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Nigel Morgan Apr 2013
It took him a week to master thought-diversion. He would leave home to walk to work and the moment the door was shut it was as though she followed him like a shadow on snow. If he wasn’t careful the ten-minute walk would be swallowed up in an imagined conversation. He had already allowed himself too many dark thoughts of tears and silences. He saw her befreckled by weeks in a light he had only read about. She would be a stranger for a while, a visitor from another world (until she gradually lost the glow on her skin and the smell of Africa became an elusive memory). He was frightened that he would be overwhelmed by her physical grace enriched by   southern summer and the weight of her experience, having so little to offer in return. So he practised thought diversion: as her shadow entered his consciousness he would divert his attention to China of the Third Century and what he would write next about Zuo Fen and her illustrious brother.

Sister and brother Zou gradually took on a fictional life. This he fuelled by reading poetry of the period and his daily beachcombing along the shores of the Internet. He built up an impressive bibliography for his next visit to the university library. Even in the Han Dynasty there was so much material to study, though much of it the stuff of secondary sources.

One morning he took down from his library shelf Max Loehr’s The Great Painters of China and immediately became seduced by the court images of Ku Kai’chih. This painter is the only artist of this period of Chinese antiquity to be represented today by extant copies. There was also a possible original, a handscroll in The British Museum. It is said Ku was the first portrait artist to give a psychological interpretation of the person portrayed. Before him there seems in portraiture to have been little differentiation in the characterization of figures. His images hold a wonder all their own.

As David looked at the book’s illustrative plates, showing details from The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies, the world of Zuo Fen began to reveal itself. A ‘palace lady’ she certainly was, and so possibly similar to the image before him: a concubine reclines in her bamboo screen and silk-curtained bed; her Lord sits respectively at right-angles to her and half-way down her bed. The artist has captured his feet deftly lifting themselves out of square-toed slippers, whilst Zuo Fen drapes one arm over the painted bamboo screen, her manner resolute and confident. Perhaps she has taken note of those admonitions of her instructress. Her Lord has turned his head to gaze at her directly and to listen. Restless hands hide beneath his gown.

        ‘Honoured Lord, as we have talked lately of flowing water and the symmetry of love I am reminded of the god and goddess of Xiang River’.
       ‘In the Nine Songs of Qu Yaun?’
       ‘Yes, my Lord. The opening verse has the Prince of Xiang say: You have not come; I wait with apprehension / And wonder who makes you prevaricate on your island / When I am so splendidly and perfectly attired in your honour?
       ‘Hmm. . . so you favour this new gown.’
       ‘It is finely made, but perhaps does not suit the light of this hour’.
       ‘Let the Yangzi River flow calmly, / I look for you, but you have not come.’
      ‘I gaze at the distance in a trance, /  Only to see the grey green waters run by.

        ‘Honourable Companion, I fear you feel my mind lies elsewhere . ‘
       ‘I know you ride the cassia boat downstream.’
       ‘Indeed, my oar is of cassia and my rudder of orchid’.
        ‘I fancy that you build a house underwater, thatching it with a roof of lotus leaves . . .’
       ‘Well, if that is so, drop your sleeves into the Yangzi River and present the thin dress you wear to the bay of Li.’
       ‘I am in awe of my Lord’s recall of such verses . . . I love the Lady of Xiang’s description of the underwater house . . . with its curtains of fig leaves and screens of split basil.’
      ‘But will you send me all the spirits of Juiyi mountains to bring me to your side . . . will they come together as numerous as clouds?’
      ‘My Lord, my nose perspires . . .’
      ‘I offer my jade ring to the Yangzi River / and yield my jade pendant to the bay of Li. / I gather galingale fronds on an islet of fragrant grasses, / still hoping to present them to you. / If I leave, I might not have another chance. / So I’d rather stay here and linger a little longer.’
        ‘I gather the powerful roots of galingale / hoping to offer them to you who are still far away. / If I leave, I might not have another chance. / So I’d rather stay here and linger a little longer
.’
      ‘Even though your nose perspires and your ******* harden . . .’
        ‘Kind Lord, you have taken the wrong role in the dialogue. Surely it is the Plain Girl who gives such advise to the Yellow Emperor.’
        ‘And I thought only men read the Sunujing . . .’
        ‘You forget I have a dear brother . . .’
       ‘With whom you have read the Sunujing! . . and no I have not forgotten . . . he sought permission to travel to the Tai mountains, some fool’s errand my minister states.’
         ‘He may surprise you on his return.’
        ‘Only you can surprise me now.’
       ‘My Lord, you know I lack such gifts . . . I hear your sandals dropping to the floor’.
      ‘I sail my boat ever closer to the wind / and the waves are
stirred like drifting snow.’
     ‘I can hear my beloved calling my name. / I shall hasten so that I can ride beside him.



She seemed so child-like in that singular room of the garden annex. Her head had buried itself between the two pillows so only her ever-curling hair was visible. Opening a small portion of the curtains drawn across the blue metalled-framed French windows, he gazed at her sleeping in the dull light of just dawn. Outside a river-mist lay across the autumnal garden where they had walked yesterday before their tour of the estate. Unable to sleep he had sat in their hosts’ kitchen and mapped their guided walk in the rain, noting down his observations of this remote valley in a sprawling narrative. On the edge of moorland it was a world constrained and contained, with its brooding batchelor-owned farms and the silent legacy everywhere of a Victorian hagiographer and antiquarian. As he wrote and drew, snapshot-like images of her intervened unbidden. She both entranced and purposeful in a physical landscape she delighted in and knew how to read. Although longing to lie next to her he had sat gently for a moment on her bed, feeling the weight of her sleeping form move towards him as the mattress sagged, his bare feet cold on the stone floor. He placed his poem on the empty companion pillow, and returned through the chill of unheated rooms to the desert warmth of the Agared kitchen.


Lying in your arms
I am surprised to hear a voice
That seems in the right key
To sing what is in my heart.

After so many dark
inarticulate hours
I,  desperate
To express this love
That drowns me,
Suddenly come up for breath
(after floundering in
the cold water of night)
to find there were words
like little boats of paper
carrying a tea light,
a vivid yellow flame
on the black depths,
floating gently towards you . . .

Oh log of memory
record these sailing messages
So carefully placed, rehearsed,
Launched and found complete.

Knowing I must not talk of love,
Knowing no other word
(feeling the shape of your knee
with my right hand),
knowing this time will not
come again, I summon
to myself one last intimacy
before the diary of reason closes.


Zou Fen often wrote about herself as a rustic illiterate, country-born in a thatched hut, but given (inexplicably) the purple chamber at the Palace. As the daughter of a significant officer of the Imperial Court she appears to have developed a fictional persona to induce and taste the extremes of melancholy. Otherwise she is mind-travelling the natural world from her courtyard garden, observing in the growth of a tiny plant or the flight of distant bird, the whole pattern of nature. These things fill her rhapsodies and fu poems.

As a young man Zuo Si had wild flights of fantasy. He imagined himself as a warrior. In verse he recalls reading Precepts on the Art of War by Ssu-ma Jang Chu. With a scholar’s knife he writes of quelling the barbarian hordes (the Tibetans) in their incursions along the Yang-tze. When triumphant he would not accept the Emperor’s gift of a title and estate, but would retire to a cottage in the country. Then again, as a student scholar, he describes failure, penury and isolation ‘left stranded like a fish in a pond, without – he hasn’t a single penny in his account: within – not a peck of grain in the larder.’ He was never thus.

Like all good writers sister and brother Zou were the keenest observers. They took into and upon themselves what they saw and gathered from the lives of others, and so often their playful painted characters hide the truth of their real lives. David looks at his dishevelled poetry and wonders about its veracity. He always thought of Rachel as his first (and only) reader; but what if she were not? What would he write? What would his poems say?

*I lie on my back in her bed.
On her stomach, her arm on my chest,
She props herself against me
so that I see her face in close up.
She gazes
out of the window

I don’t think I have slept at all,
My own bed was so cold.
She warms me for a while.

All night
I’ve been thinking
what to say to her,
and now I am too weary
to speak.

I am in despair,
Yet I ache with joy
At having her so close.

I wish I knew who I was,
What I could be,
What I might become.

A voice tells me
that such intimacy
will not come again.
John F McCullagh Dec 2011
It was quiet in the park,
after lunch, the crowds are few.
Here the statures live in terror
because of what we pigeons do..
We’re adept at carpet bombing.
pets and people feel our wrath.
Our bowels are like loose cannons-
Don’t dare venture in our path.

Now, below, I see a poet
with pen in hand composing.
Intent upon the songbird’s tune
or perchance he’s merely dozing

His senses lulled by cricket’s song,
He perspires in the heat.
My calling card left on his suit.
says chose a different seat.
cheryl love Jun 2013
It is in the lazy, hazy days of late summer
In the heat, a daisy parts company
My body perspires and sends a shimmer
Of sparkling salt down my spine and skin
A rose stands straight like cadet, red
Like his beret, standing as proud as he.
A tropical butterfly dances within
The petals of the rose, tickling the row.
The wind whispers its petals
So secretly, so delicately, to and fro.
The butterfly wears a brave face
Watching the daisy and the rose
With wings just like Nottingham lace.
In the heat, my body embraces its wings
And it kisses my hand, knowing its place
In the lazy, hazy days of the summer.
Jamie King Apr 2014
The pen trembles, the paper perspires,the hand remains steady. Or is the mind weary and reality an illusion within a dream?
Infatuated with harmonising every line. Your mind is violent but your words are quite. incessantly bleeding the pen but there is no pain in your words, just anarchic serenity as you conclude with tranquil tragedies.
#poetry
cheryl love Feb 2015
It is in the lazy, hazy days of late summer
In the heat, a daisy parts company
My body perspires and sends a shimmer
Of sparkling salt down my spine and skin
A rose stands straight like cadet, red
Like his beret, standing as proud as he.
A tropical butterfly dances within
The petals of the rose, tickling the row.
The wind whispers its petals
So secretly, so delicately, to and fro.
The butterfly wears a brave face
Watching the daisy and the rose
With wings just like Nottingham lace.
In the heat, my body embraces its wings
And it kisses my hand, knowing its place
In the lazy, hazy days of the summer.
-elixir- Jun 2020
The sun blares upon me,
as I gather my fruits
from the tree of life.
My body aches and
perspires and I go on,
picking them for my future.
The gloom of this mundane,
sets into my mind,
as I toil in the heat.
I yearn for the rain,
to come and cleanse
me of this toil
and let me enjoy,
the fruits.
we go about gathering things all our life yet don't feel satisfied.
Rangzeb Hussain Jun 2010
Hot,
Humid,
Awake,
Sweating,
My body unshackled
from the smothering confines of nightly fabric,
I lie exposed and unveiled
to the peeping eyes of the ****** night,
The throne of my forested desire
throbs with a pulsating fire,
My body yearns,
It turns here
and there
twisting the silky bed sheets,
I reach for the pillow
and
press the soft coldness
to my feverish face,
My love for

you

will never ever ebb,
I want you here
to calm my stormy sensuality,
I am no longer the captain of my libido laden ship,
The wanton crew of my stirring soul is tossed
upon ***** seas,
My sails seep with love's liquid lechery
and my fleshy mast is gorged and passionately perspires,
It stiffly smoulders and itches and rises upright
and the tip drips with aromatic moonlight,
Let me rapidly stroke
and come with all pistons pumping into your curvaceous Chinese port,
Oh, my husky darling, throw wide open your harbour's shapely thighs,
Let me plunge my craving anchor deeply,
Oh! so wet and sweetly,
Let the sultry fireworks of our carnality unify and our universes combine,
Bliss! Oh, how I do so much dream of you,

Yet...

My tongue is parched,
My ***** lips are dry,
My throat hungrily burns,
Oh! caress me, lick me, kiss me to life,
Offer to me the hypnotic narcotic of your honey
and let me **** upon your delicate dates
moistened with the milky nectar of paradise,
The air of your smooth touch alone
would cool my licentious temperature,
In the dawn I would surely rise
to face the new day
with a wicked smile making merry upon my chaste face.



©Rangzeb Hussain
Mi Dec 2013
I get confused when
People discuss love as if
It's a vague word
But no it's so much more
Love was portrayed wrong
In fairytales because they introduced
Love at first sight
But didn't emphasize that love isn't about looks
Sometimes the evil villain
Could be the one with the pretty face
Or the one with the white horse
Whereas Prince Charming
Could be a pauper
Who has to work for a living and perspires a lot
He could be clad in not-so-fancy clothings
Then again,that's only one aspect of love
There could be siblings love
There could be passion
Also faith .
I witness love first hand,
when people pray
when a person gobbles up their food
Without showing off on social media
When a pair of old couple uses sign language to
Understand each other.
Love isn't so simple
It's weird and complicated but
One day, I want to have my own love story,
A little but less than a Fairytale.
Shiny Star Oct 2019
Love, so colourful and magical yet blind at first
changes just as swiftly as the seasons change,
love perspires ever slowly and inapparently,
till it is lacklustre and lost in the air forever,
Replaced with pretence for the sake of old times,
masking uninterestedness with a fake curiosity.
Lies come freely as one tries not to be obnoxious.
But seemingly, both are trying not to be insolent,
with both professing about love in the air tonight,
even when neither feel even a pinch of it in heart.
cheryl love May 2014
It is in the lazy, hazy days of late summer
In the heat, a daisy parts company
My body perspires and sends a shimmer
Of sparkling salt down my spine and skin
A rose stands straight like cadet, red
Like his beret, standing as proud as he.
A tropical butterfly dances within
The petals of the rose, tickling the row.
The wind whispers its petals
So secretly, so delicately, to and fro.
The butterfly wears a brave face
Watching the daisy and the rose
With wings just like Nottingham lace.
In the heat, my body embraces its wings
And it kisses my hand, knowing its place
In the lazy, hazy days of the summer.
Dear Jan 2013
Romantic rhythms resting in your rib cage
Send riddles for your mind to unravel.
Burning eyes, smoking mouths
like the Natives sage
Rosey faces and empty skull spaces dazzle
Brains replaced with bubble gum
Chewed by the teeth of an Argyranthemum
Over your hairy glory ivory vessel
Light hands travel
Over rising ecstasy bellies
Flooded with golden honey and angel eyelash kisses.
Tongues of desire and feeling of fire
Licking at your thighs.
Put out with my body of water
Rising and falling while skin perspires.
Butch Decatoria Dec 2015
he is in love with ****


tho' love is unfamiliar ground, for what is it

if never known or felt, defined

like the touch of first rain in spring

neither does this bring joy

to him,

new to this, but in it's circumference

he must linger

and observe such obeyence

on octane rushed inner space...



he is in love with a human *****

the shape and size oddly

gleams

his strength above

yet attentive below, how Dali-images he melts

flap-cakes on forrest-limbs, barren elms

and soggy wall clocks that sit in the dry lakes

sadness of a numbered face...



he is rusting from the wonder



how does it function

like keys to unlock hidden thunder?

he is curious to how this might sound / under

   clank of legs? ***** of the skins

how soft will his iron lips begin?



tic-tic-ticking : his suedo-heart's repetition



no different than those yesterdays

mechanical, steady,

as oil perspires from hollow wells



and in moments of fearing rain

   showers will stiffen the joints like pertrified woods

man, shuts closed the foil shiney eyes,

and mouth of silver lips

rusting in the quickness like lightning

fingers the opaque sky...



he must have it

this new flesh of a thing called a ****

so he may tell the sunrise

and use the magic it gives men

******* to name the flesh...



the affects

are unsimiliar to him, made of hollow tin

man, he is in love with ****

his mouth is crystalized thin

   moaning through the metallics of rust & unspoken

sins

the affects

on him, made hollow ... they are as similar

to the pink heavy man

having loved the woods, the same

but walks away

in flesh & pouring rain

on him without a word to say



petrified and moaning,

lightning in the skies - yes, woodsman,

the affects of your love

are the same,

with or without a heart...

even rusted

he is in love with ****...

sad power of men

               to finally understand ... there is more

to flesh and less of tin

when it deals with love



tick-tock-ticking

the function of the heart within

shells of men will mock



Body. Heart/Spirit.
Watts.
Ignatius Hosiana Mar 2016
Must we wait for stars when our love seems enough to light the way
can't we be moons for the nights, shall we keep waiting for the day?
are we going to enjoy the beams from our eyes
or just remain poles apart longing for the moment beaming sun will rise?
must we always wait for sleep  just so we finally dream
can't we conciously dare to dream about letting our passion scream?
shall we wait for Oceans to dry,can't we build bridges
will the door of our affinity last that long on these rusty hinges?
are we enough for each other or are we going to hunger and thirst
won't we question us all the time or will we completely count on our trust?
Won't we crumble and stumble in the dark caves and stormy waves
will we stick together even when karma turns us to slaves?
must we wait for the saddened birds to sing their songs
can't our hearts sing in appreciation of finding where they belong?
won't we keep dreaming of finding a better place to live in
if we can't make a better place of the historical cities within?
will we forgive each other when we make mistakes
won't our humanity and faults determine the long this takes?
why wait for the joys to write poetry and stories of romance
can't we pen every dance, delightful or sad by any chance
Can't we do everything it takes to be closer than this
shall wishes be our embrace and virtually flying forever our kiss?
will we be able to endure the long while we only have us at Heart
until it's no longer like that, until we cease to be oceans apart?
can we always press restart when we pause and when we hurt
won't we fail to pick up, and at the first fall this love might depart?
must we wait till we have enough cash to own mansions and yacht
can't we find content in the little,in starting together from scratch?
will we hike up the hill together, toil and sweat for the fruits
shall another remain down the foot and look on as one perspires?
will we extinguish our flames or just embrace the burning desires
shall we seal the cracks,won't we look on whilst
they tear further into canyons and consequently mute the lutes?
must we wait for the mango of our attraction to ripen
shouldn't we peel the bitter Exocarp and with salt eat the endocarp raw?
can't we make the best of the opportunities that are open
instead of looking on at the flowers of us waiting for them to grow?
must we wait to follow in the footprints of tales of true love
can't we just pave a way to a new plot ,one we deserve?
must we painfully wait for the engagement ring to decide
shouldn't we be jumping onto the motorboat of life and enjoying the ride?
Phil B Apr 2018
I peeked down the corridor
and there within I saw
Nothing. Utter dark and null
devoid of bright or dull.
Recoil'd not I from the drear'
in holding back childish fear.
      Of the Dark

      My ear it crept closer still
towards the sound of zilch and nil,
nothing. Vacuous silence,
drumming steady absence.
Tempted by the resting rhythm -
absent metre and system.
      .
      Deepest cold pierces the nose
out of shadow its scent arose,
Nothing. Faint eau de toilette,
an odourless silhouette.
Made curious to explore
beyond what was heard or saw.

      Impatience tipped my tongue
caution begging to be flung,
No More - ravenous nether
thirsting night tide aether.
Mouth salivates and perspires,
drowning in the lightless mire.

--

      At last - I am one and none,
for I the darkness has come,
Senses suspended: sound, sight,
scent, taste, now touch the night.
No I nor we - no more ...
Solemn stately corridor,
      Of the dark.
Colm May 2014
I wonder what spins around that star
That one up there, the one up far
Part of the glories of the universe,
Another golden purse, beautifully diverse,
Does its gravity warmly embrace
An intelligent race or just empty rocks in space?
Or is it there for us to admire,
Another signal fire, the blackness perspires,
Like a woman who can’t have kids,
But showers loving fits on her friends’ misfits,
However, I hope, she is a mother,
To sons and daughters, sisters and brothers,
Where beings love and live and lie,
Things cry and fly and hope never dies,
I hope they gaze at night at our own mother,
And their hearts flutter, and wonder, like we wonder
Your Name Here Jun 2016
Slowly dripping.
Slowly ticking.
Quickly fading.
Quickly changing.
Continuously falling.
Continuously falling.
The sweat that perspires from my forehead.
The clock that lies right above my death bed.
My vison that was once crystal clear.
My twisted demonic thoughts through out my years. Me as I slipped.
Me as I tripped.
Im contiously falling.....
Bright lights from above.
Im momentarily blinded.
An angel.. the angel love.
A messanger for me to be reminded.
All is never lost.
There is always a way.
No excuses no denial.
There is always oppurtunties to stop from drifting away.
Memories can not harm you.
They are just reminders that you have overcome.
All the pain you have suffered.
Once you can move on.....
You have won.
Wrote this trying to overcome a tough part of my life.
Andrew Kerklaan Jul 2017
A cerebral puddle of hypersensitive learning static
--
I dip into a forbidden fountain once again
--

deeper this time

Exposing the buffoon of our own nature and both dressing it and addressing it.

Taking it apart
Analysis and fragmentation

An obseversationalist's dream!

Expanding the groundwork laid out before me and building an empire with the infinite knowledge I attain

(through means less conventional... To some)

I throw the dice again and again.

I never lose...
just my luck I suppose?

But in reality I could of lost it all that day...

Brain drunk in mindlessness...

Blazed- in a sunset overcoat, my radiator blood stream perspires in a way that I had never seen until now...

Fading in and out of focus

~My safe zone is diminishing~

I can no longer draw you the lines I walked that day.

Alleviating my sickness for a time and
Vexing my temporary cure... I really must be ill
TLove D Mar 2017
You reek of alcohol,
And as you try to crawl your way into sanity
Your skin perspires with sweat of desperation

You reek of cigarettes,
As you let the thick smoke linger inside your thoughts
Blinding you from your own pure existence

Then, you begin to cease everything you've done
You let time heal you, and now,
You reek of nothing but of love
~ T.Love
A marble stone perspires
Naked among a hall of flames
Its soul slowly expires
Melting under the fires
Art among a hall of all blames.

Marred, o meandering mind
Attached, and tainted by human kind
Grazed and abused by God's gold gaze
Numbed and mumbling in a maze
Irked, taken by the moral bind
Fearing this fool felony
Idling to be once loved again
Collapsing in agony
At you goes this poetry
Trying to tear apart your pain…


March 20, 2013
Here's the French translation:

Anima Magnificat



Un bloc de marbre transpire
Nue au milieu d’une allée de flammes
Son âme rendant l’âme
Fondant sous les feux
Art au milieu d’une allée de blames

Marqué, ô nébuleux néant
Lié et tâché par le genre humain
Eraflé et détenu par le doré regard divin
Inerte et murmures dans un dédale
Irrité et captif des erreurs morales
Craignant ce critique cirque
Rêvant d’avoir un dernier amant
Chancelant, agonisant
A toi cette poésie
Puisse-t-elle être ton accalmie…

Traduit le 9 Juillet 2015
Lyon, France
Your immaculate touch and warm embrace
Your my shining light my sweet caress
your burning lips and perfect hips
A little taste is a fulfilling feat
Drenched in saline tumbling fingers down your spine
Dry skin perspires flooded with wine
Sip and lick all the pleasure is mine
I am going deeper while your angelic eyes shine
Oh so smooth your skin feels so very fine
Silent cries begging faster and for more
The earth shakes and crumble while we do it on floor
With bodies intact glued together as one
Every shrug is as hot as **** burning like the sun
Only you and I are the victim who gladly surrendered
Till' the moment it melts and spills, a love to remember
The prince of the flowers of malevil
Sees the black creature
In the dark night, hard
Hallucinatory skin
The top note so pure
Heart, depth, body, under her shawl

She is woman, moving
In the author’s mind
The night of her mysteries
Does not follow the hour
Of day taking the earth
His perfume however perspires

Of the poet’s mind,
This is not a study
Letters can tell the difference
Between a worried passerby
And a non-existent love
For Baudelaire, skinny.

His ***** mistress
Of his desires and angers
His body makes him suffer
The poet writhes
Under the pressure and the spell
Of his harmful fragrance

Written on December 13, 2016
Lyon Metro
Translated on April 19, 2017
“Nuit Blanche”, a fragrance by Yves Saint Laurent
Edgel Escomen Oct 2018
The *** in his hand starts to move
To till the soil, he shoves and shoves
He doesn’t care the weight of the world
He thinks of you, he produces food.

He worked silently under the scorching sun
With no complains, heavy works in hand
He perspires so much that glitters in his head
That forms like that of precious beads.

Seems underrated in the midst of life
He has to work beyond his sight
His work is a precious reason
To nourish you, a generation be born.

His unconditional love to the people
Beyond of his measured goal
His heart is as vast as the sea
Made us survive day by day.

Unsung hero, redefined the word fought
His work was not as much they thought
Without his life, the world will doom
The world may seem an empty room.
As her mind perspires
I'll gladly give her a reason to respire
I'll be your only squire
Treat you like a gentleman from Berkshire
Make those heartbeats higher
Dousing her sorrows
Causing her to perspire
Equidistant of both her lower appendages
Sophisticated but I like it
To be or not to be...
What is it that is so captivating of a tree
The plants that stand in Noble stance
To have no eyes
But to see more than the eyes can see
To uphold a roof that all dwell under
Filtering the abominations in the sky
What would we be without air...
We must take time to slow down and care
The buffet for our lungs to sing what must be sung and to feed the flame of the Mighty bright heat of a fire that perspires to warm my flesh
An invention of the gods to make  variant dishes more edible that aren't so fresh
The  guiding light in dark cold nights
To lead me to the water that baptizes my organs to keep me floating in a mental elemental paradise
Oh how wise to recognise and appreciate the fate of the gifts in this elemental paradise
The soul glides through it's endeavors
The ether it's home
Come back to me and melt with the crone
Chris Cowan Mar 2017
at night landbreeze heads back to seas
and seeds of dreams do blow
roots dig deep in buoyancy
with memories in tow

anything not anchored down by
earthclung facts and doubt,
unsound thoughts get swept and bound by
hopeful tumult’s spout

awash inside an ocean
tumbl’d bumbling, all blues,
emotion in implosion
under pressure becomes truths

those clouds aloft in springtime brew
do breach the moon and glow
but nothing which perspires dew
does last the dawn, I know
Christina S Oct 2018
Your breath against my skin
The events about to transpire
It just got really hot in here
'cause I came too close to your fire

Desperate for your affections
And your midnight desires
Just sitting here close to you
My wanton body perspires

Our bodies fit like a mold
Made only for us two
Lovers that can share this
Are reserved only for a few
Neal Emanuelson Feb 2015
This empty, merciful place
Brings sadness to these souls
These blissful, ignorant places
It's plenty good for those who

Want to breathe and forget their lies
Exhaling peace through the wartime fires
One born at ease and another life perspires
The deaf hear it and know
The blind see come and go

This perfected and ageless race
Comes as a burden for survival
Continued flawed and shameful ages
It's horrific for the children of those who

Can't believe they've seen their ends
Come crashing down in wartime fires
Shot down as beliefs truly disguised in desires
Generations see it and know
But the lives still come and go

But bear it all for honest heart's sake
Admit our rights came from honest mistakes
We'll fight and claw for each we've made
An end to the fall closer and closer each day
And we bear it all for all our heart's sake
Brought closer to every mind by our own mistakes
Out of my arms, you've hit the earthen floor
I'm still unsure exactly how much this is worth for

Those who want to breathe and forgive themselves
Their loudest screams echo their silent hells
And trusted lips have said the damnedest words
The truth exists and will show
When the lies give hold

© 2014
Stephen Norton Nov 2017
I'm an Android
But not as smart
My brain is void
Here's a gift
Please love me
I don't know how to feel
But I know I love you
The circuits fire
Metal skin perspires
Rusty muscles give life
To vestigial programs
Boot my heart
My CPU flutters
I'm just a metal man
A tin can that shakes hands
I smile, while processing your desires
I wish had the light
That spark of life
The comprehension of human dimension
But my domain remains plastic
Metal and silicone
But I'll overload my circuits
It's worth it
Just to feel you
Andrew Rueter Nov 2018
Time is fleeting
Winter is weaving
Coming and leaving
Stunning the seething
Gunning and bleeding
Running from needing
Honeys for breeding

The rabid and bitter
Look for a babysitter
But find Hades’ River
In a shady grifter

A timeline
Sidelined
By bribe buys
And tribe lies
Of pride cries
Decides why
Defiled guys
Have wild eyes
And exile ties
With bile tides
Of vile vies
For a piece of the pie

Those who worship aggression
Follow their idiotic impressions
From charismatic rally sessions
Of one-sided lessons
Based on dejection
Contracting an infection
Preventing self reflection
Halting their progression
With thought deflection
For emotional protection

So the recent challenger
Is the event calendar
Becoming a pal ender
For the scowl senders
Who’re foul lenders
Or growl at tender
Tower menders

My debt’s share
Of fresh air
In death’s snare
Is best spared
But pests stare
With test glares
So I get scared
And let blare
My fret fair
Nightmare

This emergency
Of an inferno sea
Must be urgently
Purged from me
So I can see
The way to be
Hate free
And not flee
From interacting

But the clients and buyers
Are tyrants and liars
While times are dire
The pirates set fire
And hydrants retire
As the world perspires
And starts to expire
The heart of the empire
Has parked the choir
And sparked this mire
Into a funeral pyre

So I can only hope
This lycanthrope
Likened trope
Will not poke
The bear we host
Who cares the most
Of the scares of ghosts

This reason to sell
Season of hell
Treasonous spell
Deletes the smell
Of seeds that fell
Who need to tell
Their creed is well
Yet we see the intel
Warning they’re bitter incels

The dimmer mention
The sinners’ tensions
And interventions
As an interception
Of their own reflection
Not passing inspection
Like a class in detention
They mask their perception
With political inventions
To explain the inception
Of their constant deception

Alone without friends
They follow the trends
Of political bends
As they like to pretend
They’re here to defend
But our country descends
Into a dead end
Of a red blend
When the ref spends
All his time deafened
Bitter
Devon Brock Jul 2019
Rocking on the third rail spark
and grinding on the steel wheel
taking a well arced curve on the El
winding its transit plan to the loop
passing second story flat dreams
and the messing about before
the office coffees are brewed
and the day begins as an abstract
smelting of glass concrete steel
and the eyes drift from a hand-holding
two, to the crochet hook fingers of the
night shift lady, to the suit and tie
guy with trading in his eyes,
to the bronze trumpet girl
sure footed, on point
below a new sky.

But the train bends down
for the subway
a spine bends for a dropped book
the train bends down
and yellowed signs cracked
at the corners flicker on
and ceiling lights flicker on
a fist tightens on a pole
and we look to our shoes
our papers, the news.
Eyes avoid eyes
and the sick blending
of massed perfume
perspires a choking distance.
A spent soda can rolls
the one last connection
from foot to foot
and each taps it away.

— The End —