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Penguin Poems Apr 2019
namelessly, I am a lighter.
used to ignite, and then ignored.
namelessly, I am a writer.
picking up a pen whenever I’m bored.
namelessly, I am a heater.
warming those around me in their darkest hour.
namelessly, I don’t work well either:
and sooner or later I’ll run out of power.
“Without your name, who are you?” -escapril prompt
Onoma Mar 2019
Saturday took me down--

its same new name,

along side streets that

pressured their points of

drop dead quietude.

the lingering frictous of streets

that butcher stillness--now hanging

on the words of birds.

breaking sounds against the

hard noses of houses, marred familiar

to the row.

a neighborhood's mazey trace--

of the sun's continual origin.

the bleaching wash of bodies

breaking out of winter, a stride

looser than yesterday.

as a bike riding a man so full of

consideration--he could burst namelessly.

just for This Saturday.
like clock work i pace this spinning ground,
summoning up these imaginary fallacies-
figuring out this forever changing world,
as i spin round and round-
clock wise, i think i've got it
counter that thought- i think i've lost it,
losing all grip on life-reality,
irresponsibly wandering through this lost life,
searching for meaning in these sandwich bags,
filled to the seal, with these evil prescriptions-
relax, everything is copacetic
i whisper into the empty bag;
in complete agreement with my two sides,
unanimously deciding against all odds-
to end this unrealistic dependency;
reliance on this rare but prominent object,
would be a complete and utter disaster;
among both sides they would bicker,
until they recreate that clock in my head;
spinning out of self control
i will patrol this empty room.
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2017
no matter when I go to sleep

no matter when I go to sleep,
my next door neighbors
wake me up,
arguing.

History and the Future,
the oddest couple,
always in opposition,
in a world of mutual armament.  

these unilateral siamese twins,
every dialectic ends the same:

one says I'll **** you,
then, they both start laughing.

(Eléa's #1 fav)

9/15/17 4:35am

<•>

mark me as safe

though the namelessly hurricane is never ending,
the roof, a sacrifice in the wind's temple,
letting millions of naked eyes be persecution witnesses,
marking me as safe, but not saved,
surviving, the destruction, a beautiful curse,
this violent universe.

9/15/17
4:30am
(gifted to Joel & Kelly Rose))

<•>

address me with no assumptions

for we will provide the facts,
with liberty and justice,
we will fill in the redacted parts
in the bill of particulars,
of the indictments signed namelessly,
only as the
The State's Attorney,
woo hoo,
We Who Always Win,
Cause We Make the Rules

9/8/17 9:31am

<•>

21801BB705 VDAB7

given this, the key,
the rulers announced thanks,
but not in anyway a necessite,
we will just smash the locks
and burn your personal history down,
until now it has JUST been whiteout corrected,
you're welcome!

9/14/17
6:37am
(gifted to Evan Crow)

<•>

don't major in the minors

don't major in the minors,
classicism is a double entendre,
you don't understand,
but you will,
when you study headless statues
in a museum
come back to life,
do not act surprised.

progress is not an iPhone,
it's taking a long bathroom break
in the mind.

(Graces's fav)

9/10/17. 5:37am

<•>

All the old battles are new again

All the old battles are new again.
every old poem is but a pretense, a new work refreshed.
cutting edges dull knives, easily resharpened by new use,
fresh excuses.
stale words that stick humans, come to life,
as any and all of your favo-rite
army of **(fill in the blank)

  _ism's,
marching in the name of good riddance
of the  disloyal opposition.

nothing new under the sun,
history books predict the future.

(Eléa's #2 fav)

9/15/17 3:55am
SY: even when i write shorties, they come in multiples; get paid by the word, indeed!
What's in a name?
Let me tell you a story,
Of how my life changed,
And how my name changed,
Every time it appeared on the newspaper.

Replaced by a pseudonym,
Something to do with courage,
I was namelessly admired, slandered, and debated over,
Media’s Exclusive Coverage!

The newspaper headline read in big block letters:
“14 YEAR OLD GIRL SAVES SIX KINDERGARTNERS”,
That made me smile.
Just maybe I thought we had come that extra mile.
But no for I noticed,
My name was changed,
And the Printing Department was not at fault.
That’s just how my country dealt with ****** assault.
I never asked them to hide my name,
They had presumed, of course, that I was ashamed,
Of saving lives. It took me a minute to remember,
I had called Jyoti Nirbhaya for years.

I wanted them to know who I was,
Hiding I thought was for criminals,
Until I realized that I WAS one when,
On returning from the hospital I saw,
Pain in my mother’s,
Anger in my father’s,
And disgust in my relatives’ eyes.
No idea why a part of me had come expecting pride.

In school my “friends” guiltily refrained from talking to me,
Neither were my teachers too happy to see,
That I had returned to the same school,
Bringing with me my painful story,
Which I had mistaken as one of glory.

And when I went to receive the “Bravery Award”,
Only the trophy didn’t read compensation award.
They looked at me with too kind eyes calling me a “hero”
Their smiles told me they meant violated.

As I received the award,
I saw they were trying really hard,
To not let it show,
That they wanted me to know,
The difference between:
Bullet marks on the chest to bite marks on the breast,
Blue around the eyes to blue around the thighs,
Scratches on the fists to cuts on the wrists,
Loud screams in the cold to muffled screams against the cold,
The red of the torn ligament to the red of the torn *****,
The difference between a soldier’s and a victim’s blood.

And suddenly I felt as if I was,
The rescued,
Not the rescuer,
The maimed,
Not the fighter,
The oppressed,
Not the rebel,
The hostage,
Not the warrior,
I thought myself to be.

What’s in a name?
Apparently, a lot.
The name of the girl who is a **** survivor is always changed and replaced by a pseudonymn in India.
jerard gartlin Feb 2010
i loved making you laugh
your clouded eyes like a thousand skies
sewn together, seamlessly
& im floating through them, aimlessly
lost inside them, namelessly
my anonymous exploration
of your pupils' dilation
i wonder how wide eye can make them...
playing with the petty words
your eyelid's optic prisoner
Lloyd Hargrove Jul 2015
Saturnine the fool decried in bringing forth this plan
an avatar of straw revived to create a demise
and giving yet another poke into his little friend
the king of jest prepared to play the game that will not end

Namelessly it drifted through as vapor serpentine
then slowly coalescing in a drama much refined
the Necromancer stood and leered at what he thought to gain
in company of shadows bearing promises of pain

With fingers long arthritic from such powers having borne
the magician flashed his deck of cards each eager to engage
and challenged one and all to seek a fortune or a fate
but only fools had dared to speak and none survived to date

His entrance with a somersault the fool then shouted out
what bring you forth to play on me in such a shiny deck
the sorcerer just glared and said, a tie to fit your neck
most wonderful! the fool decreed, I wear purple, green and yellow
clash with me never for you see I'm such a jolly fellow
and tote for you a gift as well to give you such a grin
and turning with a wink he said now let the game begin

At last! the mage whispered within, the colors fazed him not
besides, a silly madness showed beneath that jester's hat
two jacks to open, both one eyed now let's see what he's got
said the master of all magik with his gambit falling out

Amazing! from the fool who said you really shouldn't tease
now eye my ladies if you please, delivered with great ease
and feeling good I'll raise you four
you follow yet? do not forget
where once there was a door

The magik man reviewed his hand
I thought I'd dealt... but never mind
a fishy fool this seems to be with hook in his symbology
and disconcerting more is that his toy begins to look like me

A tremor rising with the man
though all is in I fear I fold
perhaps I'll play another day
sheepishly the man did say
a marker I can offer now
though carried with me long I vow
to leave this deck - the joker's wild
and forever has been your child
I should have seen your likeness let
the back of every card to fet

Permission granted! waved the fool
but know you've broken every rule
so listen now and I'll portend
new colors plus a smile to lend
as you become my little friend
to leave behind your haughty way
and serve this fool instead of you
for just a time and for my reason
while you lose yours but for a season
said turned about with one more wink
then boldly stepping off the brink
and little friend though now on four
chased to begin the game once more
SJ Sullivan Jan 2016
I wish we named every rainstorm.
Hurricanes get everything, but
It's easy to have everything when
All you do is take.

I used to think that falling
Asleep was the same feeling as
Earthquakes shaking the grounds.
Don't get stuck in the chasm.

Washed up memories, shoe box
Chachkis, left untouched through the
Eye of the storm. Who knew these
Relics would follow you here.

Crying as the pouring rain stops
Is impossible.
All of the tears have been taken.

But rippling water is overrated.
Have you ever seen sand slide through
The Sahara Desert.
I've been there. I've seen it.
I watched as each minuscule grain slid
Down the valley ridges built from years
Of wind storms making piles.
Piles idiosyncratically stretched across its reddened face,
Maybe modeled by the smoldering surface of mars.

Lay down and let it wash across your leathered skin.
Sensations spreading, each nerve on every centimeter of you
Lighting up, marquee, competing with the hot desert suns.
A million dandelion spores dancing ballet.
Tip top, tip toes to a tarantella timing.
Buried under dunes, only too soon to
Uncover you once again.

You wouldn't believe how something
Solid can so namelessly float across the land.
Alexis J Meighan Oct 2012
I doubt the words on the page, correctly portrays, the images of the hand that wrote them.

Silent lips
Deaf ears, and
Blind eyes are
The merit of the creator as
He namelessly transmits his
Inner thoughts to his outer audience

My pen does not move for your applause
It moves for your focus
The thought pattern in this movement
Is more, and less, of my faceless existence

I can listen to what you want me to hear
But that doesn't mean that I am there, for that reason

I am a giver of many words and
A taker of many woes
I promise I could never fit a profile

The words I write are chameleon
They change to what you believe they say
The body I possess is chameleon
It changes to fit whatever pleasures you extract

No matter the length of time you stare
No matter how close you get
You will never find me.
XIN
Nina O'Donovan Apr 2016
“Like a drowned man, a fool and a mad man:
one draught above heat makes him a fool;
the second mads him; and a third drowns him.”
— Feste, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare


Pulling into Colbert on a mid-week afternoon,
I stride through drifts of passengers falling
from each carriage.
Inside, they deck the station out
in wait like chess figures. I leave as soon as I arrive.

Blessed with rain again,
pestering the roof tiles, great sweeps
of grey water
dash each street. Across,
a building's squared face, chipped bottle green.
Namelessly familiar,
my hermitage.

I enter half-drowned.
I place myself on mark at the bar,
flanked by fellow veterans. To my left, a lowered head,
the dark hide of a colt
retired early from his race.
Right,
a creased face and suit I dimly recognise.

Before my eyes adjust, I limply
raise my hand —
few fingers outstretched, Christlike. A head bows
in response. He moves
to draw a black slick glass;
a tarred trickle, foam-topped like stormed wave.

The first.
A swash against my lip, my mouth
a vacant cove.
Bitter, it gathers in the pit of my tongue
— my pleasure,
I swallow half in one surge.
Zara Wolfe Feb 2014
Wuthering secrets of long past times
Forgotten romances of heartened crimes.
Christening crinkles twilling frosted echoes atop damped dervishes of your fragile mind.

Shelling out are withering bones of decaying, eternal, mindless vines.
Encasing slithery crevices eradicating dusted  wintered shadowed lines.

Binding the sainted ****** where upon the shore of gloried day breaks of the lost door.
Listen to the howls of the wind--
as all of creation stirs about & about
Never the less, simply this.
To again, never to.

Driven off the cliff of insanities thrills unto the shivers of the unrested, splintered and torn.
Forevermore, oh how dreadful!
Namelessly unplaced, vacantly ashamed! Lonely and untamed, gratefully kept at bay!
alavandala Jan 2014
my heart beats namelessly
numb
it pumps my blue blood
through my neverending veins
(or so it thinks)
you give me a feeling
i haven't felt in a long time
one i yearn for
one i strive to remember
i cannot forget the look on your face
though i have not seen that one just yet
i long for the days of innocence,
had we just a few?

your lips
colder than the ice cube
melting under the bar
after the sprawl a few minutes ago
what am i even saying
you are heartless
and i do not want a thing
i want someone to love me.
not anyone,
just you

tears keep falling
There’s a knocking that I hear each morning,
a knock both a visitor and warning,
mistakes that invite themselves to my door,
mistakes that are not welcome anymore.

It’s not fear that makes me keep them outside,
nor the fatigue of further wounded pride.
I’ve learned enough what lies beyond my door.
It’s those mistakes I don’t need anymore.

Although I still don’t live life blamelessly,
I prefer to make mistakes namelessly.
Don’t package them and send them to my door
with my name on the label anymore.

It’s not that I should err and let it slide,
but I’ll never be perfect, though I’ve tried.
I know the sin that coucheth at my door.
I don’t need to bear their mark anymore.
Blogging at www.insightshurt.com
Buy “Insights Hurt: Bringing Healing Thoughts To Life” at store.bookbaby.com/book/insights-hurt
David Murphy May 2016
Staring blankly at the pavement.
No longer caring to dodge the puddles as he meandered along the uneven,cracked greyness of the town.
Half wishing he had brought a jacket.
The people walked around him namelessly.
The only face he had wanted to see had made him pray for blindness.
But infatuation had beat him to it.
Eric Dec 2018
The rest of me , I lay down my weapons so this could be . I fall straight down to one knee. And cry endlessly. Grey lit skies above , when you look away disowning love. Take the time to beat , and see whats in my mind , mind boggling . Destroying every last string holding me,can't you see. I'm falling apart , as my world comes deadly. Silent screams , crackling bolts of lightning strike facelessly, namelessly . Open heartedness, forgiven .lost for the time I was driven . Believe in . Every aspect of my life , thrown out my  window and forgotten. But me , I'll never be the same again . Ever again .

— The End —