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IN SEARCH OF THE PRESENT

I begin with two words that all men have uttered since the dawn of humanity: thank you. The word gratitude has equivalents in every language and in each tongue the range of meanings is abundant. In the Romance languages this breadth spans the spiritual and the physical, from the divine grace conceded to men to save them from error and death, to the ****** grace of the dancing girl or the feline leaping through the undergrowth. Grace means pardon, forgiveness, favour, benefice, inspiration; it is a form of address, a pleasing style of speaking or painting, a gesture expressing politeness, and, in short, an act that reveals spiritual goodness. Grace is gratuitous; it is a gift. The person who receives it, the favoured one, is grateful for it; if he is not base, he expresses gratitude. That is what I am doing at this very moment with these weightless words. I hope my emotion compensates their weightlessness. If each of my words were a drop of water, you would see through them and glimpse what I feel: gratitude, acknowledgement. And also an indefinable mixture of fear, respect and surprise at finding myself here before you, in this place which is the home of both Swedish learning and world literature.

Languages are vast realities that transcend those political and historical entities we call nations. The European languages we speak in the Americas illustrate this. The special position of our literatures when compared to those of England, Spain, Portugal and France depends precisely on this fundamental fact: they are literatures written in transplanted tongues. Languages are born and grow from the native soil, nourished by a common history. The European languages were rooted out from their native soil and their own tradition, and then planted in an unknown and unnamed world: they took root in the new lands and, as they grew within the societies of America, they were transformed. They are the same plant yet also a different plant. Our literatures did not passively accept the changing fortunes of the transplanted languages: they participated in the process and even accelerated it. They very soon ceased to be mere transatlantic reflections: at times they have been the negation of the literatures of Europe; more often, they have been a reply.

In spite of these oscillations the link has never been broken. My classics are those of my language and I consider myself to be a descendant of Lope and Quevedo, as any Spanish writer would ... yet I am not a Spaniard. I think that most writers of Spanish America, as well as those from the United States, Brazil and Canada, would say the same as regards the English, Portuguese and French traditions. To understand more clearly the special position of writers in the Americas, we should think of the dialogue maintained by Japanese, Chinese or Arabic writers with the different literatures of Europe. It is a dialogue that cuts across multiple languages and civilizations. Our dialogue, on the other hand, takes place within the same language. We are Europeans yet we are not Europeans. What are we then? It is difficult to define what we are, but our works speak for us.

In the field of literature, the great novelty of the present century has been the appearance of the American literatures. The first to appear was that of the English-speaking part and then, in the second half of the 20th Century, that of Latin America in its two great branches: Spanish America and Brazil. Although they are very different, these three literatures have one common feature: the conflict, which is more ideological than literary, between the cosmopolitan and nativist tendencies, between Europeanism and Americanism. What is the legacy of this dispute? The polemics have disappeared; what remain are the works. Apart from this general resemblance, the differences between the three literatures are multiple and profound. One of them belongs more to history than to literature: the development of Anglo-American literature coincides with the rise of the United States as a world power whereas the rise of our literature coincides with the political and social misfortunes and upheavals of our nations. This proves once more the limitations of social and historical determinism: the decline of empires and social disturbances sometimes coincide with moments of artistic and literary splendour. Li-Po and Tu Fu witnessed the fall of the Tang dynasty; Velázquez painted for Felipe IV; Seneca and Lucan were contemporaries and also victims of Nero. Other differences are of a literary nature and apply more to particular works than to the character of each literature. But can we say that literatures have a character? Do they possess a set of shared features that distinguish them from other literatures? I doubt it. A literature is not defined by some fanciful, intangible character; it is a society of unique works united by relations of opposition and affinity.

The first basic difference between Latin-American and Anglo-American literature lies in the diversity of their origins. Both begin as projections of Europe. The projection of an island in the case of North America; that of a peninsula in our case. Two regions that are geographically, historically and culturally eccentric. The origins of North America are in England and the Reformation; ours are in Spain, Portugal and the Counter-Reformation. For the case of Spanish America I should briefly mention what distinguishes Spain from other European countries, giving it a particularly original historical identity. Spain is no less eccentric than England but its eccentricity is of a different kind. The eccentricity of the English is insular and is characterized by isolation: an eccentricity that excludes. Hispanic eccentricity is peninsular and consists of the coexistence of different civilizations and different pasts: an inclusive eccentricity. In what would later be Catholic Spain, the Visigoths professed the heresy of Arianism, and we could also speak about the centuries of ******* by Arabic civilization, the influence of Jewish thought, the Reconquest, and other characteristic features.

Hispanic eccentricity is reproduced and multiplied in America, especially in those countries such as Mexico and Peru, where ancient and splendid civilizations had existed. In Mexico, the Spaniards encountered history as well as geography. That history is still alive: it is a present rather than a past. The temples and gods of pre-Columbian Mexico are a pile of ruins, but the spirit that breathed life into that world has not disappeared; it speaks to us in the hermetic language of myth, legend, forms of social coexistence, popular art, customs. Being a Mexican writer means listening to the voice of that present, that presence. Listening to it, speaking with it, deciphering it: expressing it ... After this brief digression we may be able to perceive the peculiar relation that simultaneously binds us to and separates us from the European tradition.

This consciousness of being separate is a constant feature of our spiritual history. Separation is sometimes experienced as a wound that marks an internal division, an anguished awareness that invites self-examination; at other times it appears as a challenge, a spur that incites us to action, to go forth and encounter others and the outside world. It is true that the feeling of separation is universal and not peculiar to Spanish Americans. It is born at the very moment of our birth: as we are wrenched from the Whole we fall into an alien land. This experience becomes a wound that never heals. It is the unfathomable depth of every man; all our ventures and exploits, all our acts and dreams, are bridges designed to overcome the separation and reunite us with the world and our fellow-beings. Each man's life and the collective history of mankind can thus be seen as attempts to reconstruct the original situation. An unfinished and endless cure for our divided condition. But it is not my intention to provide yet another description of this feeling. I am simply stressing the fact that for us this existential condition expresses itself in historical terms. It thus becomes an awareness of our history. How and when does this feeling appear and how is it transformed into consciousness? The reply to this double-edged question can be given in the form of a theory or a personal testimony. I prefer the latter: there are many theories and none is entirely convincing.

The feeling of separation is bound up with the oldest and vaguest of my memories: the first cry, the first scare. Like every child I built emotional bridges in the imagination to link me to the world and to other people. I lived in a town on the outskirts of Mexico City, in an old dilapidated house that had a jungle-like garden and a great room full of books. First games and first lessons. The garden soon became the centre of my world; the library, an enchanted cave. I used to read and play with my cousins and schoolmates. There was a fig tree, temple of vegetation, four pine trees, three ash trees, a nightshade, a pomegranate tree, wild grass and prickly plants that produced purple grazes. Adobe walls. Time was elastic; space was a spinning wheel. All time, past or future, real or imaginary, was pure presence. Space transformed itself ceaselessly. The beyond was here, all was here: a valley, a mountain, a distant country, the neighbours' patio. Books with pictures, especially history books, eagerly leafed through, supplied images of deserts and jungles, palaces and hovels, warriors and princesses, beggars and kings. We were shipwrecked with Sinbad and with Robinson, we fought with d'Artagnan, we took Valencia with the Cid. How I would have liked to stay forever on the Isle of Calypso! In summer the green branches of the fig tree would sway like the sails of a caravel or a pirate ship. High up on the mast, swept by the wind, I could make out islands and continents, lands that vanished as soon as they became tangible. The world was limitless yet it was always within reach; time was a pliable substance that weaved an unbroken present.

When was the spell broken? Gradually rather than suddenly. It is hard to accept being betrayed by a friend, deceived by the woman we love, or that the idea of freedom is the mask of a tyrant. What we call "finding out" is a slow and tricky process because we ourselves are the accomplices of our errors and deceptions. Nevertheless, I can remember fairly clearly an incident that was the first sign, although it was quickly forgotten. I must have been about six when one of my cousins who was a little older showed me a North American magazine with a photograph of soldiers marching along a huge avenue, probably in New York. "They've returned from the war" she said. This handful of words disturbed me, as if they foreshadowed the end of the world or the Second Coming of Christ. I vaguely knew that somewhere far away a war had ended a few years earlier and that the soldiers were marching to celebrate their victory. For me, that war had taken place in another time, not here and now. The photo refuted me. I felt literally dislodged from the present.

From that moment time began to fracture more and more. And there was a plurality of spaces. The experience repeated itself more and more frequently. Any piece of news, a harmless phrase, the headline in a newspaper: everything proved the outside world's existence and my own unreality. I felt that the world was splitting and that I did not inhabit the present. My present was disintegrating: real time was somewhere else. My time, the time of the garden, the fig tree, the games with friends, the drowsiness among the plants at three in the afternoon under the sun, a fig torn open (black and red like a live coal but one that is sweet and fresh): this was a fictitious time. In spite of what my senses told me, the time from over there, belonging to the others, was the real one, the time of the real present. I accepted the inevitable: I became an adult. That was how my expulsion from the present began.

It may seem paradoxical to say that we have been expelled from the present, but it is a feeling we have all had at some moment. Some of us experienced it first as a condemnation, later transformed into consciousness and action. The search for the present is neither the pursuit of an earthly paradise nor that of a timeless eternity: it is the search for a real reality. For us, as Spanish Americans, the real present was not in our own countries: it was the time lived by others, by the English, the French and the Germans. It was the time of New York, Paris, London. We had to go and look for it and bring it back home. These years were also the years of my discovery of literature. I began writing poems. I did not know what made me write them: I was moved by an inner need that is difficult to define. Only now have I understood that there was a secret relationship between what I have called my expulsion from the present and the writing of poetry. Poetry is in love with the instant and seeks to relive it in the poem, thus separating it from sequential time and turning it into a fixed present. But at that time I wrote without wondering why I was doing it. I was searching for the gateway to the present: I wanted to belong to my time and to my century. A little later this obsession became a fixed idea: I wanted to be a modern poet. My search for modernity had begun.

What is modernity? First of all it is an ambiguous term: there are as many types of modernity as there are societies. Each has its own. The word's meaning is uncertain and arbitrary, like the name of the period that precedes it, the Middle Ages. If we are modern when compared to medieval times, are we perhaps the Middle Ages of a future modernity? Is a name that changes with time a real name? Modernity is a word in search of its meaning. Is it an idea, a mirage or a moment of history? Are we the children of modernity or its creators? Nobody knows for sure. It doesn't matter much: we follow it, we pursue it. For me at that time modernity was fused with the present or rather produced it: the present was its last supreme flower. My case is neither unique nor exceptional: from the Symbolist period, all modern poets have chased after that magnetic and elusive figure that fascinates them. Baudelaire was the first. He was also the first to touch her and discover that she is nothing but time that crumbles in one's hands. I am not going to relate my adventures in pursuit of modernity: they are not very different from those of other 20th-Century poets. Modernity has been a universal passion. Since 1850 she has been our goddess and our demoness. In recent years, there has been an attempt to exorcise her and there has been much talk of "postmodernism". But what is postmodernism if not an even more modern modernity?

For us, as Latin Americans, the search for poetic modernity runs historically parallel to the repeated attempts to modernize our countries. This tendency begins at the end of the 18th Century and includes Spain herself. The United States was born into modernity and by 1830 was already, as de Tocqueville observed, the womb of the future; we were born at a moment when Spain and Portugal were moving away from modernity. This is why there was frequent talk of "Europeanizing" our countries: the modern was outside and had to be imported. In Mexican history this process begins just before the War of Independence. Later it became a great ideological and political debate that passionately divided Mexican society during the 19th Century. One event was to call into question not the legitimacy of the reform movement but the way in which it had been implemented: the Mexican Revolution. Unlike its 20th-Century counterparts, the Mexican Revolution was not really the expression of a vaguely utopian ideology but rather the explosion of a reality that had been historically and psychologically repressed. It was not the work of a group of ideologists intent on introducing principles derived from a political theory; it was a popular uprising that unmasked what was hidden. For this very reason it was more of a revelation than a revolution. Mexico was searching for the present outside only to find it within, buried but alive. The search for modernity led
He abierto la ventana. Entra sin hacer ruido
(afuera deja sus constelaciones).
«Buenas noches, Noche».
Pasa las páginas de sombra
en las que todo está ya escrito.
Viene a pedirme cuentas.

«Salí al rayar el alba -digo-.
Lamía el sol las paredes leprosas
Olía a vino, a miel, a jara»
(Deslumbrada por tanta claridad
ha entornado los ojos).
La llevan mis palabras por calles, ascuas, no lo sé:
oye la plata de las campanadas.
Ante la puerta de la iglesia
me callo, me detengo -entraría conmigo-
si yo no me callase, si no me detuviera-;
yo sé bien lo que quiere la Noche;
lo de todas las noches;
si no, por qué habría venido.

Ya mi memoria no es lo que era. En la misa del alba
no dije Agnus Dei qui tollis pecata mundi,
sino que dije Marta Dei  (ella también es cordero de Dios
que quita mis pecados del mundo).
La noche no podría comprenderlo,
y qué decirle, y cómo, para que lo entendiese.

No me pregunta nada la Noche,
no me pregunta nada. Ella lo sabe todo
antes que yo lo diga, antes que yo lo sepa.
Ella ha oído esos versos
que se escupen de boca en boca, versos
de un malaleche del Andalucía
al que otro malaleche de solar montañés
llamara «capellán del rey de bastos»
en los que se hace mofa de mí y de Marta,
amor mío, resumen de todos mis amores:
Dicho me han por una carta
que es tu cómica persona
sobre los manteles, mona
y entre las sábanas, Marta.
qué sabrá ese tahúr, ese amargado
lo que es amor.
La Noche trae entre los pliegues de su toga
un polvillo de música, como el del ala de la mariposa.
Una música hilada en la vihuela
del maestro del danzar, nuestro vecino.
En la cocina estará escuchando Marta;
danzará, mientras barre el suelo que no ve,
manchado de ceniza, de aroma, de trigo candeal,
de jazmines, de estrellas, de papeles rompidos.
Danza y barra Marta.

Pido a la Noche que se vaya. Hasta mañana, Noche.
Déjame que descanse. Cuando amanezca regaré el jardín,
saldré después a decir misa.
-Deus meus, Deus meus, quare tristis est amina mea-
luego volveré a casa, terminaré una epístola en tercetos
escribiré unas hojas
de la comedia que encargaron unos representantes.
Que las cosas no marchan bien en el teatro,
y uno no puede dormirse en los laureles.

Hasta mañana, Noche.
Tengo que dar la cena a Marta,
asearla, peinarla (ella no vive ya en el mundo nuestro),
cuidar que no alborote mis papeles,
que no apuñale las paredes con mis plumas
mis bien cortadas plumas,
tengo que confesarla. «Padre, vivo en pecado»
(no sabe que el pecado es de los dos),
y dirá luego: «Lope, quiero morirme»
(y qué sucedería si yo muriese antes que ella).
Ego te absolvo.

Y luego, sosegada, le contaré, para dormirla,
aventuras de olas, de galeones, de arcabuces, de rumbos marinos,
de lugares vividos y soñados: de lo que fue
y que no fue y que pudo ser mi vida.
Abre tus ojos verdes, Marta, que quiero oír el mar.
«Fazañas imposibles obré con esta daga,
al favor de la noche y en trágicos suburbios,
una vez que fui pícaro...
Recuerdo -como en turbios
sonambulismos donde una luz naufraga-
que fui taimado pícaro: Don Lope de Aguinaga!

»Locas andanzas venusinas!
Francachelas en que la sangre dialoga
con el vino, después de heroicas tremolinas!
Raptos de adustas damas... gentucilla de toga!
Raptos de las amantes de alto Marqués o Doga...!
De nobles y pecheras, monjas y bailarinas!

»Las noches de bureo por timbas y tabernas,
y por tabucos, bodegones y hostales,
a caza de los bienes y a caza de los males:
de los magníficos pecados capitales...
sin poner mientes en las cosas eternas!

»Fazañas imposibles obré con mis puñales
en los juegos de quínola y en los juegos de dados,
y en los sañudos desafíos azarosos
con turbas de judíos astrosos
y con mendigos y frailes y soldados!

»Fazañas imposibles obré con esta daga!
Yo fui taimado pícaro: Don Lope de Aguinaga!»
pragya santani Dec 2013
It was in the end of September,
The kashmir trip i still remember,
The thought of going to the heaven on earth made me feel so excited,
I was happy and delighted,
Our eyes filled with enthusiasm and hope,
And to kashmir we wanted to lope,
Just the twelve of us,
There wouldn't be any ruckus or fuss,
We were accompanied by ma'am Handa and Mr. Pandey,
We enjoyed everything from gondola rides to our house boat stay,
We went to places like Sonamarg and Pahalgam,
We'd get tired reach the hotel and apply Jhandu balm,
We enjoyed all our horse rides,
We were accompanied by well-versed guides,
We always managed to take out time for shopping,
From shop to shop we went hopping,
Kashmiri kawah and authentic Kashmiri food for almost every meal,
Would make the tiredness for long distance walking heal,
A Kashmiri wedding is also what we attended,
For back and forth rides on shikara we depended,
Oh! But to sum up I have to say,
In kashmir we loved it each and everyday.
Ps- this was written in October.
Traci Sims May 2017
To write a sonnet doth Juana press me,
I've never found me in such stress or pain;
A sonnet numbers fourteen lines, 'tis plain,
And three are gone, ere I can say, God bless me!
I thought that spinning rhymes might sore oppress me,
Yet here I'm midway in the last quatrain;
And if the foremost tercet I can gain,
The quatrains need not any more distress me.
To the first tercet I have got at last,
And travel through it with such right good will,
That with this line I've finished it, I ween;
I'm in the second now, and see how fast
The thirteenth line runs tripping from my quill;
Hurrah, 'tis done! Count if there be fourteen!
From Lope de Vega's "Nina de Plata".

One of my all-time favourite sonnets from a prolific Spanish poet/playwright.
Las fuerzas, Peregrino celebrado,
afrentará del tiempo y del olvido
el libro que, por tuyo, ha merecido
ser del uno y del otro respetado.
Con lazos de oro y yedra acompañado,
el laurel con tu frente está corrido
de ver que tus escritos han podido
hacer cortos los premios que te ha dado.
La invidia su verdugo y su tormento
hace del nombre que cantando cobras,
y con tu gloria su martirio crece.
Mas yo disculpo tal atrevimiento,
si con lo que ella muerde de tus obras
la boca, lengua y dientes enriquece.
Prowling,
like a wolf
on the periphery of the unknown
betwixt knowledge and dread
I saw the dark truth
I felt the gulf
the waste
the expanse
the difference in power
the taste of defeat
the vice grip of the inevitable
the long, slow bleed of my dignity
flowing out
with the gold of my entrails
eviscerated by my pride
how I dared to topple the monolithic,
undeniable truth
that there is always
a better you
a better me
a better us, out there
stronger
bigger
faster
smarter
more hung
more fashionable
more handsome, more beautiful, more androgynous
more capable
more accomplished
more patient
more... loving
more empathetic
they know more random facts
they've been more places
they've known more people
they've seen more sunrises
they've counted every moon
their worst is better than your best day
he cares for her more deeply than you did
she loves that
she's forgotten you
he tells her what he never told you
and she loves him for that
you were always afraid to find out
they never invite you because you're not fun
what a downer
what a bore
there's always that one person
upon whom your envy is never sated
they lope in moonlight
flowing locks of grace
teeth bared in a frightful grin
they know all your cards
they can play you like a fiddle
they're out there
where you fear to go
the apex predator
the person you'll never be
but dream you could
and dreams are all you'll have...
I'm a competitive person, by nature.

And this poem came to me as I realized, one night while gaming, that I'd never be the best at anything. I felt a sense of futility about any pride I've ever managed to feel concerning an accomplishment of mine.

I watched myself, small, in a sort of third-person view, question why it was I have ever striven for anything, when I continually run into my betters.

It was a scary realization. But, I believe, it's ever more scary when you have no powerful allies in the world, or when, even your allies fear the world at large, and you're all united in fear. It's a condition that humility fails to pacify.

A deep dread. A paralysis of hope.

Enjoy!

DEW
Kevin Horgan Jul 2015
Wounds heal but they'll always leave a scar. A little keepsake of memories. We may always lope that these wounds may heal without scars, that everything would out perfectly, despite us knowing that is very unlikely. It is reassuring that after time passes most will wear them with pride as a badge-like battle scar. Though I seem to fall into a hole of turmoil and confusion seeing as I'm not like most, I've always been different and found it hard to fit into the crowd. A blessing and a suede it may be but it is who I am and I promise you I'll always be your little "nerd" regardless of your desire.
#emotional #personal #indirect #todaysfeelings
Strata upon her lope with hope to everyone
when leaves would fall betwixt these righteous paths
whether your forks gathered rain

as autumn found together in sheer delight
where dryness perchance had provoked many living trunks
and maple syrup was flowing from sap
so delicious these hot cakes fulfilled grace and picnics in Eagles Mere.
A recreational community in  Northern Pennsylvania.
Candace Jun 2014
The driveway was strewn with rotted oak leaves, and Oscar wondered if the old man was still alive. He stopped his car just short of the rusted garage door, knowing that from this vantage point no one from the house could see him. Stepping out of his car, he strode toward the front door. The outside looked much the same as before, ivy gnarling up the walls and spiders webbing around the door. He held up his hand to knock.
“It’s open, Oscar.” He was relieved to hear the old man’s voice through the open window.
“Thanks, Harry. I’ll be right in.” Oscar nudged the front door open and walked into the kitchen. The green wallpaper was faded but the little square table in the corner was clean. The old man had his back to Oscar, stooped over the sink drying the last of a small batch of dishes. Oscar stuck his hands in his sweatshirt pocket.
“The wood looks like it’s staying dry,” Oscar said. The old man gave a slight nod, wiping the counter with slow, decided movements. “I heard it’s been a wet winter.”  
“Not too bad.” The man looked at Oscar with tired eyes. “Those gutters need cleaning, though.”
“I’ll do what I can before I go.”
The old man turned his pale neck back toward the sink. “That’s fine.”
“Do you need anything from town? Or anything?”
The old man didn’t respond. Oscar took his cue to leave, walking through the laundry room and out the back door. An enclosure of thick oaks and cedars faced him, not quite a forest, but more than he could count. His feet carried him on the familiar path, up the mountain where the air was thin, and he struggled to breathe deeply. The trees grew thicker and the path narrower, but he trudged on, finally coming to a stop at a small clearing housing the remains of several tree stumps. In the middle of these stumps sat a bright yellow lawnchair currently unoccupied. Oscar took the opportunity to catch his breath, closing his eyes and lowering himself into the squeaky chair, waiting for her to come. He imagined her sneaking up behind him, covering his eyes. She’d giggle and lope back into the trees beckoning him come to follow her.
He heard a slight rustle through the trees and saw her walk toward him, her steps slower than usual. Her once long hair was cut short against her scalp and her belly protruded in an obvious way. She stopped just short of his arm’s reach, resting one hand over her belly. She cocked her head to the side, looking Oscar up and down. Her eyes settled on his face but not his eyes.
“You got old,” she said.
“You didn’t.” Oscar smiled while she stayed serious.
“I got old and died three times,” she said. “This is me,” she said pointing at her belly.
Oscar reached out to touch her arm, but she took his hand, leading him back out of the clearing down the mountain. He didn’t wonder where they were going. He set aside all the world but her. As he followed behind her, he thought that she looked much different than last time. Her eyes seemed less savage and her skin less pale. He thought she looked strange without her long hair tangled with leaves and wind, and he wondered if the same person that put this baby inside her was also trying to fix her, to make her like everyone else. He tightened his grip on her hand and rushed ahead of her. She gave a tiny laugh and started running after him.
Soon she let go of his hand and sat gracelessly on the ground, resting her head against a tree. Oscar turned around and sat across from her, watching her pick the leaves off a fallen branch.
“This is my tree,” she said, holding up the branch.
“I’ll plant it for you, so it can grow bigger.”
“It’s already dead. Won’t get any bigger.” She began pulling the twigs off the branch, smoothing it into a pole shape.  
“Are you done with college?” she asked.
“Another year.”
“I’m going to go, too.” She sounded like she meant it. Oscar wondered if he had been gone for too long this time. “Soon,” she said.  
Oscar nodded. “You don’t have hair anymore.”
She looked up at Oscar, not meeting his eyes. “It was trapping all my thoughts in my head.”
Oscar smiled. “Now all your thoughts are running around like rabbits having little thought babies of their own.” She laughed out of courtesy, and it bothered him. They sat in silence. He continued to watch her.
“Do you think it’s going to rain today?” she asked.
“Since when do we talk about the weather?”
“I want to.” Oscar said nothing. “I think it’s going to rain. I can smell the water in the air. Do you remember Frankie, that gerbil I had as a kid?”
“I’m leaving again tomorrow.”
“I know.” She started to stand up, bracing herself against the bare branch in her hands. “Frankie knew when it would rain. He did this thing with his ear. Twitch.” She brushed off her pants. “Next time you come back, I’ll be a baby. Brand new and wrinkly.” She met his eyes.
“Are you going to name it after the dad?” He asked, hoping that the dad was long gone.
“No, me.”
Oscar thought she looked very young then, and he could imagine her becoming younger and younger as he continued to age. He would grow into an old man like her father, stooped over and feeble, and she would go to college, reborn without him. Without her hair, she would run faster and he wouldn’t be able to keep up.
“Let’s watch the sunset,” she said, taking his hand. “Go get some lawnchairs and I’ll meet you there.”
He watched her trek up the mountain for a moment before making his descent. As he neared the house, he saw the old man gathering wood, one piece at a time. His bones seemed to creak as he lifted the tarp off the remaining dry wood, feeling which pieces were dry enough. The old man seemed to acutely feel each footstep, pausing on every stair and taking a deep breath, before entering the house. Watching the old man repeat this process again and again, Oscar decided that all the youth in the world did not belong to her. He would preserve her forever as she was now, and by standing in her orbit maybe she could give him everlasting life.
He waved to the old man as he hoisted two lawnchairs over his shoulder. After the old man had walked back inside, seemingly for the last time, Oscar grabbed the half-empty canister by the woodpile and began climbing toward the clearing where she was waiting. He hoped the rain would never come. He arrived out of breath and set up the chairs in their usual places between the tree stumps. She stood at the edge of the clearing, her arms wrapped around her protruding belly, watching as the sun crawled below the tree line. She smiled at him and he beckoned her to sit down. She sat and Oscar told her to close her eyes.
“I want to see,” she said.
“It’s a surprise.”
Oscar crossed the clearing, carrying the canister. He looked as the base of each tree, trying to find the right one in the fading light. “It’s the one on the left,” she shouted.
“Keep your eyes closed.” He tried to sound stern, but he couldn’t stop smiling. He saw the tree and began to pour the contents of the canister onto the trunk.
“I knew you remembered Frankie,” she said. There was a large stone underneath the tree as a monument to the gerbil. Oscar remembered that it was the biggest stone that they could carry as children.
“I know.” Oscar took the makeshift walking stick she had made earlier from her hands and wrapped a piece of his shirt around it. He again crossed the clearing pulling out his lighter. He lit the end of the pole before putting the flame to the gasoline soaked tree. He backed away from the tree as the fire struggled up the wet trunk before flaring in the leaves overhead. It crackled and hissed through pinecones, trying to keep its hold on the damp tree.
Oscar’s leg hit the edge of a stump and he sat down. He felt her walk up next to him. Tearing his gaze away from the fire, he looked up at her, and it seemed to him that her skin mimicked the red of the fire, coming alive in its light. Her eyes were once again untamed, feral. Oscar imagined that no time had passed since he left for college and that no time would ever pass again.
She took his hand, just as the fire spread to another treetop, and put it on her belly. “It won’t burn forever,” she said, letting go of his hand and turning to carry the lawnchair back down the mountain.
It rained. Oscar stayed watching the last embers flicker and die before his feet blindly carried him back to the house where he would clean the gutters and leave.
Ted Scheck Aug 2014
I'm on the road, but not
Actually on. A. Road.
Per se.
I avoid roads like cliches
Avoid plagues.

Fields are much better
Travel companions. As
If a lined-paper stretch of
hoed land could thought to be
Friendly to your feet, and knees,
And mind
Not that you traipse across it.
Specially
Corn. Inside corn fields is always
Maze-Y.
The Wind loves singing through
Discordant notes of thistle and
Thatsle; whatsle you'll hear
Musically is really up
To you.
But at night, the stars shining
Through the feathery filters of what is
More than knee-high by 7/4/whatever
Is a forget that's hard to memory.

Sleep in cornfields and you'll
Wake to the pleasant murmurings
(And nocturnal rustlings)
Of mice using your clothes
Body boots shaggy unkempt hair
For warmth. Sore neck, sore back,
Worth it, comically ship-jumping-so:
The little furry squeakers realizing the
Empty soft boat wasn't empty at all
And the critters abandoning you
With the flicker of tails, gone. A
Maze-ing.

Forests. Hmm...Temperate
Temperament. More
Crazies in the woods than amongst
Iowa's cash crop: 1 must B careful.
They generally want to be left A
Lone; I specifically avoid them, or
Will travel act like their long
Lost crazy cousin.
Just to fit
Out.

Small fires in copses of woods,
Huddled near flames, ears
Prickled for the sound of
Angels dancing on the pins of
Heads.

Occasionally, I tire of the peace of fields of
Green tassels and tall deciduous
Trees, and I hear cars, and imagine
I hear the conversations held within.
So I take my bottled strangeness out
Of seclusion and rejoin the race
Humana.
More often than not, I meet up with
The Angry.
They congregate in coffee houses.
Huddle in hostels.
Mob motels.
You get the jpeg.
The Angry desire to
Do what I do by second nature, and
By nature, first. I've thrown off my
Self-imposed chains, and walk free.
They see this - in me - or see the magic
Dust my boots tracked all the way across
Their own barren linoleum flo.
They are trapped in their mind-traps.
The Angry would imprison me and
Masquerade as me simply for spite.
(If they could CATCH me, bwaa-haa!)

I walk quickly, lope along I80.
I hate to do this. It's Russian Roulette
With 6 bullets in 6 chambers.
But to get to the back roads, you some
Times have to travel the fore roads.
Troopers of State do NOT like
Peds on the road. But many of
Them, after stern sternly Drill-
Sergeanting you with their Smokey-
Bear hats, will drop you off to
Your destination. "Keep safe,
Sir." They intone with such
Seriousness that I'm always
Biting the insides of my
Mouth. They could use a
Few dewy misty nights
Slumbering in an Iowa
City cornfield, waking with
A brood of mice nestled in
your knapsack.

Food. There's an issue there,
For some. Not me - not then, not
Now. The future is only the future
When it's tomorrow. Candy bar
Smashed by a bike tire in the
Gutter? What, some puke-eating
Dog should have that? Gross.
Gross is grossly
Defined by how long you'd
Not eat when your food ran
Away. Since I have almost
Nothing except a small green
Canvas satchel and a larger
Knapsack of essentials
(A few tools, a fire-starter,
Water purifiers, and my pen and
Notebook) and my good...

...Boots and thick socks and 1-
Piece Union Suit and many
Layers I'm glad to have at
Night but make me sweat
Heavily in the sultry
Iowa summers, I eat on the
Fly. Sometimes I chase away
The Fly to munch on what
It munched. Gross.
It's a living, because moving
Is work, blessedly peaceful, yes,
But have you ever seen a fat
Walker? They either get skinnier
Or they expire. So I eat
Whenever and whatever and how
Ever.

Dumpsters. Garbage cans.
The backs of grocery stores.
I trade sudsy soapy pruned hands
For burnt pizzas and more bread
Sticks sticking to my stomach
Like doughy glue. People out
There - people alone in crowded
Rooms - will trade kindness and
Conversation for food they may
Have taken home with them, or
May have just thrown away.

Lowered
Expectations, skinny middle,
Sore feet, leg muscles wanting
To stay up and watch late-night
TV, swollen ankles eventually
Going to sleep with the rest of
The body as I'm huddled in a
Little snow cave in Iowa, or
Waiting a rain beneath an old
Wagon, or bunking with my
Mice-buddies in an old barn.
There's a lot of life out there,
A skinny man with long, blonde,
And usually ***** hair, sweaty,
Smiling, eyes bright, nostrils flaring
At the scent of humanity: a
Peaceful Mind wandering
Around the belly-button of
America.
Wade Redfearn Oct 2011
There is nowhere to hold this, and it is heavy.

We drink coffee in white, square mugs
on the fifth ***** step.
I am sick and the coffee pinballs in my stomach.
You do not care about hydration.
You are covered in so much paint
you look like Matisse in a fender-******.
You look sore all the way down to your fingers.

The bed in the opposite room won't be yours,
but could be.

I lope around nauseous on the mornings
I don't work. I light candles that jump
with a stench of French Vanilla. Dogs bark
unholy early.
I tire of the anxious sleep of the newly living-there,
the newly living.
The loud neighbour,
the considerate neighbour,
the ******* dogs.

I open the bedside drawer.
No Gideon hotel bibles.
Condoms, picture frames,
instructions for a washing machine.
No Bibles.

Sometimes, I find it in my shoes - this envy -
or in my pockets.
And sometimes I drag it behind me,
like wedding cans on a bachelor's car,
filaments of grief and filthy broken dinnerware,
threaded cotton of towels
too often used without washing
and wine bottle bones.

And somebody once told me not to paint a
room in it, but this jealousy is sage, not lime,
and I could **** well sleep in here,
and sometimes do.
Vamika Sinha Sep 2015
The poet looks
and delves.

She wonders if he ever stops,
him, this rushing-forward-breathlessly train,
if he did park himself in fantastical paragraphs;
the poet is dumbfounded at him
ceasing.

In construction sites of grammar,
where free ideas float in ruins,
poet wonders how,
how, how
he came to plan to live
up
to an exclamation mark.
And condensed so many dribbles and strikes
of strange and fruitful, even withered
paragraphs into one line and pointer -
a smile and a lope-stagger dance of a walk -
an exclamation mark.

The poet stares, once again
astounded by the little streaks of the universe
and longs to hold on to something.
Disarmed,
she can't quite put a finger on it,
his gaping honesty and his quiet one,
that contradiction
shouting in her face
while whispering in her eyes.

The poet laughs -
laughs of, in, out
of sleep.
Summer is here.
And she chooses to notice.
He laughs too,
but he's always been noticing
and the poet writes down how
she learnt to bite and chew into the fruit of the world
and taste

it sour runny sweet cold explosive lingering
just as him.
The poet saw all
colours rolling in one
strange song of limbs.
She did not like the music
but she made herself a blank white canvas

and listened
and laughed

clean, silly laughs
fluting out of the incongruity
of simple,
simple
moments.

Fun life, easy stretch of the mouth -
it is possible to smile down at
what a clown pain is.
He declares this boldly
without saying a word
or two.
The poet is dumbfounded at him
being.

She did not see and had not seen and now only began to picture
but she was blind.
He said he was blinder and that
was true. The poet
did not smirk but giggle at the irony -
he lived in pop-bold spectacles,
she slept in black and white films.
But both were blind.

We cannot see and
we
are blurs.

The poet likes that life scrapes away at her
because she can see chinks of white sunshine
through all the sheared-off layers.
Clean, clean,

bright, bright -
he teaches her in a beam
without a hello.

The poet writes poetry
on breathing action prose.
And she laughs -

You are everything I don't want
but I'm curious.
Something different, hey?
Le conocí hace ya tiempo;
Déjame que recuerde. Si la memoria falla
A mi edad, cuando trata de imaginarse algo
Que en años mozos fuimos, aún más cuando persigue
La figura del hombre sólo visto un momento.

Nunca pensé que alguien viniera a preguntarme
Por tal persona, sin familiar, amigo,
Posición o fortuna; viviendo oscuramente,
Con los gestos diarios de cualquiera
A quien ya nadie nombra tras de muerto.

Que de espejo nos sirva
El prójimo, y nuestra propia imagen
Observemos en él, mas no la suya,
Ocurre a veces. Quien interroga a otros
Por un desconocido, debe contentarse
Con lo que halla, aun cuando sea huella
Ajena superpuesta a la que busca.

Era de edad mediana
Al conocerlo yo, enseñando,
No sé, idioma o metafísica, en puesto subalterno,
Como extraño que ha de ganar la vida
Por malas circunstancias y carece de apoyo.

A esta ciudad había venido
Desde el norte, donde antes estuvo
En circunstancias aún peores; ya conoce
Aquella gente practica y tacaña, que buscando
Va por la vida sólo rendimiento,
y poco rendimiento de tal hombre traslucía.

Aquí se hallaba a gusto, en lo posible
Para quien no parecía a gusto en. parte alguna,
Aun cuando, ido, no quisiera
Regresar, ni a varios conocidos
Locales recordó. Así trataba acaso
Que lo pasado fuera pasado realmente
y comenzar en limpio nueva etapa.

No le vi mucho, rehusando,
A lo que entiendo, el trato y compañía,
Acaso huraño y receloso en algo
Para mí indiferente. Poco hablaba,
Aunque en rara ocasión hablaba todo
Lo callado hasta entonces, altero, abrupto,
Y pareciendo luego avergonzado.

Pero seamos francos: yo no le quería
Bien, y un día, conversando
Temas insustanciales, el tiempo, los deportes,
La política, sentí temor extraño
Que en burla, no hacia mí, sino a los hombres todos
En mí representados, fuera a sacar la lengua.

Lo que pensó, amó, odió, le dejó
indiferente,
Ignoro; como lo ignoro igual hasta de otros
Que conocí mejor. Nuestro vivir, de muchedumbre
A solas con un dios, un demonio o una nada,
Supongo que era el suyo también. ¿Por qué no habría de serIo?

Su pensamiento hoy puede leerse
Tras la obra, y ella sabrá decirle
Más que yo. Aunque supongo
Tales escritos sin valor alguno,
y aquí ninguno se cuidaba de su autor o ellos.

Esta fama postrera no la mueve,
En mozos tan despiertos, amor de hacer justicia,
Sino' gusto de hallar razón contra nosotros
Los viejos, el estorbo palmario en el camino,
Al cual no basta el apartar, mas el desprecio
Debe añadirse. Pues, ¿acaso,
Vive desconocido el poeta futuro?

Sabemos que un poeta es otra cosa;
La chispa que le anima pronto prende
En quienes junto a él cruzan la vida,
Sus versos aceptados tal moneda corriente.
Lope fue siempre el listo Lope, vivo o muerto.

Tan ****** como quiera será el vulgo,
Pero la voz del vulgo es voz divina,
Por estos tiempos nuestros a lo menos;
y el vulgo era ignorante de ese hombre
Mientras viviera, en signo
Que siempre ignorará su póstuma excelencia.

La sociedad es justa, a todos trata
Como merecen; si hay exceso
Primero, con idéntico exceso retrocede,
Recobrando nivel. Piense de alguno,
Festejado tal dios por muchedumbres,
Por esas muchedumbres tal animal colgado.
Bien que ello nos repugne, justicia pura y simple.

Mas eso no se aplica a nuestro hombre.
¿Acaso hubo exceso en el olvido
Que vivió día a día? Hecho a medida
Del propio ser oscuro, exacto era; y a la muerte
Se lleva aquello que tomamos
De la vida, o lo que ella nos da: olvido
Acá, y olvido allá para él. Es lo mismo.
Helen Murray Jan 2014
I am the rising sun.
So when your eyelids open to explore the beauty of the day
I pour My light into your soul, and set you on your laughing, loving way.

They shafted steel into My heart
That when My children linger, longing, looking at the Cross of Hope
I pierce their hearts with shafts of love for all who near their pathways lope.

I am the eagle
Who rises on the wind and sees the visions of the future dreams,
Who gives his eaglets flying starts so that they too the visions can impart.

I am the cobbled pathway.
My children pick me out among the highways, hills and valleys of their lives.
Their prayer-flowered Kingdom road is tough but leads to pearly gates and open skies.

True and Faithful are My thighs.
Disciples know I’ll never leave but pour My peace on all their fear.
Their weakness will become the towers of strength that men hold very dear.

Blood Brother is My name.
Commune with Me and in the strife your back is covered by My Life,
And you will all blood brothers be to one another on this sea of strife.

I am the Truth.
The truth established long before the breath of life was mankind’s tool.
Rock-solid, stationery still, though winds of change blow good and ill.

I am LOVE
If you will cast your lot with Me I’ll surf with you on curling sea.
We’ll ride upon the tides of life on boards of love.  You’ll be My wife.  
I’ll cherish you beyond whatever you could dream or e’en consider.
Trust Me.  That’s where it begins.  You get to know Me and life spins
In exponential, ceaselessly expanding spirals of liberty.

COME.
chainedwhore Nov 2014
I hate when the holidays are here....
I wish you were sround since ur someone I hold dear!

I lope ur day tomorrow will be spent well...
When a simple  "hi " from u would make my day....
But who am I kidding ?
This isn't a wishing well!!!
It doesn't sound right but I don't care ! It's how I feel!
Después de Azul... después de Los Raros, voces insinuantes, buena y mala intención, entusiasmo sonoro y envidia
subterránea -todo bella cosecha-, solicitaron lo que, en conciencia, no he creído fructuoso ni oportuno: un manifiesto.Ni fructuoso ni oportuno:a) Por la absoluta falta de elevación mental de la mayoría pensante de nuestro continente, en la cual impera el universal personaje
clasificado por Remy de Gourmont con el nombre de Celui-qui-ne-comprend-pas. Celui-qui-ne-comprend-pas es, entre nosotros, profesor, académico
correspondiente de la Real Academia Española, periodista, abogado, poeta, rastaquouer.b) Porque la obra colectiva de los nuevos de América es aún vana, estando muchos de los mejores talentos en el limbo de un completo desconocimiento
del mismo Arte a que se consagran. c) Porque proclamando, como proclamo, una estética acrática, la imposición de un modelo o de un código implicaría
una contradicción.Yo no tengo una literatura «mía» -como la ha manifestado una magistral autoridad-para marcar el rumbo de los demás: mi literatura
es mía en mí-; quien siga servilmente mis huellas perderá su tesoro personal y, paje o esclavo, no podrá ocultar sello o librea.
Wágner, a Augusta Holmés, su discípula, dijo un día: «lo primero, no imitar a nadie, y sobre todo, a mí». Gran decir.Yo he dicho, en la misa rosa de mi juventud, mis antífonas, mis secuencias, mis profanas prosas.-Tiempo y menos fatigas de alma y corazón
me han hecho falta para, como un buen monje artífice, hacer mis mayúsculas dignas de cada página del breviario. (A través
de los fuegos divinos de las vidrieras historiadas me río del viento que sopla afuera, del mal que pasa). Tocad, campanas de oro, campanas de
plata, tocad todos los días, llamándome a la fiesta en que brillan los ojos de fuego, y las rosas de las bocas sangran delicias únicas.
Mi órgano es un viejo clavicordio pompadour, al son del cual danzaron sus gavotas alegres abuelos; y el perfume de tu pecho es mi perfume, eterno incensario de carne.
Varona inmortal, flor de mi costilla.Hombres soy.¿Hay en mi sangre alguna gota de sangre de África, o de indio chorotega o nagrandano? Pudiera ser, a despecho de mis manos de marqués;
mas he aquí que veréis en mis versos princesas, reyes, cosas imperiales, visiones de países lejanos o imposibles: ¡qué
queréis!, yo detesto la vida y el tiempo en que me tocó nacer; y a un presidente de República no podré saludarle en el idioma
en que te cantaría a ti, ¡oh Halagabal!, de cuya corte -oro, seda, mármol- me acuerdo en sueños...
(Si hay poesía en nuestra América, ella está en las cosas viejas: en Palenke y Utatlán, en el indio legendario,
y en el inca sensual y fino, y en el gran Moctezuma de la silla de oro. Lo demás es tuyo, demócrata Walt Whitman).Buenos Aires; Cosmópolis.¡Y mañana!El abuelo español de barba blanca me señala una serie de retratos ilustres: «Éste, me dice, es el gran don Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra, genio y manco; éste es Lope de Vega; éste, Garcilaso; éste, Quintana». Yo le pregunto por el noble Gracián, por
Teresa la Santa, por el bravo Góngora y el más fuerte de todos, don Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas. Después exclamo: ¡Shakespeare!
¡Dante! ¡Hugo...! (Y en mi interior: ¡Verlaine...!)Luego, al despedirme: «Abuelo, preciso es decíroslo; mi esposa es de mi tierra; mi querida, de París».¿Y la cuestión métrica? ¿Y el ritmo?Como cada palabra tiene un alma, hay en cada verso, además de la armonía verbal, una melodía ideal. La música es
sólo de la idea, muchas veces.La gritería de trescientas ocas no te impedirá, silvano, tocar tu encantadora flauta, con tal de que tu amigo el ruiseñor
esté contento de tu melodía. Cuando él no esté para escucharte, cierra los ojos y toca para los habitantes de tu reino
interior. ¡Oh pueblo de desnudas ninfas, de rosadas reinas, de amorosas diosas!Cae a tus pies una rosa, otra rosa, otra rosa, ¡Y besos!Y la primera ley, creador: crear. Bufe el eunuco. Cuando una musa te dé un hijo, queden las otras ocho encinta.
A yellow dog lies
in a yellow field.

Thinking of greener days,
legs twitching in canine dreaming.

Of fresh water, and tasty kibble,
a special stick thrown by its master.

Rusted stripe down his back,
a flag of sorts, dogged wisdom.

Ten years old, he still has some spry,
a spring in his lope, a point yet to fang.

Eyeteeth seeing all, pink nose knowing
the smells of this field.

Where the rabbits burrow,
where the squirrel makes it home.

The far off lament of distant freight trains running.

A yellow dog sleeps in a yellow field,
a small white cross marking his bed.

He will run forever in yellow fields,
Running, and dancing amongst the golden stalks.
Where the rabbits burrow,
where the squirrel makes it home.

The far off lament of distant freight trains running.
Helen Nov 2013
Big Mistake* can even barely describe how I let you goad me into coming back to your hovel and how you had to clear a path to your bedroom door all the while giving me such a goofy grin. Unfortunately (for me) your flat mate was passed out naked on the sofa with an empty long neck between their legs, snoring a sonata that would have made Frank Sinatra proud, I don't know how to describe the incredible feelings of vile that I experienced. Where do I begin?

I was so pleased to see the mattress on the floor in the corner of your bedroom that I just literally wet myself (don't mistake that for desire) and as you gently lowered me to the floor (honestly, who lives without bed frames) and I felt something crawl across my foot I fervently wished that we were higher. The drugs I took in the club are starting to wear off and I'm even more exacting sober (I wish I hadn't tucked into my handbag an extra pair of ******* and packed some antibacterial wash to take away what would be left over)

"Wait" I cried as your arms seemed to grow 3 extra hands and you tried so hard to get me even more naked than the day I was born. "Protection? Do you have it" and as you looked at me like I was an alien and an extra head I had just spawned, you went out the door on a prophylactic journey that I was sure (looking at your house mate) would last almost till the dawn.

I took the time to glance though your extensive collection of ******* that you didn't seem to feel that you needed to hide and took a chance of learning a thing or two, that you may like, and stacked them in a neat pile to the side. The sheets that floated on your love bed were just a little to crusty for my taste. I don't really want to lay on top of every other lover that you've had in the last year and quickly removed them with some haste (the mattress underneath was another matter) by then I'm starting to think that we should move to the couch and invite naked Mr Longneck to the party just so I don't have to lay down on something so crusty that at the slightest touch would probably shatter.

sigh I'm here now I say to myself 'Take a bow, you've certainly outdone yourself by raising the stakes so high that even a snake crawling on their belly couldn't miss' so I try to make the most of it and remove my shirt (leaving the bra... it's an imagination thing) and try to arrange myself seductively on my coat I laid on the mattress and await for the first heated kiss

You loom in the doorway with a smile that promises that the hunt was a success and lope towards me with a gait of a predator that is ready to eat a succulent meal that your not prepared to undress. One hand reaches out to skim the lace of my bra as your eyes scoot toward the organized pile of magazines in the corner and you spy Miss July on top from afar and in an instant in between a muted groan and a world that is rocked and only occupied by you alone, with just a ***** and one peep I'm left gobsmacked and your fast asleep!

Yes, I left a phone number,
No, it wasn't mine.
Please by all means, use it but try not to tie up LifeLine!
Jan 22
Elizabeth Hynes Apr 2015
Buds bursting, coloured pale
Birds tending twigs to nests
Lambs fall about and flail
Farmers try to look their best

Market time has come again
The people weave and wind
Stuffed stalls and scrbbling pen
Church bells start to chime

Children hold their parents' hands
Puppies start to whine
Instinct says to lope the land
But only if tis thine

Steaming pits of people coil
Grey morning sunlight
Puddles iridescent with oil
Blasted seagulls fight.

The rain will come, human fingers
Will grasp at crisp packets
Cigarrette but stench lingers
Still the seagus make a racket.

For love they sell pretty flowers
For death condolence cards
The merchant will use his powers
Decorum lies in splintered shards.

So feast and sneeze as seasons
Change and placate your winter
Hunger, swallow reasons
Lest in your palm they splinter.
The Black Beast Aug 2013
If
If you can’t trust your foremost-born son
But think of him as if he doesn’t care
If you can’t see the damage, been done
And carry on as if it’s yours to bear
If you can’t see the truth laid before you
But see the story filled with lies
And think that all the pain is for you
And think that you’re the one that cries

If you can’t see the innocent parties
Before you push away all hope
Before you chew them down – like smarties
Then leave and slowly start to lope
If you can’t see the fear you produce
In those that want and need you near
If you can’t hear the silence let loose
Nor see the dry and shriveled tear

If you can’t stop and change the angle
If you can’t see another’s side
If you can’t let your mind untangle
And push your twisted thoughts aside
If you can’t see a loyal person
If you can’t feel the prayers and blessings
Then that is why it will always worsen
As blindness will stop your life progressing

If you can’t see a family, loyal
If you can’t see someone to trust
None of us are godlike – royal
But we are all still faithful, just
If you can’t feel the help we offer

And realise what you truly had
You’ll lose it all to the garden coffer
Except the love I have for you, dad
Schizophrenia has finally taken him away and all we can do is hope that he sees the love
Cody Edwards Feb 2010
They wear white shirts that lope into the village square
And hate the dust that settles there.

Their children leave the schoolhouse with schoolmaster's nod
To see the traveling works of odd.

With cries and drums and fire held in open hands,
Four insects bless the godless lands.

Yes, every song on every face is writ on steel,
Cemented by the thunder's peal.

Toward the night the fires burned away the spell,
Yet still the truth did four men tell.
© Cody Edwards 2010
I woke up in every way
That magic bus was fading away
I here these words
Echoing in my head
Here the "Who" singing at whitehall stead
      
           I don't wanna . . .
           I don't wanna . . .
           Live to be sixty-four

This time last year I was sixty-two
Know what I had to go and do
Went down to Social Security
Signed up to collect
Before I was sixty-three

           I don't wanna
           I don't wanna
           Hey !
           Live to be sixty-four

I began writing then I learned to drive
Developed skills to stay alive
Drove trucks with big round wheels
For the longest time it gave me thrills

           I don't wanna . . .
           I don't wanna . . .
           Kiss my *** !
           Live to be sixty-four

When I was young I had my *****
Heard recently she's not around anymore
I shed a tear when I think of her
Sometimes I think I'm the one that's cursed

           I don't wanna . . .
           I don't wanna . . .
           Hey !
           Live to be sixty-four

When I was young I lived so fast
Go out Friday and wake up Tuesday
With an unknown lass
Pills and *** and whiskey shots
Had every up and down , I could not stop

            I don't wanna . . .
            I don't wanna . . .
            Live to be sixty-four

I used to run with the antelope
It's all I can do now just to lope
I had a big car that went so fast
Now I can't afford to buy it's gas

             I don't wanna
             I don't wanna
             ******!
             Live to be sixty-four

I always thought I'd die real young
With the words on my lips
To my favorite song
Where are my old friends
None are here
Now I'm alone living in the yesteryear

              I don't wanna . . .
              I don't wanna . . .
              Live to be sixty-four

              tick tick tick

              I don't wanna . . .
              I don't wanna . . .
              Live to be sixty-four

              tick tick tick

              I don't wanna . . .
              I don't wanna . . .
              Hey !
              Live to be sixty-four
sabrina Mar 2014
i miss your funny walk, which i'm sorry for always making fun of because it's perfect, actually. it's more of a lope and you're perfect.
PK Wakefield Dec 2011
some harts through forests dappled lope
gentlest
keen feet
rumple leaves
scatter
or trees unspeaking sing
with the fat incurable
lust of sharp
lovers sore
                             hands
fingers
            nuzzled
                          against

the fair muscles of arched
backs wriggling muscles
so sudored magic muscles
viscously
o'er
the pretty spines of
roots
splendor
splits and

out bursting
harts
through loping forests
lovers sorely
hurt with crisp intricate eyes
looking
lean raw eyes
wide into omnipotent pain
Brent Kincaid Sep 2015
Here’s my question:
Don’t daughters lope their mules?
However non-existent
They too surely must bend the rules.
Surely it’s not only guys
Who secretly, daily slap their laps.
If so, would you bluenoses
Quickly and firmly shut your yaps?

There are so many things
Boys are not supposed to ever do
Like farting and belching
And all kinds of gods to apologize to.
We have to fold napkins
And keep our elbows off the table.
The list seems to grow.
I’m not sure I will ever really be able.

Adhering to what it takes
In life to keep myself perfectly decent
Seems to involve rules
Both ancient, ecclesiastical and recent.
I must put the lid down
Because, it seems, women can’t do it.
Hold the door open for them
Because, alone, they can’t go through it.

Give your seat up on a bus
Because even if they are younger than I
Women are the weaker ***
And I must be much stronger, I’m a guy.
And there literally hundreds
Of words I can’t say and shouldn’t think.
Now if only the women of the world
Would outlaw me getting near the kitchen sink.
Bien puedo yo pintar una hermosura,
y de otras cinco retratar a Elena,
pues a Filis también, siendo morena,
ángel Lope llamó de nieve pura.
Bien puedo yo fingir una escultura,
que disculpe mi amor, y en dulce vena
convertir a Filene en Filomena
brillando claros en la sombra escura.
Mas puede ser que algún letor extrañe
estas musas de Amor hiperboleas,
y viéndola después se desengañe.
Pues si ha de hallar algunas partes feas,
Juana, no quiera Dios que a nadie engañe,
basta que para mí tan linda seas.
Lappel du vide Dec 2013
there is something charming seeing his off-kilter lope, down the sidewalks and through the rain. there’s something about his neck. I could recognize it almost anywhere. Something about his mouth, how he forms his words. It’s like a bird at the edge of flight.
a half smile in the sunshine,
eyes as bright as my empty grandmothers vase,
they tear my skin and look inside me,
assure me that I’m not too insane.
I know when I think too much when I’m around myself too often
I start to lose touch with that idea of
reality
that is so monopolized by the needy self-indulged ants,
sitting by the heart of the womb of their comforts coffins.
these people are flighty. They aren’t risky, they’re just flighty. And I need someone who’s not see through,
he’s quite tangible.
is that why I long to feel him constantly,
his skin pulsing softly against my fingertips
the slightest curvature of his very being, I would like to kiss until I am solidity in myself as well
I almost need him
though I don’t want to admit.
when I can be held like that,
Its like something is keeping me from completely losing my head
I know I am not infinite
I know that I could be swept off
like a candle in the wind
at any moment. No we are not boundless. We are very limited, very flawed.
all we have is the moments we’re living, and we’re stuck with an idea for the future. We’re never happy, the grass is greener on the other side, true enough,
but theres something wrong with not seeing life as it is in the moment,
when you’re trying to write a story about it to look back upon in the future.
what if there is no future to sit and look back upon?
whats the other side?
we only have our past for granted, the present a promise, and the future a lie,
because we are not infinite, no, but
He makes me stupid,
He makes me feel like im forever.
1.

Sasquatch stalks
the Washington woods.
I lope through low-lying
bushes in search of huckleberries.
The purple-reddish stains on my fingers
are as real
as the grumbling in my stomach,
or the solidity of these mighty pines.
The “small rain” begins to seep
through the atmosphere.
It will not wash away my stains.

2.

I do not believe in Big Foot.
He towers, an outsized legend of the forest.
A Nessie of the woodlands.
A mythical creature created
to satisfy our impoverished imagination,
atrophied by the ever-encroaching
artifice and sterility of the human world.

3.

Soon, the mist turns to big rain.
Clouds blot out the sky.
Dusk turns to night, hours early.
Thoroughly soaked, I
will seek shelter alone.

4.

Mountain folk recite encounters
with Big Foot like happy-to-be-frightened
children around a campfire.
The scariest tale is always the next to come.
Twigs snap, branches break, pine cones are crushed.
We all listen, acutely alert.

5.

Gorged on huckleberries, I will sleep tonight
beneath the pines, solitary,
curling up safely in the contours
of a giant footprint.
I can hear the leaves hit the forest floor.
Dare I dream of conversion?
Dare I dream of belief?
Sive Myeki Jul 2016
For four timeless seconds,
The skies were eyes and his were mine to bode.
A cold and bold stare beckons
A stranger unravelling the gravel road.

We meet; he greets and halts the shuffle
Of his feet. Pairs my glare
When I take his hand as we stifle
The fear from one another with care.

"Because of my lode I shall lighten
The load you carry without cause.
My eyes belong to you my brethren
Like a trespassing truth troubling stumbling paws."

Bitten by hunger, the vulture's eyes steady the path of the wild dog.
"I have seen your herd
Prancing through the fog
Dancing like a headless bird

Through the pass afore the lean,
Past the crest of sacred grounds
Steering where your soles have been.
The graze astray from barking hounds."

And there goes my hope
In tatters and ragged apparel.
Effortless and careless he paces his lope
As though the path he crumbles was a familiar carol.
Shemika C Apr 2016
She wants to be loved
Held tight with no hopes of never letting go
Inhaling your succulent smell, while nibbling on the lope of your ear
She listens as your breathing becomes heavy
She knows you want to feel her inner goddess, but that is not what she's yearning for!
She wants to be loved!
Can you be her best friend?
When times get rough will you be their to hold her tight?
To be the first and last person you think of, and to promise to always protect her.
Showing the world and expressing your feelings with no guilt in your heart is what she really wants!
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
In Cities in Flight
transformations are chronicled over generations.
It can make us cry
out for the genius occurring
now and in our past. How
the unseen, unknown participant
was made known to himself
through devotion to those outside himself. He
guides his city
into space.

So, the father and the teacher
guide the family and the student
through the close spaces of knowledge
and obligation. And perform
the history that surrounds them.
Good actors and directors,
philosophers and physicists,
soldiers and foresters.

Today
steam rose from the asphalt
because the sun
has arrived in place, powerful, equinoxal
as the human song
that receives it.

Two big deer
       Lope cautiously
             Off the open road.

Two crows
       Fly low
             Above the Oswegatchie.

Frank Bassett
forester since '57
marks a stand of maple and black cherry
for selective cutting. His actions today
will be noted
by another forester, also acting alone,
in the 21st century.

New York City
in a froth of creativity
Pacino and Sheen in Julius Caesar,
Sonny Rollins at Town Hall,
films opening, one
that portrays the flamboyant style
and dedication
of a barrio public school teacher.

You cannot act alone.
You must belong
in your heart
to the flight humanity makes in Spring, north
toward wild flowers
in geese chevrons.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
Abby McMichael Jul 2010
The victims refuse to surrender,
Hiding and ignoring blight.
The canaries do not share their splendor,
Won’t sing their songs, won’t take flight.

Death is imminent; We shall not part
On this dreadful one last day.
As the fallout slowly starts
We fall to knees and begin to pray.

They mar the suns in our broken sky,
Yet, we have not lost all hope.
The end continues to draw nigh,
Toward salvation, we do lope.

But in defeat, we wipe our brows,
As black as night, it beckons, still.
I tear my heart out, useless now, and
Place it, beating, on the sill.
Matt Oct 2014
Lamp post light
Wreathed in their winter breath
Their silver tinged by sodium
Silent pads worn down
By concrete and brick
Laid over old earth
While dormant in sleep it waits
Eyes refracted
The light of late car
Passing

Through city scape in midnight hour
Ghosts of the past
Prowl alleyways
With long slow lope
Hunt under spectral moon
And haunt the sleep of the wolves
Who’ve been tamed
ALK Jan 2013
And so they fall
Straight to the ground
Like droplets of light
They make no sound

So clear and bright
But bred of dark
They hit the spot
And leave their mark

They linger for a time
Dark stains on pavement
Proof
Of my every movement

From here to there
As I lope about
Not hearing a thing
Not even the shouts

The shouts of happiness
The shouts of joy
The shouts of those
Who frolick and enjoy

They who love life
And live it so well
They hold it so dearly
As if under a spell

But not me
Not now
I cannot see
How

Maybe once I did
Maybe I still could
Maybe I even should

But I cannot bring myself
To think such things
Not with this sadness
That makes my ears ring

I can do nothing but sleep
I am forever weary
It makes this life
Seem so dreary

A crushing weight
Like no other
It tires me out
In a matter of hours

And the cloud returns
And my mind grows dark
While my heart yearns
For what I have not got

I can never be happy
With stains like these
Bright lines
That trace the contours of my cheeks

Lines that are made
By those droplets of light
Those crystals of sadness
As dark as night.
Jayanne G Feb 2017
I saw you in a very isolated place
Full of unmerciful grace
Formed as an unusual feeling
That turned out to be familiar meaning


A short bridge of hope
For a long road of lope
It happens all of a sudden
But it never been sullen


Simple greetings and small talks
To never ending chattering and big walks
Words that are always surrounded by fog
Now it was all clouds formed into a blog


We've been through a lot of struggles
Escaped a lot of hassles
And now we're already starting
One year and counting...


**-alien-
Chelsea Chavez Jan 2016
lying
silver lung


a thought (belonging) to darkness


full of violet, red coloured matter


loquacious parenthesis, admitting
of and how         - and redact


ere requisite gibbet


the mute parable of gate
dull eyes strangers a keep
strange of          of


the truly meaningless word


lathe,


there is a way to remove the clothes
with      out


silence of months


cruor of origins


belongings,
her winter hymn


gullet of marble


crop poached and gilt
in hematic bath of       of


the ashamed hum of wrongness


it is not interesting
carving yourself with a knife


the contents come out slowly
bruised-cask of ocher


her     of       she


lain out under stars
strewn in the lope of distress


a hind
untold



*last night, a body wandered off

showered in woolen eyes
not knowing how to love
Kaitlin Evers Feb 2018
Standing on a ledge in a summer's night air
Wishes shimmer across a dark lake
Light as a wisp of air
Dreaming yet still awake
At a time when I believed in hope
Lost dreams that still overcome me, when I am all alone
Back to this moment, I wish I could lope
Wrapped amid
The warm night air
When I was just a kid

— The End —