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fray narte Apr 2021
i am quiet as
an iridescent, swan paperweight,
sitting and melting on sadness —
on sheets and sheets of it.

maybe this entire time,
i have been on the edge,
lying like a sand angel
and wading through dead buttercups.
i write a premonition
and call it a poem.

if these walls could speak,
they would call me a resident.
an outsider.
a hostage victim.
a sorry sight.
a paperweight sitting
in the middle of misery.

i am quiet as
an iridescent, swan paperweight,
sitting and melting on sadness —
on sheets and sheets of it;
oh, how i long
to fall and break
into a thousand pieces —

one, just small enough
to be invisible
to slip away
and have
no trace of pervasive sadness —
it glistens in casual,
technicolored mockery.

and i am quiet —
oh, so quiet.

oh, how i long
to fall and break.
CH Gorrie Jan 2013
You turned me into a paperweight.
Ambling out of your genealogy,
you chiseled me to the marrowbone;
     walk tall with your invisible chains.

You turned me into a paperweight
marooned on polished mahogany –
conquered West-Indian trees;
     walk tall while your mastery wanes.

You turned me into a paperweight.
From your bottomless, two-ton
tongue came my disfigured heart –
     walk tall, you pyrite suzerain.

You turned me into a paperweight,
deserted on paperwork seas,
ball-and-chained to the wooden beach –
     walk tall in your insidious vein.

You turned me into a paperweight.
I fell, clutching the snowflakes,
and held your whole ******* useless life together –
     walk tall, play that catchpenny game.
Holly M Jul 2018
empty is not the right word.
what is the word for
not quite empty but not quite full?
there is a glass on the table-
it is not half-empty,
but it is not half-full.
it is just a glass of water.
i am just a glass of water:
not empty, not full;
not happy, not sad-
not anything.
not anything at all.

the clear blue nothingness
reminds me of the fact.
it’s dotted with cotton candy clouds.
i wonder if they are as sweet.
my tongue salivates at the thought.
it is like a land of dreams
without sorrow or pain
yet i am here,
floating lightly
though i feel like a paperweight,
weighed down by the lump in my throat.

it’s hard to remember
what home looks like.
i can’t see in terms of
“where i belong,”
i only see in terms of
“the trees are like broccoli sprouts-” and
“the cars look like hotwheels-” and
“every single one has a person in it, and
they all have their own journeys, and
i am here.”
i don’t think they know how beautiful it is.
i didn’t.

home to me now is a backpack
a couple books
and a trinket from an old friend.
they are the only ones like me:
strangers in a strange land.
i’d like to find my way back someday-
if only i knew the way.
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a **** lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
Robin Carretti Aug 2018
Are we all here
Or elsewhere
Treetops Robin birds
What!! Is it only words?
The sky she wore the
blue velvet cry
Whats still here what
will life bring
Afterlife sing before I die?

       *
Why

Headless horseman goodbye
Breadwinner Sportsman
Your worst enemy
The closer he gets knowing
your drama/ Cowboy-comedy

"Whats Here"

The Emmy meeting
another writer
      "Dude"
The Dude Ranch
Meet the "Ghostwriter"
The computer
early bird
Specially rude

The Medieval time of the
"Fable" sword fight
In a fork road, he was
born *English Sterling
The Silver anniversary
Dude piece boring
    
Whats here setting Ms.Dahla
Sweet Magnolia flowers
He's aiming for Azelia
What dudes grow
in her family
table
I'm here and he said
I'm the Dude

We are here Paul Revere rides
Breaks our glassware
Mr. Bigfoot needs to decide

Those Philly steaks "Heinz Ketchup"
Pittsburg tip of the iceberg here-up
Feeling sorry for the "Dude"

I'm right beside you here
Racers mouth racetrack win
More supernatural forces of sin
Rayban Mr. Sun-Ray glare
This was all I could take
in one day
It's important so let's stay
in one place
Where we can see one another
All dudes what eludes in character's

The false eyelashes her
prediction Alice madly
Tea party detention

Dancing in the
spiritual rain
She is the biggest pain

What cheeks swear
with her pinky
The blow dryer the
Big Lebowski stayer
Russian Roulette
Crystal fighter Swarovski
Homewrecker traveler
The dude investigation
*Risky business Dudes in the mansions

Rome cannot be built in one day
What's here your *Mom
is
baking noodle pudding today
You are laughing and both got
Brooklyn fever
Divine hour telling her how
much you love her
Familiar eyes hot dudes
delivery
The best flight activity
Getting you up
Your NativityI'm the dude cup

Always wondering you drift
Whose coming to dinner
*Mystery is it really here
        The Dude of a gift
Happy tears New Years

Darling
White Polar Bears

Days of daydreams dude stamps
All tolls and Polls
Twitter and Trumps
Or coming closer to
your darkest night
*
Forever wherever you are
It's the dark velvet satin

Night in White Satin
The other side of midnight
Humans animals always
the mating watcher's delight

Paper cuts of a paperweight
Feeling like a deadweight dude
The lightheaded most amazing night sky
The bright future warm you up
passionate guy

Whats here names
Don't use me usernames
Such con names, married names
Where each other's equal
Whats here love the sequel
The proud mother
My Bald Eagle

Hairy fluffy so cute beagle
*
He's the Quarter she backs up his note
The pushover Politician we deserve the vote

Writers believers lovers
and givers
Strangers are friends whats here
all depends
Getting mugged in Central Park
Grainy sugar you spark
Enjoying what I have today

The softer Rainy Lover
Whats here we are all here
Not elsewhere or over there
My Godly switch I'm here
Whats here you or me or who we believe to see let it be let it be
There are so many answers and those questions are here so reach don't start to preach show your love its whats here
Kara Troglin Apr 2013
A blackening morning bleeds and deepens
the opening of iron lungs. Paperweight
bones threaten gaiety and the smell of sleep.

Such sadness pours inward, it has chosen
the wrong body as cold folds over the world,
so it feels real, stained frost in vacuous black.

The pure leap of malignity agitates
the interior of a woman's red heart,
melting like embers.

In the sulphur, words dry while water
slides down. Drips and thickens.
Gaping hole exposed- too early for the dawn.
well, first Mae West died
and then George Raft,
and Eddie G. Robinson's
been gone
a long time,
and Bogart and Gable
and Grable,
and Laurel and
Hardy
and the Marx Brothers,
all those Saturday
afternoons
at the movies
as a boy
are gone now
and I look
around this room
and it looks back at me
and then out through
the window.
time hangs helpless
from the doorknob
as a gold
paperweight
of an owl
looks up at me
(an old man now)
who must sit and endure
these many empty
Saturday
afternoons.
anonymous999 Feb 2015
please, i beg you, take care of yourself. when your stomach rumbles, eat. when your eyelids droop, sleep. and when your voice quivers, find a comfortable spot and cry, cry your little heart out. but when you're done, dry your eyes, occupy yourself, and know in your heart that you are better than that. do not be sad, be angry. become a roaring fire and burn the memory of all those who have wronged you.
do not let the leaky faucets **** you. do not drown in a bucket of tears. light it on fire. pour it out. throw it. scream "*******" to sadness because you are so much better than it.
let it out, let it out, let it out, then be done.

because yes love, right now your sadness feels quite heavy but the truth is that it is just a paperweight. learn to turn the page.
Amitav Radiance Apr 2015
A single sheet of paper
Crushed by the paperweight
Few lines written across
Now, forgotten and resigned
To their fate of loneliness
Poetic heart’s fleeting indulgence
Scarred the pristine canvas
Bearing the burden of poetic frenzy
Single sheet of paper to the rescue
Now, crushed by the paperweight
Forgotten and lonely
A love story between words and paper
Neglected by the poet
Emily Aug 2014
her grandmother’s hand feels like an overripe peach and there’s not much behind her glossy eyes. the nursing home smells like disinfectant and the powdery smell of old women. jane tucks her feet under her chair as she watches the vacant stare on her grandmother’s face and wonders if her grandmother will notice when she stops coming. the soft buzz of television and the chatter of nurses feels very far away and the room feels too big for the two of them. jane’s grandmother raised her when her own parents were too drunk or coked up to remember they had even had a daughter and her first, second, third stroke had left her soft and empty. jane kisses her forehead, leaving a strawberry-colored mark on her grandmother’s pale skin and she slips a paperweight from the nurse’s desk into the pocket of her dress

the coat is heavy and camel-colored and hangs off jane’s small figure, nearly obscuring her. the collar nestles under her ears and she’s warm, even in the chill of the dusty second-hand shop down the street, with the watery-eyed cashier who watches her suspiciously and waits for his cigarette break. the weight is comforting and she hugs it in closer to her before removing it and stroking the shiny polyester lining. jane waits a few minutes before she pulls out a bundle of carefully stacked bills and quietly buys the overcoat without making eye contact.

at home, jane’s neat handwriting fills the last page of the journal she’s been keeping for the past few months. from her desk drawer she pulls two more of the same. the details of her life coat the pages and it occurs to her how small, how ordered, how utterly unremarkable her days have been. this elicits no real emotion and jane pours herself a half glass of wine and lies on the couch, fully clothed, and breathes so slowly her chest hardly moves. she wonders if it will hurt.

she places the coat on her neatly-made bed and stands in front of her bathroom mirror. her hair is long enough to touch the waistband of her skirt and it tangles over her shoulders and back like a mass of seaweed before she gathers it into a ponytail and snips it off, just beneath her ears. there’s nearly ten inches of her soft hair in her fist and in the mirror jane looks sharper and meaner than before. she takes the same scissors and cuts a slit in the hem of the coat and drops the hair into the space between the lining and the thick wool. next falls the paperweight, the journals, a bottle of pills she will no longer take twice daily. the coat is sewn up with small, neat stitches.

down the road from the home is a wide stretch of anemic sand and silvery water. the breeze off the ocean tugs and twists the coat like the hands of insistent children yet jane walks solidly on, feeling more opaque than she has in years. the rocks along the beach are smooth and slightly warm from the sun and she slips the most beautiful into her pockets as she nears the sleepy waves of the shore. jane never stops walking. her shoes are the first to become soaked but soon the water infiltrates her hemline, her waist, her chest, her neck. the short strands of her once flowing hair float momentarily before the water slips over her head like a sheet. jane’s body does not float, does not struggle, does not resurface.
Paul Hansford Sep 2016
Green glass
but it's French
which makes it
verre vert.
The French should like that.
They appreciate
their jeux de mots.

Not a statue
of a man
but it could be.
Not a piece of art at all
except
I have made it so
by saying it is one.

Its qualities
are visual
and tactile at once
the material heavy
(over a kilo)
not so much transparent
as translucent
the colour
from under the sea
the surface curved
smooth
glossy
the shape functional
admirably suited for its purpose
its name
embossed on the back
(or the front?)
giving a clue.

L' ÉLECTRO VERRE
redundant insulator
from an overhead power cable
found object
(objet trouvé)
from the garden
of friends
in the Alpes-Maritimes.

This souvenir
potential paperweight
ornament
sculpture
is more than all of these.

Souvenir after all
is French for memory.
This doesn't give the full impression without a photograph.  Luckily, that is available at < flickr.com/photos/48763199@N04/5901032327/ >
Yue Wang Yitkbel Oct 2018
Part 1 Down the Rabbit Hole:

He had faith in exceptions
He was optimistic
He “believed in six impossible things just before breakfast”
and had his cake.
He mused of the bunny farm
and fought the jabberwocky in his dreams.
These things failed him.
He woke up, and was crushed with the mice
In a snap of revelation
and
Under the weight of truth.
He was shattered, along with the coral corpses
Of the paperweight

Part 2 The Paper Weight:

A coral in the glass paperweight
A hummingbird shielded by twigs
The fragile illusion
A naive illusion
“The beautiful illusion”
Quoth Marlow, our dear friend Charlie.
Through the looking glass
His world, the Poet’s world,
was shattered,
Not by “a sea of trouble”
Nor by words of a mature revelation
but by Silence.

Part 3 The Horror, The Horror:

The wrath and sorrow of the composers
Were expressed
In the requiem of silence.
The conductor threw his hand open
In the final flight of the dove
For the poet, the dreamer,
Who, and whose ballads and odes
Were silenced on the battlefronts of the nouveau era.
No one followed when he chased the seagulls.
No one answered his pleads and screams of wrath and sorrow.
In the end, there was only silence
For the poet, and his poetry.
To this he whispered:
“The Horror, the Horror”
And then
Nothing more.
The Death of the Poet
By: Yitkbel Yue Xing ****
9:38PM
Taking a break from HP. Thanks for all your support!
10/21/2013
Sophie Herzing Sep 2014
I knew all day that you didn’t want me.
The sirens rang, red flag tear ducts, and I
was just waiting for the bomb to drop.
I felt it, in my gut as they say,
like a paperweight, and choked
on all the tears before I even knew
they were coming. Here’s the thing—
you asked me. The rest spoke for itself.

The dress, the earrings, the phone call, the couch,
your gym shorts, glasses, and answering machine.

But we went to dinner, and you called me beautiful.
You threw croutons over the table, made me laugh,
let me hold your hand while they brought my iced tea.
I even found myself picturing you next to me.
I spread my palms, open, but I didn’t ask for a thing.
Yet, you kept defending yourself, explaining everything,
and I just wanted you to pay for the two of us to eat.

Your face is all that I see. Then why, why do I find myself
time after time again in these situations
where I keep plugging myself into equations
that obviously aren’t meant to be? You’re so sweet.
But if you searched through the crowd,
I’m not sure you’d want to find me.

I should have left you on the couch. Honestly,
I knew all day that you didn’t want me.
But I kissed you a million little times,
let your tongue explore my silent confessions,
willed you to find yourself
through the spaces of my mouth.
I should have just left you on the couch.
pap
pap
pap

I can't breath
my stomach is bubbling
like hot cheese
on an fresh oven pizza

my legs feel skinny
I want to lean into a wall
the floor looks spinny
the wainscoting is squint

my vision is blurry
because...tears?
Why is there worry
in my middle?

I feel fine,
my mind is sound
this fear isn't mine
what’s it doing here?

What is this panic?
Fight or flight I understand,
but this is plain manic.
I need to go

at top speed
or maybe hide?
Either way, be freed
from this distress.

pap
pap
pap

Push someone over,
human shield that ****
reduce my exposure
to hyperventilation.

Shallow in,
shallow out,
I feel akin
to sprinting Mufasa

Pure distress
acute discomfort,
a proper mental problem. Nonetheless,
it’s strange to foresee the diagnosis.

It’s as if I’m watching
from someone else’s skin
as alligator clamps are botching
holding my physiology in.

A sunburn on my innards,
a paperweight within
you’d think I’d feel pride
for finally having something wrong.

Hypochondria being accurate  
the years of inventing doom,
suddenly isn't aberrant
those fabrications had substance.

Or maybe all these thinks
are symptoms in themselves
after sifting through piles of shrinks,
maybe I can finally get some help.

pap
pap
pap

Look at my pretty framed prescription,
doctor certified, messy handwriting,
this will take some decryption...
don’t worry, take your time,

this pathoreaction won't go away.
I’m told desolation
is a temperament set to stay
until after eighteen simple payments.

I’m inclined to reject treatment
of drugs that fiddle with the mind
I’d rather stay present,
continue inconsistency.

I would like to try narration,
see how many kilometers I can recall.
I can deal with frustration,
so let’s talk about my childhood.

Public transit without destination
sends me on a revere,  
an absence of crippling desperation.
I've found peace before

it was between yellow poles,
in the outside pocket
of a backpack on parole.
It smiled at me quietly.

pap
pap
pap

Apparently, it’s the small things
that help you deal with anxiety.
Daisy King Aug 2014
A pile of human teeth,
that which does not belong to itself but to the night and the moon
     and the lock and the hook, that which once did belong to itself,
     or to me,
a murmur and little more,
   something you shake in the hope that answers to the questions
     you want or some reasons you've yet to find
     will come falling out,
an inhabitant in a house that becomes a crime scene during their absence and they cannot be an eyewitness,
she who wanders along the beach by the sea,
    in search of shells,
   to listen in for the sound of old echoes,
         the unreal, suspended, irrelevant,
         the night-time fragments leftover after
            daylight gets its teeth in,
       a rule-****** in asymmetrical glasses,
       one of a family of confused clowns, juggling dreams
         that were once in trees, struggling
         and underestimating distance,
a cracked window in November that seems out of place,
    a Tuesday afternoon, and specifically not a Friday sunse
    or Sunday dawning,
a wishful **** belonging in the boneyard,
housing an ocean of unspeakables in
    attic mind,
    greenhouse heart,
    cavern mouth full of sea,
the container of many unspeakables,
    a cup, profoundly sad for being always a touch too empty,
        contained inside a small glass bottle,
         a paperweight.
This poem is comprised of the various things that I have compared myself to in metaphor in poems I have written in the past.
Donall Dempsey Aug 2017
TELL TALE TALK

Shark's tooth
draws blood

( even though long dead )

a startled red
against the sharp whiteness

lost in a bric-a-brac
box of shells & things.

"Gotcha!"
grins the dead

shark's set of
choppers.

Baby shark
but a shark nonetheless.

I drip a trail
of red

across the Charity
shop

snap up
a tattered HUNTING OF THE SNARK

a battered
AT SWIM TWO BIRDS.

Here
a broken ballerina

on a jewellery box
( minus her music )

there
( I stop dead )

a used
soul

bruised
badly used

Godless
without guile

my fingertip traces my initials
on its dust

tarnished
without hope

immortal and unnoticed
amongst shark's teeth & shells.

I get
a SNARK & TWO BIRDS

for a pound
a piece.

The shark's grin
for a pound again.

"What do you want
for this old thing?"

I nonchalantly
ask

setting the soul
with great care

within the cage
of teeth

perched atop
the books.

"Being dying
to get rid

of that
for ages."

"It just sits there
staring at me!"

"Scares the life
outta me

to tell you
the truth

even though I don't know
what the hell it is!"

"Give us 42p for it
& we'll call it quits!"

I buy back
the soul

( my soul )

I had given away
with some old shirts and shoes

things I thought
I wouldn't ever be needing

. . .again.

But seeing it
discarded amongst shark's teeth & shells

I thought
twice about it.

Maybe
( perhaps )

I can use
it

for a paperweight.

Or a doorstop.

Sedulous

PRONUNCIATION:
(SEJ-uh-luhs)

MEANING:
adjec­tive: Involving great care, effort, and persistence.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin se (without) + dolus (trickery, guile). Ultimately from the Indo-European root del- (to count or recount) that is also the source of tell, tale, talk, Aug 9, 2010
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it. -Diane Wakoski, poet (b. 1937) and Dutch taal (speech, language).
USAGE:
"Elizabeth Bishop was sedulous, pernickety, quietly determined; she would work on poems for years."Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell; The Economist (London, UK); Nov 20, 2008.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
<strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><p>A beautiful thing is never perfect. -Egyptian proverb</p></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong></strong>
anastasiad Dec 2016
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Pudge Apr 2016
picture perfect, sadly, doesn't translate into emotions. paperweight relationships usually die with the threat of emitting a spark. we are the people who were raised not to tame the flames inside us. this is the only way we know how to love. it's either we both go down this rabbit hole or you can sit your *** down in Kansas, Dorothy. there is no in between, we either  entangle ourselves in this folie à deux or nothing at all. sad to say you'll never know how brutal honest lust feels like. how these muffled moans sound like unwritten gospels. how these jaw clenching sighs are the only prayers that cannot be held back by the ceiling. I'd always choose primal over prim and proper. if it's anything short than honest, consider it fake. life is too short to spend it people who are half measures.
AJ Jan 2016
Fain she sings to the bleeding sun;
acid rain is a strange phenomenon.
Do ghosts walk the plank
and drown into the sea?
Fallen, fallen! Drowning, drowning...
Barefoot against the biting earth,
my soul it tastes the warmth of birth,
when the blood is hot in the veins--it runs.
Men do shrink at the sound of a gun.
Do they know of such and such a place
where horror fills the eyes of babes?
Paperweight cannot compensate,
cannot hold the shaken down.
Soon there will be, inevitably,
hysteria! all around.
Faces long and wet like paintings,
vivid grief that breeds a-fainting.
Madman eyes so wide and shot
with blood.
The price, the knife...
I know not of.
C S Cizek Feb 2015
Lunch rush was hell for the new girl,
stacking foamed cappuccino cups
and stirring spoons in a broken-handled
bus tub while trying not to slip
on soft ice and discarded lemon
wedges. She took our mugs,
and told us about a guy

—Dave, she said. I don't know.—who sat
with his friend, comparing *** to work
over the rusted cabinet tracks
of his warped fork scraping
his egg-caked plate.
Dave's friend was leaned in
with a cocked grin waiting
for one of Dave's "Classic Dave" punchlines,

which I'm guessing are all witty,
the funniest *******
things you've ever heard,
but there wasn't one
this time

because there's nothing funny about
a ***** intern cringing beneath the weight
of fat Dave and his brick
paperweight jammed in her back.
E Conrad Feb 2014
The six books I’ll never read don’t count.
The planner I’ll never use does.
A paperweight is a waste of space
and pencils are too long for their erasers,
which turn into shavings from something I didn’t mean to write and
pepper my desk like the paperclips
sold in quantities no one can be expected to use.
Sarah Treaster Jun 2012
There was a loud knock on the door. Callie froze.
“Hello? Anyone in there? Daryl! Open up!” The muffled voice of Ginny could be heard outside the lab door. Callie hurried into the back room.
“Daryl, your wife is here...” she said worriedly. “What are we going to do??”
“Oh my god. Just... don’t make any noise. If the boss knows we were here, using his lab, he’ll **** us. I know. I’ll call her and tell her that I’m on my way home.” Callie wrung her hands as Daryl paced back and forth, muttering to himself.
“Heyyy, Ginny. Sorry, work kept me out late. I’m on my way home now.” Dayrl spoke into the phone sweetly. “Alright see you there.” He hung up. Callie’s eyes were wide.
“I heard her leave. Let’s get out of here.” Callie grabbed her purse and her sweater off her desk and opened the lab door slowly. Daryl followed quickly behind Callie as they tip toed their way through the dark hallways of the Laboratory.

As Ginny left the lab and was walking back to her car, her phone rang. “Hello?” She listened as Daryl spoke quickly. He sounded very nervous. “Okay, Daryl. I’ll see you at home.” She hung up and stopped. Her husband was acting very strange tonight. She had been knocking on the door to his office and even his boss’s office. What is he up to..this doesn’t feel right. I trust him but... Ginny turned around slowly and made her way back to the dark, tall gray building. If he’s cheating on me I swear... Her mind was running through hundreds of possibilities, her anger and worry growing. Nearing the front door, she removed her heals and crept into the building. She listened carefully before ducking into a room that had a nice view of the elevator and the exit. Peeking through the blinds, she waited and watched.

Callie held Daryl’s hand as they left the elevator, walking towards the front exit. “Okay we’re clear,” Daryl whispered in Callie’s ear. As the young woman walked past Daryl, her rose infused perfume drifted into his face and he shivered as the scent filled his nostrils. Grabbing her hand and pulling her towards him he kissed her passionately. There was a loud choking sound behind them and they turned around suddenly. Ginny was standing in the hallway, eyes wide, fists balled up in shock and anger.
“Wha...what is going on, Daryl?” Her voice shook, and she didn’t take her eyes off of Callie. “Who is she?” Daryl was as stiff as a stone. “Who. Is. She, Daryl. What is going on?”
“Ginny, it’s not what it looks like. I love you. She was forcing me. I promise.” Callie took a step back.
“Excuse me?! Daryl, you started this between us. Do NOT act like you are the innocent one here. You told me you loved me more than your wife. That you were going to leave her... You...you are a *****, ***** liar.” Callie broke into tears and fell to her knees.
“Callie...Ginny! Ginny I don’t know what she’s talking about. I love you. You know I love you.” Daryl stepped towards Ginny. She held up her hands defensively.
“Get away from me, you creep!” Daryl stopped.
“Come on, Ginny. Let’s go home. I love you, please it’s not what it seems. Look, I ******* up. Come on, I’ll get the car.” Daryl backed up slowly, and then headed for the door. A terrible scream was heard and the next moment, Daryl was on the floor, blood spurting everywhere. A large glass paperweight dropped to the floor with a loud thud and a ****** as a corner shattered off. Two pairs of wide eyes stared down at the body silently.

When the police had arrived, Callie and Ginny were sitting together on a bench, shivering in the cold night air. A young girl in her late teens, early twenties was sitting across from them, her eyes dry. “Ladies, may I ask what happened here? There’s a man in there, dead. Which one of you did this?” A policeman came up to the women with a pencil and a paper pad.
The young girl looked up. “I killed him.” The girl stood up. “He’s been leading three different lives. One with me, my mother, and my little brother in Arlington. I knew about all of them. I followed him a lot. I found him leading one with her, that lady there.” She held up a finger at Ginny. “And then he was having an affair with her.” She moved her finger to Callie. “I couldn’t deal with it anymore. He was a greedy, selfish *******. I did it. I killed Daryl Stevenson. I killed my father.”
silhouettes above my head
hold me down like  paperweight,
the earth crumbles beneath me
and separates into quaking plates;
a toxic air instigates choking breaths
along my gasping throat that strains,
I am graveled as I contemplate
what my path is when I graduate.
Light as a feather
Drawn by winds, the paper flies
Paperweight it needs

Bills in paper nails
Value packed, together stacked
Business they made

Light as a feather
Changes course, as does the wind
Fair weather friend

Be not the paper
On the nail, stuck forever
Nor a paperweight
There is so much to paper, light, yet holds weight
Be like the paper, yet not get weighed down
i am higher than the sun
a million miles above the one
who controls the sky
i am a record keeper
a handler of snakes
and retribution is my middle name
i am palmistry
i am sandalwood
i am a refuge and a grave
i am a paperweight
i am a slave

i see the dream space opening and closing
its talking to me
she makes faces at the fading light of the stars
do we trust our visions or are we prisoners of reason
the faceless, the voiceless wanderers
drifting in underwater color schemes
concupiscent dreams
the netherworlds beckon to us
we can't help but heed their liquid calling
i am boiling in my bathtub
joining hands and hearts
we rub away the stars from our bodies
and come clean to ******* whistling
the meandering echoes
of our fantasies
in lands of allegory and unstained wisdom
remnants of our ancestors
dancing their embodiment
with slews of musical instruments
and brews of medicine and healing herbs
we are finding the magic in our icons again
like diamonds drifting between realities
the coming satisfaction is becoming less and less attractive
so you suggest we take a deep breath
and get back to making love
Barton D Smock Jan 2014
the tinted weakness of late day.  the sound of a mother being driven into the child by its legal father.  biology as paperweight.  as bird hopping on earth.  god as the oh well limbo in limbo.  are the many heavens of discarded appliances equaled in number by dolphins unimaginably safe?  does the thought, to be darkened, arrive?
The rigid lust for certainty dooms
impetuous personage.

This is a paperweight life
except for all its dead sea remembering,

and a mouth inside my head saying,
"Just forget what it was like to go to dinner".


Sara Fielder © Dec 2018
rsc Nov 2014
Dancing by,
A dead eyed darling,
As passersby cry out her praises:
"Such energy!
Such passion!"
She shrugs out a smile
As her shoulders start
Collapsing in on themselves.
Wear long sleeves
To disguise decaying flesh
And frankincense and myrrh
To disguise inevitable death,
Shaking hands with toothy monsters
And hand-made paperweight professionals
Who enter the threshold of accidentally
Pulling off a frail finger.
Pinned to a board of ages,
Chronically captured chronologically wrong:
"You seem so much older! You are so mature!"
Placing, onto fifth-grade-science-project bones,
A corset of expectations and
A garter of gold,
The tiny bird of a girl
Can't hear her songs over the
Sound of her body giving up.

Bury your wishes for me next to my corpse.
I am a human who people (sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose) make into a magical fairy on a pedestal because I am very good at convincing people that I have my **** together. I do not have my **** together.
Sam Miller Sep 2012
A single memory

Sitting on the shelf behind my head
Collecting dust in the soft plush
Lying on its back as its dormancy grows

The little lion

Hamlet, named so for the insanity we shared
Sat on my shelf like a paperweight made of cotton

Until tonight

He’s all I have left of you now
As
             You
                                 Slowly
                                                     Drift
                                                                         Away.

My little lion

I did not recognize how small he was
Curled against my chest like an infant
But I remembered the nights we shared
Keeping the nightmares away so I could sleep

I missed him

I missed feeling the delicate fur against my arm
His velvety bow against my wrist
The curve of his plushy paw between my fingers

And now I miss you
Yue Wang Yitkbel Oct 2015
The Death of the Poet
By: Yue Xing Yitkbel ****
9:38PM
10/21/2013 TO, ON

Part 1 Down the Rabbit Hole:

He had faith in exceptions
He was optimistic
He "believed in six impossible things just before breakfast"
and had his cake.
He mused of the bunny farm
and fought the jabberwocky in his dreams.
These things failed him.
He woke up, and was crushed with the mice
In a snap of revelation
and
Under the weight of truth.
He was shattered, along with the coral corpses
Of the paperweight

Part 2 The Paper Weight:

A coral in the glass paperweight
A hummingbird shielded by twigs
The fragile illusion
A naive illusion
"The beautiful illusion"
Quoth Marlow, our dear friend Charlie.
Through the looking glass
His world, the Poet's world,
was shattered,
Not by "a sea of trouble"
Nor by words of a mature revelation
but by Silence.

Part 3 The Horror, The Horror:

The wrath and sorrow of the composers
Were expressed
In the requiem of silence.
The conductor threw his hand open
In the final flight of the dove
For the poet, the dreamer,
Who, and whose ballads and odes
Were silenced on the battlefronts of the nouveau era.
No one followed when he chased the seagulls.
No one answered his pleads and screams of wrath and sorrow.
In the end, there was only silence
For the poet, and his poetry.
To this he whispered:
"The Horror, the Horror"
And then
Nothing more.
Chrystos Minot May 2015
Laughter < > the balm of the soul
Loving touch < > inner vision for the 'mole'
Imagination < > the flame nascent within the coal
Evolving into my true self < > the goal
The life gourmand's avarice < > my dangerous shoal
I think of my Dad tonight, & his paperweight of coal
I remember his impregnable wonder, and I start to again feel whole
Imagination < > the flame nascent within the dark coal

— The End —