Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Jude kyrie Dec 2018
Neither one of them knew when the rivalry began.
It was certainly in their infancy.
Rachel Huntington was twenty
a star scholar at Oxford university.
Matthew fotheringham was the same age
also a star scholar  
They excelled in the study of English literature
having read all of the aincent and modern classics in high school.
It was known that saint Hilda's college at Oxford
regarded Rachel as  the most  gifted student
they had seen for years.
In his group the same was said for Matthew.

They shared the same advanced literature class
and the tension between then was palatable.
She would put forward a proposition
on Shakespeare repeated usage of
Iambic pentameter.
And Matthew would destroy her concept
with a detailed analysis of his works.

Have you been  cribbing with Cole's notes
he would add in disdain.
Rebecca hated him
calling him insufferably conceited and a total buffoon.

He once went to her dorm
to pick up an ancient script
she had borrowed from the library , the only copy.
He phoned from the hall
shall I come up to your room
And pick it up.
Rachel shouted No!
I will bring it down to you.
You are never to come up to my dorm.
It's not that I wouldn't allow a man up here
But if anyone were to see you leaving
and got the wrong idea.
I don't want them to think I have no taste
and low standards in boyfriends.
And that's how it went on.

Then the literature guilds competition had been announced
Scholars from all over Europe
were to present their essays of no less than 25 thousand words and the winner would receive 25 thousand guineas
but more importantly that opened the door
to the chairs of literature all through the continent.

The rivalry escalation was at fever pitch.
Matthew worked  75. Hour weeks on his essay
Rachelle kept up with him never wasting a single moment.
The class bookmaker has had narrow odds on the winner it one of these two.

They went to the presentation hall
and entered the book sized essays
sealed in manilla envelopes
Rachel quipped,you don't have a chance,
you couldn't copy mine.
Matthew said,
I hope they don't use the new plagiarism software
you have probably stole yours from the internet.
I already have made plans for my winnings he bragged.
What a good plated pocket protector
and  a girl friend you just add air too.
Matthew was hurt
Particularly at the insult
that he had a blow up plastic girlfriend.
He remembered humor was the best defence
it showed they could not hurt you.
I only bought her for driving
on the diamond lanes on the highway.
Anyhoo nothing happened between us
until that last night of term
When we drank too much wine.
Rachel walked off in disgust
As he yelled so all could here
She's better in bed than you will ever be .

It was two weeks to the announcement of the contest winners.
No use worrying about it Matthew said
He went for a long evening stroll by the river.
As he turned on the river bend he saw Rachel
She was crying say beneath a huge willow tree.

For once he did not have a smart quip or an insult.
He walked to her and sat down next to her.
Why are you weeping ? Rachel he asked gently.
She had never ever heard his voice so soft.
My father died last night. She sobbed.
It occurred to Matthew he knew nothing of her life.
I am so sorry what happened
He was the clergyman at Saint Monica's Anglican Church
He had cancer and never let me know.
It had taken all his savings to get me through Oxford.
And he did not want me to lose focus.
Then she wept freely
Matthew held her close to him she wept on his his shoulder
His fingers gently touched her reddish auburn hair.
It was soft she smelt of lavender soap it was nice.
I ...I have to go to Stow  on the wold, tomorrow for the funeral.
I shall take you there
Do you have a car she asked.
Yes I have a twenty year old MG convertible.
My dad bought me when I got into Oxford.
It was arranged he picked her up
and off to the funeral they went .

He never felt as comfortable
or comforting in all his life.
He was seeing her in a new light
after all the stupid years.
They arrived at the old vicarage
Mrs Evans the housekeeper hugged them both
It's about time you got your pretty nose
out of those old dusty books
And got yourself a boyfriend.
The weird part was neither one of them
corrected Mrs Evans.

The funeral took place
And they set back along the old country roads to the university.
They talked about literature art poets and writers.
Then the old engine conked out.
Miles from anywhere
You need to go get petrol she said.

But there's no station between here and Oxford said Michael.
The phone signal was not reaching them.
We have to sleep in the car for the night.
Rachel said as long as you don't get any ideas.
You are not my type.

He was going to tell her she was his type
but said nothing.
It was freezing in the night Rachel was shivering
He took off his coat and jacket
and put them over her in the back seat
As he shivered frozen in the front seat.

In the early morning they woke up
She stepped out of the car and stretched
Matthew was on one knee in front of her
What are doing she asked?
What does it look like I am doing ?
I am proposing that you become my wife.
Never! never! never !
After all the insults you have laid upon me.
Well I'm I'm sorry he whispered.
Not good enough she shouted.

Do you have the guts to make a bet with me Matthew asked.?
Her reddish hair answered the challenge
Just try me.
OK if I win the award you will become my wife.
If I win then you get lost and marry the blow up lady.she countered.
Well the challenge was a tough one
If she did not accept it it was saying he was smarter than her and she knew it.
If she accepted it was the opposite.
OK you have a deal.

A week later Matthew was working in the library
The prize winners are being posted on the notice board.
He felt a gasp in his chest
As he reached the crowd of students he saw Rachel
She even had a trace of makeup on she was now
Getting to look beautiful to him.
Good luck rachel he whispered I hope you win.
She knew he meant it but she remembered the wager.
She said softly I hope it's you that wins Mathew.
A young woman rushed out of the crowd
Rachelle you won you won.
Mathews heart sank
Congratulations Rachel I am so happy for you.
She felt a tear selling in her eye
Mathew where are you going she said.
You told me to go And marry my send away lady
that you just add air to.
If I lost the bet and you won Rachel.
And her heart sank in her chest.

Then the young woman saw him
Matthew congratulations you won.
She showed him a copy of the winners notice.
It had a note
In all the years of the competition we have never had two such magnificent essays
The adjudicator's were unable to mark one better than the other
We have shared the prize to two winners for the very first time.
Rachel held Mathew close and kissed him fully and hard.
Not caring who was watching.
He kissed her back
The crowd were astonished
their feud was legendary at Oxford.


Two years later.

Matthew strolled in the park with the twins
and his beloved wife Rachel.
She had married him
a week after the award ceremony at Oxford.
It was said in the coffee room that the university
had never had two professors
as much in love as them
they were now both  teaching in the English department
and we're already in competition for their tenure.
But they never spent a moment appart.

He picked up the twins
and shouted his love for Rachel
on the top of his voice.
The evening breeze picked up the perfume
of the fallen leaves.
Rachel smiled at him
and whispered softly
I love you too dearest.

She felt him slip into that private room in her heart
that she always saved for her soulmate
As he entered the room holding their two babies.
She locked the door behind him
with the only key that existed.
And then she threw it
into the dense woodlands of Oxfordshire
Never to found again.
Opposites yet so alike .
The best kind of connection.
Jude
Peter Pan said Wendy -
There's something I want to tell you.
I am neither straight nor bent
But what you might call bendy

Captain Hook stopped reading his e-book and eavesdropped more intently.

Peter knew what his flexible friend meant and spoke to her quite innocently.

Wendy - I am as vanilla as Manilla envelopes in a creamery with whitewashed walls
And identical twin albino Godzillas fighting snow leopards with cue *****.

No gimp suit in fifty shades of grey for me.

I am pretty much hormone-free,
More than happy with asexuality,
Playing pirated computer games on one hand
And others' loves that dare not speak their names which fewer understand.

In my world of dreamery certain flights of fancy pass me by.

I love to fly and you Wendy.

And I love you too Peter - Not Everygirl's Ideal of A Real Man.
But I can understand the attraction of Lost Boys and their toys in Neverland.

We've known each other for all these years,
Shared too many troubles, thoughts and fears
To be anything other than in each other's hearts.

If I never visit Neverland again
I know you will always be my closest friend,
What, where, whenever happens
To the bittersweet end.

May we both be dying for an Excellent Adventure,
If not together then separately.

There is nothing better than to know
That you will always be there for me
No matter how we might grow
Into this 21st century.

And one day I may straighten out
But
That's
Not
What
Life's
About.

Captain Hook put down his e-book and Facebooked a friend...............

And that is where our story will end.
Martin Narrod Apr 2014
Wicked nether-land. Nether world, white, askance. Capitulating mangroves, verdant trees spliced with hyperbole, onomatopoeia, and manilla envelopes; her world is stuffed with secrets, she listens to gorillas cracking mussels a kilometer away, near a rill. Never she thought. Nothing that could provide....providence. Mangled heliographs  sprayed all over the everywhereworld.

"Don't be S.A.F.E.," she whispered. A bouquet of gorse, cistus, and pimpernels squished in her small fingers. She climbed her way through the pedimented stairway, then collapsing on the porch. Legs spent, and spread out upon the desiccate grayed four by four planks of the portico.

And as time elapses, the shuttering shake of the hemlock, which writhes through her skinny nimble dactyls, upwards straining the heart as its toxic bends appendages- crisp cerise lumens bend on the Titanium White walls, where only shadows bend time. The hour, still nine. Every adornment, furnished with red and its hues. Not purple, periwinkle, or any masked enhancement.

These are the symbols that reticulate splines, that curve temperatures, perverse hemispheres and debunk worlds. Upped antes, verbs that terns flirt worth, birth words. Ooh. Aah. Camera. The forest wraps her in its verdant pasture, where at last the moribund tamarisks disperse.

While at the plateau she is quiet and longing. Arms astride, dangling. Vaunt with highs and bliss- a kiss of withstanding pleasure serves her the cure for a lifetime of whining. This, yesterday where her body rattled through crooked vines. Square ships toasting her vocal melancholy in the sweet-waters of Time. So that all of her ripened limbs could grow, no more sheepishly than the magic she knew as a child. Stress free. First among the Earth-words, verbed-up and made jealous by pronouns that encompassed her joy-brimming hide. Closing down her voice and hugging her from behind.
Matalie Niller Sep 2012
it's so rainy
drippity drip
drop
like it's time to read a book
all day
in a day
and drink hot chocolate
and bake warm cookies
getting fat and lathargic
because what else is there to do
when everything is so perfect?
Noah Vanderwerf Jul 2022
A seventy year old woman is waiting at her physician's office in a hospital gown. Her name is called by a secretary, and she calmly gets up to walk to the desk. She is told that her doctor is waiting to speak with her in his office, where he has the clothes she arrived in.

After some time, she exits the office in her dress, shawl, and shoes. She is clutching a manilla envelope. She is wide-eyed, calm, and content. Her face glistens with the fresh residue of tears.

The woman's granddaughter is waiting in her sedan, parked in an adjacent parking structure. She is listening to music on the radio. The woman shuffles to the passenger seat door and enters the car. The granddaughter instinctively starts the car and begins backing out of the parking space. As they're leaving the parking structure, the granddaughter notices the manilla envelope held by the woman. She stares at it, missing her signal to turn onto the road. She ***** her head back forward, and her lip quivers before gradually morphing to a smile. She turns off the radio before continuing their trip home.

The woman enjoys many nights with her relatives and friends, hosting dinner parties and being treated to recreational outings.

When the woman meets friendly acquaintances or loved ones in public, they always deliberately congratulate her before swiftly and gracefully continuing their conversation as normal.

One month after the previous doctor's visit, the woman is awakened by breakfast in bed, prepared by her daughter and granddaughter who are both doing their best to contain their beaming excitement.

"These deviled eggs are wonderful. I knew you would share the skills I taught your mother."

The woman's daughter asks her if she'd like some privacy.

"Oh, no. The more the merrier! I almost couldn't sleep with how much I wondered who would be standing in my kitchen right now. Feel free to let them in, just one at a time at first if you wouldn't mind."

The woman's daughter exhaled in delightful affirmation, and obliged. The daughter and granddaughter left the woman's bedroom.

A tall man named Harvey with white hair, a scully cap,  and glasses put down a mimosa that he was nursing onto the kitchen counter. He smirks when he notices the woman's daughter nodding loudly as she walks towards the crowd. Harvey turns to the rest of the small, tight-knit crowd who are enjoying each other's company in the kitchen. He pardons his interruption, asking if they mind that he go first. Empathetically, everyone in the room encourages him to proceed.

Harvey enters the woman's room.

"Oh my lord! I wish I'd finished that script!"

Harvey chuckles at the woman's remark, bending over to hug her in her bed. The woman gleefully reciprocates, with a grape still bouncing around her mouth.

"You know, I give you full permission here on out to use or adapt anything in my vault. Consider it my retirement gift. If you need to talk to any of the new people to get the rights, just call Diane about it first. She'll straighten it all out."

Harvey praises the woman's work, saying he couldn't do any of it justice. He thanks her for the gesture, but says it won't be necessary. They spend almost fifteen minutes reminiscing with one another.

He asks her how she's feeling.

"Great, actually. Now that I've had more time to process all my feelings recently, especially with everyone else, I feel more dignified. I feel ready for what's to come. I'm surprised we're one of the few cultures of this world that do this. I always knew that this is how we meant it to be, but I was still scared of the future and didn't quite trust the process. Now I'm confident since I've felt that the process is itself trusting me. Does that make any sense?"

Harvey thinks it does. He asks if the woman would like to speak to some of the others, and she agrees.

Over the course of ninety minutes, a hearty handful of relatives and close friends visit the woman in her room in small groups, thanking her for everything they've given them and receiving her own loving compliments in response.

After everyone's spoken to her individually, they all excitedly rendezvous in the kitchen with a pastor. The last of a charcuterie board is picked at by the younger attendees while the daughter speaks to the pastor, who arrived within the past half hour. The daughter is nervously trying to clarify procedural details with the pastor, but the pastor replies speedily and in a reassuring tone.

All the visitors file back into the woman's bedroom, lining the perimeter and encircling her bed. The pastor proudly strides to the center of the room, facing the woman who is practically glowing with honor.

The pastor introduces himself out of formality to the room, but with an infectious sense of levity in acknowledgement that everyone's already acquainted with him. He thanks the woman for electing him to be the officiant of this traditional meeting. He joyously espouses a soliloquy of his personal admirations for the woman, recounting their bonding memories. He acknowledges the mutual love in the room, recognizing those in attendance.

He reaches a cadence, announcing that everyone is gathered in this room today to deliver a greeting of congratulations-in regards to some landmark information-to the woman.

The pastor looks directly at the woman and calmly says "congratulations, Eve. You're dying."

"I AM?!?!"

Grape juice leaks onto her blouse from the side of her mouth.
Marcus Lane Jan 2010
A shadowy shop with
Shelves that bend and buckle
Under the weight of years.

The dust of  the decade
Lies undisturbed

Volumes lined in motley ranks
Anthologies, albums and almanacks
Heaped in
Precarious stacks.
A few flaking pamphlets.

Dream-like sepia images
Dog-eared and damp
Bulge from mildewed and
Musty manilla.

Some are excited by
The acrid smell
Of old books.

Not sure that I am.

A bargain box or a treasure chest
Who cares.

Festered and forgotten
Between the yellowing pages of
A railway timetable
Lie someone's drawings.

Quite clever.
A little deranged, if you ask me.
Nice colours

But you wouldn't want them on your wall.
© Marcus Lane 2010

Eight etchings by William Blake have been acquired for the nation after the Tate Gallery raised £441,000.The  etchings, depicting the artist and writer's bleak visions, were discovered inside a train timetable at a secondhand book sale. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8451803.stm)
Aidar Omar Apr 2022
If I was a king of Asia I would give you all the gold there is
But I'm not even prince of Persia, all I have is love and dreams
Let me show you land of legends, land of honeymoon and rising sun
I am not as rich as Ali Baba, but I promise we'll be having fun

I'll take you to Bali the gem of Java Sea
Then we'll go on to safari a little south of Abu Dhabi
I'll take you to Maldives to swim in coral reefs
We'll enjoy the sweet papaya on the islands of Pattaya

I'll show you lake Baikal, Tibet and Taj Mahal
We'll see Macao, Yokohama, Hanoi, Jeddah, Jaipur, Jakarta
I'll take you to Dubai, Dushanbe and Mumbai
We'll spend some starry nights in yurts near the city of Yakutsk

I’ll take you to Tashkent where melons got their scent
We will taste all sorts of apples in the city of Almaty
I’ll take you to Beirut we'll go nuts on dried fruits
And the coffee with vanilla we can try it in Manilla

I'll take you to Kashgar to shop at old bazaar
Then we'll fly a magic carpet to the markets of Qatar
We'll see ruins of Karakorum the old capital of Moguls
Then we'll go to Kathmandu and then Karachi and Kabul

We'll discover caves with treasures, make three wishes all at once
All at once will turn to a fairy tale, like in one and thousand nights
Let me show you feast of colors, take you cross the dunes in caravans
Even if I don't look like Alladin, I sure know a thing about romance

I'll take you to Taipei to see its lovely bay
We will sip on Coca Cola on the silky sands of Goa
I'll take you to Shanghai where towers touch the sky
And the best of architecture we will see in precious Petra

We'll go to Ashgabat, Bishkek, Busan, Baghdad
We will see Great Wall of China and Cambodian Angkor Wat
We'll see the Everest, mount Fuji, Gobi Desert
And it's certainly my pleasure to take you all around Asia!
This is lyrics to my latest single "Song of Asia" (check out on Spotify or Apple Music)
scully Oct 2015
its taken me too long to unstitch my hands and free every thought you shuffled and stuck inside of my head

one. i think you lost me somewhere between wanting to cross miles to get to me and forgetting i exist because at some moments it feels like you worked overtime to fix the abandon architectural artwork inside of me like i was community service

two. after you came and knocked down trees and shifted the tides, every ounce of clarity was able to mirror
your whimsical efforts of drowning me out with pretty girl phrases and only calling me when you were too high to choke out my name

three. i had something inside of me that was kept under glass and i let you behind closed doors and watched you destroy it
i let you build me up with toy blocks just how you wanted me, and i let you lose interest when you decided it was more fun to knock me down and listen to the noise i made when i hit the concrete

four. the Worlds Most Fragile museum was being catered to in the holes in my chest and if i was an armoire and you opened me up your name in red pen ink would spill out of me over thousands of artifacts and priceless memories that you've bubbled over and consumed

five. even as i write this, you'd think i would find a home in an elementary classroom by the way i can barely remember how to speak
and ive got no doubt that you went out with your usual bang
and when you left you took a goodbye that never quite delivered and all of my words with you

six. my grandmother told me insects sing, for months, the same song in hopes that they will attract a mate with their repetitive soliloquies and maybe that's my hope when i tell you i love you even when you hurt me, hope that maybe one day you will pick up the phone and echo my ache with a clear, sober melody that sounds like home.

im sure the insects will find someone who enjoys their neurotic patterns and im sure i will sleep alone in an uncomfortable bed only shushing the silence as the mailcart comes by my front lawn and pauses for a second as if it empathizes with the way i stand at the door.

seven. im always waiting for a manilla package addressed to me
containing every night i spent trying to be anxiously clever and overlooking your bad judgement and the flickers across your sentences where you were forcing yourself to care

eight. every night all i receive is the crickets and a reminder that the letters that spell out your name had become my own personal hamartia before i started whispering it in my sleep

nine. ever since we met you've infected my veins like you were a deadly back alley drug and there's something so addicting about wanting to fix someone and figure them out and work for their love

ten.  if you steal my expressions and bury them in your ground and stick a wooden stake through my last words in order to make sure i only resurface when your sobriety is fully compromised, i will, as writers do, create myself a new dictionary

the act of your name will become a verb: forcing time to scrub the inside of every part of me you touched like im a sold off garage sale item and you're trying to expurgate any emotional damage that might have been done to lower my price

the way the bugs echo will become an adjective for when i am too tired to go out and pretend that my feet arent sinking into the floor

the drilled-for-oil glass museum in my heart will become a noun;  the eighth wonder of the world, and i will continue to let people destroy it and piece it back together for the sake of art

the way you left me and the ferocity of how you stole every part of me i showed you will join adverbs and Aristotle's tragedy principles among people who created their own cloudbursts.

the way i wrap everything i've wanted to say to the back of your head as you walk away into a bulletpoint essay will become my new definition for poetry and i will build myself up from the ashes i will create from your destruction, i will sing my own songs and showcase my own museums and mail my own letters and i will **continue.
*******
Jude kyrie Jan 2017
Neither one of them knew when the rivalry began. It was certainly in their infancy.
Rachel Huntington was twenty  a star scholar at Oxford university.
Matthew fotheringham was the same age also a star scholar  
They excelled in the study of English literature having read all of the aincent and modern classics in high school.
It was known that saint Hilda's college at Oxford regarded Rachel as  the most  gifted student they had seen for years.
In his group the same was said for Matthew.
They shared the same advanced literature class and the tension between then was palatable.
She would put forward a proposition on Shakespeare repeated usage of
Iambic pentameter.
And Matthew would destroy her concept with a detailed analysis of his works
Have you been  cribbing with Cole's notes he would add in disdain.
Rebecca hated him calling him insufferably conceited and a total buffoon.
He once went to her dorm to pick up an ancient script she had borrowed from the library the only copy.
He phoned from the hall shall I come up to your room
And pick it up.
Rachel shouted No!
I will bring it down to you.
You are never to come up to my dorm.
It's not that I wouldn't allow a man up here
But if anyone were to see you leaving and got the wrong idea.
I don't want them to think I have no taste and low standards in boyfriends.
And that's how it went on.

Then the literature guilds competition had been announced
Schoolers from all over Europe were to present their essays of no less than 25 thousand words and the winner would receive 25 thousand guineas but more importantly that opened the door to the chairs of literature all through the continent.

The rivalry escalation was at fever pitch.
Matthew worked  75. Hour weeks on his essay
Rachelle kept up with him never wasting a single moment.
The class bookmaker has had narrow odds on the winner it one of these two.

They went to the presentation hall and entered the book sized essays sealed in manilla envelopes
Rachel quipped you don't have a chance you couldn't copy mine.
Matthew said I hope they don't use the new plagiarism software you have probably stole yours from the internet.
I already have made plans for my winnings he bragged.
What a good plated pocket protector and  a girl friend you just add air too.
Matthew was hurt
Particularly at the insult that he had a blow up plastic girlfriend.
He remembered humor was the best defence it showed they could not hurt you.
I only bought her for driving on the diamond lanes on the highway.
Anyhoo nothing happened between us until that last night of term
When we drank too much wine.
Rachel walked off in disgust
As he yelled so all could here
She's better in bed than you will ever be .

It was two weeks to the announcement of the contest winners.
No use worrying about it Matthew said
He went for a long evening stroll by the river.
As he turned on the river bend he saw Rachel
She was crying say beneath a huge willow tree.

For once he did not have a smart quip or an insult.
He walked to her and sat down next to her.
Why are you weeping Rachel he asked gently.
She had never ever heard his voice so soft.
My father died last night. She sobbed.
It occurred to Matthew he knew nothing of her life.
I am so sorry what happened
He was the clergyman at Saint Monica's Anglican Church
He had cancer and never let me know.
It had taken all his savings to get me through Oxford.
And he did not want me to lose focus.
Then she wept freely
Mathew held her close to him she wept on his his shoulder
His fingers gentle touched her reddish suborn hair.
It was soft she smelt of lavender soap it was nice.
I ...I have to go to Stowe  on the wold tomorrow for the funeral.
I shall take you there
Do you have a car she asked.
Yes I have a twenty year old MG convertible. My dad bought me when I got into Oxford.
It was arranged he picked her up and off to the funeral they went .
He never felt as comfortable or comforting in all his life.
He was seeing her in a new light after all the stupid years.
They arrived at the old vicarage
Mrs Evans the housekeeper hugged them both
It's about time you got your pretty nose out of those old dusty books
And got yourself a boyfriend.
The weird part was neither one of them corrected Mrs Evans.

The funeral took place
And they set back along the old country roads to the university.
They talked about literature art posts and writers.
Then the old engine conked out.
Miles from anywhere
You need to go get petrol she said.
But there's no station between her and Oxford
The phone signal was not reaching them.
We have to sleep in the car for the night.
Rachel said as long as you don't get any ideas.
You are not my type.
He was going to tell her she was his type but said nothing.
It was freezing in the night Rachel was shivering
He took off his coat and jacket and put them over her in the back seat
As he shivered frozen in the front seat.
In the early morning they woke up
She stepped out of the car and stretched
Matthew was on one knee in front of her
What are doing she asked?
What does it look like I am doing ?
I am proposing that you become my wife.
Never! never! never !
After all the insults you have laid upon me.
Well I'm I'm sorry
Not good enough she shouted.

Do you have the guts to make a get with me Matthew asked.?
Her reddish hair answered the challenge
Just try me.
OK if I  win the award you will become my wife.he said.
If I  win you get lost and marry the blow up lady.she countered.
Well the challenge was a tough one
If she did not accept it it was saying he was smarter than her and she knew it.
If she accepted it was the opposite.
OK you have a deal.

A week later Matthew was working in the library
The prize winners are being posted on the notice board.
He felt a gasp in his chest
As he reached the crowd of students he saw Rachel
She even had a trace of make-up on she was now
Getting to look beautiful to him.
Good luck rachel he whispered I hope you win.
She knew he meant it but she remembered the wager.
She said softly I hope it's you that wins Mathew.
A young woman rushed out of the crowd
Rachelle you won you won.
Mathews heart sank
Congratulations Rachel I am so happy for you.
She felt a tear selling in her eye
Mathew where are you going
You told me to go And marry my send away lady that you just add air too
If I lost the bet you won Rachel.
And her heart sank in her chest.
Then the young woman saw him
Matthew congratulations you won.
She showed him a copy of the winners notice.
It had a note
In all the years of the competition we have never had two such magnificent essays
The adjudicator's were unable to mark one better than the other
We have shared the prize to two winners for the very first time.
Rachel held Mathew code and kissed him fully and hard. Not caring who was watching. He kissed her back
The crowd were astonished their tied was legendary at Oxford.


Two years later.
Matthew strolled in the park with the twins and his beloved wife Rachel.
She had married him a week after the award ceremony at Oxford.
It was said in the coffee room that the university had never had two professors as much in love as them they were now teaching in the English department and we're already in competition for their tenure.
But they never spent a moment appart.

He picked up the twins and shouted his love for Rachel on the top of his voice.
The evening breeze picks up the perfume of the fallen leaves.
Rachel smiled at him and whispered softly I love you too dearest.
She felt him slip into that private room in her heart that she always saved for her soulmate
As he entered the room holding their two babies.
She locked the door behind him with the only key that existed.
And then she threw  it into the dense woodlands of Oxfordshire
Never to found again.
All's well that ends well
Nice play
Shakespeare
Austin Heath Jun 2014
Lukewarm coffee and the cat,
[not my cat, the cat, a cat]
is making the bathroom floor
look cozy.
I haven't had a terrible nightmare or a beautiful dream
in what feels like months, not years, but close.
I have an odd fascination with light bulbs,
sources of light, man-made fountains of brightness.
Not the sun. Rarely the moon.
I don't sleep well.
My father learned about my suicide attempt and thoughts,
because my sister told my mother, and she waved that banner
like a parade float far above my head for everyone to see.
Above his head as a symbol of his failure.
I couldn't pull it down.
Like Snoopy between two large buildings,
it was just inevitable. A matter of time, really.
My past curls up into a ball and waits,
like a cat on vacation from eyes being open.
The eyes open.
We're standing at the kitchen table.
You tell me that it wasn't your fault.
Not directly, of course.
You tell me about my bass teacher,
my ex-girlfriend.
Insinuate I was depressed about these things.
These are the materials to make the cocktail I drank,
full of not bittersweet poisons, but neurotoxins.
You tell me it's not your fault.
Now you don't have to apologize.
You were wrong.
I didn't "discover" these venoms in some fresh cabinet
waiting to be torn down, you, you [expletive],
I grew up next to them,
an IV drip in my jugular,
direct feed to my brain.
[expletive].
[expletive].
I learned how to sincerely love cursing because you wanted
to censor my emotions. I learned to hate myself from you.
I learned how to look at myself as
not enough
because of you. Surely, daddy the great doesn't owe me
an apology, the selfless man who tore us across the country
broke all the way. Surely, if his intentions were noble,
his actions were pure.
Just like Elvis Costello,
your aim was true.
Depression is like trying to find a light in a room
that is full of dark corners.
For a long time, I had no light.
Eyes closed.
I bomb the parades and smile in a hotel window at the chaos
in my mind-world. My other home away from home.
I ask my girlfriend how often someone should think about suicide.
The floats lift higher than the eye should see.
They become a string of dots in an otherwise empty sky.
Amorphous shapes in clear blue water.
Splotches of paint on a manilla canvas.
Something geometric with the fingers,
turned into a sound, then a sample,
then a symphony.
There is no remedy, no cure,
just placebos and snake oils.
Birds chirping.
Silence.
david badgerow Dec 2011
This sentence is
bits and pieces;
empty manilla folder
postage stamp, but no letter;
a phrase would write of paradise.
feeling
will pass
like every other phase
the dancer
the central movement of the torso
the comportment of arms
a leap,
a winged seed.

So
before
the end,
shout down a street
the consonants will moan
at the ultimate release of meaning.
KV Srikanth Jan 2021
Dusk of the decade.
Dynamics alternate.
Collective consciousness
On the threshold of change.
A movement had happened.
It was to stay.
That way.
Assumed wrongly.
Permanancy is chalk.
Duster enough to erase.
Decade of contradictions
Revolution leads to war.
Mirror view image.
Evidence of change..
The Seventies became.
Aurora like a thousand searchlights.
Whipping across the sky.
Pulling out all stops to Kingdom come
To stop the atrocities in Vietnam.
Neil and Buzz.
Aboard the Apollo eleven ,
Small step was humility,
Giant leap for humanity.
Bob and Carl,
At the Post.
Navigated by *******.
Investigate Watergate
All the President's men
Final days for Nixon's reign.
Beat Generation, Flower Power ,hippie movement or Counterculture.
Christened by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
Capsuled the mood in the air.
Ken Kesey and the Grateful Dead
Acid Trips taken on a Bus.
Experimental tour on
Music and drugs.
Civil Rights and Dr King
Another battle about the skin.
Won the Nobel.
Proving everyone is equal.
Wars, Marches ,Protests.
Illustrated in bedrooms.
Live television was the boom
Horrors of War ,seen by all.
Casualties of  War Were in every room.
Rock Music explosion.
Nexus with the counterculture generation.
Talents aligned
Bands formed
Music into existence.
Legends born.
Myths created.
Millions gathered
Traditions established
Parables designed
Life altered
Generations affected.
effect felt , effortlessly.
Captivating? fascinating? entrancing? hypnotic?
Words can't describe.
wasted words .
Demiurges  divinity diminished dramatically.
Drastically devoid.
Haight and Ashbury.
Cradle of Counterculture.
Intersection of both.
Became the Cross
worshipped upon
Beatnik a fish out of water.
Took to the crossing like a fish to water.
Contradiction in words
Unity in Society
Gathered in entirety
For the Summer of love.
Civil rights and Vietnam War.
Gay rights and Nuclear War.
Women Power and Human Sexuality.
Sub Cultures and Anti Authoritarian.
Bohemian and Mind Bending drugs
Ikigai for Millions
I'm the Greatest the world has ever seen.
Heavyweight champion and king of the ring.
Rumble in the jungle
Thrilla in Manilla
Foreman and Frazier
Bout after bout
Showed  the world what Ali was about.
Many are called ,few are chosen .
Scandinavian Teenager
Tennis' first rock star
Grass or Clay
Dominated the play
Resembled Chirist
Bjorn Borg was a delight
Raised by women to conquer men
Jimmy Connors became a legend
Winning titles was a cinch
Played 5 generations and 2 decades without a flinch.
Longevity laudable
Point or Life
The offer he made.
Battle of the sexes
The Great Billie Jean king.
Gave the women's movement a zing
Grasping at the straws,
Bobby Riggs the competitor
Remained a spectator
Astrodome witnessed a milestone
Billie beat Bobby
Three sets to none
Quality questioned
Answer given
Inferior no woman
King remained Queen.

Cinema of the 70 s
Greatest ever made
Censorship boundaries blurred
Artistic expression blossomed
Studio system failed
Television boomed
Auteurs and Polymaths
Actors and Superstars
Collaborated .
Symbiosis enriched
Individual and Team. Delighted Disciples  Demanded  .
Studios responded
Classics  in order
One equal to the other
Talent made them timeless
Quality gave them immortality
Excellence brought Endurance.
Warner Brothers and Warren Beatty.
Bonnie and Clyde .
Canadian Premiere.
Jumping off point.
Films that altered lives.
These films have no death
Proved Montreal as holy as Nazareth.
Fashion was about expression.
Androgynous looks
Reigned supreme.
Wearing Tee Shirts and Levi's Strauss Jeans.
Bold and Daring was the theme
Stand out and Fit in
Principle behind the dressing.
Turtlenecks
Heeled boots,  braided belts , Corduroy pants.
Long collared shirts  leisure suits and flowing scarves.
The 70 s was more about costume than clothing.
Hairstyles and Sunglasses
Unique in itself.
Retro and relevant
Stylish and current
Smart and trending
In and out.
eatmorewords Jan 2013
...will have a bearded left wing protagonist raging on behalf of the proletariat.He'll share a flat with a metaphor for the 21st century malaise

and when they talk

they will talk in the forgotten syntax of washing powder ads from the 50's and construct sentences from toilet graffiti remembered from youth.

Their flat will be infested with insects and disgruntled middle management, grumbling about the lack of vertical opportunities and the implementation of a new computer system.

Filing cabinets will contain stolen secrets of unknown cultures, manilla folders will hold evidence of unsolved ****** cases stretching back a hundred years where the suspects all look uncannily the same.

The theory of a time travelling murderer is considered but never openly discussed.

The fridge contains nothing but under developed ideas and stale rhetoric.

This is a flat with no doors.
Universal Thrum Apr 2014
Waking up feeling as if I were born tired
Missing the on ramp to the free way
lost in the alleys, back tracking

Rebelling against the Universe
I Slap away the open hand
and eschew greener pastures
for a land sewn with salt
I Lick the bitter taste spread across my cracked lips
and dream of loving hot sand
slipping through my fingertips.

I once bottled the wind,
and believed that lightning bugs lasted forever in a jar,
when the luminescence faded,
alone with an empty bottle and a jar,
I popped the tab open to release the wind,
a peacock feather flew from my brim,
away into the unknown.

I stared into the jar
and saw knives piercing hearts
My own heart began to bleed
one hundred barrels of boiling quicksilver
bathed in ache
contaminating my chest

exposed, naked in front of a mirror,
I took off my mask and stared into black shadow holes,
I held out my arms for 11 minutes,
index fingers pointing to Jupiter
raged with a primal yell and saw
the animal inside my face,
alive, quaking red,
a bulging flesh emersion of veins and teeth,
and shiny eyes that see into the night
breaking the bonds that tattoo our souls
Caged birds fly free
set ablaze the brown grass
where I used to lay

Lover, you lie
and the lie you deny becomes truth
because we are animals inside
and we want to feel loved all the time.
Prophecies fruit on the tree planted by forked tongues,
plucked and tasted
sweet,
yet are they hearty enough to fill you for years?

A fortune is left on the table,
there amongst the shattered pieces
of manilla cookie shell
It reads,
"In this destruction, see the meaning"
WIP
Eric L Warner Oct 2016
We sit in a car,
just after dusk has fallen.
It's dark now.
The windows are tinted.
Passersby can't see inside.

A quiet little residential neighborhood
full of Doctors, and Lawyers, and Teachers.
They don't know who their neighbor is.
They don't know what he's done.

Inside the car, a pair of hands grips a pistol.
Like marines, they instinctively keep their forefinger
away from the trigger guard.
There will be no accidents tonight.
There will be no civilians.
Sixteen rounds in his hand.
$30,000 in the house.
That money is owed.

We put our masks on, and wait.
It's below zero, and two guys wearing ski masks isn't
that strange of a sight.
We would thank God for that,
but he's not in this car.
The devil's breath kicks out of the A/C.
It warms up our hands.
The gun remains cold.

Our eyes are fixed on the front porch.
He told us, "If the light comes on, come in hot."
The porch light is our green light, and we stare it down.
It remains off.
He comes out with a small manilla envelope tucked under his arm.
He gets in the backseat.
"Everything is square. We can go now."

It's been five minutes of holding our breath.
We exhale, as the car pulls away from the curb.
I Plead The Fifth.
My Name Here Apr 2014
we were two doves,
beaded on gossamer wires
early windswept sunlight
it cracked our skin
metallic melodies
bathed listening
ears in it’s soulless rapture
a call of illusory progress
lifting above sagging rooftops

sky packaged in brown lace,
and at her feet
glittering blankets white.

although it was the bitter
rinds of a passive love
cellophane days
crackle loud in a static mind

Swim in hot
manilla seas; Where dreams
fail to be a membrane to
protect from waking

we were two doves on a wire
intertwined between dusk and daylight
the weight of the day
settled with a hazy sigh
upon our bones
shadows spreading
like spilled ink bled
from trees.
seminal squirt didst sanctify
   an anonymous boulder
when mercury dipped below
   hashtag mark registering colder

than usual temperatures circa
   winter of year 2000 in proximity
   to the sacred chapel
   at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

   (house zing carillon player)
   rifling thru manilla folder
first inn search of apropos
   mailer daemon ***** muse sic,

   thence finely pitted secretly riddled with holes
   encoded sheet threaded thru bell jar contrivance
   sans, handy dandy mechanical holder
to accompany prurient powerful ******* pang
   bubbling (like the **** kens), and didst smolder

especially, cuz a free ranging
   NON GMO, **** in boots
hello kitty sauntered
   (emanating pheromone heat
   hand dill lee pronouncing feral passe faux foots),

dripping, seething with hormonal secretion
   uttered via vow welled roots
gluten and monosodiumglutinate free *****
   hapt tabby on the prowl ready
   for par laid view ****** piqued Saint Peter

   to enter heavenly labial shoots
rather than suffer frost bite
the above mew wing tigress attempted  
   to keep toasty warm
   ('thru minuscule tunnel

   lacked add **** quit light)
prickly endowment fired
   raging testosterone
   with braggadocio, brio, bravura and might

owing pretentiously pusillanimous feline
   fur reed black as night
hood hit attempt to cap cha moxie *******
   thus ensuing a mutually satisfactory plight

until a park ranger back his utility truck  
   than gregarious, felicitous, erogenous
then quick as greased lightening
   ***** creatures disappeared out ta sight.
jack of spades May 2016
when you click your heels and wish for home, where exactly is it that you go? i packed away all my ambition in manilla envelopes of faded dreams and sent them away to coral reefs so schools of fish a generation after me could learn from my mistakes. start saving for college when you’re six, a year for every digit, because if you want a higher education then you can’t afford the things that make you happy. (maybe that’s why nemo’s dad didn’t want him to go to school.) sew your stories into the patchwork quilt of your backpack slung across your shoulders and never trust someone that you can’t touch with the tips of your eyelashes.

(start wearing mascara so that you can pretend that everyone you love is close enough.)

when you look up at the stars at night, tuck them into your lint-lined backpack pockets and keep the stardust there like secrets. (no one ever keeps secrets.) sprinkle those stars onto your shoes and hope that pixie dust flies you faster than Southwest or Spirit airlines. mailboxes don’t go in reverse, so everything that you’ve sent away doesn’t tend to come right back without being stamped in red. NO ONE LIVES THERE. ADDRESS NOT REAL. SANTA DIED IN THE SECOND GRADE. nemo, go home. nemo, go home.

(cross my heart and hope to die for i have lived a thousand lives each covered by a constellation that dot-dot-dots me right back to the deepest shades of blue. how different are astronomers from oceanographers anyway? we’re all searching for things that everyone else is scared of finding. we’re all searching for things that don’t exist but have to.)

destination: still figuring it out. destination: a desert built from a river that ran out a long time ago, from everyone that ran out a long time ago, a delta of broken dreams peppered with sandcastles of stories that never saw completion. destination: roswell, because i’ve always loved road trips and maybe UFOs will be more comfortable than the backseat of my carolla.

destination: home. maybe these heels will figure out what that means by the time i’ve finished counting: one (home), two (home), three--

(home).
Olivia Kent Nov 2016
All the world's a stage.
Bare planks of balsa wood tossed upon the breeze.
The butterfly twitches wings in Bangkok,
Cruise control Manilla.
South Asia sea rolls.
Butterfly with patterned wings,
Reverts to caterpillar.
A big fat hairy one.
Toking on a fat cigar,
Driving a huge expensive car.
Turns into a juggernaut.
Too large to carry on.
In the corner truck is stuck.
The stage it's fallen now,
But how?
Enter stage left a servant of the living crown present the globe with lots of luck.
Carried in a golden casket.
A world trade deal all linked up, within a worldwide shopping basket.
He grins from ear to ear.
Being positive right now,
As he wipes away world tears.
What a dear he is.
A smiling face.
Despite the fact his stage fell down.
He still smiles without a frown.
(c)LIVVI
a crock behind scot
is disheveled music
thus do The Philippines
in a discordant ritual of précis
entire fabulous Manilla today
a kind of music that is different
Another crack appears shedding a little more light on the wasted years, it's not a pretty sight, but the urge to look overtakes me and suddenly I'm speeding down some dark deserted byways and triggering some memories that I barely recognise.

What caused the crack?
probably
an earthquake in Manilla
which is still a
lovely place,

an inner voice calls out,
it could have been a
tsunami,
I think
probably
but not likely.

I also think that
life's just a refresher course
for the big adventure
to come.
BigT Aug 2020
Rough as manilla hemp
knotted against the wind,
hands rub stubble-ridden
jowls, that gloat.

Grime coated tongue
of whisky and pipe
tobacco, licks away
at fly ridden carcasses
exuding the
stench of death.

A rustle here;
slithering over there,
air rushed through
cornfield nostrils;
coming to get him.
Soft and ripe for
your loathsome
underworld habitat.

You are real
to him; there!
Where? within his
sightless mind,
he senses you stalking.

Thrashes against
piles of earth,
weighted, legs kick
in vain defence.

Hot sweat mats
chestnut hair against
his forehead. It
trickles into his
ear, blood curdling
scream awakes
the dead.

He hears the
voice of reality,
trusting to its
timbre of love.
“It’s ok son, I’m
here, it’s just
another nightmare”
A cool towel
absorbs his fears,
but not mine.

T
2008/6/22
Shaylie Sep 2020
Life was so much more than black and white

It was red yellow grey turquoise manilla

He could love you

And he could *******

But he could still love someone else

— The End —