain reactions, avalanche of affirmation, chest-plate yielding gravity mouth speaking brightest anything forever night light, all apex and eyelash and cheekbone.
You -from big island- broke me.
I opened like the dry side of an umbrella, kept my back turned for shielding you.
I showed up for love on time, like a subway train in echelon city
wanting these arms to feel less like turnstiles.

All my sign languages were in waves.
All my ceilings turned to skies.
All my jitters packed into my hunger stomach.
Typing hyper with caffeinated hands
a swarm of nervous words bee-hiving in my butterfly chest.
Something like a hummingbird
when I finally drop your name like an alarm clock whisper
my lungs empty like cathedrals on the day after Christmas.

I brought the sermon to your Sundays,
you brought the choir to my masses.
We built a church around these esophagus bell towers.
Held ourselves up to the stained glass and showed off our light;

I swear I don't believe in a lot of things, God knows,
but there's always a but,
so much as I believe in the eternal depth of everything,
so much as I believe that we'd have plenty of water if it weren't for salt,
so much as I believe in eight marbles rolling around a gas lamp,
I believed we'd find a way.

'Cause in all the ways my sky could never hold you- and I mean this-
I believed in you- same way some people believe in Jesus.

Because you never judged my albatross mouth when I said things like,
"Self deprecation is the new love."
You kissed me-
less like doorstop,
more like lighthouse illuminating windmill.

You were a merry-go-round pivot decorated in Kona coffee beans, Christmas lights, cough syrup, paper mache pineapples, plastic dinosaur bones, a collection of worn-out Asics, board shorts and a dubstep remix broadcast through the static of a blown-out rotary phone.

You were everything I could get my hands on-

A full-tilt action-packed kaleidoscope jungle
with blender tongue and volcano heart.
I looked good in your sad panda coat tails,
teaspoon swallowing my doubts
while you Tarzaned my ability to breathe,
gave me ocean view and weak knees.
Is that sea breeze in your aftermath or are there already tears in my happiness?

You came camouflage out of my blind spot dressed in magnet armor,
diving board and drum set.
We passionbent cymbals into cannonballs.

I found comfort between your breastplate and your shoulder blades,
where you held me like a promise
when all my wishing was for want
and all your wanting was for wishes

Granted,

I know that there were days when you couldn't help but wake up like gorilla speaking Pidgin
and I couldn't help but waking up like an abandoned highway with a chip on my shoulder-
some maps don't show this much detail, Google Earth-

Which is why I always came through for you like a well-lit citrus truck stop
pressed against the dusk in your moonlight life crisis.
We only saw stars.
From our moon base.
In bewilderment, in our hunger, we learned
that if you hold me to my vending machines you'll get what you pay for.

So here it is, the truth, as I have always known it,
delivered to you on the outskirts of an echo,
my voice, supporting my existence like a monolith.

I'm standing in the middle of a you-shaped hole.
It's as wide as a promise crater-
we built it together.
It's not my favorite place to stand
but the exit strategies are made in the shape of a me that I haven't constructed yet.
I had a lot of things planned.
I referred to things as "ours",
when I really meant "please".

Bury me in your time lapse.
When your emotional excavators discover me in your sediment
they'll find me all pterodactyl-
wings spread wide as potential, sky-diving toward forgiveness,
forever.

Truth is, I'm wingless.

We met at a stop sign.
Our paths crossed.

There's a lot of accidents at some intersections.
Maybe it's because that's not where those two roads were supposed to meet.

We can't time machine argue with the way things landed.

We weren't an avoidable accident.
We were just two cars that really wanted to dance.

I don't know what I'm trying to say but I know when I mean it.

There's a tyrannosaurus rex cradled head-to-tail just behind my curator heart-
all fossil spine, monster teeth, jaw head and piano hands.
His presence says a lot about the past.
There's an asterisk on the surface,
above this moment,
that confirms with absolute certainty,

˚something wicked awesome happened here.
The (˚) is supposed to be an (*)
You can hear me read this here: http://tumblr.com/xft51gwrf0
vircapio gale Sep 2012
so quick, so quick--
and it's over in appreciation's bloom
i run and kiss her- glad to be alive with you
adrenaline spread across
the slice of time i am
this life affirmed in downward rush
of vision    swallowing the whole
un    worded     awe
'i cannot be a poet now'

from reading on the drive there:
absurd psychology, it marvels at me
similizing downward flight    to that of two rakshasas thrown
from Angada's leap on Lanka
    palace tower kicked, another symbol falling
likened to Ravana's ego doomed,
ordering to **** that messenger
who revealing imminence alights the fate
of endings we all share,
how could i guess
i blindly follow orders--
the ten-headed ego writhes resistance
at the incapacity in me, the failure  
    to speak    meaningfully,
or trounce the message-bearer
routing through the speech
of others only    intoning at ten thousand feet:
om  earth   sky    cosmos
    contemplating that original love
perfect fullness     within and out
    let us realize our unity
om  peace   peace  peace

at the silence    in the noise
eudaimonic under breath as engine climbs
in moments    (i don't know how i got here)
i chant remembrance into time--
the solar warmth    a touch of ease
amid anticipation's quandary--
he has a helmet    unlike me  
    "Don't let those two mess with you,"
the camera-headed lady says to me before she jumps
her finger wagging    some distant familiarity
of jests to lighten fears    or twirl them in the air--
so cold the wind     and thin to singe the lungs--
his body hanging out the door     waiting for
her flight into his falling grasp    the plane rocks into the slamming door
the door...    is closed again for me to kneel beside
and think of next and after what has come before
    inching    'i love you' at the back of the plane
where crouched the one who whisked me here
in mystery to allow unveiling here today
from reading epic only--gazing down--"no signs" to give away
the open spaces felt and bright  treeless    vast
and getting out of car with closed eyes--
"surprise!" and there sits a plane or twenty over there
and "SKYDIVING" written on the door
which i am happy to dismiss as we walk the other way,
she wouldn't have the guts to surprise me with this--
but yes we turn around and here we are
with sky-crazies in pictures    peace and love on palms
strapped tandem     falling    living     back   still far from earth
we sign the papers under those smiles
faintly listen to the video  squawking 'court of law'
and 'choice of your own free will'
paid and signed away  we harness in and search for fear
windex for the goggles  (but how clearly will i see?)
my ***** are safe from straps or so i think
i'm conscious of the need to quip
and John and Paul--our parachutes--
become a double headed meet-your-maker Pope
for me to flatly joke about.
"Pain is good," says the pilot as
we learn the way to fall
and pile seven in a tiny cockpit,
we're off the ground before i know it
i 'woot' to sign my joy.   as much as to assent
conversations of little more than two lines
keep us feeling human as we swallow
popping in our ears,
--she'll have to keep her gum--
smoke stacks, mines, gray grids of residential scapes
seem to **** the green from curve of earth.
faintly i recall ecology, pulled into the sun
stumbling to cage the meaning of it all
a sentence forms into a trailing nonsense.
my breathing tests the press of straps on waist and chest
deafened, chanting. cease to chant.
the meaning overcome with wonderment beyond my mind.
am i missing something?
thank the pilot as a "Sir,"
"Door!!" "How long?!" "When!?!" --i hear the buckles faintly clicking,
the distance imperceptible a rush
of air i am infused with global letting be
the ball of tight electric fear
a nostril flare of otherworldly falsity--
i am here.
and tilting, instructions gibberish, shouting go! go!!
a kneeling fetal hop into the gust of void
so full the eyelash burns horizonal










.
the lines in italics constitute a paraphrase of the Gayatri Mantra
JR Rhine Mar 2016
You're the eyelash
                                                                    scraping against my eye.

One day I'll carve you out
              and blow you gently into the breeze.

                                            Or, with bloodshot eyes,
                               I'll well indifferent tears
                                                                   and stream you down a cheek.

               I'll make you the wish I swore you to be.
NTR Oct 2017
Would you kindly
hug me tight
with your hands
around my neck?
Would you kindly spend the night
and comfort this nervous wreck?

Could you show me a smile
while you tell me that I'm trash
Could you insult my lifestyle
without even batting an eyelash

Should you care about garbage like me
your tastes must be perverted
Should I be allowed to feel this happy
honestly, I'm uncertain.

I need you to use your claws
to draw out the blood from my skin
I need you to break through the walls
I built to hide my true self within

I need you to split me open and dig inside
to grasp at my heart if you can
I need you to know the thoughts that I hide
and love the person I really am
Eyelash Wishes Jun 2014
Today an eyelash fell on my wrist,
and with my breath it sailed
on a wish.
That my heart will one day be
a little candle flame,
a faint hopeful spark,
to someone just as lost in the dark
as I am.
(Working on learning to love myself.  It's really hard, but I've at least started to.  You really do have to love yourself to love someone else, I know that now.  So I'm rekindling.)
SummertimeLace Apr 2015
ocd
"The first time I saw her...
Everything in my head went quiet.
All the tics, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared.
When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments.
Even in bed, I’m thinking:
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips..
Or the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek.
I knew I had to talk to her.
I asked her out six times in thirty seconds.
She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going.
On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or ******* talking to her...
But she loved it.
She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times if it was Wednesday.
She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk.
When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely locked the door eighteen times.
I’d always watch her mouth when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked
when she talked;
when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges.
At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off.. And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off.
She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her.
Some mornings I’d start kissing her goodbye but she’d just leave cause I was
just making her late for work...
When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking...
When she said she loved me her mouth was a straight line.
She told me that I was taking up too much of her time.
Last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place.
She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but...
How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touched her?
Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t.
I can’t – I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her.
Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin.
I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars...
And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on.
I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel..
How she turns shower knobs like she's opening a safe.
How she blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out…
Now, I just think about who else is kissing her.
I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once — he doesn’t care if it’s perfect!
I want her back so bad...
I leave the door unlocked.
I leave the lights on."
Neil Hilborn
My fave not written by me but written by Neil Hilborn
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
where to begin?

let us acknowledge
the responsibility of our actions,
and the titles and duties,
and the unexpected,
thereof.

I was a son, till this year,
still, of sorts, but no longer,
traded it in for
orphan.

are you still a child,
when you have no parents?
are you still a parent,
when a child lost?

I am a father, and grandfather.
this definition of me,
extant, future seeded,
perhaps permanent,
perhaps not.

the product of
actions more than
thirty years ago,
and events yet-to-be thirty years
hence.

titles claimed and granted,
partial, not finite,
not definitive, nor infinite.
partial, but part and parcel,
these titles, of you,
yet
they are not the totality, of you,
but very much part of you,
for you possess precious,
The Imprint - The Gift.

the child lost,
the parent found,
the newest coming,
the oldest gone,
all imprinted on your hands,
just look at them!

there are lines on your palms
you do not know the meaning of,
you do not yet know the ending,
they are in your cells,
as you are and were in theirs.

The Imprint
is The Gift
that is
non returnable,
non refundable,
nor is it
diminished by
any stone marker, measurement
of a day, an uncertain,
certain moment.

Look in the mirror.
see them in you,
as they saw themselves in your
reflection.

ah, reflect.
acknowledge that the
absence is pain,
but look at those hands,
that face, your face,
see the
The Imprint - The Gift
permit yourself an easement,
for it the season of
recollection.

ah, re-collect, recollect.
let the story.
continue, by the retelling.
find that palm line,
find that psalm song,
where the babe lost,
the mother lost
is the babe reborn,
in new faces, forever contained in
The Imprint.

we all ken loss,
we all keen know anguish,
different kinds for different folks.
do we not all have blood?
but are there different types,
and yet,
all still blood related.

prepare yourself
for more sad to come,
and some to never,
woebegone.

but do not forget,
nay, you cannot,
for seared it is,
this imprint,
a two sided copy
of a single document,
you on them,
them on you.
~
an eyelash falls
upon the poem.

a decorative reminder,
a stop sign,
a decorative remainder,
that it is time,
to recall,
to be unafraid.
now, now, right now,
is the time to remember,
that very eyelash,
the cells that are
therein,
the eyes that it has protected,
saw, know, well recall, gave,
gave part of you

and smile,
yes, smile,
for in them,
in the lines around your eyes,
the crisscrossed cell map upon thy hands
is the
The Imprint,
The Gift.

where to end?

This imprint upon your body exterior,
part mark, part stain,
part badge, part medal,
part cain,
part ribbon black pinned.

it is twinned,
for the match, the mate,
of this gift I printed,
is still in your living cells,
and thus knowing
the imprint is yours forever,
they are not lost,
you are not lost,
for Their Imprint
is a gift that
is
never ending
shall eternal be a salve this
happy, sad, melancholy,
holy
morn, day, season.
For you,
for all of us...written in the sky above the Eastern Seaboard on Dec. 24th, 2013
The child is the father, the mother, to the man (BS&Tears;)
I stand in your eyes
Looking out for the whole world to see
With the fabric of death staring at me
Its just you and me
On the edge of heaven
Mending distances as we begin
Ghastly gray hours littered my ears
Intensly intrusive and ******
The shadows spill stringently
Stamping the sky with feelings of insufficiency
The bitter breeze dreamers, protesting for peace
Beyond all countries and downward dreams
We heave our head, heart, and soul

The handfuls of gestures surrender the way
A taut twine traveled behind
With waves coiling and bending my mind
Dying eyelashes recaptured my memories as they danced upon my face
A once swollen spirit is a ripped fragment away
Consenting with out my say
Death burst your core
The life of limbs, once excitable and strong
A strong windswept set my ambivalence at bay
As I lay trembling, Soft secrets are told
Relief from bottomless sufferings
Loved ones long lost reunited with me
My tounge has say much to say as words sail
As the wisps of heaven begin to show me the way
This is what I feel that people go through when they have an terminal illness. Losing strength and feeling helpless.  Trembling from weakness and lost dreams. I worked at a nursing home for 18 years. It is amazing the profound phenomenon that you get to experience in the final days. Supernatural aura's settling down. Thanks for reading. I should add I feel as people depart this earth they leave us signs we just have to be aware of them. You will get a message they have made it to the other side.
rachel g Nov 2012
I don't know what to say
right now.
The simplicity of this page haunts me
It's too easy
I'm used to more options
Endless confusion
Charts spotted with lines and dots and angles
and rights and wrongs and yes's and no's
Mazes with corners and rigid edges
like life is allowed to be put into boxes
like breaths and thoughts and the surface of tears
dripping like melting glass from an eyelash
are meant to be stuffed into sharpness
without the blessing of shadows
not gradual
like
the snap of electricity through an outlet
frying all the atoms in its path.
I'm cold, it's dark,
I whisper.
saranade Oct 2016
A year has passed since I crashed my motorcycle.
The road rash had since been cast away.
The fast paced life was smashed together.
A singular bash that cached my memory.
Lights flash and whiplash has new meaning.
This thrash blinked my eyelash three days later.
Dreary forecast laid flabbergasted.
Hit-and-run
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2017
once upon a wrote


here and there, in fables and tales,
some in no guile and others
in chancier disguises,
some sine-known and some sign-unknown,
some dead in stillbirth,
some penned these words,
some a few decades old,
some of but a moment ago eyelash distant,
making me think that
someday I will scribe,
cobble some truths and
some falsehoods into one
leaping heaping melting scoop,
letting you decide,
which for better,
which for worse...


<•>

"No matter that plain words
are my ordinary tools,
With them I shall scribe the small,
Cherish the little, grab the middle,
Simplicity my golden rule,
Write they say,
about what you know best,
Surely in the diurnal motions,
The arc of daily commotion,
Do we not all excel?"

<•>

the reason we say so oft,
in whispers emboldened,

I love you

to our children
is not the utility of
its summarizing brevity

no, no.
it is because
the eloquence of simplicity
supersedes any other poem
any of us could ever write...

<•>

is this craft that chose you,
not defined by machine millimeters,
precision absolute,
curvatures, so eye-pleasing,
they demonstrate no tolerance
for tolerance of the ordinary?

the skill of words, too, cut so fine,
find the  extraordinary within,
refine, refine, refine,
shave away the trite,
the reused,
discard the instant recognition,
unusable

<•>

There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the
whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away
what soully belongs to you,
do your own sums,
admit your own truths,
query not the lives of others,
approach the mirror...

<•>

The Truth Burden
is the accursed need obligatory,
the sacred sanctity requisitioned,
when the whenever,
chooses to drop in and upflag the mailbox,
an uninvited invitation,
announcing with precise bluntness,
that precisely now,
is the tool crafted moment
and you fool,
the selected tool

you must render unto Ceaser,
by your own hand,
render your own rendering,
do your own undoing,
go forth and in haste,
will thyself into the cauldron of the
Great Mystery of Creation

you cannot lie in poetry

<•>

come, sit for awhile, in poet's nook,
soft pillows for our hard Adirondack chairs,
situe hard by the bay, if too hot, we'll slow
drift to the sun room of
lace curtains and suicide poems,
still we'll observe the water, the rabbits, the cacophony low,
listening to all the noisier, nosier
creatures asking themselves,
and the trees and leaves,
where did all those poets come from?

<•>

to the interior delve,
via brush or limb,
pen or music,
the exposition, the exploration,
the reconstruction of composing
one's self, creation and destruction
of your own myths

movement of arms and legs,
sparseness of simplicity,
subsidiaries of centricity,
tributaries of complexity

<•>

how cold are the carpenter's hands,
the weather, but an added obstacle,
this heat, makes dying different difficult,
the wood bearing cross requires additional nails
and flesh, for the extra load he's bearing,
when it snows blood in Jerusalem

the whole world can transition
when one man dies and another is risen,
where oh where lies then, the juxtaposition?

there is none, for man is man,
his divine spark, embedded,
to his maker's mark, welded and wedded,
neither snow or sun,
can ever extinguish


<•>

now I ken better distance 'tween
artist and art,
I, a workingman's
daily dallying in simplistic machine craft,
my works deservedly lost in
the water-falling
of the endless also rans

non-nebulous distances.between skies of
Oregon country blue and
the worldy worn asphalt grayed words of
a graying man aging,
then let clarity speak, in plainest harmony,
know my deference’s soars to the high above,
one of us at birth, god gifted,
was not I,
it ain't me babe, but
one of us, his tongue,
like Moses-stung
with a hot coal
of language's divinity


<•>
I promise this shall be the last poem of thee I've written of thee. And thus I have dedicated all the love I have for thee into this; in the hope that my heart has none of it left after writing the poem.

I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood;
Its taint of darkness dripping down like blood-red hearth.
A breeze of morning moves, that we love, has gone;
For a musk of the skies at dusk must have come down.

Come into the garden, my love, and play around with me;
For a bed of love daffodils is on high;
For a set of faint lights is now there to catch;
One breed of lights that we used to play with.
Bring my that green glass of paint, and draw by me,
While I rub thy dark hair on my lap, with my bronze fingertips.

Run around here, Immortal, and give me thy handsome hand;
Thou art the speed and pace I need here to stay;
Ah, I am not detached from t'is world, so long as I have you;
I am charmed, even in the darkest abyss of yon superficiality.
Thou art the fragrance of happiness found in decay;
Strength in the most diminished, and yet distinguished ecstasy;
A fable t'at becometh real in a flight of seconds;
A temptation no maiden heart canst afford to dismiss.
And look at me, now and then and all over again,
I wanteth to look pretty in my ruffle brown skirt,
Just like in my midnight gown on a flowery wedding night,
One t'at we shalt have above the sun, out of everyone else's jealous sight.

Let's dream t'at this delight shall ne'er wear out, and leave to us t'is nuptial potion;
I hath ideas for us and the most sensible of worldly notions;
Naughty as water ripples and the broadening green plantations;
I knoweth now where we canst go and hide our insightful destinations.
Thou wert always running in thy magical shoes,
And t'eir worlds of visions and phantom-like phantasies,
Like woeful but wise extraterritorial dimensions,
A forest of spells and love curses we never knoweth.
But worry not, my dear, for I shall hold thee in both portals,
I'll keep thee safe by my side, I'll keep thee immortal,
So that we are ne'er to be apart, in such a bright love like pearls,
And the petals of roses t'at ne'er swerve again from our fingertips.
We were always inhabited by our little jokes, and moved by an unseen hand at game,
T'at everything was too tranquil even for being a game as itself its nature,
And the whole little wood we were perched on was one world
Of fun shivers, wonders, and plunder and prey,
Oft' at midnight hours we looked at each other so kindly and peacefully,
With eyes mastered by love and tough loveliness,
Thou looked but wholesomely splendid in thy own questioning minds,
And thy brown hair t'at was turned about by solitary winds.
Ah, Immortal! Immortal, Immortal, my visionary love, my darling bird.
And yet, the night knew then, of our tricks and who we were, funny little liars—
Little liars t'at had but a tender love outta' time and space,
And such a gleaming love for one another,
We whispered, and hinted, and chuckled, with an aroma of love about us,
However we'd braved it out, we felt about it glad and not sorry;
We humans of a naughty, devilish, notorious, but sophisticated breed!

Come into the garden, Immortal, for the night bat now hath flown;
The one thou fear, my love, hath left us alone.
And forgive me for my rigid clauses to them;
For I want only to writ' of thee, my darling bud.
The planet of love seem't be on high,
Beginning to pick away its fruitful colours,
And make itself look petrified and stultified,
Like one from abroad, flown in as foreign woodbine spices.
Ah, as though t'is temporal world is not murky enough for us both,
That our translucent breaths are those who survive;
Who remain rustic in this unmerited ordinary world.

Come again, my love, my impeccable darling,
Let's witness what the sonnet's yet to sing;
All we need t' do is pick up a lil' wooden chair;
And breathe the swampy midnight air before we sit.
Here is my poetry, and I'th written it for thee,
Long like the satin seas, and red ribbons made of clouds,
I needst not say it but thou read still, my heart out loud.
Ah, Immortal, the golden gift thrown at one clean snowy night!
And t'ese hidden memories now shine out back again,
For the drifts of the earth we ne'er knoweth, indeed,
And thus who knoweth the ways of the world,
And the surreptitious moves its soil's done,
From morning to night, from one day to another?
Ah, who knoweth 'em all but the Almighty?
Our Almighty, our very Almighty;
t'at breathed into our souls such loving love,
And made for us t'is decent planet, many suns, and one fair earth.
Ah, Immortal, and thou art the son of literature He had to me,
A joy t'at my hands, as He told, outta rejoice,
A glory t'at my faith should find.
Ah, Immortal, thou art sweet, sweet, and too sweet!
Thy sweetness is but an avarice, one bold austerity to me;
Scenic in its grace—a graceful grace t'at is far too restless and undying!
Undying, unweakening, but strengthening, t'at it'll ne'er die!
Ah, for thy sweetness, Immortal, hardly leaveth me a choice;
But to move and fall softly again and again for thee like before,
And thy honey-coloured skin and charms t'at I adore,
Not his, who knows or feels any of me not;
Not him, who is neither courtly not kind;
Not there, who understands not how to write,
to read, nor even to sing.

All night hath the roses heard songs from thy Eolian lute;
And my unveiled violin, piano, and bassoon;
All shrieking and collating in one strange space.
But hear thou, my love, of my shrilling little voice?
An unheard, abashed voice that keeps calling your name;
Your coloured name, that smells like trust
In its euphoric aura and ecstatic plays.
Where art but thou, my Immortal;
That was so close and definitive to my heart.
Where art but our strings, and guitar cords;
That used to rock up our beneficent loveliness?
That kept our hearts in tune, when desperately falling in love,
Ah, I do not want to leave thee still in thy weird dance,
I want to keep thy heart beating with mine and stay in tune;
I want to run with thee into a hush with the setting moon.
I said to the playful lily, 'There is none but one
With whom my curious heart is to be gay.
When will he be free to catch up with me?
I see him day and night and in dreams of my poetry.'
And half to the rising day, low on the sand
And loud on the stone our passion too shall rise;
Keep us cheerful and our heartbeats warm.
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those
For one that shall ne'er be thine?
'But mine, but mine,' I swore gaily to the rose,
'For ever and ever, mine. Just mine.'

And the soul of our fragrant rose sings into my blood,
That Immortal and his lover shall ne'er be apart.
He'll wait for her at night, in one bloodless Sofia;
She'll wait for him 'till such stars fall asleep.
He makes her blessed even in her dreams,
That all the red roses and lilies stay awake to watch their joy.

Immortal and Estefannia, the happiest ones along those summer days;
Are a threat to those soul frayed and vitriolic;
Too stellar to them romantic and idyllic;
Proud and sturdy in their ascetic life.
The best of love of the world's missing beat;
Daintier than any of this summer's bitter heat.
How fate tests their love we shall ne'er know,
but their love stretches as distantly as it can.

Ah, Immortal, tells Estefannia I shall make thee flattered
In sleep, in peace, in conscience, and in hate;
I shall make for us joy though our stories may be late.
Thy eyes are brown, my love, one shade the world's never owned
And thus thy love is valid and new in itself, ne'er worn.

And I shall hear when thy lips wan with despair, I'll be there;
I'll stand there with my basket, a gift from one faraway;
But with a love neither placid nor drained;
Villainous as t'is world is, what a broken wordling;
Like a wailing starling, torn in its calls and frothy desires.
T'ere is no more signal for us towards t'is despaired world;
I shall take thee yet, through the curtains of such speculations;
For 'tis only thy pride t'at lives, and not one soul of thine lies;
And should thou remain alive, my love shall ne'er hibernate,
But sit and trust firmly in its wakeful sleep, grasping thee,
Grasping thee, my love, 'till exhaust allows me no more words,
'Till my own poetry disobeys me like a cloud of putrefied shadows,
Ah, but still, remaining a gross soulless apparition I may be,
With no apparatus trembling 'round beside me,
Wouldst I still saunter myself forwards,
And greet thee in t'at peaceful vineyard;
Play to thee a lullaby and witness thy dreams,
Rocking thee softly against thy own stardoms,
'Till rivers are awake again and alert t'eir inane streams.
O Immortal, it is for better and fairness t'at I love thee,
Ah, but which love is sweeter than mine, or stronger than ours?

For I trust t'at my love is hungrier t'an that of her yonder,
Ah, and t'an t'at loyalty and patriarchy of our sullen armies,
More striking than a ****** dame's pictorial tyrannies,
One too sweet-scented for a hidden mercenary,
I have heard, I know not whence, t'at it but happened to thee;
Thou wert away, thou wert not under my umbrella, beneath me!
Where is Immortal now, for I need to save him again;
My husband in nature, my lover and immortal darling and best friend!

For t'is world is but a holocaust for the believing;
T'ere is, within which, not one pyramid of truth,
For 'tis a place of happy misery, and too miserable happiness.
T'ere is no place like our little Sofia, t'at once we dreamed of;
Filled with rainwater by its armed forces of Bul-ga-ri-ya;
I shall wait for thee there, by the triple roundabouts,
I shall wait for thee before I pray, and seek help from Our Lord;
I hath written for Him warm praises and delicate triplets of words.
Immortal the delight of my life, the dignity of my love;
Immortal the ringing joy of my ears, the gallant sight of my eyes;
Immortal my darling, of whom I write and for whom I sing.
Immortal like the leaves of the suburbs, t'at turn red and shyly bloom,
One that smells like mangoes and two pieces of orange blossoms.
Ah, Immortal, with his sweet red-mouth when eating dangled grapes,
Immortal the beloved of my father, the moon-faced, merriest son of all!

Where is he now? My dreams are bad. He may bring me a curse.
No, there is a fatter game on the moors, perhaps I ought to look for 'im t'ere.
The devil, I am afraid, hath stolen him again away,
I hath seen him not for a time as long as this day's.
Immortal, I want thy bountiful smile, and see thee not ill;
Immortal, tell me t'at thou long for and love me still.

Ah, along those happy days, and fabulous morning thrills,
My heart leapt whenever it caught thy voice,
And thy sanguine embrace when such came near;
Days were but too advanced, I know, and men were tied to t'eir own minds;
But thou kept me calm, with such majestic love and lil' poems in thy hands,
For t'is world is yet too adamant in t'eir pursuit,
Yet I needed thee, and thou came along.
Long had I sighed for a calm: God may grant it to me at last!
Ah, Immortal, a naughty lil' breach of t'is world, and its affairs;
A lil' cuddle t'at laughed and darted merrily all through the night.
Would t'ere be sorrow for me, for what I was feeling?
I thought I sensed only love and none like hate,
For it all tasted sweet and fierce like neverending fate,
A fate t'at we both accepted in one force,
A fate too astounding from our courageous Lord.
I thought thou wert mine, and thou shalt always be mine!
And t'is swirling sensation, when I looked at thee,
Full of teary happiness and chaotic delights,
I did want not t' think of its possible ends,
Ah, violent as Shakespeare might've assumed,
But I wanted to relish and bury myself in it
For such memories of thou had desired.
Immortal, Immortal, and now thou art gone;
But when all t'is world does is to go flexibly round,
Where'th thou think our missing beats can be found?

Warm and clear-cut face, why thou came so cruelly meek;
A cute lil' wonder to my sight—and for my lungs
To breathe stupidly for now and again.
Thou, handsome lad, hath broken all slumbers
In which all is but vague and foul and folly,
Pale with the golden beam with one dead eyelash
Knifed by the contours on one's cheeks.
And t'ere is also, about, the remnants of one's blood,
Dried and unmoving in t'eir death, but too lifelike at the same time,
Smelling ***** like the air rifles t'at just brought 'em all to death.
Death, ah, living t'is life without thee is like death;
All is clueless, breathless and sightless,
All is burning me strangely and from within,
Luminous, gemlike, dreamlike, deathlike, half the night long,
Growing and fading and growing and fading like an edgeless song,
But all too disobeys me, and disappears again as morning arrives,
Mocking me again while showing off its cloud wives.
I am trapped again now, in t'is wonderless dream of thee;
Which is more buoyant and febrile, unfortunately, than death itself,
One darker than even a tragic tear of one thousand years;
Like a heartbreaking scream or shipwrecking roar,
I am walking in a wintry stream all by myself,
And where is my Immortal—for he is not by my side,
He doth not witness the emerging of such sunshine—ah! It is t'ere today, quite early,
One t'at sets t'is darkening gloom all away, and thus we are all born free,
Free, virtually, both our hands and slithering eyes,
But still thou art not 'ere with me to witness t'is joy,
Thou who hath gone and withered like a pale blow of smoke.
Ah, Immortal, but may I hold t'ese rainy memories of thee still;
For t'ey all scorn and spurn as though I am ill;
I who loveth thee sincerely 'till the very end of time,
I who loveth thee with all the clear and vague powers
with which my very soul hath been endowed,
I who loveth thee like mad, I who loveth thee purely without hate;
I who virginly loveth thee like I doth my own fascinated fate.

Lay again, my love, on my longing lap,
I'll sing to thee one favourite lullaby,
And a basket of cherries t'at we picked nearby,
We shall enjoy t'is merriment before I let you sleep.
I shall let you sleep on my lap—a pair of skins t'at love you,
Love you as much as my other skin doth,
A heartbeat and pulse t'at breathe together
And want thee t'at madly, now and forever.

I found thee perfectly beautiful, my Immortal;
Sometimes thy eyes were downcast,
Spiritual in some ways,
And 'twas like thou wert thinking, my love;
Thinking of the upsurging stars above—and t'eir ******* secrets, beneath.
Ah, Immortal, even the vilest idleness cannot be against my love for thee;
My sparkling stars, and the affirmation traced along my heart is about thee;
All about thee, until t'ere is but none left of me,
Thou art the juice of my soul—far too ripe for someone else's heart!
And one, thou art more delicate than the crescent moon we hath tonight;
More shimmery than its ***** and rays of twilight,
Ah, Immortal, how the heavens hath descended thee onto me;
Thou, my love, art the last life and love of my thorough entity.

And t'is poetry shall be thy last enchanting lullaby,
I hope thou'lt sing it when midnight's swollen and sore,
Hurting thee to the pipes of thy very core,
But let's forget not t'at we once knitted awesome stories,
A chain of moments t'at lasts forever, ever, and ever again.
Ah, Immortal, we are back in the afternoon now,
We must though 'tis bluntly hard to say goodbye,
Of which hearts are unsure, but yet must lie,
I shall cry out my last beating love for thee,
But thou dwelleth in what I see, and thus ne'er leave me,
Like a fallen star t'at wants to rise but ne'er doth,
Thou art still the leaf my autumn tree hath sought;
And thou art the shine to my balmy rootless night;
Thou art the apparition t'at appeareth and teasest me after nightfall.

I'll wait for thee again in slippery Sofia,
And my love shall re-unite again with its winds;
Its walls, its havens, its barns like a spellbound purgatory;
For if I am bound to thee, in love and hate and rage and agony;
I'll write thee poems 'till even the universe is asleep.
I'll be cold like thy saluted Bul-ga-ri-ya;
I'll hold thee with 'till the last drops of my sanity;
Ah, Immortal, and in yon high-walled garden I still watch thee
pass like an authorial star;
Thou art as graceful as my own kind-hearted light;
For sorrow cannot even seize thee, my leading star!

Say love not when I meet thee again one day;
For t'ere is no more a desire to learn or admire,
I shall carry my knigh
Lisa Oct 2014
She put on her lipstick,
combed her long blonde hair
and looked in the mirror,
from a look evolved a stare,
searching for something amiss
an eyelash, a hair.
Anything out of place
that ugliness could declare,
and what looked back,
was all her tear stained blue eyes could see
Extinct perfection,
a precious face drenched in misery.
JL Apr 2012
Needle in the hay stack
The spin of the weather vane
I took a drink of you
And felt heavy to the touch
I lay back on my bed and opened up the dark
I woke up dead
Or maybe half alive
I miss the words
That came from your lips
Poems as mystical as a cloud of smoke
I allowed to twist around my fingers
Maybe I thought of them
Maybe not
Words like forests as deep and as dark
You skip from pool to pool of silver moonlight
Beaming through the trees
Singing a song I once heard in a dream
A bird
A whistle
As you snap your fingers
As you tap your foot
You never trip on
The terrible black roots
That reach up like fingers.
Somewhere far away or very near
You picked a flower
And placed it behind your ear
You sit cross legged a minute
As you drink your can of beer on the porch
You say you feel important and high up
Like angels found you and brought you back
To me
How I see the porch light
Reflecting your hair
As you twirled a lock and whispered
Mars is visible tonight
Red and bright
A shooting star
And you wish

On time with the cosmic dance of fire and color and rain
Earthquake Heartache Lust and Pitty
Your eyes glow in every dark alley
Of this sad quiet city
Skaidrum Jun 2015
.
Ͼ Dragonite, Dragonite,Ͽ
>< >< ><
Chinking at your heartstrings,
can you hear
it
շfreezing?շ

>< >< ><

A blush to
your snowy skin
and so you
stop
⇷breathing⇸

>< >< ><

A eyelash brushes away
a century,
a blink knocks out
two more.

>< >< ><

Fetching back a inked paw,
hear me rapping (oh so knocking)
on
your
selladore?  (cellar door.)

>< >< ><

Ͼ Dragonite, Dragonite Ͽ
brush the stars from your hair.

Ͼ Dragonite, Dragonite Ͽ
Words and blotches are unfair.

But then again,
scatter your inkheart, dragon boy.
.
This ones for you, Kal.
Eat the sky out, mate.

© Copywrite
Patricia LeDuc Mar 2018
I wished on a shooting star
I wished on the first star I saw in the night
I wished on an eyelash to find a true love
I wished on the candles on my birthday cake
I wished on the penny I threw in the well
I wished on a wishbone breaking it in two
I wished on a dandelion blowing seeds into the air
I wished on a ladybug to grant me good luck
I wished our love would come true
I wished you knew of my love for you

I wished that I knew… you were wishing for me too

I wished
I wished
I wished

I wished until there were no wishes left

(****! Where’s that Genie when you need him?)
March 27th 2018
Tommy Johnson Jan 2015
Way out in its own oasis
Its very own brand of homeostasis
Passed the jarred ideas and whacked out mazes
Is a spot

Full of unknown faces
Hailing from unknown places
Look at it, fall out with out protracted traces
Vacant lot

Then let's settle the score
What is your original face before your mom and dad were born?
Why not start over with a clean slate, as the smell of new dawns pervade
I forgot to eat

Maybe if you gave the derelict half a chance
And looked at things from the ambivert's stance
People wouldn't notice your ego's protuberance
Upstaged by an under study

Pull the button, turn the lever, push the switch and flip the ****
Predicate the incendiary infraction
Reductio ad absurdum
Lip service provides scrutiny

We've been normalized, what the recipe for ice?
We're full of emptiness, nothing exists
No-thing, not a thing does not exist
Life is deathless

I'm looking for multifaceted individuals
To fix something that's irreparable  
An eerie parable, something terrible
My future's told by flash cards

I put my head between my knees
Just wipe my memory
Leave me at the bottom of the sea
Leave my dignity to discard

When two separate divisions are over lapping
What's the sound of one hand clapping?
Comparing then and now every now and then
Again, never will I say"never again"

       -Tommy Johnson
Wade Redfearn May 2018
Something rattles in the soul.
It must be paid attention -
  it is the soul, the only sure thing -
and rattled in return.

Slow begins the dance of tongues and hard news.
I learn a thing I never wished to learn.
Afterwards,
a dance of tongues in the ensuite
begins a sudden rapture of claiming.

Nails mine, skin mine
to make a pink impression on.
Bile in the back of the throat, mine.
Fear of death, mine. Oaths and oaths,
mine, too. An exchange of humility,
knee for a knee. The rigid wall at your back.
The wall at your back.
The night which enriches
bluer out of the blue air,
not the action of
the world moving at all.

The particles of water in a birdbath divide,
decide among themselves
to marry each to each, to reproduce.
They become an ocean.
They drown the birds.
My mouth fills with feathers,
teeth itch with the tiny mites
running between the shafts.

I am a bell, and you are a country.
I am a bell and sound from far away.

Hands touch the broken vase in her parts, the toes,
the eyelash, the sunken wreck, the crowd of dead,
the treasure.
They say
  all this
as if the map was drawn
and burned
and came again
in char from the tablecloth
to all our wonder.

A single miracle can last for weeks in the mouth. Sometimes centuries.

I will spend eighteen days in the void of grace.
What begins as a pain in my shoulders
will grow into a tree and bury me.
I will want promises, promises, promises.
(water, water, water)
I will never be satisfied.

Looking always for permanent loss it becomes easy to simply
misplace.
Your caution leads to strange decisions.
You put your keys in the fridge.

I would like to say I knew the words:
I cut the lock of hair, I drew the blood.
The hex was removed by faith and chaste reflection
but everywhere I look, there is a confusion
of hungry birds and beggars
and I forget the spell,
or what chaste reflection even is.

Anyways, something breaks. Not my doing.
Suddenly, I am just noticing sky again.
I am transcribed back into English.
My first decision is to wash my car,
and next,
to learn what faith meant to anyone.

Charmed, is it?
Something rattles in the soul.
It must be paid attention -
  it is the soul, the only sure thing -
and rattled in return.
It has nothing, really, to say.
It only rattles.
Just ask me.
Jade --
Stone of the side,
The antagonized

Side of green Adam, I
Smile, cross-legged,
Enigmatical,

Shifting my clarities.
So valuable!
How the sun polishes this shoulder!

And should
The moon, my
Indefatigable cousin

Rise, with her cancerous pallors,
Dragging trees --
Little bushy polyps,

Little nets,
My visibilities hide.
I gleam like a mirror.

At this facet the bridegroom arrives
Lord of the mirrors!
It is himself he guides

In among these silk
Screens, these rustling appurtenances.
I breathe, and the mouth

Veil stirs its curtain
My eye
Veil is

A concatenation of rainbows.
I am his.
Even in his

Absence, I
Revolve in my
Sheath of impossibles,

Priceless and quiet
Among these parrakeets, macaws!
O chatterers

Attendants of the eyelash!
I shall unloose
One feather, like the peacock.

Attendants of the lip!
I shall unloose
One note

Shattering
The chandelier
Of air that all day flies

Its crystals
A million ignorants.
Attendants!

Attendants!
And at his next step
I shall unloose

I shall unloose --
From the small jeweled
Doll he guards like a heart --

The lioness,
The shriek in the bath,
The cloak of holes.

— The End —