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David Barr Nov 2013
Fluctuating equilibrium is not divorced from the pleasure of pain, or from the pain of pleasure.
One may deem the price of gas to be expensive. However, its price can plummet overnight, to joyous depths of consumerism.
Smell the slow-cooked meat as it retains its succulent moisture, where the slicing of flesh releases secretions when parts are severed from the whole.
The cello can be an orchestral wonder of this perplexing theatre, yet thought-provokingly sombre in its captivating liberty.
So, make a decision from this rich menu of trans-global culinary indulgences. But please, do not forget to tip the pretty waitress.
Patricia Valese Jul 2013
How Much Gets Me On A Bus?  to the City?
          (I live 30 minutes away)

more than this ever will - POETRY
I’ve been writing ‘poems’ ever since I remember
ever since 11 –
reciting these phenomenal words of wisdom
to any and all who would listen
forcing family-members & friends

that’s the thing about poetry,
it makes you feel like it’s important,
makes you think the words you sling together
aren’t really yours
it comes to you, through you, needs to come out of you,
and when its over you’re just as amazed
as they should be.

but they’re not, I mean
they like poetry, admire it,
even enjoy it sometimes,
but they could honestly
give it up in a heartbeat,
live without it.
You know what I mean?

I’m like you
like all the people who come here
I'm part poetry as poetry is me
A Dodge Poetry Attendee many years –
my arm once around Gwendolyn Brooks,
cried in a church with Lucille Clifton
talked Newark to Baraka –
know the honorable Slammer, Patricia Smith!

I’ve sat many years with the Lords of Literature - my professors
who all seemed to know “whose got it”
the intellectuals of American prose who seem to be searching for a rookie,
the next best troubadour college-student that will grace their faculty-doors…

The poetry I read here is incredible
Some of the best stuff on the net,
poignant, painful , honest, raw, sensual, serious – provokingly real

words I read here startle me, stun me at times
so clear in meaning, well-crafted, chosen words
unusually strong

They’re the kind of words the got-it people have,
the poet people (probably all people have)
poetry is just another way of finding an infallible song –

(I still say we should go sing it on the bus!)
patti Nov 2012
I keep writing the spaces between heartbeats,
I keep touching the things that aren't real,
I keep saying how I'm going to change into something,
I keep erasing the lines that I've written before,
and when will I write for myself.

it takes skyscrapers filled with polaroids
it takes little white lies and telegraphs
it takes reflective puddles of gasoline
it takes armfuls of daisies and paisley print napkins
it takes princes and paupers and slurpees and silver
plated bracelets and philosophical books and memories
of people sitting on cracked green-brown bus seats
it takes things I knew and throws them away; it takes crispy hot nights
when cheekbones are sweating and boys who know nothing
of what they want filling their hearts up with and euros in pennies and sitting
on six clouds of old medications and basements with just too much dust.

it's a matter of time,
it's matter of perspective,
it's a snapshot hold-back parallel circle of constant irrevocable dimensions of porch swings
and merry go rounds undeniably irritatingly provokingly making me sick.

swish swish go cassette tapes I keep within reach
I can pull out their insides and stretch out the tape to reach to the moon
past the treetops and over the sun and into my head while I sleep.
someday I'll tinker with those that dream nothing,
and someday I'll write for myself.
Justin G Mar 2015
Ignore the mind
Too difficult              
To confide
Too much        
Story telling
Misguided intention  
An age old conviction   
Too ill intended       
   Pitiful thoughts  
Plentiful lost
Death toll enthralled
Each skill was killed
No depth            
Nor sound
No gold             
All sold  
Now  
They're teasing me  
I've lost space                    
Came in last place         
Everything stolen
I'm feeling squeezed
I'm losing it        
Mistook it for empathy 
It kept misusing me           
The sweetest of symphonies     
  The smell of fresh failure       
Everything freshly faked  
What a Life                   
A piece of cake    
   Nothing decisive       
Existence is strife
Collecting undeserving data
Nihility is unadulteration  
   The purest form of freedom
No water for family trees    
   No soil for plants or seeds
Too much abused energy   
       To be is transient
Evoking unfulfillment
Provokingly altering
All reality conflicting
A deep sea of dreams  
Why be?            
When being    
Always falls
... ... ...
Short 
     ... ... ...

A poem for me?
Why me? 
I'm not one to be
Anthony Moore Aug 2015
It is ironically funny,
that in the land of milk and honey I pray for two shots of whiskey.
Tell the devil come and get me,
but, I'm not going gently.
I never met a single sorrow that I was able to drown,
yet, never had a wrong up that I couldn’t write down.
So even though my demons keep following me around,
they don’t talk to me now, they don’t even make sound.
They just lick their lips and then they look at me and grin
while I'm gripping this pen like, I'm never getting it again.
It is almost as if they think I'm writing it for them.
But why would I want to play a game that no one gets to win?
I would like to welcome you to my mind; but I'm out of it.
How is it I'm proud of it and still not powerless?
It's simple, my prowess is not made of counterfeits.
And now it gets people to keep openly noticing the potency of the flow in me is known to be overly, thought provokingly, and notably infectious.
My poetry is restless, so, just knowing me is reckless.
Why does it have to be so hard, it’s not fair.
It’s never fair and it doesn’t ever seem to go away.
It shouldn’t matter though because it’s only me.
It’s probably my fault somehow.
I don’t know how many more thoughts of reconciliation I can take before it breaks me completely.
I swear that I believe in strong families,
But I’m doubting that I can make mine that – church girl or not
Which I am not so much anymore.
If I walk away I’d feel that I’m missing out due to my own faults.
I tell myself they’re hers and are what is driving me away,
But it hurts to turn away for too long.
I live with sour pains and expressions,
Sometimes they turn to pity and I want to stand up
For her. Her actions knock me down again,
I remain left in the hurt.
It seems as if I’m struggling to dig my way out of the ground,
Trapped and my thoughts and feelings in submission, supressing.
If I can’t let go but I can’t hold onto what I never really had,
Then what’s next?
My bed is covered in dust because my head is still the same
And the girl that I was: broken still.

I feel a heavy weight burdening me
****** upon me by you, the one who should be lifting me up.
I’m tangled in steel spider webs that I think I want to leave,
But when I get the chance I change my mind due to fearing that it’s the wrong choice.
How did you manage to involve me so much while pushing me aside?
Right now I want to laugh although logically I should cry.
Because that’s what you’ve done to me;
You made sure your mentalism rubbed off on me,
Also making me think you’ll catch me when I fall even though you pushed me.
I keep pulling away from you and it seems like what you want,
But somehow (weather you mean to or not) you drag me to the starting line.
It’s a race that never ends and with no intention of a prize.
With you, my own mother,
I’m left running in circles around myself with tears filling my eyes.
Still you have done nothing to make me feel this way,
Although psychologically it’s as if you’ve done everything to make me stray.
And so I’m shattered down the middle while you’re still provokingly tapping on the glass.
It’s like the air always seems to be thickening now
Making it hard to breathe,
Because I am trying to guess your next destructive move.

I am stuck between being too scared to move,
And too scared to stay but probably just scared to lose the pain.
Stupid I know but so is all that she is and I might be just the same.
Breaking whatever’s in reach as I step a path I do not know
Or know too well.
The solid pain I feel inside is ever capable of echoing,
Like it never loses its meaning.

— The End —