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David Walker Dec 2012
Origins
written and directed
by
David Walker

Inspired
by
the films of
Quentin Tarantino
David Lynch
&
Rob Zombie

There is method
To his madness

                                                        ­                                                                 ­                  January 2013              
                                              ­                                                                 ­                       first draft









1. EXT. Run down project apartment complex - 3:00 am

A dark, tall figure with long black hair and a trenchcoat opens the already cracked red door.

MAN:
I'm looking for love in all the wrong places.

                                                        ­                                                                 ­                                       CUT TO:
INT. Apartment 3

A typical roach infested apartment with a kitchen built into the living room. 3 GIRLS are on the kitchen floor. GIRL # 1 one has black hair with big lips and a curvy frame and she is wearing a pair of Tripp pants and a black bra barely covering her ample *****. She has a flesh colored rubber hose tied to her left arm. GIRL # 2 has dyed rainbow colored hair, a nice smile, and a skinny frame. She is wearing a pair of tore blue jeans with smiley faces and cute in jokes written on them, also not wearing a shirt with a lacy blue bra on. She has a spoon with water and black tar ****** inside it which she is heating up with a silver Zippo with the word "Skittles" engraved into it. GIRL # 3 Has long naturally red hair, glasses and an extremely voluptuous figure. She is wearing tight black pants and a black shirt with thin sleeves. She is inspecting a covered syringe with an unsure look in her eyes.

GIRL # 2:
So, do you wanna do it or not Jane?

Snatches the syringe out of JANE's hand.

JANE:
I'm not sure. How long have you been doing this ****?

Girl #2 takes the orange cap off the syringe revealing a small needle.

GIRL #2:
Since after I graduated. About 3 years. Liz you ready?

LIZ:
As ready as I am for dat sweet tang!

Girl #2 giggles. She sticks the needle into Liz's arm, blood mixes with the brown fluid inside, and she pushes the plunger down. Liz leans back into Girl #2's arms and Girl #2 gives her a kiss.

LIZ:
I love you, Julia.

JULIA:
Well, I love you too.

JANE:
You guys are so gay!

(OS):
Save that **** for the ******* customers!

                                                     ­                                                                 ­                                       CUT TO:
Other side of room. A greasy looking MAN with short faded black hair and a scar going from the corner of his mouth to the right ear is sitting in a beat up recliner cleaning his Uberti 1873 Cattleman revolver while smoking a fat blunt and watching some kind of high budget **** with Sasha Grey in it.

JULIA:
Sorry, Mike. It didn't stop you from leaving me and Liz unsatisfied and bored, did it?

LIZ and JULIA laugh. JANE has a nervous look in her eyes.

MIKE:
Very ******* funny you wore out trick! Am I gonna have to smack the sass out yo mouth?

MIKE gets up, puts out his blunt and walks over to the GIRLS gun in hand.

MIKE:
Or am I gonna have to give your little friend a scar like mine.

LIZ:
Mike don't!

MIKE SLAPS JULIA with the side of his UNLOADED revolver and grabs JANE by her hair.

MIKE:
Who the **** are you, anyways *****?

JANE:
(stuttering)
I was walking down the street earlier today and I ran into Julia and Liz. They went to school with my sister I think. Let me go!

MIKE:
So you're a young'n. Well you have some nice big *******!

MIKE RIPS off her shirt exposing her *******. He begins to squeeze the right one. JANE SLAPS MIKE HARD!

MIKE:
*****!

MIKE lets go of her hair. Jane runs to the other room grabbing her shirt. LIZ stumbles towards him and PUNCHES him in the nose.

MIKE:
That's it! You little *** dumpsters are dead!

MIKE picks up the REVOLVER, runs to the chair where the bullets are and tries to reload. JULIA wakes from her daze. We see him load 3 rounds. All of a sudden the DOOR gets broken down and the dark clad FIGURE from the scene before pulls out a BERETTA M9 with a silencer attachment. MIKE FIRES 2 shots at him haphazardly missing both. The MAN LAUGHS and FIRES one shot that MIKE's crotch catches.

                                                       ­                                                                 ­                                       CUT TO:
2. INT. Next door in Apartment 2.

A MAN and WOMAN in their early 40's are smoking a joint and seem disturbed by the gunfire.

MAN:
(coughing)
What the hell was that?

WOMAN:
Sounded like gunshots. Do you think we should call the cops?

MAN:
**** no! There is a pound of chronic in the bedroom closet! Just pray whoever it is doesn't come over here!

WOMAN:
Okay. Are you gonna pass that?

                                                          ­                                                                 ­                                     CUT TO:
3. INT. Apartment 3.

The smoke has cleared. MIKE is begging for death and BLEEDING out everywhere, JULIA is in a daze, dumbfounded by what she just witnessed, LIZ is cowering in fear, crying, and JANE just came out of the bedroom with her TORN SHIRT on and a terrified "Oh my God" expression. The unknown assailant has a devilish grin upon his face.

MIKE:
Godfuck! **** me you sunuvabitch! Godda--

The MAN obliges. He fires a single shot into his RIGHT EYE.

MAN:
Well, looks like I got here in the nick of time!

JULIA:
(blankly)
W-Who the **** are you?

MAN:
That is of little importance right now. Who are you foxy ladies?

JULIA:
M-My name's Julia. That girl over there (points to Liz) is Liz, and the ginger is Jane.

MAN:
What pretty names! Well, I have a question. Will you three lovely young ladies gather round that despicable looking chair and listen to what I have to say, or are you going to run? Keep in mind I have rope in my trenchcoat and the fact I mean you no harm. I am just a lonely man with a story to tell, and the way I see it, what with that bruise on your sweet face, you kinda owe me.

JULIA:
I think we can stay. I just wanna know your name.

MAN:
Ahh, but I am a man of many names. My christian name is Derek. You don't need the last for now.

DEREK walks to the chair and sits down. He waves the GIRLS over.

DEREK:
C'mon I just want to tell my tale. Look, I will put the gun under the chair as a sign of good faith that neither you girls or I will start shooting the place up again. Are we square ladies?

JULIA:
What do ya say guys?

They gather in the kitchen.

LIZ:
This guy has a ***** loose.

JULIA:
Yes, but he saved us from our ****. We should humor him.

JANE:
I think he is hot!

LIZ and JULIA just stare at JANE.

JANE:
Sorry, but he is.

JULIA:
So it's agreed. We will listen to his story, silently pray he doesn't **** us and leave afterwards.

The GIRLS walk to the chair. DEREK has lit the blunt.

DEREK:
Ahh, so you have decided to join me. Good. Do you guys wanna hit this?

LIZ and JULIA shake their heads no.

JANE:
I will.

DEREK:
Great. Now, where do I begin. I suppose everybody's roots stem from childhood, so lets go back, oh say, 20 years ago.

                                                           ­       FADE TO BLACK        
Against black, TITLE CARD

October 15th 1995.

                                                          ­                       CUT TO      
4. EXT. Suburbia circa 1995.

There are three boys between the ages of 6 and 9 playing in front of a grey HOUSE with a white MINIVAN in the driveway. Little DEREK is a scrawny 6 year old boy with short brown hair and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure in his hands. The 2 other BOYS ages 7 and 9 are picking on him and trying to take away DONATELLO.

DEREK:
Leave me alone or I will whoop your ****.

BOY #1:
Whatever! You are scrawny and lame. Give us your Ninja Turtle now or we will beat you up!

BOY #2 picks up a STICK and starts hitting DEREK with it.

BOY #2:
What are you going to do? Get your daddy? Oh, wait...that's right, you don't have one!

The 2 BULLIES start laughing. A look of hatred fills young DEREK's eyes. He catches the STICK and slaps BOY #2 in the face with it. He then tackles him and starts beating him mercilessly. BOY #1 runs towards the PORCH and knocks on the DOOR. DEREK'S MOM answers. She is in her mid 30's with brown hair and casual clothing on, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of "coffee."

BOY #2:
Derek's beating up Josh again!

DEREK'S MOM:
Well, good for him! Bet that little pecker snot deserved it too. Now, Brad...why don't you take you and your friend on home before I tell your dad you play with Barbies.

LATE 20'S DEREK:
(OS)
My mother was a sweet ol' broad!

BRAD:
(sighs)
Okay, Ms. Walters, but you do know you are going to have to pull him offa Josh right?

DEREK'S MOM:
(sighs like Brad)
I suppose.

DEREK'S MOM and BRAD walk to the front yard and GASP when they notice that DEREK has knocked out 2 of JOSH'S baby teeth, both in the front and broke his nose, which is bleeding profusely.

DEREK'S MOM:
Derek Charles Walters! Get the **** up offa him!

DEREK:
(crying)
He hit me with a stick!

DEREK'S MOM:
Well, now I'm about to!

She picks up the STICK and beats his *** with it several times.

DEREK:
******* *****!

DEREK'S MOM, infuriated throws the stick down and SLAPS him across the face. DEREK runs away.
He runs to a wooded area in the back yard as far as his legs can take him.

LATE 20'S DEREK:
(OS)
Do not weep, for on that day, I met God and Satan incarnate and it turns out they existed singularly in my head.
                                                           ­                                                                 ­                          CUT TO:

5. JANE:
Like a conscience?

DEREK:
Much more. These guys are in the room right now and only I can see him. Satan led me to you guys tonight! Who knows what kind of CRAZY hijinks are in store!

JULIA:
That's it I'm outta here! C'mon gu--

DEREK fires of his M9 1 time.

DEREK:
Now, listen to me you dykey, ****** *****. I have 3 more rounds in this ******* and one
of them is reserved for you if you don't sit your tight *** back down.

JULIA sits back down scared to death. DEREK regains his composure and is "all smiles" again.

DEREK:
Phew! I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want someone pretty to listen to my ******* story. ****, if you want, I will ask you guys about yourself later on, but for now I'm going to introduce you to my best friends.

JANE:
Who are they again?

DEREK:
Ah, you were trying to pay attention. I will remember that. They go by many names. One can be called "God", "Heroic Harry", "The White Knight", whatever you envision as good, this **** is it. He is the reason you guys are still alive.

LIZ:
And the other?

DEREK:
Ahh, him. He can go by "Satan", "The ******", "The Angel of Death." He's the reason ol' crusty here no longer bothers you.

LIZ:
So you're basically ape ****, right?

DEREK:
Pretty much! Now where was I? Ah...yes

                                                       ­                                                                 ­                                    CUT TO:

6. INT. Small wooded area behind the house --- Early evening.

DEREK has made himself a nice little HANGOUT in the woods! there is a trunk with tons of comics in it, an arsenal of sharpened sticks and rocks, Batman action figures, and a Game Boy Color. He is drawing a picture at the moment.

LATE 20'S DEREK:
(OS)
There I was in my element. ****** at my mother, then all of a sudden, a deep, angelic voice rang out.

VOICE #1:
(OS...of course)
You don't have to hate her, you know. She loves you.

LATE 20'S DEREK:
(OS)
And then another, this voice sounding more playful and mischievous then the other.

VOICE #2:
(OS)
But, for how long? Do you think she meant to have you?

DEREK:
Where are you guys?

LATE 20'S DEREK:
(OS)
And then they appeared.

A 13 YEAR OLD BOY with BROWN hair and a FLANNEL overshirt over a Nirvana T-SHIRT with baggy torn blue JEANS with stains on them appears.

BOY #1:
Don't hate your mom.

VOICE #2:
(OS)
But, watch her close.

DEREK turns his head. We see another BOY roughly the same age with slightly long BLACK hair and a TRENCHCOAT over a Nine Inch Nails T-SHIRT with tight black CHICK PANTS with a CHAIN leading from his pocket to his BELT. He has a lip piercing and he is smoking a cigarette.

DEREK:
Who are you guys?

BOY #1:
Just think of us as older brothers your mom can't see.

DEREK:
Wow! I should introduce you guys to my friends!

BOY #2:
No!

DEREK:
Why not?

BOY #2:
You are the only person that can see us. Don't go telling anyone and don't talk to us in front of anyone. People will think you are nuts!

BOY #1:
Think of us as two ghosts that give you advice. Don't listen to him though, he'll get you in trouble.

BOY #2:
Shut up! Or I will kick your *** again.

BOY #1:
Not in front of him. He doesn't need to see that ****. Not now

DEREK:
What are your names?

BOY #1:
That's up to you.

DEREK:
I'll call you Joe, and him Jerry.

JOE:
Works for me, for now. Call us whatever you feel like calling us whenever you like. If you wanna call me ******* and him poophead, go right ahead.

DEREK:
Okay, but for now you guys are Joe and Jerry.

JOE:
We are going to leave now. We will show up when we think the time is right. Sometimes you will see us others you won't, but we are always with you.

JERRY:
Even when you ****.

                                                          ­                                                                 ­                     CUT TO:
7. INT. Apartment 3.

LATE 20'S DEREK:
And then I went back home and they disappeared. I reconciled with my mom and for the next few weeks I didn't see them. Brad started hanging out with me again and school was good. The years go by and still no sight of them. 4 years pass by. It's 1999 and my tastes changed. Instead of Ninja Turtles and Batman it was KISS and Freddy Krueger. By this point me and Josh had made up and Brad was in middle school. And so we go to where me and the voices meet again.

8. INT. Taft Elementary
A class of roughly 25 children in your average 5th grade home room with a stout middle aged gentleman teaching. JOSH and DEREK are in the back row sitting side by side.

TEACHER:
...And that's how the metric system works.

JOSH:
(to Derek)
Dude, did you check out RAW last night? The Undertaker crucified Stone Cold!

DEREK:
**** I missed it. I was doing homework.

JOSH:
(loud)
****!!

TEACHER:
What did you say Mr. Jarvis?

JOSH:
Sorry Mr. Cannib. I forgot to do my homework.

MR. CANNIB:
Josh, Derek, outside!

LATE 20'S DEREK:
(OS)
The old man had taken kids out of the classroom before and they always came back with tears in their eyes. As we walked outside I heard a familiar voice.

JERRY:
(OS)
If he touches either of you, kick him in the nuts!

MR. CANNIB:
I told you boys too many times! None of this **** in my classroom! Josh get over here you little *****!

OL' TEACH GRABS JOSH by the NECK.

DEREK:
Hey ******* keep your hands to yourself!

CANNIB begins to throttle JOSH. DEREK pushes him off of JOSH and KICKS the TEACHER in the nuts with FURY about 3 times and jumps on top of him while JOSH watches holding his neck.

JERRY:
(OS) While we see Derek's mouth moving

Look here, *******. You think you can be called a teacher for drinking on a farm, ******* cattle and beating children so you can have Summer vacation every year? *******, you spiteful sad man.

DEREK SPITS in the *******'S face and begins to PUNCH him when JOSH pulls him off.

JOSH:
Dude, the door outta here is right there. Lets go to our lockers, get our **** and get outta here.

DEREK:
(Breathing heavily)
Did I just do that? What the ****? Let's get out of here...now!

                                                    ­                                                                 ­                                           CUT TO:
9. EXT. Taft Elementary
A bunch of playground equipment next to an alley with a fenced in field. JOSH and DEREK are walking down the alley. It is sunny outside but about to rain.

DEREK:
That wasn't me that did that.

JOSH:
If it wasn't you who was it?

DEREK:
It w...

JOSH:
(Interrupting)
It reall
The weather was cold
The winds blew up carrying ice *****
No matter they were big or small
But they were carrying drying for skins
And great amount of diseases
The hungry man knocked the door
The miser man opened the door
The hungry man said a word and more
“I am hungry, I want some food
To eat and repair my mood!”
The miser man said at anger
,”there is no food and be outer”
The hungry man fell at the floor
The miser man with cold blood closed the door
The cat was near that
The cat saw that and came at fast
She touched the fallen man at first
She said and screamed
, The man approached to be dead”
She ran at speed

The three dogs stood at dark
At the corner of the park
They were her enemies and carried black
And hard heart

One said,” she was so conceited
The second completed, “she thought she was princess, she was created ‘’
The third said, “I must get his nose downed"
They ran after her
The great steps were heard
A big dust covered the land
They ran and escaped
She met her friend that was the cat
Jon was his name
She was curl with one foot
He was amazed and then laughed
He said,” you must get great fight
And you must beat all”
She looked angry
She said in completely,”
I met Kranckle, Dangle, and Bangle  
The three dogs ran before me and wanted to hurt
But I was so brave
I stood as one who must save
The lost justice from the dark in native
I did as “Bruce Lee’ in mark
I ran and jumped over the wall
It was dark
I tried to overlap
To be at their back
But I failed and fell
A great dust was occurred
They ran and escaped
I stood to strike my chest
With my hands, were closed
To show how I am strong
But I fell at the land”
Her friend laughed after that
She looked and said,’’
Bad boy bad”
She sighed and said,”
The hungry man may be dead
We must get him saved!”
Jon looked in surprise
He said as he looked as wise,”
Who is the hungry?”
She looked at him and pulled
Him with her strong mouth.
She said, "we need a strong one at first
He said with great nervous,”
Am I not so in obvious”
She did not answer and he was dragged
In spite of his well or his eager
They suddenly stood in front of Ankle's dog door
She called at him at loud
He was out
He laughed and said,” The cocky cat at front
Of me, I must hurt “
She bowed as the singer at the play
She said in polite way,”
My lord, I want your help!
I need you hand”
He acted like her way
He said, "ask and I respond!”
She said and shouted,’’ What is your kind?
The fallen man needed to be saved”

Ankle was surprised
He said,’’ Yesterday, you mocked”
Liz laughed in spite of her well and said,”
Forget it, forget”
Ankle asked,”what is your demand?”
Without wait she ran before him and pushed
From his back
For Jon’s surprise, he obeyed
He was ready to walk
They reached to the fallen
Ankle said,” that must be dead”
Liz screamed and mewed and said, “No!”
She cried at loud
She cried as that fallen like her father
She walked with hesitating,
She put her ear at his chest
Her face was so closed
Then he got so bright
As the sun appeared after long hide
She said.” He is still alive
We must be in hurry
To maintain his life
As the God gives it
That is right?”
Ankle said,” the human is stingy
He is honor to show that
To show his hate to his brother
Liz said,” Do the fair
And throw it at the air”
She said,” we need away
To transport him in speed way”

A big tree trunk was laid
A fast taxi was braked
Angry driver had to be out
He screamed so aloud
The street was so empty
His sound was repeated several times
In echo as fearing manners
He said,” Who puts that ****** trunk?
He must be fool”
Liz appeared suddenly
She jumped at his face
Jon bit him from his breech
Ankle tried to push, push
The angry man,”Zicko” obeyed
They signed to the fallen man
He screamed,” No!”
That seemed to be killed”
Liz looked angry
Jon mewed in nervous manner
“you must know his killer”
Ankle barked
The man was forced
He pulled him to the taxi
As the driver was old and soft
He said,” if that was killed
I may be accused”
He drove to the hospital
It was ranked
It was for high class persons
The reception ordered and shouted
At the cats and dog to be out
Zicko said,” they came with me”
The reception said after calculating
‘”we want a great amount of Egyptians pounds
It preferred to be in dollars”
They were shocked
How could they get that amount?
They looked and were shocked
The hospital laid the hungry at the land
Liz ordered,”
Come without wait”
They rode the car
They reached the stingy home
Zicko knocked at the door
The man was out
The miserly was out
Zicko tried to talk and ask
Until Jon and Liz were penetrated
They entered the home
They didn’t know any room
Liz screamed,” the second plan”
Ankle jumped behind the man
Zicko ordered to get money
He gave them with unhappy
Liz signed to tie
The man and get the key
As if they needed another demand

The money was paid
The man was in intensive care
Liz laughed and said,”
It is Egypt
If we didn’t get money
The man must die”
The surgeon came and said,”
We need medicine in fast,
As it was rare and it costs high amount
Zicko with his friends took off
They returned to the stingy one
They took what they need
They brought the medicine
To hospital, that  had stars

The miserly could untie
He told the police
The police got as hydrophobic status
They didn’t know what’s happened and case
Zicko left them and disappeared
Liz wanted to get the dinner
They were completely in hunger  
They waited out of the restaurant
They saw the waiter carried the delicious food
It was obvious from outer restaurant
After the waiter put it on the table
Jon was under it
Liz followed
Ankle remarked
Jon stole the meat
Sending it to liz, and reaching to Ankle
Ankle hurried and got out
For bad, ankle ate all
Liz and Jon made a deal
They got a food, and ankle must help
But he would not even taste it
Liz and Jon repeated
The police suddenly approached
The police searched
Krankle, Dangle and Bangle searched
Their smell sense was used
They wanted to revenge
From that cat that made them as stooge
Liz and Jon were eating
While ankle was remarking
He was coming in fast
They were told, they escaped


The cats and the dog mocked them
They entered the restaurant
The three dogs were behind
They waited until they were remarked
By these stupid dogs
The dogs hurried and entered
Ankle jumped at the servant
Who was carrying a pile of dishes
The dishes were broken
The servant shouted

The cats and dog were out
Ankle barked at loud
The police remarked
The police got in
He caught the stupid

Zicko felt with the conscious pain
He returned so fast to gain
Their happy and maintain
The favor could remain and sustain
He searched for his lovers
He remarked the police cars
He followed them
He found his friends jumped and escaped
He called at, not so loud
They were at the car which was out
They went to the hospital, asking for their man
They found no one
Liz had her tears fallen
Liz cried and mewed
Zicko went to ask about his corpse
He found no one
Till the smiley nurse was seen
She told them he was still alive
But he was moved to another room

They searched for another rich
To take some money to help other poor and might wish
A good and a happy life, they dream to approach

They sang and said,”
We wanted a fare
Like the smile at face
Hate the anger appear
And the heart who caries hate
We are friends
We love the world
All people are brothers and sisters
Creatures must live in happy and peace”

The end
the  hand which helps the other is the best hand and it deserves a good reaward from the god
On the day Liz Taylor died,
CNN called Larry King
out of retirement to
eulogize her during
the mornings
breakfast segment.
Tears were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
TEPCO stated that one
of the Fukushima nuclear
reactors was on fire.
Tears of cataclysm
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
government officials warned
that Tokyo's water was
contaminated with
radiation and was not fit
for infants to drink.
Tears of anguish
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
the crew of the
USS Ronald Reagan
scrubbed the deck
clean of TEPCO
radiation.
Tears of worry
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
Oregonians rushed out to
buy potassium iodine
tablets to counteract
radiation poisoning.
Tears of affliction
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
NATO forces continued
to fire missiles and drop
bombs on Libya.
Tears of agony
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
a terrorist bomb exploded
in Jerusalem, killing one
and injuring many.
Tears of vengeance
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
the Syrian Army fired on
demonstrators
calling for reforms.
Tears of hostility
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
The USA Today reported
that during the past decade
the population of Detroit
declined by 25%.
Tears of loss
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
a dilapidated brownstone
in Philadelphia collapsed;
city officials expect
many more to occur.
Tears of distress
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
President Obama cut
short his Latin American
trip by skipping a tour of
Mayan ruins.
Tears of dismay
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died
the Dow Jones Industrial
Average closed
up 67.39 points.
Tears of joy
were shed.

On the day Liz Taylor died,
Elton John dedicated the song,
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me
to the memory of his departed friend.
Tears were shed.

You Tube Music Video:
Elton John,
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

Lewes DE
3/23/11
jbm
JustChloe Aug 2014
Liz
My name is chloe
but you can call me liz

I changed my name becasue chloe
isnt the girl you thought she is
you see chloe
was a diffrent me
kept everything bottlede up so no one will see

that is why i want to change my name from chloe
no one understands liz
but that is because seh's not fake
no one cares about liz
because she pushes the people she loves away
liz isnt suicidal
because liz doesnt care

liz is who i am now
but chloe will always be there
Olivia Kent Jul 2013
A double entendre,
Two ladies of the night, killed on the Sabbath day, 30/08/1888,
Was an unlucky day for lady Liz,
A drinking wild cat
'Long Liz Stride',
Was the first lady of two to meet her end on this most vile night!
Five feet five, when was alive,
Had grey eyes and a curly mop,
Her vicious murderer did not stop,
Her throat was gouged, ripped and torn,
Maybe was a lycan,
I can only say,
I doubt that very much,
Murderer went on ***** harvest,
Took a kidney,
****** removed,
For 'tis said that her murderer may have got disturbed,
Murdered by Nemesis of such depraved neglect,
Never seen to show regret,
Teased and tormented Scotland Yard,
Long Liz was apparently dishonest in soul it seems,
Swedish by descent, not really very decent,
Tried to con her Swedish Church to get finance from a fib,
Poor Liz, had no understanding of what the bible said,
Sad lady Liz,
Well,did end up dead!

Some said was a dark man, dressed in class attire,
Others said he didn't care!
__________________­___
Next Part to Follow!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Hope Dec 2019
he called me by my middle name
“i love you liz”
that’s what he said
“i’m so lucky to have you liz”
i’m sorry liz
i’m sorry i’ve treated you so horribly
liz, liz, liz, liz, liz
now i hate my middle name
Donall Dempsey Sep 2018
LISTENING TO LIZ

( for Liz Berry )

We all felt
as if our collective mind

had fallen
and grazed a collective knee

so to speak
and that Miss Berry

with her lovely Dudley accent
would say" "Oh and did you fall

you poor little thing?"

And we all wailed: "Yes...
yes...we falled!"

And Miss Berry soothed so
our mind that

we felt better
just because of her

mind gently so gently
touching our mind

tears drying on our collective face
as she read

and that she was the best teacher
we would always forever remember.
Eva Louise Nov 2015
Liz,
    I saw you on Christmas
    at church in a black dress and pearls
    we made light conversation
    as we fill filed out with the postlude
    
    31 days later, an ambulance picked you up from your friends house
    there were no lights, there were no sirens
    the obituary told me it was an accidental ****** overdose
    you were 21
    I wish i had seen the bruises on your arm that christmas
    before I walked into the snowy night

Liz,
      your funeral was held at the same church where I saw you last
      where we spent all these years
      as the postlude drew to a close
      we studied the back of wooden pews
      we asked ourself the  same question
      "Would I have been able to help?"
      we beg the walls for answers
      but they offer no reply

Liz,
     If I saw the bruises, would I have known?
     If I had known, would I have the courage to say anything?
     What would I have said?
  
    I could've given you a scared-straight talk
    with warnings and statistic
    shown you before and after pictures
    ripped from a health textbook
    but spitting facts into the face of an addict
    is like lecturing someone of the dangers of riptides
    when they're six miles from shore
    rambling about 3rd degree burns
    to someone trapped in a burning house
    but how do I keep forgiving from becoming ignoring?
    how do I stop helping from bordering on ratting out?
    I want to to get help but I don't want you to resent me
                God, what I would give
                for you to hate me right now

Liz,
      my mother discussed your passing
      with friends with red wine lips
            "Oh, Liz? Yeah- my son said she was a ****** kid"
      a ****** kid, not the pastor's daughter
     or the mission trip veteran,
     not the day care teacher, or the prankster,
     not the angel in the 2006 Christmas play
    
     Where is the line between good and bad?
     how many track marks does it take to turn a girl into a statistic?
     how far in must one drive the needle to be reduced
     to the trope of a ****** kid
     how many melted milligrams does it take to wash away the good qualities
     and leave behind a skeleton of a girl we once knew

Liz,
     they say you're gone, you're in a better place
     but God i know you're still here
     I see you in the flowers, skirting the steps of the church
     I hear you between the harmonies
     of all the hymns
     I can feel your presence
     breathing out from the cracks in the stone walls
     I see you in coffee shops
     and in restaurants and on the streets
     mocking me to do a double take
     before I remember
     and you know we have forgiven you
     as we have wailed it at the stained glass
     I really hope you have learned to forgive us

Liz,
     I saw you christmas eve
     black dress and pearls
     you died 31 laters
     you were 21
     I wish I had seen the bruises on your arm
    I wish I could've helped
old poem, another slam poem into written
Donall Dempsey Sep 2017
LISTENING TO LIZ
( for Liz Berry )

We all felt
as if our collective mind

had fallen
and grazed a collective knee

so to speak

and that Miss Berry
with her lovely Dudley accent

would say" "Oh and did you fall
you poor little thing?"

And we all wailed: "Yes...
yes...we falled!"

And Miss Berry soothed so
our mind that

we felt better
just because of her

mind gently so gently
touching our mind

tears drying on our collective face
as she read

and that she was the best teacher
we would always forever remember.
They moved right in to the house next door
To our great regret, and pain,
It sounded as if they’d gone to war
Or the two were quite insane,
We should have kept right away from them
But did the neighbourly bit,
Went over and introduced ourselves
And watched them hiss and spit.

They couldn’t seem to control themselves
Not even in front of us,
If Jill had spoken to me like that
I’d have pushed her under a bus.
And if I’d shown her the same contempt
That Ray had shown to Liz,
She’d fly at me with a kitchen knife
Because that’s the way it is.

We left them there and we went back home
But appalled, with eyebrows raised,
‘Thank god that we’re not like them,’ we said,
Our relationship we praised,
They never stopped, we could hear them both
As they each tore each apart,
‘Why do they stay together that way?
It’s not an affair of the heart.’

We found that we had to go to them
On a crisp, September night,
They asked us both to adjudicate
After a terrible fight,
So I sat down with Liz, and Jill
Sat listening to Ray,
And after we got back home again
We had different things to say.

‘That Ray is the monster of the two,’
I said, ‘for he’s always wrong,’
‘That Liz is a shrew, I’m telling you,’
Said Jill as she sang his song.
We couldn’t agree on anything,
We even began to fight,
We had to agree to disagree
As I slept on the couch that night.

Then Jill took to walking in the park
With Ray as the nights wore on,
While I sat with Liz, here, in the dark,
And hugged her, while they were gone,
But never a word amiss was said,
You wouldn’t believe it true,
‘For Ray is a perfect gentleman,’
Said Jill, ‘and nicer than you.’

‘Well, Liz would have been my heart’s desire,
If I’d only met her first,’
The terrible jibes were steel and fire,
It seemed that we both were cursed,
And then came the day Jill ran away,
With Ray, and I slept with Liz,
I said that I’d love her every day
For that is the way it is.

A year went by and I saw Jill cry
When we met at night in the dark,
And I was miserable too, I sighed,
To Jill in the midnight park,
‘What happened to our relationship,
We seem to have come off worse,’
‘They’re both as bad as each other, Jill,
Meeting them was a curse.’

But there was never a going back
To capture what we had lost,
We’d been the tools of a pair of fools
And now were paying the cost,
For Liz flings terrible barbs at me
While Ray tears Jill apart,
We pay the price, and it isn’t nice,
It’s not an affair of the heart.

David Lewis Paget
AntRedundAnt Jan 2014
love   apple   like   time   know   feel   heart   bed   little   life   home   red   boy   georgie   sleep   away   left   dear   ruth   gone   just   right   long   mind   hope   hair   mi   parts   say   fear   met   laugh   makes   sailing   make   tell   hands   day   poem   different   small   words   private   wish   legs   child   man   free   te   welcome   easy   apples   meteorite   smile   flower   want   way   arms   look   eyes   better   war   lie   good   thing   truly   teeth   passion   thought   work   seen   letters   friend   talk   brought   future   fingers   knew   imagination   sure   told   space   cold  la   mask   black   big   bite   age   size   shadow   petals   inane   stretchmarks   medic   we've   wouldn't   hear   tap   really   best   goes   face   gray   maybe   things   dream   tongue   forever   hate   set   room   death   need   truth   comes   night   lost   calves   pain   end   years   brings   touch   feet   blades   memories   new   core   times   dead   favorite   finally   minute   brain   hearts   getting   belly   far   rain   blue   knees   filled   stupid   woke   cream   fit   young   brown   se   fat   tan   cough   spoke   says   unlike   footprints   ******   rough   forward   buckle   blues   task   shoulder   grace   *******   reason   nostrils   firm   juice   palms   someday   mis   thumbs   screams   arguments   wobble   *****   elbows   *******   wrists   headaches   amo   pesky   ligaments   one-liners   thoughts   later   ash   clouds   lips   dreams   breath   mouth   hold   sense   taking   world   bit   speak   dance   gave   shall   ready   skin   air   single   breathe   button   peace   choices   hill   wrong   weak   close   use   quite   sky   phrase   darkness   justice   sound   unable   brave   holding   deep   grabbed   ****   try   building   paper   lunch   think   kind   stay   days   smooth   perfect   learned   care   fair   hard   grant   sweet   high   fruit   short   terms   kept   relationship   underneath   presence   water   looking   fool   sorrow   tree   second   delicate   nearly   happy   line   tall   tried   sad   satisfied   point   feels   falling   purpose   game   lazy   que   amor   agree   known   naught   loss   broke   failed   games   limp   grin   final   spring   act   south   flare   race   sake   car   large   wishes   neck   blink   knife   seeing   idea   steve   company   greens   spread   ship   lo   sally   sum   drowned   december   weep   sting   smiles   lessons   promises   successful   whistled   drowns   perfectly   pleasing   failure   brothers   cliche   harder   thirteen   ale   signs   limit   serenity   mundane   origin   chat   sapphires   handshakes   skinny   contagious   succeeding   super   refer   maturity   destination   civil   uncomfortable   collects   clack   liz   beatles   vez   attract   accomplishment   backside   throes   flaccid   audi   oneself   beastie   applesauce   naivete   bungalow   outie   there's   couldn't   isn't   they're   let's   'n   primos   primas   cantuta   fronton   redd's   mott's   innie   phallicly   tiny   fight   yo   para   walk   ****   hello   light   flash   silent   stone   does   forth   conversation   polite   green   minutes   ****   clear   flesh   couple   wake   anger   throw   torn   tangle   play   shattered   soldier   land   victim   carry   battlefield   came   darkest   blood   battle   warm   shine   reminds   lose   eye   dismay   hide   impossible   fast   earth   grab   stand   die   worse   year   people   white   story   hit   god   anxiety   realize   fall   asleep   dark   course   apart   morning   remain   beauty   ****   slowly   start   happen   remember   pray   past   easily   straight   mean   hand   driving   instant   thunder   messages   friends   old   coming   pen   seeds   shape   wasted   word   living   tore   shadows   knowing   bad   class   joy   trust   leaves   path   sun   ways   leave   meet   broken   head   weight   means   mountain   boys   true   stars   learn   sliced   naive   decided   player   actually   reality   ease   music   hood   desperate   promise   wishing   begin   miss   caressing   moan   thighs   heard   pretty   emotion   figure   floor   exotic   sand   hits   angel   awake   dreaming   probably   wins   seek   stretch   loved   tears   heartbreak   punk   walking   piece   furniture   unreachable   roots   near   deserve   simple   cats   tail   precious   lovers   loves   mother   tongues   clueless   share   taken   yesterday   faith   freedom   ripe   cursed   running   yes   unknown   feeling   going   stairs   opposite   wonder   afloat   packed   bones   acting   playing   wind   passions   dismissed   hourglass   reached   stares   mouths   singing   shaped   trapped   toll   dies   rock   trunk   discovered   especially   dull   choice   awful   patient   great   indoors   attached   thread   shoulders   warms   bright   bring   ending   drowning   sadness   winter   baby   looked   cute   beating   tight   kids   crying   ran   intoxicating   growing   saying   opposites   melancholy   gives   follow   clearly   dove   tu   soon   entwined   juicy   drown   laid   took   moved   bear   anyways   shirt   negative   clean   guide   sore   location   faux   nodded   glance   caught   chances   week   started   today   obvious   sweat   ***   quiet   laughed   worry   round   ladies   mama   smack   goodbye   rising   sides   wished   beds   infinite   positive   scared   admittedly   mistakes   meal   common   rises   toes   bullets   bound   suited   birth   clothes   belt   pounds   ground   barren   sitting   table   woe   swimming   stick   deepest   motion   cleared   sing   angry   action   sons   smiled   bedroom   wall   wiped   grins   mad   july   store   road   snow   pulse   important   adventure   exactly   foundation   trap   colors   floors   neon   outside   language   summer   north   fifty   served   wavy   kick   raw   thirty   row   changed   hanging   lied   drenched   companion   begins   strength   flies   direction   okay   stories   inky   stubborn   cloud   track   described   lover   replaced   pit   packs   circling   honest   wage   dinner   slave   paradox   faking   screamed   lightning   exterior   stopping   complete   deal   rifle   dependent   gifts   dancer   vision   students   horror   punch   anymore   pack   sagging   folk   honestly   tearing   prepared   creatures   listening   rhythm   unique   roar   card   glass   stage   desert   offered   fought   suffer   awoke   master   eating   furnace   glad   choir   graceful   *****   treasure   ships   bark   musical   strand   bee   finished   pink   slink   stronger   disclose   gravity   schedule   march   medicine   hates   weird   brush   laughs   helped   june   pitched   dumped   tense   sin   withdrawn   stem   proved   whispered   anew   amazing   louder   english   knocked   chilly   boots   false   mistake   toffee   whistle   smirk   gas   poised   buttons   bet   necks   elate  vi   bleak   decades   intention   plane   swollen   unseemly   en   sir   creeping   tells   success   doth   ***   balance   ant   fourth   fits   matters   pan   shook   tingle   dusty   reaching   thanked   careers   pile   tempt   ix   xi   xii   xiii   moms   hushed   spears   twinkling   works   fairytale   double   fighter   shocked   barriers   boot   thanks   solitary   lesson   owned   systems   groan   weekend   tomatoes   cider   calculating   drawer   partially   handy   stumpy   album   appealing   pet   unfortunately   jokingly   hotel   teacher   tag   eighteen   leg   dash   peep   betwixt   swear   attempt   inescapable   venues   worker   suit   coughed   remembers   rhyme   listed   chatter   stuff   assist   blocks   sheen   stanzas   jobs   cleaned   handshake   natural   moi   fantasy   cheers   smaller   curl   nay   leaning   frequent   eggs   cuando   el   desayuno   tus   beige   imperfections   difficult   darlings   overcome   oranges   keys   newfound   fairly   occasions   stats   ponder   pools   ablaze   rushes   fret   quell   breads   progress   comfortable   settling   desks   tile   trails   rainy   homemade   stunned   cemetery   plus   ideas   avocados   bananas   apply   latch   rocky   digress   experiences   vacation   sanctuary   earlier   rocket   precise   various   author   pie   explosions   *******   lighter   matched   plunged   isaac   jefferson   abe   measured   saturday   claw   welcoming   gear   trained   suffocation   leapt   gap   lee   disturbed   es   thrill   alarming   grill   frankly   importantly   una   fray   candied   amalgamation   nasty   american   optimism   guns   craters   contracted   rampant   unattainable   spilled   courts   carrots   shuffled   combined   blonde   forgave   artillery   sandwich   comfier   limitation   personalities   friday   strongly   crude   banana   tennis   limits   quaking   recesses   loot   andromeda   shells   playful   luckily   area   upwards   flail   largest   sappy   freckles   biology   fruition   cases   overtook   pinks   instruments   brownies   birthmark   reinforce   laptop   pirates   blinks   frontier   forwards   resonate   capacity   mumbled   marched   scraping   prompts   multiply   haiku   football   como   function   unfeeling   eighty   backsides   prompt   raced   blare   likewise   pro   chrome   gran   pears   puede   corazon   elated   indecisive   basketball   burgundy   synonyms   braced   effeminate   mutually   duties   companies   honeymoon   flailing   patted   mayo   headon   pero   misma   marveled   aforementioned   abhors   forefront   hesitating   identical   creepy   possessive   screeched   gotcha   infidelity   friction   barrage   nonetheless   disparate   itchy   apex   gettysburg   lunchtime   pickup   muchas   then   and   trading   distinguishable   pitches   bunk   ven   ladylike   encompasses   diagrams   underlying   spaghetti   soccer   trashcan   papa   disarming   finalmente   clashed   rosie   smirks   snapshot   pug   songbird   spitfire   yanks   thankfully   mesa   flexing   virginia   effectively   variations   eclipses   tambien   outrun   incident   vitamin   willpower   underdog   hardboiled   miniscule   checkerboard   entrust   siento   heavyweight   davis   thyroid   foreshadowing   frances   heresy   starburst   deficiency   sawing   peruvian   leche   antithesis   villanelle   alliteration   hora   vivir   clacking   droopy   whizzed   britney   futbol   parameters   disney   mangos   disproportionate   orbiting   tanka   stubby   intro   listo   goldilocks   teamwork   pbj   exemplifies   rey   retainer   tenia   triples   espanol   estuvo   castillo   ferrying   suficiente   racecar   dorky   garganta   veo   julio   peripherals   labios   rojos   foreseeable   frito   groggily   venn   macbook   inanely   hubo   goofball   you've   she's   weren't   wasn't   we're   others'   you'll   should've   haven't   what's   you'd   they'd   man's   boys'   god's   woman's   fruit's   orion's   newton's   lincoln's   adam's   momma's   ******   jackson's   audis   dulces   disproportionately   charon's   deseos   avocadoes   hailey   eran   beatles'   ingles   he   she   it   rackets   --   hashtag   sixty-three   duct-tape   joysticks   sherman's   15   6th   32   500   7th   2013   extraño   barenaked   tamales   6-year-old   tierras   derpy   ewell   rom-com   themit's   adan   mudpits   puddlepits   war--hell   culp's   shitpits   completaron   chocolatada   levantanse   duraznos   n'sync   huevo   cholitos   levantaron   manzanas   endurece   wozniak's   dispara   nuez   open-endedness   innies   cankles   dunder-mifflin   tunks   buck-toothed   outies   grief-blown   a-gawking
I uploaded all of my past work onto the site already, so everything from here on out will be new and original. This is sort of an experimental idea of mine: take all the words hellopoetry has tracked for me, put it down as if it were a poem, and see how it flows. It actually kind of works sometimes, but I'm not sure. I'm sure it's mostly terrible, but I wanted to try it. Let me know what you think in the comments below!
Beanie Baby Feb 2014
Behind the double oak doors at 71 Horatio Street, lower west side, there’s a pink striped hallway with a checkerboard floor. Up the stairs to the right there’s a corner bathroom with a drip in the whitewashed stucco ceiling that will start when you take a long shower upstairs. The window has rusty bars over it and looks out over a backyard made of brick, with potted plants. Past the corner bathroom there’s an apartment with long rooms and creamy walls. This was my house,, but across the apartment, past the corner bathroom, through the striped hallway, and down the stairs to the left was the entrance to my home.
**** and Liz Merryman to this day live in the bottom apartment at 71 Horatio Street, lower west side. Between each spindle on the carpeted staircase down is a wind up toy from ****’s antique collection. They still work, but my sister and I may be the only kids that he’s ever let touch them. Beneath the staircase is a jar of butterscotch that magically refills whenever someone takes one, or five, or sometimes even ten.. The living room in their house is where all the living goes on. The kitchen is in the living room, recipe’s hanging from the ceiling on bit’s of faded cardstock or stationary. The dining area is tucked between the spice jar and the bookcase,  a glass coffee table from which **** and Liz have eaten their way through thirty years of marriage. Out the sliding door is the brick backyard. If you sit on the faded stones and watch the unrestricted ivy wrapping around the potted fruit trees you can almost imagine you are in London, and that under the brick there is real soil not a subway station. I paddled my way through childhood in that backyard on 71 Horatio Street, lower west side, and if I cried when I left New York City, I cried for **** and Liz, and the apartment at the bottom of the stairs.
Terry Collett Jan 2013
Liz Barrett Browning
never carried a gun,
or strapped it to the
inside of her thigh.

That .38 revolver cold
against her skin, makes
Bonnie sigh. Warmer
in the palm of hand,

the finger squeezing
the trigger. She’s done
with the poem. She’ll
copy and send to the

papers who’ll lap it up
like sour milk to a thirsty
cat. Penned it well, she
thinks. Clyde says nothing

on it; he reads the headlines
for the crimes. She read
Liz Browning at school
amongst others, that

woman thing, shared
insight, mutual feelings,
knows the monthly bleeds,
understands the feel of

men, the coming on, that
big hero thing. She feels
the revolver against her
flesh, metal on skin, warming

now, forgetting it’s there.
This is one thing, Bonnie
says, smiling, Liz won’t share.
LightSeeker03 Jun 2015
When I need a friend
I'll call you Liz
When I think I can
I'll call you Liz
When you're feeling down;
I'll call you Liz
To the end from now.
Did you ever hear about ******* Lil?
She lived in ******* town on ******* hill,
She had a ******* dog and a ******* cat,
They fought all night with a ******* rat.

She had ******* hair on her ******* head.
She had a ******* dress that was poppy red:
She wore a snowbird hat and sleigh-riding clothes,
On her coat she wore a crimson, ******* rose.

Big gold chariots on the Milky Way,
Snakes and elephants silver and gray.
Oh the ******* blues they make me sad,
Oh the ******* blues make me feel bad.

Lil went to a snow party one cold night,
And the way she sniffed was sure a fright.
There was Hophead Mag with ***** Slim,
Kankakee Liz and Yen Shee Jim.

There was Morphine Sue and the Poppy Face Kid,
Climbed up snow ladders and down they skid;
There was the Stepladder Kit, a good six feet,
And the Sleigh-riding Sister who were hard to beat.

Along in the morning about half past three
They were all lit up like a Christmas tree;
Lil got home and started for bed,
Took another sniff and it knocked her dead.

They laid her out in her ******* clothes:
She wore a snowbird hat with a crimson rose;
On her headstone you’ll find this refrain:
She died as she lived, sniffing *******
Nigel Morgan Dec 2012
He said I’m the wrong shape. I could do with putting on a few pounds and, almost as an after thought he said, you’ll have to cut your hair – yourself.  I know she was an artist, and a mother, and a gardener. I had to admit to him I didn’t know any painters. My cousin Julie’s a sculptor – same thing he said – but I had to tell him I hadn’t yet looked at her painting, only what he showed us in his presentation.  He then told me exactly where in the National Museum of Wales I could see one of her paintings – Gallery 14 – and its from this period, a Parisiene picture. He suggested I might go to Cambridge and spend a day at a place called Kettles Yard. There are more Winifreds there than anywhere else in the UK, and many pictures by her close friend Christopher Wood.
 
Oh dear. This is difficult. The only thing going for me seems I’m about the right age and I’ve have children, though mine are older than hers in the production. I was so surprised to get this part, but as Michael said over the phone, your profile fits. Except for the weight and the hair, and I know nothing about painting. Why should I? Jeff told me, the composer Morton Feldman once said if you haven’t got a friend whose a painter, you’re in trouble. I’m in trouble. But he has very kind eyes and when he touched me gently on the shoulder after Lizzie and I sung that shells duet I had to look away.
 
Reaching down arm-deep into bright water
I gathered on white sand under waves
Shells, drifted up on beaches where I alone
Inhabit a finite world of years and days.
I reached my arm down a myriad years
To gather treasure from the yester-millennial sea-floor,
Held in my fingers forms shaped on the day of creation….
 
They sleep on the ocean floor like humming-tops
Whose music is the mother-of-pearl octave of the rainbow,
Harmonious shells that whisper for ever in our ears,
‘The world that you inhabit has not yet been created’

 
Mind you, I don’t envy Lizzie being Kathleen Raine. Now that is a difficult part, even though she’s only in Act 2. Raine was definitely odd. He says I have to understand their friendship, because there was something about it that made them both more than they were. I don’t understand that.
 
Jane and the children are amazing already. Martin (my ‘other’ half Ben Nicholson) said they’d been rehearsing with Robert because his wife (Robert’s wife Debbie) is at WNO and they were scared about this one. I’ll say this for him he knows exactly how children interrupt, constantly. It’s clever the way he uses the interruptions to change direction of the dialogue. Conversations are often left unfinished. The bit when that ***** Barbara visits the apartment unexpectedly is brilliant. She’s completely demolished by these kids of her lover.
 
But those letters . . . he said, can you imagine your husband writing to you over a period of 40 years? Quite a thought that. David wrote to me a few times when I was in Madrid for Cosi just after we’d met, but it was all telephone calls after that. Why waste paper, time and a stamp. But I take his point – their letters are so beautiful – and they were separated for God’s sake. He’d gone off with another woman, and even brought her to Paris. And you could not have two totally different women – she ,slight, chain-smoking, work-a-holic, sharp-tongued with that Yorkshire edge, and me with ‘a quiet voice, trying always to be gentle and kind ‘– W would be called an earth-mother these days. She was a kind of hippie, only she had money – mind you most of those hippies of the 60s had money otherwise they couldn’t have done drugs (heard that on Radio 4 last week in a programme about Richard Brautigan). But they wrote to each other almost every day.
 
Dear Ben,.
            Do you know there are several kinds of happiness, and there is one sort which I have found. It is the sort that is within oneself, enjoying fresh promise, and taking all the experiences of life that one has been through, so-called sad ones and so-called happy ones, to make up understanding that is further on than joy or sorrow. I have been extremely lucky – I have had ten years of companionship with an ‘all-time’ painter, working in the medium of classic eternity and that has been better than a lifetime with any second-class person – isn’t it - I have found it so…
 
Best love Winifred

 
What’s clever about the letter sequences is the way the two-way correspondence is handled as a duet and right in the middle of it you’ll get a flashback – like Winifred suddenly remembering her first meeting with Ben.
 
I heard this voice
In the room next door
I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t move
I knew, I knew for certain
This was the man I would marry.
And when we were introduced
He seemed to know this too.

 
We gaily call this an opera, but it’s not. It’s something else. It simply doesn’t do what you think it’s going to do. Even when you do something for a second time the accompaniment doesn’t do what you expect and remembered. It’s this open-form business. Something else I know nothing about. He mentioned Umberto Eco – now I’ve read Name of the Rose. When Braque or Mondrian or Jan Eps visit unannounced I have no idea which one it’s going to be – these guys just used to turn up. Sometimes two at once. W didn’t invite them. They came for her English hospitality (home baking I think) and her beautiful apartment come studio – beautiful, because she made it so. Her French was appalling, and this is difficult because I speak quite well, and now I have to speak like an idiot. Bridget  (playing Cissy the Cumbrian nanny) having her French lesson is a hoot, and with the children correcting her all the time, it’s lovely.
 
He was very sweet when we broke for lunch. Sara, he said, as I collapsed into an auditorium seat to find my bag and mobile, Sara, we’ve got to find you a painter to spend a day with . . . so you’ll know how to stand in front of an easel.  I phoned Sarah Jane Brown who has a studio in Cardiff and she’d love to meet you. Here’s her number. She paints flowers and landscapes – as well as the abstract stuff - just like Winifred. Her tutor at the RCA actually knew Winifred. And with that he disappeared to a dark corner of the theatre and unwrapped his sandwiches. You can tell he’s not into break discussions with Julian or Michael. I think he’s terribly shy. He’s interested in the cast and so he picks them off one by one. Julian I know doesn’t like this. I think everything needs to go through me, he said at the end of yesterday’s rehearsal. Who does he think he is?! Lizzie reminded Julian he was the composer and what he doesn’t know about this whole period and its characters isn’t knowledge. Liz thinks he’s a sweetie – and she’s sung his Raine settings at Branwyn Hall last year – with Robert who was his MD with BBCNOW. Liz knows Julian hasn’t done his usual homework because he’s got this production in Birmingham on the boil. Unknown Colour is a distraction he can do without.
 
This afternoon it’s back to the mayhem of those ensemble scenes in Act 1. They’re quite crazy, but I’m already beginning to feel I can start to be someone other than me. Did you know I have this lovely song? It’s quite Sondheim . . .
 
*I like to have a picture in my room.
Without one, my room feels bare
however much furniture is there;
Pictures play so many roles.
My room has too much going on in it
for something extravagant.
In the morning it is a sanctuary,
in the daytime a factory,
in the evening a place of festivity,
and through the night a place of rest.
 
I want a window in it,  
And a focal point, something alive and silent.
A bunch of flowers on the window sill?
Yes, but they will wither.
A cat curled up on the hearth?
Yes, but it will go away and prowl upon the rooftops.
 
A picture will always be there.
It will make no sound. It will wait.
If it is true I shall never grow tired of it.
I shall see something fresh in it
when I glance at it tomorrow.
It will always be my friend.
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
When Peg laughs like Liz
deep woman-hearted laugh
eating beef jerky on Mesa Verde

the good hearts and smarts of women
come back to me, not guessing
any better than they at the time what love

meant, leaving them behind in sandstone time
going to my own cement, sandstone
or good mountain grave

having seen the sharp-shinned and sparrow
hawk flying and at rest, not at peace,
seeking prey from a ponderosa snag.

I left my woman behind to float
alone down the long canyon for feathers
and signs, she's making camp

the moon half full, the sun half high
sky full of planets birds and stars
I look up from the rocks

elements
housekeeping, thinking
love that's learned to love

from earlier loves
laughs remembered, heard
in the laugh of the woman who is my wife.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
Cné Jan 2018
years ago
i was consumed
in the deep abyss of depression.
i had been there before
and had always managed
to dig my way out.
but this time i got lost
in a maze, each turn dragging me further
into Hell.

so many unresolved thoughts plagued
the chasm of my mind.
i wanted to die,
not to **** myself,
for i couldn't be that selfish
to hurt my family in that way.
but i prayed selfishly
to be put out of my misery.
a prayer i felt unanswered
for months on end.
i tried to hide
this darkness
from those closest to me,
isolating myself.

in a defense mechanism sarcastic tone,
i smirked to a friend
that all i really wanted
was peace.
she encouraged me to pray.
i responded honestly,
"i'm not sure prayer works for me
because i've lost faith."

as if God only answers to those with faith.
she told me
that i might need to see results to believe
but that i should
give it a shot anyway
and stick with it.
i brushed it off.

the next morning,
i woke up with my normal
(worse than normal, at that time)
negative thoughts, you're ugly, fat, unworthy ...
(that's the censored, more kind version of my thoughts)
to which i argued in my head,
be kind.
silly i know.
then my friend's words resonated
"give it a shot."
so i quickly prayed a simple prayer for peace
in my mind, body and in my soul.
of course, i didn't feel any different at the time,
but i drug my heavy laden body out of bed.
forced myself to workout and went to work.

my first client that day was new to me.
hiding behind my work mask,
i presented myself professional
with my usual introduction.
she returned the favor
with a look of odd fascination.
so i continued with
"have i worked on you before?"
hoping i hadn't absentmindedly
not recognized a former client.
she responded "no, but you are Liz, right?"
i confirmed and proceeded to my room.
after scoping out the surroundings,
she commented on one of my paintings
on the wall, of an Angel.
it's an abstract.
some people don't see it.
then she asked ...
if i was a believer.
caught off guard
i responded "excuse me?"
she said, "do you believe in Jesus?"
not accusatory or even with aggression,
but a simple question, with dancing eyes.
i said, yes, more out of fear,
with my current frame of mind, at the time.
i was fragile and trying desperately
to hold it together.

i left her to ready herself for therapy
and took the opportunity
to regain my composure,
securing my guarded mask.
when i began therapy
she sighed and said
"i felt in my heart
that you were the right therapist for me,
because i can feel your kind heart."

i asked "did someone refer you to me?"
with suspicion, and narrowed eyes.  
she responded "no. Jesus gave me your name."
she told me how she relied heavily on prayer
and that brought her to see me.
i **** you not.
i brushed off her words
as any sane
(even in depression)
person would.

she was not easy to work
as a large body
that was hard as stone.
but my thoughts began to shift,
i swallowed an emotional lump in my throat.
in that moment, i realized,
i felt privileged to be working on her,
for her to have sought me out
on a quest from Jesus, or so she believed.
a peace i'd never experienced before
washed over me, cleansed me, anointed me.
in that moment, i felt clean, light.

afterward she gave me a huge hug
with an exaggerated pause
and whispered in my ear,
that prayer was the only reason
she was alive.
it felt like no other hug i'd received before,
so tender, sweet and sincere.
so i asked myself
"was this a sign?"

from that day forward,
i found my way back.
navigating the maze.
it didn't happen all at once
but each step, each turn
lead me out of the abyss of darkness
and toward the light of harmony and peace.
and though, i still slip occasionally,
i recall that spiritual experience.
this happened. i don't consider myself and a religious person but i would say i am spiritual.  i don't share this experience often because had it not happened to me, i wouldn't believe it. i share it now in hopes that someone who is lost, isolated, hurt, in pain, and in the grips of darkness, might believe it possible to find their way out.
Sofia Paderes Apr 2014
There's something I need to get off my chest, Liz. Something I've been keeping from you for years. I was cleaning out my closet the other day, and I realized something. The painful thing about phone calls is that every sleepy groan could have been heard clearly if I were with him, and every word he spoke only to me could have been whispered into my collarbone. But what really infuriates me... is that the first person who got to love him didn't stay. Love is staying.

You have no idea how long I've stayed.

"What I'm trying to say is..."

"Yeah?"

"I'm in love with..."

Me?

"Her."

"Oh."

You see, the honest truth is that you're perfect for each other and that I wanted this to happen. When I watch how he lightly touches the small of your back as if he's afraid you'll shatter if he holds you too hard, and how your fingers comb his past out of his hair when you run them through gently, I wonder if your hearts are actually one but were separated at birth. I don't know, I might be lying, but I don't think I am. I don't think I am. All I know is that he was always yours and never mine---I don't know why I hold on, because you're everything he needs. But somehow, so am I.

Loving him and watching him love you has gotten me nowhere except everywhere I never wanted to be. I don't hate you for this. Really. All I ever wanted was for both of you to know what it feels like to have wings on your ankles and morning songs on your earlobes, because that's how I feel when he asks me to help him make playlists for you. I just imagine he's making them for me.

So instead of poisoning myself with hate, I'll teach you how to love him better. I need you to love him better.

Sing him to sleep and sing him awake. There is nothing he wants more than to rise and drift off knowing that he'll be safe in the voice of someone he loves. Sing him songs about mountains. He'll love that.

Bike to the riverside with him and bring nothing with you but a hand-stitched quilt a pen. Find a spot where the wind never stops dancing. Write stories on the leaves and the trees so that he'll know that he has a place to call home after you. You can name that spot if you want, but I know he'll name it after your favorite flower.

When he cries and his past comes creeping in, clutching his throat and burning his chest, don't say anything. Just hold him. Hold him and hold him. Wait until he's stopped shaking then, with your nose buried in his hair, whisper, "I still love you."

Maybe I should write all of this down, seal it in a mint green envelope, and mail it to myself. Then I'll read it out loud and will probably be crying my heart out but at least I'll be stronger.

But don't worry, I won't say anything to him, because I care about you, too. So I'll stay still. Even though I'd like to take a bus to his house right now and leave a post card under his front door with a poem saying that I've loved him a long time. Longer than I should have. But I won't.

Because I know that he doesn't have the strength to catch me.
1/2 of a collaboration piece I did with Elizabeth! So glad I finally got to do something with her. Check out her poems, they're intense. In a really good way.

Read her side of the story here.
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/665170/letters-to-burn-to-sofia/
http://subtl-fissures.tumblr.com/
I never knew where she got the bones
But she spread them out in the grate,
And said to me that the way they fell
Would tell her about my fate.
I’d gone to her for the Tarot Cards,
I’d been told that she was a wiz,
But didn’t know what a wizard was
Till I met this girl called Liz.

She wasn’t a witch, she said to me,
For witches were too mundane,
They only had spells and love potions
And most of them were insane.
But she could look into the future with
The bones of the been and gone,
They helped to focus her visions on
The land of the to and from.

She spoke in riddles and teased my mind
In a language I didn’t know,
I asked her what I was headed for,
She said I had far to go.
She told me about my love, Christine,
And the secret plans she bore,
She wasn’t, as I had thought, pristine,
But had men in tow, by the score.

I asked her about the wedding that
We’d planned for along the track,
She said, I’d never be happy then,
Better get married in black.
She scattered the bones for a second time
And they fell about in the grate,
‘If you go on with your plans,’ she said,
‘You’re in for a dismal fate.’

‘There’s blood,’ she said, ‘and a kitchen knife,
A terrible slashing and cries,
‘I don’t know when, but it’s after then,
And a crazy look in your eyes.
Then someone lies on the kitchen floor
In a horrible pool of blood,
And footprints there, and a tipped up chair
Where somebody walked in mud.’

The wedding went as we’d always planned,
I never gave it a thought,
And Christine put on my wedding band
She didn’t think she’d be caught.
A man came round to the house one day
To say that Christine was his,
I took good note of his muddy boots
And suddenly thought of Liz.

He came at me with a kitchen knife
And said that he’d set her free,
I’d thought the knife had been meant for her,
But no, it was meant for me.
I seized his arm and we struggled then
While Christine stood in the door,
I somehow managed to turn the knife
And he lay dead on the floor.

‘Why did you set him loose on me,’
I cried, ‘the son of a gun,
What was the vow you made to me
That I’d be the only one.’
But Christine cried, and she knelt by him,
Her lover, down on the floor,
‘I told him before he shouldn’t come,
But he said that he loved me more.’

I was acquitted for self-defence
When the case came up for court,
And later I found that Christine went
She wasn’t the loyal sort.
I went again to the Oracle
And I spilled the bones with Liz,
While she laid on me a gentle kiss
And said, ‘It’s what it is!’

David Lewis Paget
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2018
based on the essay in the notes below
which was forwarded to me by Liz Balise
<>
all poems and their accompaniment sauces commence with onions,
that start by fouling the air, bringing forth only unrestricted tearings,
but then...

the slow cooking elicits the sugars hid within,
the unpleasant odor, refined into something
minted new sweet and savory.

so too, the poem must simmer, slow cooked,
harmonizing the caramelizing,
even if some ingredients
claim the first born birthright of the eldest first essential,
despite the collective harmonizing.

the ripened color of the blood red tomatoes,
the ruddy cheery sanguinity of
certain words in each poem,
are the coloration of its entirety -
the ones your never forgive for never letting you forget them!

what matters not but how, the daring to substitute the new how,
how you chef see it and color it with the crazy way how
you beckon us over one by one to the big *** for a tasting
accepting critiques and suggestions, a thousand pinches
of your salty sweet essences.

and the recipe is dog stained and pointy corner ear-edged,
cause you cannot exactly write it down, and you bend the corner
for every substitution and variation,
cause every poem
made to taste the how of us,
each one a subtle different.

everyone understands metaphor,
even the society of the reticent ones in the back row,
just say the “trapdoor of depression” and they’ll nod knowingly,
so say to them a poem is a metaphor for you,
and spaghetti sauce is how you see, recreate in words,
how you need to add an ingredient of yourself
to this one,
a word, a phrase, becomes you,
becoming you in it,
in you,
you in it are both poet and poem,

a simmering new and different

————————————————————————-


A Well Written Essay— The Spaghetti Sauce Method

As a teacher and a learner, I have always wanted to see the "nuts and bolts" of everything. Yes, it slows the process down, but the learning is more complete, and a person becomes capable of making endless connections of understanding, branching to other  creative possibilities. Writing like dancing, and all that is worth learning, deserves all of the pieces and steps of the process.
I remember telling my students every year that grammar could indeed be a dry bone, but necessary in the process of good communication. Told them that I would teach writing by the "spaghetti sauce method" (Visualize their perplexed faces here.). "A well-written essay should be like a really good sauce-- smooth, fine textured, with a complete harmony of meat, sweet, tomato, and seasonings-- not one overpowering the others, but all in marvelous union of great flavor and aroma."
I continued, giving the example of my mother's
(God rest 'er) Irish spaghetti sauce" as a contrast. "Mama would throw in onions, peppers (if she had ‘em), hamburger, salt and pepper, fry it all in corn oil, and mix with two cans of plain tomato sauce. This was all okay with me," I went on,“ till I experienced the epiphany of garlic, basil, oregano, pork neck bones and a cup of wine; in the kitchen of an Italian neighbor, who walked me through the process and ingredients of real Italian sauce that was simmered for hours."
I continued to nudge them with the comparison: "Excellent writing is more than talent and passion, otherwise a tirade of curses, knotted ideas, and copied paragraphs of someone else would always do.” "No," I went on, "It is clear thought, captured, slow-cooked in the labor of mind and understanding— and in good time, expressed, in a way that others can comprehend -- with great attention to the cardinal rule: It is not as much WHAT you say-- but HOW you say it."
Through the year I focused on one or two aspects of better writing at a time for each paper. It was an uphill battle, often teaching against the mediocrity of the expectations in the PA State Standards of Assessment. It would add ten hours to my work week to grade and comment on a set of a 115 papers.
ink Nov 2014
I say hello
My nametag dangles from my lanyard
"Hello, my name is Liz
Pronouns are kye/kyr"
it says

They see the lanyard
and they laugh.
"Those aren't pronouns!"
they say
"She is messed up."

Shut up.

A 300lb woman
looks into the mirror
she sighs
remembering her peers' words
"You should lose weight."
"You're very overweight."
"Your obeseity is your fault."

A 75lb woman
looks into the mirror
Her anorexia laughs
remembering the 300lb woman she used to be
her peers then tell her
"You need to gain weight."

Shut up. Shut up.

The boy hides his face
Not giving the teacher eye contact
The teacher calls his name
His stomach flips upside-down
She called on him on purpose
he just knows it

In front of the class
expectant, judgemental eyes glaring
Instinct tells him to run
He looks at his notecards
All he sees is chickenscratch
The teacher hangs her head in disappointment
and growls
"Just sit down if you have nothing to say."

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

A girl drags hersef through the day
Everything is black and white
Coming home to wild parents
Who hit her constanty
and then claim
"I love you."

Excuses, excuses.
For every welt, mark and bruise
But when she gets one on her face-
She had given one, too.
In fact, she had given many
How generous she was!
The police came and arrest the girl.
All she heard was
"Her mother is dead."

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

Take a breath
the girl tells herself
She goes to her parents
They stare, wide-eyed
at her dress, eyeliner and nails
they just stare.

She tells them
her new identity
They tell her
"Chris. You aren't a girl.
You're a boy."

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

You read a poem
titled "Shut Up"
About the hardships
The unfair, the despair
of living life.

Please know
Opinions don't matter
If you are happy,
who cares what they think?
If they criticize you
Just smile
and say

Shut up.
You are valid.
Please do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

You'll be okay.
Ron Tranmer Nov 2011
He was the life of the party.
At least that’s what we thought.
He kept all of us laughing.
He was  full of ***** and ***.

He hopped into his car
with Gary, Liz and Fred.
He was the life of the party,
but now all four are dead.
Michael John Jul 2018
i

i think why not to let
but proved the query set
a double somersault-twist
or kiss your sweet lips..

can  end in cold death-
still the birds in the trees
go cheep or not at all..
i have reason to not question..

ii

i have memories return from the crib
it is all just part of the aging process
we beetle by saying that can´t be right
the lights´ get bright and bright..!

birds talk to us but i don´t hear voices
we become preoccupied with prices..
i recall four blackjacks  a penny
dying has a long curious way..

i am pretty sure i am someone else
absolute and completely and yet
these early feelings as blithe pictures
remain constant..



iii


more work less ******* about
but creation is just living
some absolute and indistinct
(it is tough being a poet..)..

iv

lily says,for it is her,
you don´t play no more,
only i say in mind
the years don´t lie
content´ s fragile store..
repetition dulls the brightest
core..eventually a silent purr ask´ s why
not why not..

v

why write poetry says lily
because it is a futile act
of achieving something perfectly..
we like that..


or like stubbing one´ s little toe
a rabbit from a dream hat
in a vain effort to retain what
remains of my memory..

lily why not or why bother..
lily red diamond from her
eyes sparking like a star is
just a ******* star baby..

she half nelson bottle wine
why do anything..a sign
a metaphor an hieroglyph
love and hate lily..

or the little bird in the agaves
i would like to shoot that one
hate and love lily
porquoi-pas..

vi

i read o twenty years before actually commiting to paper
not much but i knew the stuff i loved and kept there
i know it was charles bukowski i loved his funky gear
thank you norwegion liz for lending me his books dear..

ham on rye and factotum you say don´t lose them mf
i swore i would not lose them i would not lose them kf
kind friend..but i lost them i lost them..df..
dumb ******..


i leant them to someone that swore the same
they suffered an horrendous head..crang..
on and the books lost the books got lost..
there was scant satisfaction in plaster form..

maybe they went to a happy home
so not my fault that his drunk poems
god is he fun liz i hear your laugh then
such a wild sound ..generous so!

you said i should write and thank you
only human to encourage me true
and always a good drinking companion
you bought decent wine..

i adored cognac o..that was my poison
you always attracted van gelis errant tounge
unpleasant but one had to watch him..
that was his fun..

and then backgammon
goes a bit faint then..
i would like to say i won
you told me roland was cheating..

i think it was fun to play him anyway
esspicially on cement truck day..
not that he ever bought me a drink
not that i liked cement..

i lived with roland actually
this stopped any conversation
i met him by accident in eilat
that place was a laugh..

i think i enjoyed the second time
first loads of day jobs though i
played in the streets..and living with
the russians..

that a blast lily..my immediate neighbor
we never spoke..and the police pulled his hair
and yet not a squeak..a match box of grass cheap
i went to silently get a light..

he did say never run boy..
i thought alright for you
alright,
who was playing late night
in the soft quiet night..

so i was nosy
within the deepest hush
a glass and bottle jungle
impossible this silence

and i could hear him swallow
once the army ran through
i was tucked up in bead reading
by hopeless candle light..

i met roland in the peace cafe
a misnomer if ever there was
he picked me up and tossed me
around..

hey mike we got ****** and under
the landing planes roaring down
aint had hash like that in so many
years..

there was the red lion and at seven
free food and a drink and a movie
i read miguel cervantes..they
play the eye of the tiger later..

then the hard rock cafe with killer
egg and chips
i worked with an architect and made
a few shekals.

vii

i got out of there man i went south
dhab a quiet hut and goats..
that is the life right there..
o the corral beauties..

the stars as glimpsed through the palm..
pretty carpet and soften-songs of balm
brain blown and fly blown
and then back to town..

which came as a shock then
i had a drink and a very nice mention
for the cafe at the bus station..
i salut the the patience of the librarians..
judy smith Apr 2015
The DisArt Festival aims to bring people together through different modes of art to further the discussion about disability and community. One such way the Festival is doing so is through fashion.

On Friday, the DisArt Festival hosted two events to talk about accessible fashion, a workshop in the morning and a runway fashion show that evening. The Festival showcasedOpen Style Lab from MIT, Fashion Has Heart, Kendall College of Art and Design fashion students and Spectrum Health Innovations designs for people of all ages with disabilities.

Friday morning at 9 a.m. students, designers and festival goers came together in the Ferris building at Kendall College to discuss their involvement in the Festival.

“(Through the DisArt Festival) we wanted to do something that flipped perceptions on its head,” says Chris Smit, director of the DisArt Festival.

Open Style Lab began as an extracurricular student group at MIT where students wanted to create functional, stylish clothing that people with or without disabilities could wear. The group pairs a person with disabilities up with an engineer, an occupational therapist and a designer to work together to create the most comfortable, functional and good looking garment possible.

Fashion Has Heart is a Grand Rapids-based nonprofit that makes clothing and boots designed by veterans to tell their stories. All proceeds of sales go toward veteran support.

Kendall College was approached by Spectrum Health Innovations about creating clothing for kids that receive occupational therapy at Spectrum. Many clothing companies that make garments for kids with disabilities are not sure how to do so or sell their product at a prohibitively high price. Students in a fashion for action and function class were each teamed up with one child and made a one-of-a-kind, fashionable garment that the child would be proud to wear while also being helped by it.

At 7 p.m. Friday night, there was a fashion show in the same room at Kendall College to show off all the designs from the different companies. All of the models featured in the show were local to the Grand Rapids area. Led by Robert Andy Coombs, fashion coordinator for the festival, the event was a packed house, with nearly 300 guests filling the runway space lit with green and pink festival colors while a DJ played club music.

Open Style Lab created three jackets that were easy for people with disabilities to put on and take off but were not only for Disabled users. The Lab really wanted to focus on making multi-way gear as to include more people and to bring more attention to bringing accessible clothing into the mainstream.

Fashion Has Heart featured five of their styles, each with a t-shirt and a pair of boots that tell the story of the veteran who worked with the company to create the design.

The Kendall College students created five styles over the course of the semester and were able to showcase their pieces on the kids that they were created for. The kids benefitted most from compression clothing, so the students were challenged to create clothes that they kids would want to wear but would also help compress and engage their muscles.

“Fashion is communication,” says Liz Bartlett, the Kendall College professor that teaches the fashion class. “It’s a way for people to express their identity. DisArt celebrates identity differences but also our similarities.”Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com
Every now and then
I go deep inside my mind
Just to have a little rest
And see what I can find
I don't go in there often
It dark and I must say
That sometimes I'm afraid
That I may lose my way

There's a little corner café
Where Groucho sits alone
Stan Laurel sits there writing gags
And Greta Garbo sits and moans
Sinatra sings for all of them
John Lennon talks to God
Brian Jones gives swimming lessons
There's Liz Taylor and Mike Todd

Over in the distance
At a table in the corner
Hemmingway sells movie scripts
To mogul man Jack Warner
Elvis does a hip shake
Ruth and Gherig playing catch
Bud and Lou do Who's on First
Humphrey Bogart lights a  match

Charles Dickens playing darts
A red balloon comes floating by
Andy Warhol sits with Nico
Where German pop songs go to die
Marilyn and James Dean
Sit quietly talking on the stairs
John Kennedy and his brother Bob
Just pretend that they are both not there

Chico  plays piano and
Harpo  with his  harp
Bad jokes float around the room
being told by silent stars
Phil Everly and Phil Ramone
They're new here so they're woozy
Sit talking of the songs they'll miss
Rick Nelson sings of Susie

You see it is a mad mad place
in my head when I may wander
I don't go in too deep
And I've  met Henry Fonda
There's images, and icons
Family, and  friends
on a little street inside my head
That's a circle with no ends
Terry Collett Mar 2015
Liz put the plate
on the table.

I watched.

First day, new job.

The patients grabbed
at the contents
of the plate
and a fight
almost broke out.

Take turns,
yer idjits,
she said.

A Downs gazed at her
with his large brown eyes,
his tongue sat
on his lower lip.

Maybe, a plate each
would be better,
I said.

Not so much
fun though,
she replied.

The contents that
had been on the plate
was now being eaten
or lay scattered
on the floor
beneath the table.

A few patients
looked on bewildered,
staring at me
or Liz as she moved
about the table,
her hands stuffed
in the pockets
of her white coat.

She walked
past the table
and walked
to the window
and gazed out.

Is there nothing else?
I asked.

Later,
she said,
give it to
them later.

One or two patients
got down
from the table
and walked
about the room,
some playing
with their fingers,
some nodding
their heads,
some just walked
past each other
and spoke gibberish.

Think you'll
like the job?
Liz asked.

I shrugged
my shoulders.

Don't know.

The Downs got down
from the table
with his handful of food
and passed Liz
contentedly,
eyeing her
sideways on,
his nose running,
his tongue poking
from the side
of his mouth.

Hours past.

The smell of *****
soaked into my
white coat,
the smell of it
in the air,
hanging there afloat.
A MAN AND HIS NEW JOB IN AN ASYLUM IN 1976
blondespells Dec 2020
Lily Kesha Gump

Sittin' on the curb of Bronx and Main Street

How I wish I could wrap my arms around you

Sweet little lady, lookin’ grown with a picture of her mama’s stare frozen on her face

Wrists slung through the spaces of her thighs, waiting for a daydream

And she sees me as I’m twirling by in my ruby reds and thigh high leather grace



There you go darlin,

She says to me  

Scoring on my indigo smile

She bites men to sleep

With the crevices of her curves

As her voice weakens wicked

she pulls me out of my gloom



There you go darlin,

She says to me

With a time bomb ticking

On my pain pain pain

And the pen is in my hand

Before she even leaves my sight



I love this city

I love these women

I love their shoes

I love their smiles

Cheeky little laughs  



Someone once recommended

When I was dancing under the shades of a neon lamp  

From Homeless to Harvard

by a woman named Liz or Marie

Or maybe I read the title off of a screen
when I walking with Maryanne on north Peachtree street


And I remember


Lily Kesha Gump

How I wish I could wrap my arms around you

And give you the life some white woman

who doesn’t even know you

Thinks you desire.
Si mille oeillets, si mille liz j'embrasse,
Entortillant mes bras tout à l'entour,
Plus fort qu'un cep, qui d'un amoureux tour
La branche aimée, en mille plis enlasse :

Si le soucy ne jaunist plus ma face,
Si le plaisir fait en moy son le jour,
Si j'aime mieux les Ombres que le jour,
Songe divin, ce bien vient de ta grace.

Suyvant ton vol je volerois aux cieux :
Mais son portrait qui me trompe les yeux,
Fraude tousjours ma joye entre-rompue.

Puis tu me fuis au milieu de mon bien,
Comme un éclair qui se finist en rien,
Ou comme au vent s'évanouyt la nuë.
Mary-Eliz Apr 2018
Elliot, please add to the HP rules:

Caution: Don't drink and read!
Maybe this needs a bit in the way of notes. In comments I read "I got wine up my nose." I was already myself laughing at the poem and this comment made me thankful I wasn't drinking anything!
David Ehrgott Dec 2014
Liz Taylor was a fuckpig.
Forbes used to call me and say
"Let's double-team this dumb *****."
And we would double-team that dumb *****.
Give'er a real goin' ovah.
Sometimes in a limo.
Sometimes on a motorbike.

Really tore that thing up...

.. and today we rededicate this park after
one of Hollywood's finest.  Ladies and
gentlemen may I introduce to you "The
Liz Taylor Grand Canyon National Park."
Sin
Moonlight, above

Moonlight, the love

Swelling heart, I feel

Moonlight tonight to see the sights revealed…

Promises of life you knew you’d never keep, re-a-liz-ing light, drowns in the deep,

Finding love you lost, it hurts, you weep,

And the secrets you thought she’d like to steal,

Moonlight tonight to see the sights revealed…

Walked hand-in-hand our hearts fit like a glove, holding out for the day I’d feel this love,

Hardship and pain chip away at the steel, lotus layers of life you find unpeel,

No matter what you’ll stay finds strange appeal,

Moonlight tonight to see the sights revealed…
Moonlight tonight to see the sights revealed…
Moonlight tonight to see the sights revealed…

Moonlight, descends

Our life, upends

My heart, a stone

Moonlight tonight my god I feel alone.

Moonlight…tonight
Moonlight…tonight

And all the wounds of life that she can heal,

Moonlight tonight to see the sights revealed…
Moonlight tonight to see the sights revealed…
*Moonlight tonight to see the sights revealed…

— The End —