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Molly Greenhood Jun 2012
consuming cigarettes like candy at a theme park
shoveling, inhaling
before mom takes it away
incubating cool concrete
to hatch eggs of non-conformist
thoughts, theories, therapy
Costello glasses fog
with skinny-jeaned laughter and flannel
bellows only audible within the confines
of claustrophobic, humid basements
spilled with beer out of sun-lit
fear.
stay ******, ****** up and disconnected
feigning parental disregard and lacked motivation, except
to pet cats to the tune of vinyl
manicured with dust
seeping with lust
for the past
when rainbow-striped sweaters were cool.
pound the drums too loud for ears
sweating out anger and distrust
stuck to reconstruct or fit in
become the grey, the void, the in-between
the one thing you don't want.
Lyzi Diamond Oct 2013
1:22.

She puts her phone back on her bedside table next to a small blue vase overflowing with fresh white tulips. Her feet are tucked behind knees still jeaned and under thick blankets. She lays down. She sits up. She turns on her side to the left and pulls her shoulders down. She turns over.

1:30.

She wants him to call. She wants some water. She has a song stuck in her head. Don't **** with me, don't **** with me now. Something doesn't feel right. It's just a little too cold. It's been just a little too long.

1:43.

She still hasn't gotten water. Someone is dead or dying in a swimming pool, somewhere. That person got a lot of water, she thinks. She thinks about holding his hand. She thinks about being next to him. She wonders if he wants to be next to her, too.

1:47.

She closes her eyes and can feel him kissing her, his hands on her hips, his lips on her forehead and temple and cheek and neck. She is reaching out to him. But maybe he went too far away and she can't reach him anymore. Maybe she pushed him too far.

1:54.

She stops that train of thought, brings it to a screeching halt. She stretches out. She sits up and finally fills the water glass. She looks outside to dark gray and yellow skies and wonders what he's dreaming about, drug-induced, nauseated. She thinks perhaps if she can sleep, she can meet him there.

2:07.

She puts the phone back down next to the vase. A tulip petal falls on her hand. She places it gently on the pillow next to hers, closes her eyes, and heads in his direction.
Frankie T Jul 2013
you're waiting
at the bus stop for me
like a good lamp-post you have been waiting
all year
the moment passed but you're hoping
it will come back around,
that this time the bus doors will open
and i will reach out, pull you in close
back into the bus
where we could finally
get going.

you may as well
get going.
another blue-eyed, blue-jeaned bad boy
has strolled carelessly up,
slung an arm round my shoulders.

you may as well get going.
Robert C Howard Aug 2013
Spear shafts splintering beneath its hulk -
the mastodon crashed to the earth,
roared its final lament and fell silent.

Shouts echoed across the ravine.
Dark-haired Clovis hunters converged:
stripping the hide,
carving the flesh.

Others frenzied about the carcass,
tracing broken shafts
to salvage the flint for tomorrow's hunt  -
retrieving all save one.

A triumphal fire hissed and snapped,
hurling heat and smoke
high into the mid–day sky.

     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

      *
The archaeologist knelt to the ground.
      Heart racing, he scraped dirt from flint,
      brushed away the millennial dust
      and raised the projectile to the sun shouting,
      'Clovis point! '

'Clovis point' - an epiphany in the dust:
found inches from the bones of its prey.
Khaki and blue jeaned hunters gathered quickly
to read the epic written in flint and bone:
Mastodon and Clovis united by the point of a spear.

July, 2006
Included in Unity Tree - Collected poems
pub. CreateSpace - Amazon.com
Rattlesnake
Boom is the gangly
Doberman at the door
When it opened I froze
And she did as well

One too many fingers
Bashful stew of gashy meats
Pulsating, squirting, blood spurting and flowing back
I take a deep breath
And my joints lubricate as if by magic

Doom rakes a killing
And yet grave is my slumber
Low, humbling, thundering
I push too hard and it collapses
In is where I belonged, now I wept thrice

Buttoned up tight
You tilt as a broken table
It was so and it creaked longingly
Crept up from under somewhere
And never looked back

Mal was indeed
Trickling once and twice and thrice borne
Diurnal my beloved
Of once and twice and thrice borne kind
Of seaweed and ***

Out of a split dome
A gashed most dastardly
One of the cloaks covered me well
Under a lock with no keyhole
Filed my nail that files the chain that files my nail that files the chain that files my nail that files the chain that files my nail that files the chain that files my nail that files

One too many mirrors in this madhouse
For all the blind to see
Conjuring spells with a swollen tongue
Heard the pacing and followed through
The left after the left and the right after the right, hi-**

I take from myself
And be no thing
A rumble creeps and wakes when not tended
Forlorn sensitivity
Starving tumbles a hoom, a waan, a rushed impregnate

Words birthed in barren plains
Some one thing creaks and hums and cracks
A dwarf dances in by a jazz darkly
Limbless jig in two movements
Jeaned out weens and them spurts one ******* whale up up upward

Time is a flat **** stain
El amor de mi vida
A misery of cheese
One of loves, one of lives
Gargles reflowed uncivil

Leave white and follow through
Break my bones pulling in
Kicked inwards nervous gaseous porous
Corked out flesh see one lick two
Rumbarumbarumba

Off a wonder land
Bane is my juice
Soon follows rot
Tender, sweet rut
Shadow tongued drips and wets

I don’t need to recall the melody
It left a map so large it became the land
By the name alone I find a way
Of a one off beat and two rushing in, tu-pah!
Drum the ear and work a sweat
Deana Luna Apr 2014
loves me but it hurts
******* **** ****** sits on my couch//on my feet—
toes gently tucked under his jeaned thigh.s.—
tells me he loves me.

love is not a mistake but mistakes are made up of love.
tiny hearted patchworks attempting *******//
makes a home out of my arms.
tears falling down me him my his face.s.
stretches me open like bubble gum /little princess/brat/toy.
fantasies in our heads. little secrets. sweet taste from his lips.

opens up my mouth. stretches it wide. pushes his fingers through. as if the inside of my gums held the secrets he has been trying to reach in my head. pushes them far back. almost gag. mine mine be mine be mine mine mine be mine. i hear it. he keeps quiet but i hear it. silent pleas.

wild. sweet daddy darling. wild. i am wild. i belong to no one.
**** me/take me/own me for a little while. fulfill those needs. sate yourself and me.
i am no product to be placed on a shelf.

whispers it in my ear in between faces staring.
hearing it makes it more real. analysis. how many fingers was that? how did your tongue do that? can you do it again? can i try?

why.?. do you love me. why.?.

this will be better for you i will not call text contact you
no
why are you crying
no i don’t want this stay
you don’t love me just the idea
no
of me
no stay please i need you you make me happier than i have been in so long
this is *******
i know
this is *******
i know
bellahina Jan 2016
oems (48)
Ranked
Links
Gods and The Lesser Kind
They say,  come to the abyss,
the Abbadon, the back of beyond
a place that should be nameless

where condominium men
with cool blue eyes
gyrate coiled bodies
gesturing lambs
and lions,   seething
mean stories
sordid in their constitution,
spitting
bottle blades
******, but still shiny
from sore mouths-  and the girls,
they laugh,    They say,  

          come to the abyss,
the Abbadon, the back of beyond

where their lips
pale white,      cuss the sun, defiant,
longing for it to drop from a sullen sky
and into the decaying harvest
of their itching hands    stained cherry wine,
burning to kindle it firelight

near train tracks and trees,
the woods  rubber band their veined
branches, waiting for my
sweating flesh to melt out
by open flames,    an accomplice
to a crowd ignited,
                caught by
a sickening kind of fearlessness,
I don't feel good here

in the beginning,
boisterous, screaming

leapfrogging steel rods
with pupils the size of ponds
while others
are left lonesome,
staring at the hypnotic wonder light
that comes with a tremor
through stale bones
they never wanted

those people always come back
with their hands
and fingers
and fists   and arms
still alive
******* air
with a frantic disillusion,
digging for cheap thrilled
pennies in their jeaned pockets
just to watch a copper body
tossed into affliction,

hoping a God will come down
with the feelings of gold instead, but

I am out late at a blue hour
there are no saints or deities
when swallowed drunken, I will not worship
in this kingdom,
swollen bright, layered with gloss,
the hemisphere of this realm is split in halves
to be seen twice like duality,
reminding me
there aren't idols high enough
to live in my heavens,
nor darlings too sweet
not to ******--   these prayers are damp
and intimate. not meant for a drop of water
over the complete sea
or the illuminated commander of a tide, no

for now
I'm feeling human, which
disturbs the transcendence of the grounded sort,
now all I hear is a disembodied      run

run
because the people here
remind me that I will always search for
something without knowing what it is,      run
because they are too close to who I am,

all of us can be seen
lynching limp smiles
from the top of our scalps,
left to sway
halfheartedly
in a grave gesture
of love
sent to the spirit of midnight
who unravels freedoms
and happy notions,

injecting calm dreams
into the arms of slumped and melancholy
purple silhouettes --  a rush of warmth

silent culture, shamed culture,

believing they don't have **** to say,
deadened people

their backs
are down
hard,
almost panting in language,
with a heavy thumping protest
of indecision,
which in the end is a decision
that will betray them, and I am
no different than the last

smacking their bodies
smooth into rough, pulling
on short toughs of grass grown in a clearing,
happily burning greens because
everybody's starving,
I'll die feeding a plentiful hunger.

when it's over,
we are whaling Kerouac lullaby's

a consumed and sallow generation,  
unknowingly gutted
by a clawed sadness,
heeding the suggestion of sedation
to ensure survival--
******, but pretty alive,    ****
is the new love, is a numb love

there's something terribly wrong here

we must look
gruesome to you, Visceral
exteriors,
nauseous,
prodding the hot metal
that fills the chasm of our teeth,
crying a choppy
metallic haunting
shaking like factory machines
and their overworked bodies
heaving chained clunks
through the throat

wishing for goodness
in between bile, to take up communion
where open spaces
are too cold and seeking

an unholy embrace,
otherwise ethereal,
unafraid of sacrifice,
I'll give you what's left of me--
                   you don't know what you've done,
whenever we touch,
it is always an absolution of life

a forfeiture      a creature to shoot
and put down when perceived
to be the lesser kind-  
             angry and hostile
in my own environment

asking why small gods
the size of bullets allow the fearful
to be their messengers,
who tell the people of neon
to Pacific
that runaway consciousness
is a rebellion of truth

yet,  no answer will ready me,
history says I can't keep straight,
if ever you came looking for my life,
I still wouldn't know the difference between living and dying--
the back of beyond is so far away
and the Abbadon is a war that never ends.
JDK Mar 2015
When I was much younger,
and tried to picture Our Father,
for some reason, I always thought of my own:

God is a man with a dark red tan,
pale blue eyes, and big strong hands.
God is a guy with a hammer on his thigh,
hanging from a carpenter's belt
above blue-jeaned legs.
He wears a T-shirt that I think once used to be grey,
but faded by the sun to an almost off-white.
He wears a mesh navy cap. The one He always wore.
The one he got from his days as a volunteer fire-fighter.
The only thing I pictured differently was the hair:
Curlier, and instead of being brown,
it was golden blonde.

I used to see my dad when I'd think about God.
In many ways, I still do.
You don't wanna know what I see when I think about Mom.
Duncan Brown Jun 2018
The wild sound of creation and destruction
Drove that Mercedes all the way from Texas
Wrapping it round the lamppost of America
Creating light and darkness in a single image
Wrecking tranquillity was her daytime occupation
Creating havoc her favourite night time passion
A constellation of starlit bourbon harmony
In the comfort zone of her southern hospitality
The Divine Creatrix of her own stellar universe
And the born destroyer of everything before her
Time and space an empty canvas for her image
Each single moment a vast horizon of homage
Nothing moves the stillness beyond her presence
Worlds collapse to nothingness by her caprice
And heaven itself a single jewel on her costume
Hell a mere facet of her beautiful endless terror
Saviours saints devils and sweet singing angels
Baubles on a necklace she wears for pleasure
Mere vanity in her divine imagination of mirrors
The sound of her voice rocks the vastness of time
Rendering infinity past before it happens
No one ever messes or dares drive a Porsche
In the presence of a blue jeaned Kali from Texas.
Duncan Brown May 2018
The wild sound of creation and destruction
Drove that Mercedes all the way from Texas
Wrapping it round the lamppost of America
Creating light and darkness in a single image
Wrecking tranquillity was her daytime occupation
Creating havoc her favourite night time passion
A constellation of starlit bourbon harmony
In the comfort zone of her southern hospitality
The Divine Creatrix of her own stellar universe
And the born destroyer of everything before her
Time and space an empty canvas for her image
Each single moment a vast horizon of homage
Nothing moves the stillness beyond her presence
Worlds collapse to nothingness by her caprice
And heaven itself a single jewel on her costume
Hell a mere facet of her beautiful endless terror
Saviours saints devils and sweet singing angels
Baubles on a necklace she wears for pleasure
Mere vanity in her divine imagination of mirrors
The sound of her voice rocks the vastness of time
Rendering infinity past before it happens
No one ever messes or dares drive a Porsche
In the presence of a blue jeaned Kali from Texas.
Caroline Shank Jan 2021
Crawling up the building, blue
jeaned, backpack carrying bugs that looked like jacketed roaches reached the sills of power.  We watch as liberty is breached, as red floods the tumbled, broken
in windows.

I am stung by the chant that
passes for voices calling for
rebellion.  It is called a psalm
of ignorance and summons the
dance of termites who chew
our lives like woody pulp.

My mind cannot unsee nor
my ears unhear the shot
that killed. The shades are
unleashed.  Will we forever
crawl with the vermin of
unhinged politics?

I am deafened by the trumpets
of liberty, justice and the
conquest of infamy!
The triumph over the winds of
conquest will today lead the
Constitution again to wings of victory.

We Will embrace Truth in
the Arms of History!

Caroline Shank
1.6.21

— The End —