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Third Eye Candy Jun 2018
The mug stains leapfrog a linoleum asphalt countertop, sunbathing in the breakfast nook.
A magazine proofreads a hole in a bagel. Scanning for clues to the whereabouts
Of a Jewish heart. Beads of Oolong tea archipelago from a resting kettle
All the way to the 'good ' China. A cup on a pearl, laying flat… ear to the ground.
Listening to the stories only Formica can tell. Deciphering the steam
Rising from a steep. Curling whiskers into omens, embroidered upon a shaft of light
Heaven sent. Postage dew. Gilding quaint luxuries, tucked in a cozy roost
Smelling of oak musk and slow roasted dreams, evaporating before memory may lay claim
To the riddles of Morpheus. There’s an aire of Return.  
It molts in the bacon fats hovering in the strata unique to kitchen islands lousy with active volcanoes that shuffle in stocking feet and terry cloth bathrobes. Restless and foggy minded.
Looking for the keys. And...
Chewing a thumbnail. Staring out the window. Where there used to be a car in the driveway. But the officer flagged a taxi. Explains the migraine, like a Vulcan; stoically flipping switches in a fuse box wired to a vague recollection of a soiree.
All the while holding a pitchfork and today's horoscope.
For irony and street cred.

{ But out of cream cheese. }

Concurrently... This part of the house still has the rustic naivete of a celibate beatnik picking teeth with a signature pen presenting an Hawaiian girl with a vanishing skirt; blinking in and out of Vaud-villainy, like Erwin Schrödinger’s Cat. A kind of hole in a barge with an ornate cubby; loitering with sugar cubes and a bendy plastic fern.
Like the foyer to a room, still under construction.
      A busy little metaphor, lounging around the east wing of a humble abode… like news clippings in a mason jar… it’s superfluous handle threading a ceramic eye.
Like a stainless steel joke under a refrigerator magnet, pinned to a plate in your forehead. As any lamp-shade with ambition.  
      Playing to a rough Cloud, hung over an ashtray; that has seen Better Days - envy the baroque occlusion of monotony and routine, merging a hangover - into morning traffic. Replete with modest gains.
And Horizons that stab bleary eyes that would know a gypsy
By the weight of her purse…
     When the day begins, it gains a foothold by the spine of an overdue book, reclining adjacent runcible spoons and antique kitche. As a bathroom light squeaks between a door and a frame.
As ancillary and precise as a beacon for a blindfold.

Like turpentine palming a brick. And Wagner.
Tempests may surround
in the worst of times
a storm to level ships
capsize friend and foe alike
waves that change not just lives
but memory
how tragedy frames our desires
as need, rather than options
as love, rather than responsibility
how the quilt of phoenix feathers
that we oft cover us for slumber
molts as we shed our tears
molts as we age through life
and though times do change
and shadows creep beneath the door frame
still we hear the voice whisper,

"The winds of victory are soon to come."

Memories are trinkets we trade for action
we trade for purpose
we trade for comfort
Efforts spent crafting the perfect memories
catch up to our imaginations over time
Snapshots we thought were sublime
Calamities we shut the door upon
In the kaleidoscope of reality
we can see their colors change
what was treasured becomes tattered with use
what was feared becomes power over abuse
As we build our lives from ashes
no longer need for phoenix feathers
as we shatter walls of illusion
fact from fiction
truth from delusion
we come to hear the voice command,

"The winds of victory are soon to come."

And there is a tumult in the cupboards
under the floorboards
in the rafters
an aching shout of protest
a rapping upon the windows of the soul
a look, in the eyes, of horror
a clinging on to the raft of hope
a desperate jump to the cliff of salvation
a plunging fall into starvation
a rushing flight into the arms of the past
a stepping back from its cold clutches
a fervent climbing of the mast
looking out to the distant horizon
seeing how light is carved from darkness
knowing how you were made this way
and that your limitations
are at the mercy of your love
walking forward, proudly saying,

"The winds of victory are here at last!"

And how the winds whirl about you
as you dance in the curls and twists
walking upon the waves of anguish
waves of guilt, love, and praise,
to know they all complete you
and that the storm is who you are
you build the foundations
that will prepare you
for becoming
a guiding star
that leads your loved ones to the noble place
where your dreams would lead you thus far
a place of healing
a place of trust
a place we all know is here
within.
To my friend, Amanda, on her birthday.
May this and every day be one of joy or little victories amidst the struggle of life.
Keep fighting your battles with your heart to guide your journey and your mind to light the way.

Much love,

DEW
Steven Fortune May 2014
Soft shelter
I urge your preternatural
brigades of perspective
to ground my resignation
in some hypothetical
formation of inclined leisure
If I'm treading mere chance
in my hope then I urge you
not to simply humour me with
sly tomorrows assuring
optimism in the brittle molts
of days shrinking to reveal
solar aspirations
I'll turn my back
to the broken weather like
a naked sibling
There is nothing humourous
in humouring
though I've taken it
in self-destructive perpetuity
Tie me to the rack of realism
like Odysseus before the Sirens
I'll sigh and swallow
yet another new medication
one for soft shelter
in compounded sleep
where perspectives hide
and the chemicals of moods
long dismantled
congregate behind blindfolds of
destiny's clumsy executioners
05 24 14
K Hanson Sep 2014
In Africa the lissome eucalyptus leaves
Sharply ovoid, a washed celadon,
Turn their silvery backs, yield, bend with
The promise of on-coming rain.
You taught me this
Sign, this tree-voiced prediction, long ago, among
The tenderly sloping, densely viridian hills
And heavy, somnolent, rolling fogs of Iowa.
And so, I turn my back. I yield, oh, how I yield.
But, you didn’t foresee, didn’t know
How, much later, my heart would
Flake and flay
How great sheets of myself
Would peel, would fold
Would slough off just like
The bark, the back of those massive whitened eucalyptus trunks, you
Didn’t, couldn’t foretell how this long union
Scars, clings, sinks so deep, tattoos itself so that eucalyptus-like, despite
Repeated rain lashings, leaf bowings, droopings and sun decimated leavings
My heart, my soul sheds, molts, reforms, renews itself and just as those
Sharpened leaves arch and curve and arc and sway
So I bend, I turn, I give in, I give in
To the chafing wind, to the scouring hurt, to
The on-coming African
Rain.
La Jongleuse Apr 2013
prickly little amoeba of a person
with no spine & skin that never molts

my passive-aggression falls flat
on dead ears, on dead eyes

this entity so empty, indifferent
nonsense eagerly conquered the front

my projections slept neatly in his vacuole
whilst i spit my repulsion on his flacid corpse
JJ Hutton Jun 2016
I.

I lay beside the canals in Esmeralda, city of water.
For hours a shadow and an oar and a boat approach,
and in the distance unseen girls hum a melody,
a melody not wholly unlike the sound of the lapping waves.
The sun rises and sets in a matter of moments.
My skin crinkles, molts, regenerates as fresh
as a babe's. I think of father, of mother, the words
not the people. My hands move now on their own.
The left points to the Saint Cloud Bridge and I say,
Saint Cloud. I'm in my body but outside it. A little god.
A deliberate historian. I record everything.
I think I always did. My right hand waves
to an acrobat on a clothesline. Behind
the acrobat a small stucco home crumbles
and rebuilds itself. My right palm
covers my mouth and I kiss it.
The veins running down my arms
appear to be filled with different colored inks,
reds, blues, greens. A shadow and an oar and
a boat approach, closer, closer.
A single swallow flies above the water, dipping down,
wetting the tips of its wings, climbing upwards over the
balconies, the rooftops, the sun setting, the sun rising,
blessing its flight. My right hand traces my uneven
and ever shifting face. What did I look like as a boy?
Did I have many friends?

II.

The shadow offers his hand, eases me aboard
his small boat. We push off back the way he came.
He says a few words to me, the
only words exchanged on our long journey:
I used to live in the city, he says. It nearly
drove me mad. I moved to the country.
I cultivated a garden. I installed a wood stove.
This was healthy.

III.

A small delight, to watch the shadow
command the oar, the grace in it.
I think of a woman's dress. I think
of the word rustle. I feel the word rustle.
My left hand points to the shoreline.
Spanish moss hangs from a bald cypress.
I say the word, Fire, and the Spanish moss becomes
engulfed. I say, Stop, and everything
stops, even the sun. Its position makes
me think the phrase six o'clock. While
Esmeralda, the city entire, is locked
in my rule, I step out onto the water.
I find I can walk across it. I know the
city's name, but I'm not sure I ever lived
here. The blades of grass feel foreign
on the soles of my feet.

IV.

Four has always been my favorite number,
I think. A lightning bug emits a flash of green.
It is the only creature unstuck and I follow it.
It leads me through a snow covered valley,
through a yellowed wheat field, through
a suspended dust storm. I brush away the particles
and they drop to the cracked earth.
I'm in a desert now. A woman sits with her legs
crossed. I sit with her. I feel the urge to tell her
a joke. It's apparent. She feels the same urge.
We both try to get the words out, but we keep
laughing, our minds rushing to the punchline.
Before we finish our jokes, we die. We decompose.
We turn to skeletons, our bony mouths full of ash.
We're born again, our joy and humor now with a depth centuries old.
We laugh, death much easier than we'd expected.
We try to tell the jokes again. The cycle beings and ends and begins.
The lightning bug insists that we move on.

I'm led to a gate. Guarding the gate is a girl
with a red ribbon in her yellow hair.
I ask if I can call her maiden.

I can almost see through the girl.
Rolling hills and a crystal stream
serve as her backdrop just beyond
the gate. She summons me with
a gentle wave of her hand.
I lean down. She kisses me.

You're my first kiss, she says.

I hope I'm not your last.

She takes my hand and insists we walk backwards.
The ground is uneven, my feet unsure.

There's an old saying I'm sure you know, she says.
The definition of madness is doing the same thing
and expecting a different result. This applies to more
than recurring bad decisions. It applies to death.

What are you saying? I've been expecting a different death?

You've been expecting a different consequence of death,
but you keep dying the same way, the girl says. Watch me.
Be curious. But say no more. Don't diffuse death of its
wild alchemy.

We walk backwards through the gate.
I want a secret, something
the girl doesn't know about me, one
dark moment to add dimension. But
the thought lurks that she knows
more about me than me. Time speeds
up. Day turns to night. Snow feathers
down. Backwards we walk into empty
homes, into dry riverbeds, into the unknown.
We begin to fall. From what, I'm not sure.
To where, I'm not sure.
The girl grips my hand tightly.

When will I know that I've died?

Shhh, she says. No words. Only wonder.
b for short Oct 2016
Beyond a wooden door
there is a room
where we sit and grow
three years older together.
Many words spoken,
all ranks broken.
But a thing is always there—
staining whatever it touches.
Blackberry juices fingerprinting
all of my bright white hopes.
A thing molts in the stale air,
trailing feathers
that wean and wane
by the force of our hot breath;
always there in that room
where we denied tomorrow
every credit it begged for.
A thing we gave every other name
aside from its given.
A thing. A simple thing.
© Bitsy Sanders, October 2016
ymmiJ Apr 2019
It’s fun watching my youngest bird molt
Charlie her cockatoo does it too
It’s so cute!
Butch Decatoria Jan 2017
Here here!

Time to drink deeper
Life's elegant poison
The distillation
Indifferences
Quasi-Bliss, meaningless kisses
Vows long dismissed
And the distemper in slights

Eyes
Steel piercing loathing
Skull selfish
Pretenses with fake smiles
But feral quick
An itch to pounce
These Strange days's unfair fight

Human-kindness flounced

From talon to claw
I've become a **** lamb
In the fever of their masquerade ball

They're dressed to the nines
The tenth moment glowers
Eleventh hour molts
It's slime and skins
Even by knowing the danger
I'm still In

Life now feels slick
A snake eating its own tail
While Death, a rictus of teeth
Time in its hiss
(They all hail)

And now
I've become a lone buoy,
Smoke in the water / **** / deep
Adrift in this drowning,
Our ocean
Creation weeps...

I am
Raising a toast
To life even tho'
Far from shore,
I still love you so.

Sunk in their potions
Now made as tho' a mead,
Drink deep

Dark elegant poisons
The liars tend to speak

I will float upon every horizon
They cannot defeat

Cheers and Salut!

To this divine comedy...
Jonathan Moya Sep 2020
The Little Bessy  molts its white chipped,
dull letters out to waves it cannot use.

Capsized on the rocky Maine beach, where  
it once fished for lobster in richer anchors,
the peapod displays its tattered nets on its hull
while the Man O War, filled with a haul of tourists,
bruises the gentle waves of Penobscot Bay.

Its oars are mounted on the lobster shack wall,
its sails framed in the nautical museum.
Abandoned are the days it was pulled
from its moorings on the wharf and sailed
through Penobscot air or spilled weighted circles,

days that were longer than any of its old parts,
times when old hands  hoped for better ways
never knowing they’ve come and gone.

Its broken, rusty anchor once met the spent waves,
the hands holding and releasing it down
to mate firmly with the mount, the moment
when the old lobsterer father firmly grounds
The Little Bessy’s wanton desire to push out to sea.  

Betrayed and exposed every day, run by no one,
Bessy drifts into beauty she never desired:
the pretty postcard in the wharf gift shop,
photos  taken by others rushing by in other boats.
when she was always meant to be the secret  
memory of the lobsterer hauling up his lonely pots.
Fig Nov 2023
green is my favorite color
it is the same color of money
it is the same color as ****
it is the same color as all the things I need
green like the moss that molts and moves
on rocks
green like the drinks I like
the ones that make me dance and groove
green is it
it is the last thing I plan to see
after a life of party
a life spent free
Beatriz Couto Sep 2018
This is where i needed to be
to understand where i don't want to be
To understand what I could've be more careful about

not everyday
a flower blooms or a butterfly molts
so i must, everyday
try
Nov 2017
Maya Jan 2021
I am leftovers
disappointing takeout
you spent too much money on
(you're supposed to be saving)
sitting in the back of the fridge
guilt keeping me there long past expiration
though I'm inedible

I like to hope that my stomach aches
and sluggish breath, heavy head
are symptoms of childhood dramatics
turned teenage angst
when I'm evicted from my teens
I'll probably call it a quarter life crisis
even so, I've accepted its permanence

I wish on dandelion fluff
variations of the same thing
that one morning I'll wake
from a night of giggles with people I love
swallow down papaya tablets
and the sickening feeling will actually dissolve

My happy is like hot glue
dripped on fingers - accidental
quick to stick
when it cools it molts
takes my fingerprints with it
leaving my finger tips raw

I can't keep secrets, especially my own
they like to creep up my throat
slither out unannounced
while I'm on car rides; restless
they can't hold still for the four hours
that get me everywhere I know now

I used to be incapable of shutting my eyes
when the cosmetologist rinsed my hair
it felt like a trick
like shed crack my neck on the sink
as soon as I relaxed
instead I'd count ceiling tiles to avoid eye contact

Now I feel proud
when I fall asleep on the train
or with someone else in my bed
I count how long I can squeeze
my eyes shut in the cereal aisle
forcing trust to prove something to myself
ATL Jul 2019
it is
the thought of a wraparound clench of the stomach
(from the dorsal side)
drilling my eyes into nothings,

feeling a child in a later stage,
the soft black cotton stretched over the emergent ****
of what was once a morula,

in absence
becoming a scientist
begging to understand through ablation,

and a priest believing that innocence molts

     in silence
bringing unintended sound.

— The End —