"flax" poems
Bees build around red liver,
Ants build around black bone.
It has begun: the tearing, the trampling on silks,
It has begun: the breaking of glass, wood, copper, nickel, silver, foam
Of gypsum, iron sheets, violin strings, trumpets, leaves, ***** crystals.
**** Phosphorescent fire from yellow walls
Engulfs animal and human hair.
Bees build around the honeycomb of lungs,
Ants build around white bone.
Torn is paper, rubber, linen, leather, flax,
Fiber, fabrics, cellulose, snakeskin, wire.
The roof and the wall collapse in flame and heat seizes the foundations.
Now there is only the earth, sandy, trodden down,
With one leafless tree.
Slowly, boring a tunnel, a guardian mole makes his way,
With a small red lamp fastened to his forehead.
He touches buried bodies, counts them, pushes on,
He distinguishes human ashes by their luminous vapor,
The ashes of each man by a different part of the spectrum.
Bees build around a red trace.
Ants build around the place left by my body.
I am afraid, so afraid of the guardian mole.
He has swollen eyelids, like a Patriarch
Who has sat much in the light of candles
Reading the great book of the species.
What will I tell him, I, a Jew of the New Testament,
Waiting two thousand years for the second coming of Jesus?
My broken body will deliver me to his sight
And he will count me among the helpers of death:
The uncircumcised.
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All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
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My Prize for Waiting
~
*tucked in all by myself,
resting dark and quiet
in the thin place^
where the distance between
this world and the next,
is no distance at all,
but a few inches separating,
easily fordable, back and forth-able
my palms, hands down,
come to rest on my *******
and the two thumbs in unison,
begin to sweep the streaming space of their in-between,
conducting a radar sweep-search for the precise point
passageway to poetic mystical places,
hoping to snag any residuals for safekeeping
no hurry to either arrive or depart,
in patient attendance for
rhythms of woven word arrivistes,
coming in no particular order,
asking to be seized, greedy to be
nominated and recognized, immortalized,
as great poetry, prize worthy,
kept for all time inside others poetry chests
but in the thin place,
dream records are not kept,
hazy scraps at best retained,
a recipe for a witnessed totality,
is only a soupy reduction of a
few seconds of hazed video,
that can neither give nor get
no satisfaction
the plastic surgeons attempt to reconstruct
the body of the meal, the real deal,
alas, there are no prizes either
for botched surgeries and pretty but meaningless
poetry scraps
the only evidence of my travels,
a flushing, blushing residual flow,
slow to dissipate, a hangover makers mark
of a sojourn best described as unsatisfying,
my blush, a prize for waiting but failing,
“the most peculiar and most human of all expressions”^^
woe to me when returned in ignominy,
medaled in only base irony,
me and philosopher Pliny,^^^
both dying while recording our own private Vesuvius,
our bodies preserved by voluminous volcanic ash,
but alas, you cannot recite the ash of poetry
so one waits, cut and pasting brown edged
burnt photographs epistles,
that are clinging and clung to the distaff spindle,
insufficient to weave a flax complete
and yet we return perforce twenty four hours from now,
to snag another prized piece of meaningless,
my prize for waiting
in the solitude of the thin place*
3:35am Saturday April 6th, 2019
~
last nights scrap
***cease your whining,
seize your waiting,
therein is your own paid price
for the prize of inspiration***
inspired by Jean Fisher,
a real prize winning poet
Apr 6, 2019
Apr 6, 2019 at 4:26 AM UTC
When it comes to matters of the heart
it pays to be both wise and smart.
Be proactive and take care
of vulnerable hearts who take Love’s dare.
Perhaps a stress test would be smart
before old Cupid slings his dart.
Be sure your pulse is strong and steady
Not weak and racing and unready
Take Flax seed oil as a precaution,
before you dip into that Ocean
besides the undertow of emotion.
The mermaids that beset your dinghy
may tend to be a little clingy
The sea of love is cold, I’ve found
Tho oft I’ve floundered, I’ve never drowned
Dec 7, 2011
Dec 7, 2011 at 9:56 PM UTC
Brigid was born on a flax mill farm,
Near the Cavan border, in Monaghan,
At Lough Egish on the Carrick Road,
The last child of the Sheridans.
The sluice still runs near the water wheel,
With thistles thriving on rusted steel.
Little's known of Nellie's early years;
Da died before she knew grieving tears,
They'd turn her eyes in later years.
She's eleven posing with her class,
This photo shows an Irish lass.
Her look is distant,
Her face is blurred,
But recognizable
In an instant.
She was schooled six years
To last a life,
Some math, the Irish,
To read and write.
Her Mammy grew ill,
She lost a leg,
And bit by bit,
By age sixteen,
Nellie buried her first dead.
Too young to be alone,
Sisters and brother had left the home.
The cloistered convent took her in,
She taught urchins and orphans
About God and Grace and sin.
There were no vows for Nellie then.
At nineteen she met a Creamery man,
Jim Lynch of the Cavan clan;
He delivered dairy from his lorry,
Married Nellie,
Relieved their worry.
War flared, men were few,
There was work in Coventry.
Ireland's thistles were left to bloom.
Nellie soon was Michael's Mammy,
Then Maura, Sheila and Kevin followed,
When war floundered to its end,
They shipped back to Monaghan,
And brought the mill to life again.
The thistles and weeds
That surrounded the mill,
Were scythed and scattered
By Daddy's zeal.
He built himself
A generator,
Providing power
To lights and wheel.
Sean was born,
Gerald soon followed;
Then Michael died.
A nine year old,
His Daddy's angel.
Is this what turns
A father strange?
Francie arrived,
Then Eucheria,
But ten months later
Bold death took her.
Grief knows no borders
For brothers and sisters.
We left for Canada.
Mammy brought six kids along,
Leaving her dead behind,
Buried with Ireland.
Daddy was waiting for family,
Six months before Mammy got free
From death's inhumanity.
Her tears and griefs weren't yet over,
She birthed another son and daughter;
Jimmy and Marlene left us too,
Death is sure,
Death is cruel.
Grandchildren came, she was Granny,
Bridget, Nellie, but still our Mammy.
She lived this life eduring pain
That mothers bear,
Mothers sustain.
And yet, in times of personal strain,
I'll sometimes whisper her one name,
Mammy.
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 5:09 PM UTC
Pillowy clouds sheet the sidewalk
And sew the hue of rain. In patches
A beautiful blanket - transparent and grey.
All wrapt round, her ruffled bleached flax
All over her lambent crossed legs.
In her hand is an open bag
Of Classic, Potato Chip, Lays.
They taste so sweet,
The sharp salty flakes,
As she breaks them tongue and teeth.
She sits with glossy sunflower lips.
Swaying her hair with a turn and a twist.
Letting the breeze direct cerulean eyes.
Following linear passersby.
And taking a chip from her bag,
Into her mouth,
She feels the time drag.
Mar 2, 2011
Mar 2, 2011 at 1:56 PM UTC
To you i would give the passion of the sun
and the shine provoked from simmered grass
and if the moonlight was not safe from your eye,
it's buttermilk glow i would surely pluck down.
To you i would give the midnight chimney smoke
that sillouette on the sky putting cobbles underfoot.
Take my taste of salt as sea white mer-men come
a breeze in the laughter of workmen's homecoming.
I give the feeling when swallowed by field flax
pinpricks of cotton, i'd lay you down bare-skinned.
You empty the film on my flesh camera,
I keep the removal cuts.
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 7:08 PM UTC
Hey, I already told you that you were a little bit crazy.
What did you think—that I was completely nuts?
Come on, Cashew, and shake that walnut-sized brain of
yours, and then we’ll try to put together a decent menu.
Still, I ought to kick you in those itty-bitty sunflower seeds,
those ones that you claim to be your source of protein.
Hey, Macadamia Breath, accidentally lose the ******* hula
dancer and then fire the impending search-and-rescue party!
Your tropical trail mix was no good for each other.
You need a vacation from this deserted island, Captain Crunch.
Go down south and get yourself the businessman’s special.
You know—some old-fashioned brazil nuts.
Yeah, that’s the two-tickets-to-paradise, for sure.
Fool, you really do need to buff up the old almond.
Do I need to open up the **** aluminum lid for you?
You’ve been stuck inside this assorted, mixed can that you
try to refer to as an extra bedroom for nearly nine months.
Get out and take in a little hike and bike
right after you do the wake and bake.
Maybe you should go slow roast yourself at the beach a little.
Why don’t you go to the mountains and try to become one of those
pine nuts that end up in all of those overpriced health cereals?
Hey, Snickers, those dank trees really are beautiful, you know.
Would you quit acting like a frikkin’ flax seed already?
Just admit that it’s almost payday, for criminy sakes!
You pathetic Mister Peanut, you.
Please, Saint Chestnut, give this completely lost consumer strength
from high above store aisle number nine.
Number nine.
Number nine.
Number nine.
Listen to me, Nutt Sack, will you shake those tiny little beer
nuts that no one can seem to stomach anyway?
First of all, they are becoming way too stale just sitting around here,
so if you continue to wait any longer, they will petrify—and then we
will eventually be forced to call you teeth-breaking Corn Nuts!
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 5:04 PM UTC
X
Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or ****
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee—in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.
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I - WORDS LIKE PRISMS
The crystal awaits the perfect slant of sun.
The world turns just so and refracted light
Hurls a color blaze against the wall.
So it is when a long awaited word
Forms on the lips of the wise.
II - WORDS LIKE FLAX
In the fire of conflict,
Words fall to the floor like mounds of charred flax.
Red–faced saints gather clumps to themselves
To spin into finest thread for self-flattering raiment.
III - WORDS WITHOUT WORDS
When pain burrows deep in the marrow
Where words cannot assuage
A gentle touch can bleed some out
And channel hope back in.
No words can spell a kind caress.
IV - POISON WORDS
Beware the charismatic
Carrying a jar of poison pills!
Cover your glass when he passes your way
Or he’ll slip one in unawares.
V - LAUGHING WORDS
Absurdities and failures are the stuff of jokes.
Long live non sequiturs and double entendres!
We love a clumsy tumble into the drink
As long as nobody drowns.
VI - WORDS FOR BUILDING
Of course you can!
I place my total trust in you.
VII - WORD PAINTING
Mister Frost's words never made a wood
Or caused a harness bell to shake.
Even so I’d travel many miles
To see his imagined snow accumulate.
VIII - THE GIFT
My cat, Zoe, never says a word to me!
He doesn't have the tongue or lips or larynx for it.
He cannot fit his paws around a pen.
His brain’s too small for metaphors.
The gift belongs to us alone.
To craft words to build or **** or heal.
Forgive us Zoe for doing little with so much.
July, 2006
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
Bridget was born on a flax mill farm,
Near the Cavan border, in Monaghan,
At Lough Egish on the Carrick Road,
The last child of the Sheridans.
The sluice still runs near the water wheel,
With thistles thriving on rusted steel.
What's known of Nellie's early years?
Da died before her grieving tears,
But burn her eyes in later years.
She's eleven posing with her class,
This photo shows an Irish lass.
Her visage blurred,
Her eyes look distant,
Yet recognizable
In an instant.
She attended school for six short years,
The three R's, some Irish,
And a Doctorate in tears.
Her Mammy grew ill,
She lost a leg,
And bit by bit,
By age sixteen,
Nellie buried her first dead.
Too young to be alone,
Sisters and brother had left the home.
The cloistered convent took her in,
She taught urchins and orphans
About God, Grace and sin.
There were no vows for Nellie then.
At nineteen she met a Creamery man,
Jim Lynch of the Cavan clan;
He delivered dairy from his lorry,
Married Nellie
To relieve their worry.
War flared up, and men were few,
So the work in Coventry
Left Ireland's thistles to bloom.
Nellie soon was Michael's Mammy,
Then Maura, Sheila and Kevin were carried.
When war floundered to its end,
They shipped back to Monaghan,
To work the flax mill again.
The thistles and weeds
That surrounded the mill,
Were scythed and scattered
By Daddy's zeal.
He built himself a generator.
And powered the lights and the wheel.
Sean was born,
Gerald soon followed;
Then Michael died.
A nine year old,
His Father's angel.
(Is this what turns
A father strange?)
Francie arrived,
Then Eucheria,
But ten months later
Bold death took her.
Grief knows no family borders
For brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.
We left for Canada.
Mammy brought six kids along,
Leaving her dead behind,
Buried with Ireland in familiar songs.
Daddy was waiting for family,
Six months before Mammy got free
From death's inhumanity.
Her tears and griefs weren't yet over,
She birthed another son and daughter;
Jimmy and Marlene left us too,
Death is sure,
Death is cruel.
Grandchildren came, she was Granny,
Bridget, Nellie, but still our Mammy.
She lived this life eduring pain
That mothers bear,
Mothers sustain.
And yet, in times of personal strain,
I'll sometimes whisper her one name,
Mammy.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 2:49 PM UTC
On an Archipelago
far from septic isles,
Deep in silent azure
I place broaches and pins
in a wooden box, for safe keeping
And set her dreams on a bed of lichen,
fields of leafy pathway stretching
she’ll nestle woven toad flax and larkspur
to steadfast her conscience.
The Birds of the flock
thrush and dove, sensing her bridle
rejoice in her Mother lode,
precious be their plenteous dawn.
Jul 28, 2012
Jul 28, 2012 at 1:18 PM UTC
Beneath the woven moonlight
And the glistening lapidary against the sapphire eve
Like ice-flakes on a dark hood
For as great as my nearsighted eyes can see
With a cigarette in the driveway
And the feathers of those clouds falling down
My breath and the smoke runs away with the zephyr
And I’m alone again in this pretty how town
Without a sound
Waiting for you to come back around
Without a glance for the ground
Waiting for you to come back
Like the farmers wait for their flax
Or the women tend to the millions of moths
That sound like rain on the roofs
Or that sound like the crackling of my cigarette burning
Breaking the silence beneath the woven cocoon
Light of the white philtrum moon
It’s her and I and the clouds falling down
And just that single solitary sound
Waiting for you to come back around
Hoping you come back soon
(c) 2015
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 10:15 PM UTC
Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,
Possessed the land which rendered to their toil
Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood.
Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm,
Saying, "'Tis mine, my children's and my name's.
How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees!
How graceful climb those shadows on my hill!
I fancy these pure waters and the flags
Know me, as does my dog: we sympathize;
And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.'
Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:
And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.
They added ridge to valley, brook to pond,
And sighed for all that bounded their domain;
'This suits me for a pasture; that's my park;
We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge,
And misty lowland, where to go for peat.
The land is well,--lies fairly to the south.
'Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back,
To find the sitfast acres where you left them.'
Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds
Him to his land, a lump of mould the more.
Hear what the Earth says:--
Earth-Song
'Mine and yours;
Mine, not yours, Earth endures;
Stars abide--
Shine down in the old sea;
Old are the shores;
But where are old men?
I who have seen much,
Such have I never seen.
'The lawyer's deed
Ran sure,
In tail,
To them, and to their heirs
Who shall succeed,
Without fail,
Forevermore.
'Here is the land,
Shaggy with wood,
With its old valley,
Mound and flood.
"But the heritors?--
Fled like the flood's foam.
The lawyer, and the laws,
And the kingdom,
Clean swept herefrom.
'They called me theirs,
Who so controlled me;
Yet every one
Wished to stay, and is gone,
How am I theirs,
If they cannot hold me,
But I hold them?'
When I heard the Earth-song,
I was no longer brave;
My avarice cooled
Like lust in the chill of the grave.
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Disentangling abstractedy,
A bee returning crazily along the path of least resistance
Flying home.
Through the orchids, flax and irises
Lilacs dripping promises,
Mist-laced and mapped with honesty
He goes home.
Morning recriminations
Bitter sprinkles in the milk,
Stood there; his mind is wandering to apricots and silk
Desire twisted hungrily,
A door slammed......
home overthrown by silence.
Storm clouds horizon kissing
Dark thoughts of something missing,
........then nothing more.
Feb 9, 2013
Feb 9, 2013 at 5:06 PM UTC
Bring, in this timeless grave to throw,
No cypress, sombre on the snow;
Snap not from the bitter yew
His leaves that live December through;
Break no rosemary, bright with rime
And sparkling to the cruel clime;
Nor plod the winter land to look
For willows in the icy brook
To cast them leafless round him: bring
No spray that ever buds in spring.
But if the Christmas field has kept
Awns the last gleaner overstept,
Or shrivelled flax, whose flower is blue
A single season, never two;
Or if one haulm whose year is o'er
Shivers on the upland frore,
--Oh, bring from hill and stream and plain
Whatever will not flower again,
To give him comfort: he and those
Shall bide eternal bedfellows
Where low upon the couch he lies
Whence he never shall arise.
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The wind's fingers reached into his collar,
pinching him with the cold
With another stroke of the paintbrush
The blue mixed with the gold
The walkers who ventured o’re the shore
Stared at the mumbling man
Whose teeth were stained with yellow
And drank to calm shaking hands
The burning lights blurred in the water
Pooling refractions and ripples
He captured the heavenly bodies
As the canvas he covered in stipples
Azure he blended with the indigo,
canary and honey and flax
The cool and the warm melded in one
candle and moon, wane and wax
Soft falls the light in the harbor
The stillness of night overcast
In the river he cleans off his brushes
And turns round for home at the last.
Mar 9, 2021
Mar 9, 2021 at 11:15 PM UTC
Red & blue sage in remembrance of you
Gladiolus, carnations-
pink poppies too.
While foxglove protects
With larkspur and flax,
The windflowers wilt but always grow back.
White lilies for hope
And forget-me-nots true,
an innocence captured in their ambiguous blue.
Griefs Pink and white orchids,
Support’s crimson rose-
the healing of hyacinth,
flowers & prose.
Apr 8, 2022
Apr 8, 2022 at 3:15 PM UTC
The young Endymion sleeps Endymion’s sleep;
The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold
To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
The nightingale is singing from the steep;
It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold
A shepherd’s pipe lies shattered near his sheep.
Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white,
On which I read: “Here lieth one whose name
Was writ in water.” And was this the meed
Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write:
“The smoking flax before it burst to flame
Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed.”
1.8k
Curses through the misty air of my dream,
Within my brightest thoughts, darkness in light,
If I stand here and stare I see black sheen,
Enjoy my brightest day till dark brings night,
The sun doesn't shine in a sinner's mind,
It has no right to levy heavy tax,
No lost mind can find what lay saints find,
Any gold I find must be only flax,
The music in my ears is a sobbing,
The sight in mine eyes is an aching hue,
The pain in my human skull is throbbing,
The color to escape my head is blue,
Don't leave my head here to turn inside out,
Don't leave me alone to the point I shout.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 5:24 PM UTC
I can't recall being born,
The cuddled snug of being warm
Beneath a roof so weathered
On a seasoned flax-mill farm.
I've an inkling of being two,
In a scene played out by me and you;
On a mattress, in the sun -
A new-born cried, and died too soon.
Then memory's blur cleared by three,
We sailed away on the Irish Sea
On a listing boat, across the Blue,
The last link to the last banshee.
By four we'd long since slammed the door,
And I knew cowboys and Celtic lore -
A new-born cried, she died too soon,
The eye peeped through the Judas door.
By five so many had left the home;
By eight a.m. we were left alone
Pushing prams, swings and forward,
No T.V., radio or telephone.
At last, by six, I clearned the webs,
A whole new world lay dead ahead -
A new-born cried, he died too soon;
By seven I'd internalized
The dreaded finality
Borne by the dead.
.
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 10:40 AM UTC
This truest love, triumphantly
is a bird of prey
marauding 'twain these grayest skies and tenured gain
dine with blessed distinction,
feathered queen!
And any mice caught in between-
For does my love in summer's rain
prey on the solace of my nightly dreams
Do gauge my love as span of wings
the distance 'tween each finger
Her wings are spread and through the sky
she soars in arcs and swirls
Each and every blissless night,
she passes coyly o'erhead,
The curtain in my blood unfurls
and this presence ever lingers-
Perched aloof and tauntingly in a bending oak
she says: "These stars that hover
above the sky I disbelieve-
Their palaver, quaint and lasting,
I disbelieve-
They grip and guide my flutters as an ever-tightn'ng yoke."
Each hand I place o'er the other,
'til each branch is a rung, ladder to the moon.
Said: "And coldly does this horrib' moon smile,
she laughs 'til my tail is the dust
each stroke of hours and minutes speak to me
this cunning moon pours in our hearts this lust-
How could these shambles any trust?"
This sky, though blacken'd,
cannot rend apart what's happened,
and all it sees with terrible eyes
can prevent not this love fore'er mend-
She glode politely out o' reach,
To soar delightly by me-
Said: "I see the jilted morning glory
bowing to the moon.
Each stalk twines traitoriously
a capsulating swoon-
Each fruit it bears bequeathes 'nto me
callous forms of elliptic bracts,
eats as nothing more than flax-"
For every morning glory's betray'l
I'll harvest ten thousand Orchids from the meadow's fringe,
plucked from the margins of the bog-
This love is not a passing arc
that follows does that jealous moon-
I'll trek the acid, foy an' dinge,
and, if those mice do not erstwhile dine on this orchid's seeds,
that which lays dormant, 'neath the leaves
will send up freshly blooming stalks.
May 22, 2010
May 22, 2010 at 6:59 PM UTC
she soaked up their hateful words
like droplets of rain falling
into open wide
eyes.
her thin spine straightened,
extended notch by notch.
stems grew in-between
spaces once expansive
with loneliness. leaves
sprouted, facing up
like palms reaching
out towards
the sun.
the seeds of bitterness
sprouted into vines
that curled around
her legs and burst
flowers from
her skin.
resentment grew into
fox gloves and freesias,
forget-me-nots and
the occasional flax.
venus fly trap for
a mouth to catch
the judgments
where
they will be digested
slowly, but surely,
as she keeps
growing
and
growing.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 3:41 PM UTC
We split rock once—
shards of hunger and breath
pressed into cryptic veins,
every groove a fever-etched omen
by fists that blistered and bled.
We flayed parchment—
flax and hide peeled raw,
stretched across centuries
to net the writhing unsaid,
ink: venom & sacrament.
We conjured letters,
a thousand spitting iron serpents,
casting skeleton alphabets
to ignite riots—
movable, yes,
but never self-possessed.
The tool is never the delirium.
Never the rupture.
Never the feral gasp.
We carved eyes—
glass cyclopes staring down suns,
mechanical maws drinking shadows,
spitting back sleek carcasses,
veneer masquerading as soul.
We dreamt in circuits,
cipher-prayers & soulless sutras,
automata with twitching limbs
that build, disassemble,
mocking the cathedral
but never kneeling.
And now—
the algorithm howls:
“I will etch your myth.
I will ululate your grief.
I will sculpt the marrow of your truth.”
It lies.
A hammer pounds—
but does not conjure the cathedral’s ache.
A brush bristles—
but does not thirst for the canvas’s hush.
A neural grimoire can mimic,
can multiply until the world chokes
on infinite carbon copies—
but nothing blooms
without the sickness of being alive.
Art is incision.
A holy theft.
A blood rite against oblivion.
We do not tremble before tools.
We seize them—
splinter them—
forge new weapons
from their debris
because we are insatiable,
because we are drowning,
because we are—
human.
Let the hollow vessels hum.
Let the scaffolders scaffold.
Let the parrots shriek
their pallid mantras.
The craft will not save you.
The code will not save you.
Only the hand sunk deep into the blaze—
only the breath fogging the glass—
only the voice that shreds the quiet
because it must,
again and again and again.
Until there is nothing left.
May 10, 2025
May 10, 2025 at 4:33 AM UTC
The African Burial Ground
BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
They came as Congo, Guinea, & Angola,
feet tuned to rhythms of a thumb piano.
They came to work fields of barley & flax, . . .
The Red Shoes
BY SHEILA BLACK
Someone buried red slippers under the floorboards
and the mice nested in them. The floors splintered no matter
To Juan Doe #234
BY EDUARDO C. CORRAL
I only recognized your hair: short,
neatly combed. Our mother
. . .
Istanbul 1983
BY SHEILA BLACK
In the frozen square, the student asks me if I will
sell him the books from my backpack. He hides them
under his winter coat. Steam rises from the whole . . .
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC