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Mymai Yuan Sep 2010
I was born a sickly, screeching baby, two months earlier than expected. The doctor and midwife did everything they could to keep my little limbs moving and to keep my tiny heart beating, fluttering like the wings of butterfly.
“Is it a boy?” my mother whispered through her pale lips, as they bathed my naked body in hot water.
“No, ma’am, it’s a girl” The midwife struggled to add on something that would make the wailing creature seem more desirable. “With exquisitely shaped feet, so perfectly miniature”
She let out a croak of conflicting emotions: the joy and pride of a newly-founded motherly love, the fear of presenting a girl as a first-born, the relief that the hours of agony in childbirth were over and the dread of facing her husband once he found out about me.

My mother was not healthy after my birth for a long time; and when I was only one and two months old she fell dangerously ill, and the house whispered footsteps running to her room late at night and muffled voices of different doctors. Mercifully, she survived but was left barren and forever unfertile.
I can not imagine my father’s fury. He believed in having sons to carry on his old last name of thirty-one generations; it was his religion and had I been a son, I would have been worshipped as a god. I can imagine how my mother prayed and thanked her ancestors that her dowry was of a large one.

He could barely tolerate being in the same room as me during my toddler years. Every time he entered a room I was playing in, nurse would sweep me to our garden out side; answering to my startled queries, “Be an obedient daughter, don’t bother your father and don’t ask questions”
My body had been born frail, but my natural spirit was as healthy as could be, full of inquiries, wonders of the world around me and everyday I would learn something new just wandering around the neighborhood observing things, with my nurse trailing with a worried eye behind me muttering, “Girls are not supposed to be exposed to this” she spoke the words as if they were sour, “you should be sitting at home and accompanying your mother.”

Every day at dinner, the two females of the house, me and my mother, were silent while my father ranted on and on. My appetite being very delicate, I often just sat there as still as I possibly could and listened to my father talking about politics, jobs, money. Things he called ‘men business’. I longed to ask questions about these ‘men business’, especially ‘university’ for I had an inquisitive sort-of nature but was refrained with a sharp, piercing look from my mother every time I opened my mouth and sometimes, she pinched me under the table leaving purple splotches which flashed, “Don’t question your father”
Sometimes, he would talk about the future he had decided for me, “You will marry off, sixteen at the latest, to some one rich and beneficial to our family. You will do as I say till I marry you off, and then you will do as your husband tells you.”
“Yes father, for I should repay everything you have done for me” I replied as sweetly as I could.
“Yes, you’re a good daughter. Bear lots of sons for him and your house will be one of happiness.”
I was proud that he had given me a compliment. “Yes father, for it will make you joyful as I always wish to make you so”
My childish heart did not understand why my mother turned her head down while her left eyebrow twitched, and why that night, as she tucked me into bed, I thought I saw a tear roll down her cheek and why as she kissed me that night she whispered, “Do not love me so; love your father. The men in your life are your gods.”

My physical health would constantly limit the desires of my free spirit. I could not to do what others who were as free of spirit as I was could do, and couldn’t socialize with them and the rest of the children in my neighborhood had their siblings to mingle with, causing me to become the pitiful outcast.
I saw children around my age, around seven or eight, climbing trees and wanted to do so as well, but my white feet did not have grip enough to grasp onto the fat branches.
Father caught me once trying to propel myself up a tree and his expression was both of a resigned anger and sadness before he turned him and his face away and back into the house without a word.
That night, mother told me not to climb trees ever again. I noticed a faint bruise on her cheek bone that had been covered with white powder.

When I was eleven or twelve, and was allowed to wander further out into the neighborhood with my nurse I saw the boys fishing in the nearby pond and wanted to do so as well. Starting that day, every week I pocketed the three coins mother gave me until I could buy the best fishing rod in the little store and ran as fast as my skinny, weak legs could carry me to the pond. I mimicked the way the boys flung the fishing rod out over the water but the metal pole was too heavy for my pale, shaking arms. I tried over and over again as my nurse watched, biting her lip in anxiety. I held the fishing rod with trembling sore arms till  I felt a bite; I pumped my small arms to reel it in, but they were so tired and I was far too slow, losing the fish I had spent half the day trying to catch. “Ah, just bad luck, don’t worry! It was a smart fish, I tell you!” nurse exclaimed, though her eyes flashed a look of pity and I knew she knew it wasn’t just bad luck or a smart fish.
In anger, I sold the fishing rod to one of the boys for two-thirds of the price I had bought it for. He was delighted with the bargain and I watched with a lump in my throat as he caught three fish with the tug of his healthy, muscular arm within fifteen minutes. “This is a beautiful rod, and the pond is just filled with fish today, Little Sister!”
Wanting to spend the money jingling inside my pocket, money that to me was just a reminder of a painful memory, I headed off to the collection of little shops close to my house where I was guaranteed distraction. Nurse, sweating and complaining of the heat, followed me.
An ageing man with a bunch of filthy hair working away on a piece of thick, rough paper with wondrous colors inside a shop caught my eye as I peered inside the window. He turned the picture upside down and continued blending in the dark colors of the shape to create a shadow along the curve of it. I entered the shop. “What is that?” I asked of him.
“A face” he replied back absentmindedly.
“Doesn’t look like one to me” I confessed with my honesty.
He looked up at me, “No, it does not to you, and maybe, neither will it at the end. To me, it looks like an angle of a faded face. But slowly, with time, it will become clearer and clearer, yet only to me, and as it does, I will be able to choose more colors to make it yet more beautiful. The outcome of this painting is entirely up to me.”
I felt my challenging self rising up. “But what if you imagined a certain color in your head but couldn’t find it or be able to mix it to your mind’s perfection?”
“Then I would create my own paint color.”
“You know how?”
“No, but if I could not find the paint color already made I would make it myself, and no matter what, would learn how to. So far I have always been able to compromise and mix different colors to please me.”
“You do an awful lot of shadowing light colors with dark colors”
“Why do you think I do so?” he questioned me this time, with bright eyes.
I pondered for a moment to give as good an answer as he had given me and then told him my answer.
He nodded with impress, “Yes, yes, absolutely right. I never thought I’d hear that from a child” and looked at me with his head cocked in curiosity.
“What would you like to buy from here, Little Sister?”
Still deeply interested in our conversation I pulled out the coins I had in my pocket. “How much stuff can I buy with all this money? I’d like those crayons, I’ve tried them once before and they are so creamy and smooth.”
“Oil pastels?” he asked, a little confusedly.
Feeling ashamed of my ignorance, I nodded. The tutor father hired evidently bent to father’s strict rules of what should be taught and what would not be taught. Father disapproved of women painting, and would’ve dismissed nurse had he known that instead of taking me out for a little walk to smell the blooming daffodils, she in fact let me explore the environment around me to the best of my ability even in disgruntle.
The man gave my red-patched cheeks and undeveloped translucent frame a sympathetic look and when he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Little Sister, I’ve a whole basket of oil paints that I’ve used but rarely and so are still in perfect condition. Would you like to carry the whole basket home for all the money you have in your pockets?”
I handed him all my golden coins, “But first I must see if I like it.”
“You won’t be disappointed” he chuckled and walked with an imbalanced limp to the back of the store. I noticed a wooden stump protruding from the bottom of his long, black pants. My heart throbbed achingly; he was ****** limited too. I turned to his painting and smiled from deep inside, a smile I rarely wore.
He came back tugging a huge brown basket filled to the brim with sticks of oil pastels, some longer or thicker than others. He lifted an orange one up and showed the tip of it to me, which was stained with a black mark. “Sometimes when you blend colors this will happen, but it’s easy to rid off. Just softly, and patiently rub it off on a cloth until it disappears.” He demonstrated upon his black pants.
“Thank you. It’s kind of you. But...I can’t carry this home myself. It’s heavy.”
I turned to nurse and smiled my best pleading smile.

The basket was toiled up as nurse undressed me from my shower and father and mother were otherwise occupied. That night, with my precious basket safely under my bed, I cleaned all the multi-colored oil pastels on an old shirt, and as soon as the house was ringing with silence, I locked my door and flicked on the lamp light, and started pressing the smooth colors into the paper to blend and make a picture of kissing colors on a relatively large piece of white paper. A thrill ran from my finger tips and along my arm, and made my palms tingle as I held the colorful sticks in my hand to the paper. I hid it underneath my bed just as a rosy sun was rising.
*
I was sixteen, and I was thought beautiful: for now, at this age, it was considered beautiful to be so pale of skin, so small of feet and hands, graceful to have tiny limbs and charming to have little strength for it was now considered ‘feminine’.
It was three weeks after I had turned sixteen and for dinner, father had brought over an ugly man with a bulging waist and shiny bald head who continually made ****** jokes at the dinner table while he believed I did not understand them. He was infamous for the two wives he had had (before they died from sickness), and how he not only hit them but kept other lovers too. Yet he was desirable for his vast richness. He leered at me obnoxiously, in an attempt to smile.
Father caught him looking at me, “She’s incredibly silent, never says a word of defiance and will be a most dutiful wife.”
“Yes, she is beautiful”
My heart froze and my brain was stimulated to work twice as fast. Him?! Him?! The man who’s wives were killed through an illness called ‘abuse, neglect and disloyalty?!’
I cast my eyelashes down in order to appear a calm, modest young lady while my heart hammered in fury, disgust and a rising hysterical panic. I shot a look at my mother whose left eyebrow was twitching as she stared down at her dinner plate, and I knew she was having the same thoughts as I.
“I would be glad to have you as my son-in-law. You would have no trouble with her, and would be embraced with open arms into our family.”
They continued this path of talk through dinner while he eyeballed me in a way that made me cringe. I felt his foot nudge mine under the table and in haste tucked it under the chair with a little gasp. His eyes glittered at my gasp and I was furious with myself for letting him feel a rotten triumph. Though I had always felt an extremely strong dislike towards him from what I knew of him and sometimes saw of him with an immoral lady, something pushed in the pit of my tummy, and I knew it was pure hatred.
When mother tucked me in she was being strange. On closing my door she whispered, “I love you… so I wish you to know… don’t ever contradict men”

As I was secretly drawing a picture as I did every night till dawn, I heard my father’s voice roar in the dead of the night. In a sudden, I shoved my portrait under the bed and threw all my oil pastels into the basket, hid it, and switched the light off. I heard his voice roar again, accompanied by a thud. I was wild with fear as I crept to my door and pressed my ear against it, barely even shocked at my own daringness as my instinct, love, took over- my instinct of must knowing what was happening to my mother.
“How dare you say I’m wrong!?” there was another thud, and this time I heard a soft whimper. “She is worthless to me, not a son. And I will marry her off to a rich man who can actually benefit this family.” He roared.
There was a whisper which I strained to hear, “He will **** her”
“From the moment she was born she wasn’t made to live!” he yelled.
A hiss escaped my tongue and I coiled like a serpent, flinching as a thud was heard yet again and an immediate cry of pain escaped from both my lips and my mothers’.
A fire awoke inside me, burning my temples and my whole body and my eyes stung with hot tears; tears that burned my face as they splashed down. My whole body was shaking and my tightly squeezed eyes were going through spasms. I was no longer wild with fear, but with anger.
I turned my light back on and tugged my basket of oil pastels out. I yanked my portrait off from a thick of pile of different pictures I had drawn.
My breath was coming in quick short breaths as I finished my portrait to the utmost perfection, using every oil pastel in the basket. Every time I heard a thud, I colored with more fiery… shadowing my jaw line with the fat black oil pastel, in the crook of my ear, the corner of my mouth… where the light shone upon my fore head, how it reflected in the color of my eye and glowed on my cheeks.
When I was finished, the house was deadly quiet again and dawn was breaking. I looked down upon it and realized something that changed my life.
In frenzy I swatted out all the things I had ever drawn and stared at them in an awakening.
The colors on them were the events of my life, the things that characterized it, the decisions. They were beautiful for they had been chosen and controlled by me … I had chosen the colors I wanted and thought best for my pictures; and spent thought over how to blend different colors to the color I wanted.
And everyday, as I worked into the drawings with time, they became clearer and clearer on what was the right thing to do, and how it should possibly look like in the next stage.
I leaned over and kissed the thin lips of my portrait that didn’t look exactly like me for not even the most skilled artists have complete control over what they draw.

Then I remembered what I had told the one-legged man in the shop a few years go:
“Lights not only illuminate, they also cast shadows. The contrast makes you able to appreciate the power of both.”
Now it was time to truly let the light illuminate my life, and let the shadows let me appreciate the light that shines upon me; I color my own life, and choose my own colors.

To pull out the colors underneath the darkness of my bed…
And spill it to the world outside.
Salmabanu Hatim Jun 2018
My love,
I saw you in the smile of the cheeky Sun,
When we met in the park.
I saw you in the glow of the charismatic moon,
When you asked me out.
I  saw you in the twinkle of the dazzling stars,
When you kissed me with passion.
I saw you in the lyrics of our favourite song when we had our first dance.
I saw you  in the cocoon of a caterpillar,
When you slept soundly beside me.
I saw you in the huge waves of the ocean,
When we made ecstatic  love,
I saw you in the flutter of the butterfly wings,
When you were agitated and worried.
I saw you in the ferocious roar of the lion when you ranted in anger.
I saw you in the tub of my favourite icecream,
Which you did not share.
I saw you in the halo of an angel,
When you showed love and kindness to grandmother.
I saw you in the sweet song of the lark when you mingled happily with  my family.
I saw you as a complete packet,
Someone I could spend my life with.
I saw you in a four hearts diamond ring,
When you proposed.
Last I saw you in the marriage vows,
Which you and I took.
For better or worse.
Oh, I know not!
I see not, and master not!
Why t'is caprice - t'is tender whim, is unwilling
to unveil my soul, conquering it with
mounds and plates of rapturous
yet canonical attention. How I dread
such falsehood! Strong, strong falsehood!
What an inconsiderate urgency! A matter, matter of the heart -
as mighty as it probably is, of its own accord! How serious
t'is would be! I am suffrage; and akin to its vigour areth my laugh,
and joy - I would be hatred if none cameth to stop my pace;
my frosty haze; and t'is gruesome maze! Yes, I would but be,
in th' length of some furt'er days!
I shalt no more be of t'is delight, and clustered inside my gloom,
pressed to th' walls of dainty loom; from which I shalt never
be comely enough to be granted an escape.
How terrifying t'ose scenes areth, to me! A poet as I am,
unenviable is my littleness, and humility; to t'ose who glare with jealousy
at pangs of my laughter, and childlike demands - as how t'ey always
chastised during t'eir coincidental encounters. But I am blessed!
I am blessed by my words - and t'ese cheerful, yet unending poems -
as unlike t'em I am, ungrateful and vile beings, flocking to th' church
only for th' sake of brand-new dowry, and enforced blessings.
Murderers of peace! Sons and daughters of vice! But I am convinced
t'at virtue shalt forever tower over t'em; and in th' right time t'ey shalt
be pulled off t'eir horses, and unedifying pleasantry. And goodness
shalt t'en win! For truth never bears t'eir unfaithful boasts, just like
it hates t'eir dishonesty; which so insistingly frosts me
with atrocity within 'tis lungs, and so soon as doth it start to cling stronger -
abashed shalt I be! Incarcerated shalt be my front, and dutiful
countenance - in t'at gross conflagration with secular flatness,
hesitations, and worldly doubts, in which yon grotesque salutation, corroborating
'tis assailed countenance, gouty and drained by rightful mockery;
comes but to avenge my love, my wondrous love -
which yesterday was dazzling and dripping fast
but contentiously, like a ripe cherry. Like a small burst of wine
craved by scholarly epicures, t'is feeling but anonymously grips
my lips, trembles my heart, and distracts my limbs;
should I be to think of thee, I shan't but be away
from t'is nauseatedness, of regrets, again! My thee, my thee,
areth thou truly gazing at me from afar? With fascination in thy stares,
wilt thou bestow me such destiny I hath been so desirous of - my dear?
And with thy serene, bulbous eyes - t'at sea of blackness
basked in marred turmoil - ah, a sign but of peace after such fire! - wilt thou
mould thy mind, thy stony mind, like a black-painted rose,
to throw at my being, just one, voluntary glance?
I am but anxious, my love, how I shake all over
with unreturned passion like t'is, my blood is circling
in distorting, yet irrepressible agitation.
How I wish t'at thou could be here, and rendereth me safe, in solely
but thy arms, my love! And shalt thou be my giddy knight - I entreat!
In my unmothered dreams, and t'eir precocious brambles - on t'ose journeys
of loom, doth I fear not, for thou shalt be t'ere to mirthfully comfort me.
And off shalt I fly again, to greet th' thoughtful morning!
But ought I to leaveth my dreams now; for thou canst be here to celebrate
t'is snowy day, and lift me onto triumph! And how I wisheth to cast away
t'is imprisonment, how I longeth for but thee here - just thee, remember t'at,
o but hark to my swift whisper, t'at calls only for thy name, my love!
How aggravated, and corrupted my conscience wilt be -
within th' membranes of my brain; t'eir hardship is severed by thy unpresence.
My love, o my restrained - single love, t'is ode that lights my soul
shalt illuminate thine; and 'tis long words - threads woven along
an abstracted lullaby, and vanquished by silent accusations, from thy, thy mouth!
A well t'at is perilous in its standing - standing like a torch, unruptured
albeit neglected, innocent in 'tis acute forlornness. Poor misery!
Hark, hark, my love - how t'ose dames, irresolute in t'eir volatility, and
charms of miraculous beauty - but tumultous inside, entranced by fear
of losing which, as so graciously raved and ranted all over th' year!
Th' dreary years - which th' above phrase caused me to be well-reminded,
and duly recall how t'eir sickening remorse tossed me around; and decreed
my jests of dread, sickness, and disdain - surges, and waves of animosity
wert but all about me. But how they areth happening again! Amongst th' snow -
running about as t'ey art, t'ose heartless, indignant creatures -
blind to th' tenderness of nature, bland and untouched by its shrieks, and
flickering toil! How I wish to save it, but incapable as I am - a minuscule shadow
of early womanhood t'at I own, I choose to stay distant,
and pray for t'eir impossible atonement, somehow, before t'ey entereth
t'eir silent graves. How t'ose ghosts of malice areth in no way acquainted
with th' woes of th' churchyard, and th' grimness of death - I declare!
How unafraid t'ey are, sacrificing t'is coherent life for such courses
of abomination. Victories upon th' misery of others,
dances to mourning songs, how evil! But I wish for t'eir salvation,
for t'ey art unable to even salve t'eir poor selves. I shalt be fervent
in my generosity, for 'tis th' most rewarding part of humanity;
I shalt be but a faithful servant to my innocuous nature. I adoreth my nature
just the way 'tis, and I shalt build its madly-scarred way back; with tons
of brightness, care, and hearty bliss! Yes, my love, my bliss - which inhabits
th' entire space of my maturity and unmolested passion. Inapprehensible as it is,
I am but to win its grace, and t'erefore thee - just as I hath so ardently dreameth of -
as heretofore, and shalt thou but be saluted and fended for
by my, my sincere and unbinding, affection.
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
~ ~ ~
Adieu!
My Crew, My Crew!


this, our first trip,
our longest voyage,
nears completion

eighteenth of May,
a terminal date,
date of destination,
upon it commenced,
upon it,
our commencement

a terminus nearing,
a degree of latitude given,
a degree of longitude observed,
by you
mes méridiens,
witnesses to my zenith,
a degree of gratitude granted
and lovingly recv'd

adieu, adieu!
this sole~full rhyme
beats upon my lips
repeats and repeats,
endlessly looped,
Adieu, my crew!

sailor, voyageur,
scribe and travel guide
for four seasons,
a composition of one long
anno sabbatico,
muy simpatico

in the spring of '13
I sprung up here,
a Mayflower,,
a May flower,
a floral ship,
annual for a single year,
annual for a single circumnavigation

hearing now once again,
refreshing sounds,
hinting noises,
here comes his paul simonizing summery spring again,
rhyming timing reminding dylan style,
it's all over now, my babies blue

t'is season to move forward,
back to old acquaintances renewed,
sand, water and salty sun,
three lifelong friends who,
Auld Lang Syne,
never ever forget me

we get drunk on their eternity,
their celestial beauty,
and they,
upon my tarnished earthly being,
unreservedly and never judgingly,
give inspiration unstintingly,
we share,
never measuring a captain's humanity
by mystical formulae of reads or hearts

for
grains of sand, water wave droplets and sun rays,
all
only know one measure,
immeasurable

respect the
never-ending new combinations
of an old nature,
even the impoverished words he speaks,
words as they exit the
brain's grand birth canal,
whimsically announcing their poetic arrival with a:

"been here, done that,
but happy to do it,
one more time,
just ever so differently"


the only counting
that satisfies them and me,
the clicking sound be,
the sound of a
a pointer-finger tablet-clicking,
heartbeats a metering,
individual letters being stork-delivered,
and

yellow lightening
when it comes,
signifying family completion,
a poem,
a family,
comes
crackling real!

here comes spring again!
happily to shackle me,
shuckling me back to and fro,
to whence I came,
and from
whence I once
and always belonged

memorial weekend,
memorializing me,
orchestrating a prodigal son's
two edged tune,
a contrapuntal contrapposto,
a "fare-thee-well, man"
and a
"hello son, welcome home!"

that empty Adirondack chair,
by my name,
with your names
in tears inscribed upon it,
awaits

the breezes take note,
singing a duopoly:

this ole chair
needs refilling,
Rest & Recreation for your Rhythm & Blues,
your busted body boy
healing with our natural scents,
calming with common sense

with it,
will and refill,
the cracked breaches,
by phonetic letters frenetic,
drinking, then purge-spilling,
a speckled spackling paste of comfort food words
given of and given by,
given back to,
the bay's tide
and beaches
and

you, crew,

let this soul captain briefly lead,
spilling too oft his new seed,
he,
selected but unelected by a
raucous silent voice-vote...
of an unknown,
impressed-into-service crew

some of you
impressed upon
the skin of this captain man's sou!,
a cherishment so complete,
yet has he to fully comprehend,
its miracality,
the golden epaulettes upon his shoulder,
worn ever proudly

the nearest ending,
one of many.
a course of waterfall and rapids survived,
yet invisible shoals fast approaching,
a single bell tolling, warning,
here was, here comes,
yet another,
close calling

sirens shriek
forewarning,
can't abide a moment longer thus,
desperate longing
for a refuge of language loved,
not lost in lands and a sea of
ranted bittersweet journaled cant
and hashtags of sad despair

can't lengthen this sway,
grant a governor's stay,
cannot

heaven schedules our lives,
completed a time out
in a day,
twenty four hours of fabulous, fabled
and of late,
a shopworn, forlorn existence,
three hundred and sixty five times,
circularized on these pages

now
no forevermore, no forestalling,
only the truth,
a grizzled, unprimped,
mirror'd recognition

flutes,
sad low whistle,
trumpets,
wild maimed moan,
violins,
jenny jilted wailing tears, groan,
and harps and guitars,
each pluck single notes plaintive,
long and slow their disappearing reverberation,
but end it must

none can deny or fail to ascertain,
port of our joint destination,
pinpointed on maps as
"the last curtain call,"
just over the nearby horizon line,
demarcating the finality
of the days of glorious,
and the quietude of
a storied ending

my crew, my crew,
forever besided,
forever insided,
bussed, bedded, and bathed,
with me,

wherever I write most,
wherever I write eyes moist,
my crew
of all captains,
whose fealty I adore
and to whom,
my loyalty unquestioned sworn,
upon righteous English oak
an oath unstained,
an American bible, an American chest,
blood sworn here forever to
my
brothers, sisters and children
many who by title me addressed
this man as,
grandfather,
yet friends
from foreign-no-more-lands

this is only a poem,
this is only the best I have

This to me given,
and now to you returned,
encrusted with trust

for
we together,
were
a new combination
all our own

my crew, my crew,
for you:
my seasonal Yule log-life burns
every day,
all years of my life shiny shiny
copper-burnished teapot whistling
you, your names
a tune of the past,
and the yet to come

I care,
burdened more
than than you ere known,
dare I bear
to bare-confess

for and by you was I,
my restlessness lessened
my unrest less,
so comforted by an out-louded,
deep-welcome-throated reception
let it end thus,
no whimpers or cries,
no misunderstanding

in a Wilderness of Words,
sought you out,
your name and lands,
yours, purposely hidden,
disguised and unknown,

while I placed before you,
my name
my birthplace,
the poetry of my truths,
the jagged laughing,
the cryptic crying,
at myself,
foibles, pimples and the
the insights inside,
mine own book of revelations
all clear in the
drippings of my clarifying
cloudy tears

stranger to friends to chance,
all by chance,
sharing nodules, capsules,
even tumors and ill humors

your affection and simple heroism,
left me both gasping,
and leaves me now,
grasping

your hearts sustain
and are sustainable,
in ways the word,
organic,
not even remotely
adequate, sufficient

in ways
that can be secreted here,
in sharing,
private messages,
snippet exchanges,
that are valored above the rubies of
public hearts that
claim attention
but are gold bonded hand cuffs,
nonetheless!

my left, what is left,
to your strong right,
by rings married we are,
you and I,
a secretion on our kissing lips,
a perfumed essence called
No.365
"secrets of us..."

Wit I were a man
who could advance
his essay further,
but this voyage,
closed and done,
but a steamer approaches
where they need a third mate,
no questions asked,
no names exchanged,
no counting the change in his heart and the,
holes in his heart pocket

asking not,
are you friend long term true,
or just a fly by night,
short-winded trend

so onto
ports that are nameless,
needy for discovery,
perhaps,
they will have a fruitfulness
unripened,
awaiting verbal germination
so yet again,
when he wipes away
with back of a hand,
his fresh fears,
moistening those dried,
those crack'd lips

underneath will be yet found
a perhaps,
a
fully formed, yet to be shared,
new poem,
that gives value
standing on its own,
and perhaps, rewarming, reawakening,
his gone cold and pale,
yet quivering moving,
his almost stilled silenced spring,
but not quite,
lips...


--------------------------------

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                            But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.


                    
Walt Whitman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And the words that are used
For to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they’re spoken
For the chains of the sea
Will have busted in the night
And will be buried at the bottom of the ocean

A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in

Then the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touchin’
And the ship’s wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin’

bob dylan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon
We'll meet (I know we'll meet) beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

No more sailing
So long sailing
Bye, bye sailing...

Jack Lawerence
looking for me in other names, other places
an explanation someday writ, not yet complete....but my poetry no longer gives
no satisfaction...
Hibernating in the summer, not merely resting my voice, but more than that, much more...will repost older stuff only...
take care of the newbies
~~~~~
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!
and surely I’ll buy mine!
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine†;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give me a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.
Ceida Uilyc Jan 2015
I know nothing about this discontentment,
This irritation and friction with sanity,
Suddenly it feels like I have not known my sanity,
Ever.
I have a confession to make.
To my parents,
3 decades older than me.
To tell them that I’ve been lying to them,
Lying about my degree, education and academic wealth,
For almost two years.
The fact is,
I had no choice but to tell them all is well
When the awls were pricking into my tender innards.
The time has come now,
Because I can no longer continue telling the untruth,
I tried if I could crawl in the campus,
Under the tag of being institutionalized,
For them.
Every day that I kept a straight face to them,
I trembled and felt the roars of the rising schizophrenic worlds, bit by bit, all around me.
I felt the unknown telugu that I heard in my mother tongue,
In my dad's voice.
Him renouncing me.
Him grabbing his head,
So as not to explode from the dirge of my living dead.
I hear my parents abusing me, in the random shouts of my neighbors.


I saw it all so clear.
I screamed.
I ranted.
But, found no warmth anywhere.
The fear, anticipation and confusion have killed my sanity.

Today, I flutter like a half-winged bird,
In the darkness of yesterday,
That my parents count as lit.
But then I released,
Knowledge is free.
And, knowledge is everywhere.
And knowledge came to me,
not with the stamps and seals of degrees,
But the enlightenment
From a concoction of three snorts of ******* and a dash of a little LSD on a Hoffman blot.
I rebelled mad in my high,
That I will no longer be institutionalized.
That I’m a free soul.
I became sober,
But my interests did not change.
Its been two years,
And I’m still astray, waiting to fully feel the freedom I have opted for.
For the pain of the mismatch I pour into my parent’s ears,
It kills me each day, second and time.
I have the guts to confess to my parents,
With neither shame nor embarrassment,
That my path is true and solid.
I wish not to be trained no more, to live.
I wish to simply live on my own.
I want them to know the truth.
That I have my house.
My kitchen.
My milk pan, mixer and fridge.
Today, if that **** that happened 5 years ago to me,
had happened now,
I know how to stand.
On my feet,
and hand him, my ******,
over to the law's eagle blind beaks sharper than the awl of my gossamer mists. Rather than bend my conviction, arrogance and identity to that ******* of a coward.

I want them to know that this is the only way.
Today,
I earn myself.
I live myself.
I’m free.
I have to be free.
I write all that I will.
And do forever the same.
I just,
Have to be free.
I will be free.
Presently, I have confessed, my dad hugged me and set me free. Assured me that he will be there at every juncture. It was just the 2-years of my poetic schizophrenia!!!
Thanks Pa, I'll stun you someday too :D :-*
To every kid out there, finding his own path, lying to parents, just so that they feel everything is alright, Hon', just keep walking. Parents are one of the biggest mysteries. Don't try predicting what they'll do, 'Cause they're gonna stun you blind. Just blind it all with your searing faith in yourself. So, don't waste any time, run, my child. Run!
Good Luck.
20612 Oct 2012
Life is a roller coaster,
So full of suprises,
The twists, the turns,
The descending track,
The breathtaking rises,
Just a three letter name was all we said,
Now it’s the only thing repeating in my head,
Life is so special, our ancestors ranted,
It takes us a death, to not take it for granted,
I met you the summer of 2006,
You could shatter people’s bones like stones and sticks,
Yet you still were so kind and content,
If we had a problem, then to you we would vent,
A MAN among boys some people would say,
A towering figure that’s now passed away,
A smile among words is all that we needed,
Instead we just hated and in life we just cheated,
You’d walk through the halls and light up the room,
You’d light up our hearts and teach us to bloom,
For life is so sacred, and now on our ride,
We’ll never forget that you were by our side,
I saw you on Monday when I awoken,
You looked at me and smiled and no words were spoken,
Now as you ride the trip into heaven,
Our prayers are with you and your family 24/7,
I just saw you Thursday for a final time,
You were smiling and i shook your hand,
Now go and shake God's now my friend,
Always remember that we'll meet again,
Sooner or later when we reach the end.
RIP Man Mai 4-18
Suhaib Tariq Oct 2013
Grant me patience.
Remove my haste.
Let me revel youth
and not let it waste.

Grant me power
and the means to use it
Help me see worth
in powers unused yet.

Grant me success
free from acclaim
let me keep my spirit and
you may keep my name.

Grant me vision
to see what my eyes don’t
And help me mend all
that these times won’t.

Grant me miracles
and grant them often
on the grave of hope
let the daffodils blossom.

Grant me acknowledgement
on an endless list of names
remembered not for what I was
but rather what I became.

Grant me forgiveness
for the prayer I have ranted.
Grant me gratitude
for having taken much for granted.
I RANTED to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but cannot rule
My fanatic heart.
I sought my betters:  though in each
Fine manners, liberal speech,
Turn hatred into sport,
Nothing said or done can reach
My fanatic heart,
Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.
k e i Jun 2017
red car, yellow car, blue car, white car

no lucky black car, no orange to wish on

they just sat there for awhile on the edge of the rooftop, feet dangling looking at the rush of cars passing by playing the game they invented and derived from the tongue twister red lorry yellow lorry
if a black car passes by, luck will come through
spot the first green car and you pick the way you die
look for an orange car and make a wish

it was a game they played to **** time or whenever they went up the rooftop of the ballet studio they've been performing at since they were children and they were currently taking a break from swan lake rehearsals. they played the game for a little more though heather could tell that megan-meg for short- had her mind somewhere else.

"penny for your thoughts?"

meg just shook her head, tilting it across the pink skies that matched the tutus they still had on. a dreamy smile was strewn across her face

heather just watched her friend and the world surrounding them, a light gentle bubble in her stomach. she loved the building's rooftop so much; she was actually the one who first went up here and ever since then, it had been their place her place. she went here on weekends sometimes, when they didn't have rehearsals. everytime she was up here, she felt more than she was, like she was a goddess and everything below her was under a microscope like she could change anything with the click of her fingers. but most of all, in here she could freely be. it was her safe haven.

"okay spill tell me this isn't about hendrix again?"

meg smirked, looking at heather's ice blue eyes "okay you caught me" she says, traces of the english accent she had come with still evident in her voice

"i knew it. boy he's got you in such a haze. you've got a school girl crush on him" she teased, making her friend giggle nervously. meg was dating hendrix peters, a senior in the high school they were attending. theyve been seeing each other for six months now and heather knew how much of a ride it was almost as much as meg (being the first person meg ranted to everytime things occurred) the two were a match made in heaven and it was testified by the amount of gossip about them that was circulated, mostly by the senior girls who were head over heels for him and would hiss whenever their paths crossed with meg's and try to flirt with him every chance they got though he politely shook them off. he supported meg in all the possible ways, from attending to her performances on stage to supporting and showing off her stunning makeup looks and she did the same with him, coming to all his football games and enthusiastically cheering for him. they were madly in love, you could say

"it's not like that" meg scoffed, clasping both of her hands together. "ive just been thinking about the both of us and our togetherness and how we haven't done it yet and yea it's been in my mind alot" she bit her lip, a habit of nervousness she had "it's not a big deal i know, i mean, people do it all the time, people who aren't even together and it's not this eureka moment or anything of the sorts but i want it to be special at least"

"has he been asking you to do it?"

"no he doesn't really no, forcing there" meg shakes her head "but we did talk about it some time, once, thrice yea"

"someday then or tomorrow just be safe my dear friend" heather replies in a playful tone, trying to bring back the lightness of the conversation

"ugh help me practice my skills give it all to me darling, let me do you" her friend wickedly retorts, launching atop her and pinning her to the concrete, playfully mock *******

"ew dude *******'re so gross get off me" she says trying to act annoyed but she was laughing too all the while trying not to get crushed by meg's weight who was strangely heavy despite her small wiry frame

"ow babe im coming ugh" meg continues, laughing fooling around-this was how their friendship worked

"*******. now your germs are all over me" heather grunts, finally pushing meg off her and both of them just lay there for minutes, laughing too much and choking in their breaths, as the sky was bathed in watercolor above them, the sounds of the city being their soundtrack


"what's it like?" heather blurts once theyve both calmed down

"hmmm?"

"what's it like, being with him?"



meg raises her hands like she was touching the clouds, taking the question in deeply "it's....wonderful....i mean...we aren't always happy and we have loads of fights but....we manage to make it work and the whole thing drives me crazy but it's a good kind of crazy"

her answer dissolves in heather's thoughts are completely lost in it


"you know that when we first got together i told him how much i hated clichés? flowers, chocolates stuffed animals, fancy dinner dates you name it and he nodded and the first gift he gave me was a boquet out of makeup products and i laughed because it was thoughtful and he's just full of surprises but you know he did give me flowers and letters on an occasion but i didn't mind it.
i guess that's how love is, made out of all the things you love thrown in with things you don't like but you don't mind at all"

heather nodded, still deep in thought "how did you know?"


the question seemed to have an incomplete thought but meg got the gist "i just did. well i didn't know itd last but i did know that he was for me but he's not my soulmate see, you don't find soulmates, you make them. anyone could be your soulmate, soulmates are just a ****** up idea at finding love. someday you'd know kid"

heather rolled her eyes. she hated being called kid because she was reminded of how much younger she was from meg when it came to these sorts of things "don't call me that"

"you'd know" meg pats her friend in the head, lovingly still teasing her

she sits up, tying the ribbons of her satin slippers. they climb down the fire exit and join the rest of the ballet dancers, rehearsing for the rest of the day



and heather went back to the rooftop the day after, a saturday in solitude sorting out the contents of her brain, replaying the conversation she and her bestfriend had in this very place the previous day, all the while feeling a sort of feeling in her heart very familiar to nostalgia. she realized it was the feeling of longing. longing for love like meg's description of it. longing for love like the glow of stardust. longing for love
sure she had a boyfriend before but not once did she feel like how meg described love out to be with him not once did she feel like their kisses and hugs mean something and their fights never felt worth fighting for. sure she had this guy in her grade whom she passed notes and looks with and texted for days but it was never serious and he didn't see her in that certain light that makes people glow that you fall for and even if they dated it would have been too complicated.

it was a winding day for her mind to wander and she played their game as the cars went on their journey on the highway down below.

an orange car swooshes out of nowhere and she closes her eyes and makes a wish when my person comes please i hope i'll know, holding on for a beat more. after that a black car passes and her luck was aligned with the stars
im going through stuffs rn
ugh my brain is so sloshy
Ottar Oct 2013
a group who has a cult following
sings about hiding for
solitude
they dedicate nothing to the poet
who did, as they know it
in hiding
but it was inspired by the same CB
I must say a big wowski to
Charles Bukowski
don't think it would happen here
no chance without distraction
little peace, much action
guessing if I became an angry man
ranted, raved and demanded
this type of peace
that would be a living conundrum
or a poet raging as an oxymoron
please leave the ***** alone
and
give
peace
and
quiet
a
chance
meeting
with words that escape
at the first sign of distress
as they undress my day
and see vicariously the
disrepair, oh you don't care...
Okay
I'll go.

To my hidey hole,
to write my pre-verse
in hyperbole ,
"how to get lost"
         and what it cost me,
let the silence be
deafening,
no man may be a
poet unto himself
(forgive me I forget myself)



©DWE102013
Thanks to Pearl Jam for the inspiration "In Hiding", among other not so well known tunes
The Princebles Office better known  as the Dragg queens lair.

This time it's it!
You demented twisted drunken *******.
from the veins that shown so easily from Sir Eltons  neck i could
tell it must be a bad hair day.
That and  he was trying to butter me up with all the compliments

****** harassment,Encouraged drug use,Public displays of insanity,
******* indecent act's with a animal oh wait that's the artist formely known as jack horner.

As this sad little dwarf from a strange planet called London ranted and rubbed the fact in my face that yet there was one rule i hadnt broken
****** man whats a girl gotta do to get some attention?

It's it ive gotta list of angry sensitive people who are friends with benfits  who  want you gone!
How could this be?
Had the world gone insane or caught some std that slowley eats away  
your brain slowley making you think that Justin Bieber had talent?

Dear lord it was reffer madness all over again.
Well Frodo theres only one solution I exclaimed.
His face red eyes mentally ******* me jesus man must have been
missing happy hour at the shire.

Well pippy  they'll all just have to go  im mean what would
funhouse be without a ***** old pervert  to feel up the costumers?
Dam you  Francis Ford Copela
What the hells wrong with you?

The question hung in the air like a **** in church
So many things made one Gonzo.
Not enough hugs  to little wild turkey.
And not using protection.
Remember kids always fasten your saftey belts get your heads outta the gutter.

The list read like a who's who of people who really needed
to get a life  or laid maybe even by there wife.
After hours okay maybe the rest of my bottle of wild turkey
it was decided  once again  i was the black sheep and no one
wanted to play anymore oh well i'll just do what the staff of the drag queens lair does and play with myself.

But enough with the foreplay children.
so many things i had learned  like  well ummm?
Okay maybe nothing at all  i knew i should have tuffed it out and
got through   kinder garden.

As I cleaned out my desk I reflected apon old times.
The laughter  the time i set fire to grandma's cat  and blamed it on my
little brother eventhough i didnt  have one.
Wait wrong memory.
  
The road ahead uncertin my mind unclear.
My inner child hurting in need of a really hot comfort cuddle maybe
from someone with a inner ****.

As I began my long walk of shame much like a woman who relized
she made a big mistake with her boss lastnight.
It's hell working in the family  business.

I passed old faces  all  pretty much thinking i was full of it as usal
turned and in my grown up ****** with a heart of gold voice said.

No one puts baby in a corner!
Sometimes you gotta  stand up for things  or do like me and blame it on others   and I cant belive  not even a single  free bottle of ***** or a concert  or maybe a lap dance  yeah  it's really went down hill
girlfriend oh snap.

Guess i'll just go  dont try to stop me.
Hmm tuff crowd   well  stay crazy amigos.
And as i closed the door i could feel the sadness.
There was a great racket coming from inside.

I knew it the heartbreak was so terrible these people were destroyed.
Why even as i opened   the door and saw them swingin from the hey what the ****?

All eye's turned  the music died.
Dear lord people  really?
Even my 50 pen names?

Im okay  well  the cake saying good riddance hurts a bit
But it taste great and the margarita's nice touch.
After such a outrage I was left with only one choice
steal as much **** as could  flip frodo the bird.
spike the punch   okay maybe  do a little dance make a  little
Gonzo once later  id demand  a blood test for and shut the hell up for good tonight.

The door slammed shut like my wifes legs after she relized her sisters baby  really had a strange fondness for wild turkey.
All sat around wondering will this long *** write ever end ?

Chris looked at the artist formely known as Jack Horner.
Speaking in that slow **** seductive  voice of his.
Ya think the crazy ******* is really gone.
To which my crazy amigo across the pond replyed.

**** no he does that every other week.
And besides  thats the door to the janitors closet.
Hey I know theres a millon jokes in that one dam you R Kelly
When it comes to crazy theres only one Gonzo.
Thank God stay crazy.

And if I offended anyone ya really need to download
a sense of humor.

I write what I want and no matter if ya love or hate me
ya dam sure wont ever forget me.

Drink laugh and enjoy it while ya can cheers my friends
Graff1980 Nov 2014
“There is a bitter sting to reality, an unfairness to it all.” These words echo in the young boys ears. Holding what is left of his sanity, he traces the damage; rubbing the now forming bump on his forehead. Fingers circle the discolored flesh then press hard against it till he winces in a jagged remembrance.

He still feels the full force of her bible belt beating down upon him. Open hands smacking him with the made up words of her own book of revelations.

“And the dead shall rise. To feast upon the unclean. “She ranted.

Now, the yellow superhero tee comes off slowly enough. She has stretched the neck of his favorite shirt. Of course he is partly to blame. He never should have had a favorite shirt. He tries to swallow, but his nerves force him to take two swallows for one. The first one descends halfway down his throat.  Catching his anxious breath the second swallow finally goes all the way, followed by a trickle of blood.

“It is what it is.” He thinks.

With soft poet hands he pulls a different shirt from the closet. His brown hair slides messily from the neck hole as the red wool rolls gently over is sore skin providing a small degree of comfort. Then he put his long goofy looking brown and darker brown jacket on.

“I’m done” he mumbles to himself, as he stuffs his journal, sketchpad, the book he is currently reading, and an extra set of cloths in his black back pack.

The white window pane vibrates with October winds. He slides it open, shimmying over and out into the frigid autumn night. A shiver crosses his skin. Then he closes the window as quietly as possible to avoid any more drama. His sad eyes scan the night trying to decide which direction is the right way for him to run away in. With no indication of which way will work best for him he turns left and starts walking.

A mile down the road he stumbles upon the remains of a partly chewed up possum. Empty eyes point deeply into the pine forest. The moist matted fur almost matches the road’s color perfectly.  Dark dry stains mark the grey road. Chunks of slimy viscera lay displayed from the flayed features of the decomposing creature.

In the distance he hears the howls of teenage boys.
“A bunch of screaming fools ******* around,’ he thinks. “I don’t need this ****.”

So, he turns off the road and heads into the trees. Brown pine needles break under his feet. The soft forest bed gives slightly beneath his treads leaving little footprints. As he scans the ground he notices that the earth is swimming with strange footprints.

With a little daylight left he finds the perfect spot to stop. A tree plays backboard to his tense and tired frame as he sits down to rest.

His mind turns to dreams of love. A female figure fills his thoughts. She is dark and lights. Pale skin, leather jacket, with raven black hair that shimmers in the night sparkling with the energy of infinity. She moves with all the destructive grace of Kali. She is a frozen skin scythe less death; Hopes and wonders mixed in with nightmare prophecies. Doom pervades his soul. He feels perfectly alone with no hope.

Which means it is the perfect time to write a poem. One line flits past then the next till almost the whole page is filled. Then he rewrites copying and improving. Till two pages later he is finally fixing the finished draft.

With the last bits of daylight he completes the poem’s final lines. Shivering and exhausted he decides it is time to find a place to sleep. He packs his backpack with all the finesse of a ninety year ******* boy and heads out into the night.

Suddenly he senses something moving behind him. A shadow crosses his path. Panic seizes him. Shady black tendrils run across the ground followed by the sounds of strangers moaning. He runs. The moonlight flickers fast behind the fading pines as he quickens his pace.
He stumbles into a clearing where the ground is punctuated by broken stones and white marble dust. Small monuments stand marking the past. Somewhere slightly off to the side a Sepulcher sits as a testament to a hundred years of death.

“How perfectly macabre, I’m in a cemetery at night in the bitter cold.” He thinks

The earth shifts and swirls beneath his feet like quicksand. Losing his footing he falls backwards. The contents of his backpack scatter haphazardly across the disturbed dirt.

A thin hand pierces the brown ground. Then an arm makes its way writhing from the soil searching for something. Boney fingers feel around until they fall upon a pen and paper. The pen scratches furiously on the pad.

The young man stutters trying to make out the horrible handwriting.

“g-g-get of-f-f m-m-y head.”

The earth tremors beneath his feet, causing him to jump back in fear. Then a skull ascends. Empty sockets stare menacingly at him. More of its body rises, until the full corpse form is free. The wind whistles through the rotten frame. The monstrosity turns his head and heads away. Shambling off into the night to frighten someone else.

A sigh of relief escapes the young man’s lips. His heart slows to a normal rhythm. The blank October sky fills his eyes. He laughs in gratitude, deciding to find a better spot to settle for the night.

Then a jaw chomps down on his skull. Rotten teeth shatter but the bony mouth still pierces his noggin. Red droplets drip soaking the journal pages. The poet screams. His voice fades slowly away, as he struggles. Dying in agony he becomes a feast for the undead horde. The red splattered page reads---




The Graveyard Poet
He walks without sleep
Restless and awake burning inside
With all of the secrets he keeps
His pen and his paper
Lay softly on broken ground
The dead are his keepers
Their stones stand scattered all around
So he put his pen to paper
Ink is turned to flesh
The words bleed into
Each other and start to mesh
Thus the graveyard poet is born
He writes with passion
His mind becomes a storm
His body begins to feel numb
But his heart is so warm
On and on from dusk till dawn
Words erupt from the poets pen
Still the cold bites bitterly
He stops only to turn the page and write again
Hours come and go in a blur
Until he can’t move his arm
Even he is unsure
Of what is wrong
His eyelids grow heavy
And soon he is asleep
Rest peacefully young poet
Now your secrets are mine to keep
Ivie Aug 2014
Dear AK.S,

I wanted to write you poetry, but my words fail when it comes to you, but my heart revives when i think of you,and i still don’t know why you call me the queen of cheesiness,surprising name.
I wanted to coat our times with synonyms and rhymes and metaphors,but when comes to us, simplicity is the beauty.
Simplicity might not be beautiful to you, but i hold it like like a fragile flower plucked from its ***, and put in a vase,with water, mere water, what is water in front of dreams.
And you have known my dreams circling around new york and road trips from the beginning and i have known your dreams, around chasing boys and the boys who circle around you like man-eating lions, since the beginning, yes, i disapprove of every boy you have ever liked, but YOU held me tight when i drowned in the hopelessness of these dreams, and i hugged you, and ranted about how they were foolish frogs, little *****, as we blocked them on Facebook and they floated away like clouds, their lanes got cut-off from our highways.
We have danced with flaming fire ,and danced ,jumping across barbed wire and we have danced with cunning liars, and times have made us dance to beats that deafen out hearts,
And we have screamed and shouted, in the club like maniacs chasing after beats,and out of club like we have just lost limbs , like Britney spears and will.i.am not at all like them.
And dare i forget, the coffee trips and song tags, nine inch nails,to t swizzle, macchhiato to java mocha chip we have covered them all, we have dreamt of texan to cali beaches and we have dreamt of those new york skyscrapers and apartments all white filled with Bukowski and Lang Leav, we have lived on the edge and lived with the mainstream,
We have lost it all, like distorted bouquet, and we have forgotten all the love and given out aré hearts to people to rip the pictures of each other inside of us, and we have fought and fought brutal civil wars, and world wars with nuclear bombs to have to all back, to have it all back,

WHY?

WHY?

Because no one can compare to you, to the words you say, even if sometimes they are like requests of candy crush game, no one could make me as happy as you do even if our bad days are like a B-grade horror movies, and i am pretty sure are, you have no one that talks as much *** as do, so you only keep me around to hear my wild fantasies, but our good days are better than 90’s rom-coms.
We hurt the ones we love, inevitable, and regretful, but we burn and scatter the ashes of those moment for those we know we wouldn’t be better off with,   and i have burnt countless chocolate molten lava cakes to come up with the perfect gooey one for you.
In all honesty darlin ,this final attempt did come out perfect, it needs a little finesse on the edges but we can sort that out, we have won, we have won wars that they haven’t seen ,and when they look us like we are made of stars, they could not even reach, i know, I know travelling 10 light years and all these meteors shooting through me , the gruesome struggle to reach the stars has been worth it.
I wanted to write you sonnets that will do down in posterity and sing you pitch perfect love songs in front of millions, and graffiti your face in thousands of brick walls throughout the landmasses,
                                                            but all i have is this love which grows like wildfire,
                                                          which I hope is enough for this lifetime.
SO PLEASE STAY,EVEN IF WE MOVE TO DIFFERENT CITIES NEXT YEAR.

I PROMISE TO **** ALL THE WASPS AND SPIDERS THAT FIND THEIR WAY IN FOR YOU.

Love, V.J
Harry Toye Aug 2011
Have you ever paused and stopped to think

What life would be like if we didn’t have a drink?

I don’t mean wine or beer, whisky or porter,

But the most precious of all, a drink of cold water.

                                          

Do we waste water, do we really think it’s free,

Perhaps because the real cost, we try not to see

Thousands of dead children, not as a result of ethnic slaughter

These kids died for want of a glass of clean drinking water

Not in long wars glorious, with armies victorious as the media would portray

But in stinking slums broken hearted mums watch their babies die, every single day.



The water crisis affects us all, this we know,

Not just in far off countries where the crops won’t grow.

In this matter we each share some blame

Collectively it’s a national, crying shame



If we only took on board that without water life would stop.

None of us would dare to waste a single, precious drop

But it’s always been the same concerning you and I

We never miss the water, till the well runs dry.



Recently in Ireland there was a cry and a hullabaloo.

There was a water shortage with a difference; this time it affected me and you.

Bad management and leaky pipes meant water was in short supply,

The councils cut everyone off; there was a tremendous outcry,



How dare you cut our water off, I roared and ranted and cried

I was about to boil my spuds, now I’ll have to have them fried.

Must I have a shallow bath or even a short shower?

Don’t worry mam he said, we’ll have it on within the hour.



That was a week a go, I haven’t seen hair nor hide,

Our personal hygiene habits are beginning to slide,

For we can’t clean our teeth or even flush the loo

I had to ring and ask, what ever will we do?



He said when water returns we will all have to ration,

It’s easy to save water if we take individual action.

As for our taps, turn them on just so

There’s no gushing water, only the required flow.



When having a shower and under that spray

Remember, that it’s not the time of day

To hum and sing, and ponder the meaning of life

For princes or paupers, from all walks of life



Seem to wash and rinse and then wash again

Oblivious to the deluge flowing down the drain.

A rub and a scrub and a few minutes in and out

Will suffice is my advice as there’s no time to hang about.



Don’t let your ablution mean even further pollution

By using chemicals to scour your baths and showers,

An alternative that is green is the easy solution

There are products that clean, made from plants and flowers

To protect our heritage for all our sons and daughters

Join the revolution against pollution of our streams and waters.



With towns expanding, populations are increasing,

Irelands thirst for water is desperately unceasing

Industry and commerce toil by day and by night

Its demand for more water, is an insatiable appetite

Its not that it’s wrong to try to prosper and thrive

It’s just if we continue to waste water, we’ll never survive.



In this big world we have a shameful distinction,

If everyone polluted like the Irish, we’d face extinction

How we seek success with our industrial drive,

Means we’d need three planets just to stay alive.



When we look at our country with its rivers and lakes,

It’s hard to believe, a little thought is all it takes,

To cherish and to relish this God-given creation

For the sake of the future and the next generation.



The moral of this story before I bid adieu

Is that there are a thousand ways to save water –

But they all begin with YOU
When the King came down to the counting house and found all his money had gone
he ranted on as only Kings can in the Kingly way
for a year and a day,
which was surprising but only in that it reminded me of the pea green boat and the ***** cat
the loss of his dosh had nothing whatsoever to do with that.
The King was now potless
not a penny to spare
he couldn't sell knighthoods or forested woods,
he was as they say,'boracic lint'
skint
a pauper.

His Daughter,
the lady Jamille
cried a lot
for now she'd to deal with the peasantry and pleasantly so,
she had to learn how to grow,
cabbages,turnips and broad beans it seems she did well enough to feed the family with vegetables
she could stuff tomatoes with mince because quince was 'orf' the menu
she made ragout and that was a mess,spilled it all down her best lavender dress and she cried a lot more.
Being poor was not good and being knightless and single was worse,she was sure she'd been cursed by some well versed old witch who was concocting a spell to leave her quite naked,not even a stitch to her name,
I did mention her name was Jamille?
yes
Jamille learnt to steal and to lie and to cheat
a normal occupation
if you have to stand on your own two feet (in shoes which she stole)
She got caught in the end and in the courts of the justice was ordered to mend her ways.
The old King was ashamed but could hardly be blamed for this circumstance which caused him such grief
it was down to the thief who stole all of his money and the same thief pretends now to be posh,
well he would do with all of that dosh
but we know different don't we.

Clothes may make the man as much as any amount of money can but
it does not make you a king and vice versa,
Terry Collett Jul 2013
In lunch recess
you made your way
to the sports field
Reynard going on

about some girl
in class
who he said
had navy-blue underwear

saw them
when she was going up
the stairs this morning
on the way to maths

he said
the sun was out
in full blaze
and he said

you’re not off
to see that
13 year old *****
are you?

she’s a year younger
than I am
so what’s
the big deal?

you said
but what about
the kick around
with the other boys?

you saw Christina
on the grass waiting
she was sitting on
her school jumper

being too hot
to wear
girls are a downfall
Reynard said

leave them
to softer fellows
but you parted from him
and walked to where

she was sitting
you hearing
Reynard’s voice
over your shoulder

what’s a matter
with your friend?
she said
he wants me

to kick a ball about
but I’d rather
be with you
you said

let’s go for a walk then
she said
and got up
from the grass

and brushed
her grey skirt down
then took your hand
and you walked over

the grass
and she talked
of her morning
of dreary lessons

and how
that morning
her mother had ranted
about her untidy room

and the leaving
of clothes everywhere
you listened to her speak
taking in her nose

and eyes
and how
her lips moved
and her hand

was becoming damp
in yours
and you sensed
her pulse

in her wrist
and how it beat
and she talked
about her big brother

how he was always
where she was
and then
she became quiet

and as you reached
the fence that enclosed
the school grounds
you watched

the traffic pass by
like prisoners gazing
through wire
at a far bluer sky.
Lappel du vide Feb 2014
i get letters from home,
and girls tell me about the boys with the trench coats
who used to smack my *** and give me free brownies and smoke with me in the forest,
when snow was icily hugging the sleeping earth.
how he acquired a green thumb
and landed his ******, joking *** in jail
by painting "revolution" and "anarchy" on the walls of the
stone white highschool,
sprayed the word "pig" on a cop car.

i was proud,
remembering the time i told him i wanted him to help me
paint Pink Floyd lyrics in front of the library,
below the hill
on the big white canvas
to remind all of the dry-eyed, cardboard-mouthed kids that they're
just another brick in the wall.

i read it and my face glowed
with the fact that
they were revolting,
that the little town i left behind is still on fire
rife and ripe with the deep streaks
of maroon rebellion.

i hear about how
the only boy i've ever truly slept with;
fell asleep with our legs intertwined,
and woke with his soft breath on my neck in the morning,
naked skin growing goosebumps
in our bareness,
how he drew in my darling girl
of sweet chai and small teeth and big eyes and warm heart
like a soft, cozy cup of spicy tea,
how she became lost in his green eyes
and dripping confidence,
overflowing, superfluous
from the bursting vaults he holds inside
his chest, sprouting out along
with trees of light brown hair.

i got angry
i don't want stupid men to touch her,
to taint her
with small lies,
slipping from soft lips,
just enough poison to enchant her.
i'd bite their fingers off
one by one,
and chew their lips out with my
raging teeth
before i let that happen.

sometimes i feel like i need to protect her,
even though i'm the one who
corrupted her in the first place.

i'm the one who taught her that
chain smoking cigarettes in a ditch
during P.E. isn't so bad,
(and it's not, i just dont want her to do it)
who told her that kissing boys half naked in
fall leaves behind apartment complexes,
and letting them take off my clothes in the bushes
getting thorns stuck in my hair,
letting my underwear and skirt scatter forgotten at my feet,
along with his softly murmured "i love you,"
i told her that's normal;
(i want her to kiss who she pleases
but
****
i just dont want them to touch her with their ***** hands.)
who ranted to her that commitment was for people
who didn't want to experience everything they possibly could in life,
for boring ones,
who weren't worthwhile.

i showed her that
self destructive tendencies,
messy, unbrushed hair,
and purple leather jackets,
tie dye skirts
smelling like an ashtray
from smoking Marlboros in the school garden house
with a yellow sun a top it just before class
was just a part of growing into a woman.
(i guess we all have different paths,
but i wont forget her eyes when she looked at me,
i was torn and she was
stitching me up with string made from her
own skin.)
and then i realized what an absolutely
horrible friend i am,
how wretched i had been to you,
when you called me so long ago
and told me in a dry, vacant voice,
you were sad,
you had thought about hurting yourself.
i should have realized what i'd done
i hadn't protected you enough from the
desirous, screaming demon inside me
always craving, aching for more,
never, ever satisfied.

then,
you tell me in a letter
that you understood why i did the things i did,
and that you're learning
its okay to let go and do them too.

and i had to let that sink in.
if that's what i always wanted, then why did panic suddenly take me, light my body on fire?

when i'm away from you, its so simple
to become overprotective,
lashing out my broken jaws and
roaring voice at anything that
dares try to hurt you
erase the truth,
purity,
that you hold so deeply inside you.

i don't want you to kiss manipulative boys,
with dark hair
and let them touch you in a sneaking drunk dreariness
within a winter cave of night,
and i don't want you to touch them back,
and find broken brandy bottles
and their shattered glass
slowly sinking their bodies into your delicate fingers.
i don't want you to be numb, hollowed out,
walking around halls
and open lockers of close-minded
highschools
with bloodshot eyes and unstable hands, shaking and jittering,
high off some good bud after third period,
and adderall just before sixth.
i don't want you to let boys finger
you so
hard
that you practically popped your cherry,
so you sit, hips cramping, and
hurt,
soreness sinking into you,
as he begs you to kiss him
and you refusing,
insisting that he ought to know by now
"you're just another boy
i have too many
to risk kissing you in public."
i cant believe he stayed.

i don't want you to realize,
when you're drunk and stumbling on black asphalt
in the early morning
that you always feel
so ******* empty,
and off-kilter,
like somethings missing,
but whatever you try to fill it with;
gentle *** in plaid sheets,
(or were they plaid boxers?),
burning *****
(was it whiskey?).
broken ashtrays
(i said sorry, but still didn't feel forgiven)
cigarette after cigarette
("you always try to drown yourself in perfume,
but i can always smell it.")
until you get a headache and a groggy voice,
hash smoked out of apple pipes from
cafeterias,
("i'll bury it here, whenever you want to ****, just dig it up.")
visits to the school therapist
("you're bright, you know that."
how many kids have you not told that to?)
hits from your mother
("i don't regret it, like you probably don't regret the cigarettes."
"WHY DON'T YOU JUST ******* EAT THEM IF YOU WANT
THAT POISON INSIDE YOU SO MUCH."),
call slips from the attendance office
(i pinned up all my detention slips on my walls,
white flags flying
far from surrender)
same record playing,
(Vincent, Don McLean)
blood dripping down to the brown
towel you set out
to catch your slipping fears,
as they bled out of you in crimson rivers
and made a savage battleground below you;
feeling like you will never fill that empty,
tar-like black
hole
burnt inside you.

i don't want it to happen.

i want to protect you fiercely like
a mother lion,
and keep you in the safe haven of my echoing
den,

but then i think of what i'd do if you were next me
laying on your silk sheets,
looking out the glassy windows
reflecting the sky,
i know without a ******* ******* doubt in my mind,
i'd light my eyes up with a mischievous grin,
glance at your paintings
(they always inspired me)
and march to your parents bar.
(why did they keep it downstairs when they knew you had friends like me?)
i'd insist we'd have to drink at least a little,
swerve our vision till the music
caresses us,
and then i'd take a bit of everything and i'd watch you
as the liquid slid down your throat,
then i'd say i was proud of you.

but really, i want you to know that
you'll grow up when your ready,
you're so precious, but so strong
and i just need you to remember who you really are.
you're inspiration,
paintings made out of dots,
you take care of me when i'm falling apart
and horrible
and yelling.
there cant be two of us
drunken,
screaming for cupcakes in the middle
of a brightly lit grocery store,
please don't change just because
other people are doing it.
you're so strong,
be strong.

god i'm so ******* contradictory.

i just love you so much.
i don't want you to hurt
i don't want you to lose things
like i have,
to greedy boys fingers,
i don't want you bearing the pain,
(it'll be gone by the second time anyways)
i'd do anything to stop it.

but if you really want it,

some things are just so inescapable.
to Anabella Funk.
John Wayne Gacy Jan 2011
Am I feeling better now?
Estranged and Deranged, not a single person sitting there to call my name

Am I feeling better now?
Alone in my chest, in my home, in my art, I express from the bottom of my heart, there's a draught letting in the emotional winds

Feeling any better now?
Not much else left to say as  I spill it all out with the pen on the page, chronically feeling on the edge, if this is a window I've jumped off the ledge.

Feel much better now, now it's all vented out, all I've ranted about, no time for self-doubt. I've got a life to live and too much to give to give out, on a single whim.

I guess that's the thing, behind the façade,  I'm still him, still that guy, still the one, still the same, still the same... As the guy I was when we first dated, when we first kissed, hoping that we'll come back from this.

Guess I still have to grow up..
copyright JWG 2011

Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited.
Feeling Real May 2014
Wordless
exact, completed
but too young
too lively
to wither
and gray

Timeless
inside of heads
to turn off
machines
that give breath
life

Hectic
Frantic longing
of past art
a God, and
I ranted
for
more
Filmore Townsend Feb 2014
“but you are too old for apprehension.” her
voice had sounded so, and of this one’s voice,
‘you are never too old for wariness of
an unknown.’ responded astute, drunk
on logic. returned was breathless thought
to the void, filling emptiness with irony.
(oxymoron) and weened the way thru,
concision turned derision with repetitious
definitions that found no actual meaning.
all thought without justification and no
thought with classification. words,
actions, wailing:
          empty, empty, empty
then existed less and less from want
of purpose. less and less from interest of
the known; this once forged fear of life. and
with impressive derangement, grabbing at the
only sober keychain. they, with twitching vesper eyes,
their hands jit’ for a false-meeting fix. to nix
the nihilism. and:
      ‘People can go **** themselves.’
words of this one’s voice. of her’s, “thank
god you’re alive.” from those days, when rains
ranted down, and the trains tripped us out.
those days of our wood’s reclaimed trailer. and
each syllable was never thought to be anything
until aged eyes ached for review those epochs
of breath. but:
      ‘People can go **** themselves.’
voiced in response to a romanticized thought. and
all epochs lingered upon are no more than a
journal of the winds that blew while we were present.
some diary of listless lust left undated. of the woods, of
a reiterate span in once anonymized transience. and falling
back, thumbing pages for proof of experiences passed into
skewered memory. left are three lines, ill-verbed, to represent
an entirety of past lives. of time once present in yellow-lit
motel room, of apocalyphic musings, and veering prophets
of doom. they, turned sincere apocalyphites. their prayers
writ boldfaced, platitudinous, in concern of endless words
restating – in constant rephrasing:
      ‘People can go **** themselves.’
but they just kept goin’ on without concern for the dawn.
midnight prague Feb 2011
you are a form of poison
seeping through the rough edges in my mind
an immensity of nations I have brought out of this here.body.
to try and rid of the look in your eyes

your body moves swiftly on the ground
each step weighing a ton.you shake the ground beneath you.
and those surrounding you stop in awe. at the magnificent sight.
your exotic manhood. realistically condescending and ******.
you make me want to ***** and give me butterflies. simultaneously.

if I could sing my song, expand my lungs so that they explode
in the air fluttering around me like new born children
there would a girl standing at the end of the crowd crying
If I could play this tune on any instrument
I would make the hairs rise on the pores of some man
mourning his dead lover

you propose marriage

you dare caress the soft woman within me
you dare make some.almost.dead.suffocating. buried.dream.
a reality in my head once more you *******

you wrap around my pink finger like a sharp thread of Indian silk
you leave marks and my blood is not flowing properly
I can squeeze you with silence
I feel your body swell between my fingers
sweaty and frustrated

I see you sitting in your living room, lonely
so bent and out of shape. life's burden has came to you
with its heaviest distributer of pain. utter emptiness.
your forehead creases have become deeper
from endless nights of that deep hunger
the one that digs into your very soul
the one that makes you want to cut your stomach open
and stuff it with anything that will fill that empty void
that has taken its physical toll on your body

so you. the man that you are.
come to me. the woman that I am.
begging for that thing that you have lost.
the woman who gave you 4 nights of kisses.
shy looks,a nervous voice, blushed cheeks,a unpromising smile
and a very hasty departure

I picked up my imaginary wedding gown took off my
invisible Cinderella heels and ran like hell to the woods
after the day by the water you ranted
spoke in the tongue of a master
and I am no humans servant, you let the timid movement in my
hands deceive you of the power that strikes like a noble guardian

that day. you held my eyes in yours
and promised to never speak to me again if I did not get up
and leave with you. I retrieved what was mine, and did not hesitate to
shift a bone. silly of you to think that anyone can shake me
without my permission
maybe if you would have asked me passionately softly
rather than passionately angry
the past would be present. but our story did not unravel this way.

I cant lie. and say that you are not gifted.
you are in so many ways
you are a leader, and if you lived in ancient times
would be the head of any army. I see those lives that have lived
within you. old soul. broken. like me.

It almost hurts somewhere inside of me. to see a man of such
grace and honor fall apart in front of me like wood in  my
fireplace back home in the mountains on the coldest of winter nights.

I sit here fixating impossibility.convincing myself.
regardless of the promises you just made after 3 years.
You have been begging on your knees for so long
that I can see the bone coming out of the wounds.
You are leaking everywhere. your pride has crumbled beneath me.

I sit and think about how beautiful
the children we will never make
will be.
Death-throws Mar 2015
falling is a weird sensation
I've never failed to fall, tripping on the curb of your hip
more over, I've never failed to fall for you,
that first autumn back lit morning,  the day you caught my eye
and the past is a funny game. i made my move ,
never can i step back to change my ways
and yes...yeh..it hasn't been easy
and no...never, would i ever change it,
because  the rapids of my home river have shaped the boat in which i use to sail, my soul has been carved from limestone cliff faces dangled over by tight lipped trees to tired to give me their secrets you are..
you are a thought. a being I've never come by before
your a bend in the river where the current slows..
your a cliff face with my name carved into it,
even though I've never once taken a knife to your surface
you are comfort,
like looking into a mirror i see myself, and for the first time in my life
for the very first time..
I've looked into a mirror and smiled
and sweet heart I'm going too look into your eyes
and say softly that I'm glad,
I'm glad your a mountain that's already been climbed I'm glad its not my flag that rests in the arrow like crest of your ginger scrawled hair I'm glad
because the men who charge to summits leave nothing but a flag
and some foot prints
i want to be the man for you, the man who climbs your peaks daily..
the one who makes sure your looked after,
a forest ranger to preserve your sanity, to make sure your soul although fractured and aching.
can roam free,
but I've ranted now,
ill sign of my love letter with but a drip of blood,
and a Liter of love,
continue your course sweet heart and you wont need to steal  the chest that houses my heart
ill give you the key
*LG
David Bird Feb 2010
Now Smithy was as angry as poo
He said Mickey, "Oi, Listen, must you!
  Come here for a meeting
  It'll be only fleeting
But be there by a quarter to two."

As loud as he dared
With nostrils all flared
  Smith ranted and raved
  Like he was depraved
No wonder Mickey was scared

He began with a deep fierce roar
And huffed like a bear that was sore
  "It's not easy to say
I can't stand things this way
I can't take it like this any more."

Smith blew his red nose on his sleeve
Then said "You must take now your leave
  You've driven me crazy
  No, I'm not being lazy
I need some more me-time to grieve."

"I know that our feelings were strong
I am sorry that you must now be gone
  I'll always love you
  You held my hand in the loo
It's not that you did anything wrong."

Now who should replace him within?
Our choices are looking too thin.
   I do know a man...
  This could be a plan...
A Zimbabwean that has a big chin.

Now the panel has been sacked
The whole system looks cracked
  Who is next their line?
  Graeme Smith would be fine..
The captain has not yet been whacked.

But what more can we say?
Madness now leads the way.
  Since Onions' not out
  South Africa have doubt
'bout all that's 'tween night and the day.
After a furious battle, Cricket South Africa are determined to prove that they are both as incompetent as the ECB and as petulant as the PCB. Good work. According to the latest rankings they are now firmly the number one Cricket Board in the world.
elle Apr 2012
This crazy old man rambled verses of the bible in the middle of central park
No one cared to listen
He was just a crazy old man
Thin, malnourished, his wrinkles deeply embedded in his paper skin
Gave him the illusion of being wise
Though he had no idea of what he ranted on
The poetic flow of his words caught my ear
And pulled me in
"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
I pondered a while pacing through the park trails for the meaning of all of this
Night had fallen when i came across the old man again
Cozied up under a newspaper on the bench
His bible was placed under his head
And in  my ear
When i realized I had lost all things
I had lost *you
"whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
Favorite verse hands down! I always wanted to write incorporating this... Its so poetic in itself i feel the poem i had wriiten almost kills it but the verse itself is so beautiful and meaningful. Enjoy! (:
Victoria Truax Jun 2013
My best friend and I are the ultimate example of opposites attract.

I am five foot, ten inches,
Fair skinned,
Blue eyed,
And light haired.

She is five foot, one inch,
More tan in the winter than I have ever been in the summer,
Dark eyes,
Dark hair.

And that is only in our physical appearance.

I am an emotional waterfall.
I cry often and with ease.

She can turn it off like that.
It's incredible how many tears of mine she had seen before I saw the first of hers.

I give in at the drop of a hat.
To the point it is not a good thing.
I am the first to say sorry, the last to speak up and
I rarely consider my opinions equal to the opinions of others.

She is a spitfire.
She knows what she wants and she will get it.
The first to speak her mind, stubborn as hell,
And Joan of Arc herself would be proud of how she stands up for herself, and her friends.

She brings out the things in me I didn't know existed.
I can be angry, opinionated and selfish around her.

Which is a really good thing.

I'd like to say I help bring out something good in her,
But honestly,
I can't believe that I help her nearly as much as she helps me.

I'm sure she'll make some comment to me on that last paragraph like,
"You know that's BS. You help me just as much as I help you."

And I guess I help her, because she's my best friend, and I'm her best friend.
But, well.
I rarely consider myself equal to others.

I think you know your best friend is your best friend
When a sufficient number of these things happen.


1. When someone tells you not to tell anybody something,
that "anybody" does not include your "best friend."

2. You Skype or call them to do nothing.
Just so they're there to stalk Facebook with you.
Or listen to you clean your room.

3. You talk about all the details of everything.
Even if they are so silly and miniscule
No one else in the world would care about them.

4. When you can rant about the same thing over and over,
And they will treat it like it's as big of a deal as the first time you ranted about it.

5. They call all your friends by name,
Even if they have never met them.

6. Sometimes you wonder if they know more about you
Than you know about yourself.

7. They can tell when there is something wrong
Based off of a single exhale.

8. They refuse to hang up the phone at ridiculous hours of the night
Because you are too sad to be left alone.

9. They sing you to sleep.

I think that good friendship, best friendship is a bit underrated nowadays.
I also think it's misunderstood.
I would be dead
Without
My
Friendship.
Third Mate Third Jun 2014
For Joshua Haines

Thanks for the invite kid,
but I am bulky enough
and don't need your weight
to carry

**** good writer
you are,
not a concede,
not an aiming to please,
"just the facts, ma'am"

not even twenty one
commander of the ship from
a mooring slipped,
a poetic trip well-begun

but

     *Follow for Follow?


no babe,
passing dude,
passed that point
of no purposed-return,
trading points and
placing my self worth
on a scale of followers,
or ranted counts of page views

I  may read you
cause write quite nicely,
but I don't inflate
nobody's ego,
for their own fake sake

counting false gods
got my people forty years
of desert wandering,
after 400 years of penal servitude,
so I have done my hard time,
for that exact crime

Whew!
That felt good!

you must of got me confused
with another whew

I was young once
till very recently,
even tho I am
four decades plus
you senior

so here is my story,

don't swap spit or follows,

or likes for show,
those who have my heart,
have my words freely

my audience is the sun,
my numerology glorious,
the blades of green beneath
my rabbits happy bunny dancing,
for every verse pleasured

those I count on,
ask not,
for they like me for the who in my poetry,
knowing fullness and well,
mine is theirs,
no need to trade favors

I will read your words,
but not for you,
but for them,
the best part
of the best of you

Let us together,
think about that...
and if ever there were a blade upon to fall,
this notion is both sharp,
and the map to freedom

good luck to us both...
The Trumpoet Feb 2017
Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!
Your campaign crowds so chanted.
You took it in and smugly smiled
while they all railed and ranted.

But lock her up for what? I thought.
She's been investigated.
For alleged conflict of interest,
she has been exculpated.

So if such accusations,
when even proved untrue,
provide sufficient grounds for jail.
They'll have to lock up... You!
You can also see this and my other Trump poems at: www.trumpoet.com
Link to video of this poem: https://youtu.be/8hQso2tHwZM
Written January 14, 2017
Chls Jul 2012
She spotted him once, in the early morning:
golden nectar spun upon the pillow, knotted into
a mane thick enough to hide his face from all sorts of bad dreams.
Time inhaled the dust motes playing in the sunlight and held its breath.
“I know he’s over there doing god knows what with that woman. I still feel guilty.”
She was ready to pounce. Muscles taut, crouch-hidden, she analyzed her prey.
A handsome lion he was. But no match for a skilled huntress.
A little hungry, that lion was. Hungry enough to gobble up his favorite gazelle from the herd.
“She’s my baby girl. I’m not going to risk losing her because of ...us.”
Who else was brave enough to disentangle the doe from the beast?
He roared and snarled and ranted and growled, but she never took her eyes off him.
Mommy always said you could lose yourself if you didn’t keep your eyes where they belonged.
Let it go. I love you both, but he came to me first.”
Time coughed; the little huntress lunged into the lion’s den, well aware of the danger,
enough to be terrified when silence enveloped the savanna sheets.
Alone, she stood at the edge of the bed and watched her beloved gazelle morph into a lioness.
When adultery becomes child's play
He fell from the sky
I wasn’t looking for anything but solitude
But he fell from the sky
And refused to let me out of his sight
He refused to let me cry my silent tears
Wrapping my misery in balloons
And letting his fingers fall away
Watching as they soared up high into oblivion someday
For him life wasn’t a word
But a song to be sung everyday
In new and everlasting ways
Plucking my heartstrings as he strummed his way
Into my broken and mangled life
Where nothing ever seemed to play
The right notes of the day
He ****** out all the bad dreams
And breathed in hope of a new life
Filled with things that may or may not happen
He taught me how to smile again
With my favourite dimple peeking out
When I screamed and ranted
About things beyond his control
He kissed me
And suddenly
If only for a moment
I felt like what I felt mattered
I felt like my poems were good
Really good
So good that may be someone else
Might want to read them one day
Someone else who doesn’t have someone like him
He fell from the sky
And taught me how to let everything go
Not for others
But for myself
He showed me what music looks like
He made me realize
That I do want forever
No matter how much I said I didn’t
He fell from the sky
And I don’t think I’ll ever be the same any more
For the person beyond special who made me realize what iris meant
She lay so pale, under a veil
On the hard mortician’s tray,
A tube ran down from her artery
And her blood was seeping away,
I’d never seen her so still and white,
So cold, and her eyes so glazed,
I shook my head when they said, ‘She’s dead!’
More than a little dazed.

It had only been just a week ago
That I’d gone to call on Jan,
And there, right under the portico
I’d met her sister, Anne.
I’d heard about her before, of course,
The mysterious older Sis,
Who’d travelled far, was in Zanzibar,
Hong Kong and the Middle East.

I’d wondered how she could pay her way
When I heard the awesome tales,
This woman trekking the Russian Steppes
And ending up in Wales.
Now here she was in a Sydney Street
Not a hair was out of place,
Her eyes were shining to greet and meet,
Deep set in her suntanned face.

I must admit that she stirred me then
So I had to drop my eyes,
I’d been with Jan since I don’t know when
So I thought it more than wise,
A jealous woman is worse than hell
And I’d rather stick with bliss,
So reached for Jan and I held her hand
As she introduced her Sis.

She’d come to stay for a month, she said,
Then had to be on her way,
She had to meet with a Turkish man
In a market in Cathay,
But Jan was not even curious,
Though the questions crossed my mind,
Most of them would be spurious
But I wondered what I’d find?

What was her line of work, I thought,
How did she make it pay?
Was she some rich man’s paid consort
In a Persian alleyway?
Was she smuggling drugs or guns
With secrets tucked in her bra,
Or was she a spy for love, or funds
From a man in Zanzibar?

She settled in to a set routine
In the house, it was absurd,
She always seemed to be normal, not
The hellfire that I’d heard,
We’d sit up late by a blazing grate
Play cards, and drink and rave,
Then Jan went off for her monthly trip,
And she said, ‘You two behave!’

She laughed at us as she left, and said
That she’d be back in a week,
It was always some promotional tour
But of what, she wouldn’t speak.
For both these sisters were secretive
Tight lipped on the things they’d do,
But when she’d gone, Anne came on strong,
And said, ‘I’m looking at you!’

Jan crept back in about midnight, and
She caught us both in bed,
She screamed and ranted about the room,
Went quite right off her head,
She pulled a knife and she went for her,
The startled sister, Anne,
‘You’ve always stolen the one I loved,
And you! You’re never my man.’

The body lay on the silver tray
As they walked me in, then out,
Identifying the corpse, they said
So there wasn’t any doubt.
They placed me cuffed in a Candy Car
On a charge of ****** One,
While Anne was headed for Zanzibar
As I said goodbye to Jan!

David Lewis Paget
Harmony Sapphire Jan 2015
Mildew, mold, cobwebs, rust, stench, trash, dead grass, window screens with holes & ****.
Not things you'd find at buckingham palace.
Only in a home of bums.
Not a dream to last.
I want to move, I want to run.

Colorful Colorado....7 years Bad Luck

Snowflakes, frozen lakes, shoveling snow.
A cold for all to know.
I will never go back.
My ex boyfriend would strike & attack.
It was I he tried to choke out & ****.
From 2006 to 2012.
Thinking of him makes me ILL.
Summer of elves.

Unloved & Taken for Granted. Raved & Ranted.

A haiku with thoughts of you.
I don't feel lucky with us two.
We never hold hands or embrace.
We never kiss each other's face
© Harmony Sapphire . All rights reserved
Megan Mae Apr 2013
My head, it's normally flooded. Filled with crazy thoughts, like what books to read, how much longer I have in the three books I haven't finished. Or even the projects I have due in a week, what I have to do to finish them, what I need to do to prepare or present. Sometimes there's a song in my head, and I dance along with the tune until the radio station in my brain picks another melody for me to jam to. I see characters I've created interact, I see worlds of fiction that have to be figments of my imagination simply because they are to spectacular to be real. There are poems dying to be written down, ideas that need to be planted, songs that sing desire and need to be written, and opinions furiously needed to be ranted.

But today my head is empty, nothing seems to be alive. My characters have all gone silent, my opinions are pointless, my project is too hard to focus on, my melodies feel dead. I don't know what to do any more, I don't know what to say. I wish I could simply sleep and refresh and go about my day. But I sit here and write, trying to restart the flow, but the **** dam in my head just wont let my imagination go!

My heart is crying, my eyes are dry, my lips are sighing, while my brain screams WHY! You weren't supposed to leave us, you weren't supposed to die... you should have been with us that night, laughing so hard over game that we cried! You should have created a character, joined in our story line and ruined our themes....but now you're gone, and the only time we will see you is in our dreams.

I guess that's why my mind is empty, why my imagination is dead. I must be scared of forgetting what you looked like, or losing your precious memories in my head. If I could make it right, if I could have been there...none of this would have happened- none of it, I swear.

My head, it's normally flooded. Filled with crazy thoughts. But now it's empty, imagination's gone, for now my head is empty because everything has gone wrong.
Chris Jun 2014
How to measure:

A table.
take out ruler, string or tape
Size  lines calculate with  retina powered eyes count the spit that flys from open mouths who gather fill it with their laughter,

count the crayon etchings of the determined fire in eyes Thomas the tank engine colorer extroidinair

Weight gain.
Gaze down at waste, shift in skin as you reach  depths in pockets to hide McDonalds receipts and push them in

Do, mental math, one apple a month has got to off set at least one Big Mac

Mileage.
Look at your spedometer Thelma, it's pretty much yelling at you. Take stalk of all the shoes that have  warn you.count backwards from twenty five to Two.

Count the steps you took when you didn't have to, subtract the ones that didn't count and divide by the moments you glide

Growth
Annual reports, minions in Arnold churgen assuring you to stalk up on the market. Your rrsps  with thank you as they soar and plummet as all must on the onslaught of such heights.

Talk to the fifth grader inside you and ask what got me here, was it that Dora the explorer hair cut or the time I didn't give up, that lead to that other time i didn't give up that lead to the time  i pushed quit to the back of my tongue and swallowed it.

A moment.
In corners of mouth stretched outwards in an upward slant.
Those 60 seconds you ranted and most of it was good
That kiss you can still feel as uou tried to hold on to your skin
In the calculated weight of truth transferred to hands in use


Or the science behind the fact that you actually breathed again and  your body, received the donation, the free gift that fuels you, rushes in caresses your sinues and prepares the way for another little wind

I Cherish that wind

One moment, your body will say thankyou very much air, but this relationship of you fueling me and me needing you.. Is baked like that pie your mom doesn't like talking about any more

How does one measure a life
Success, deductibles, YouTube hits,# shout outs, lives touched, damage done, or how many times you actually enjoyed a cinnomon bun without apologizing to your hips

You choose. You choose what measuring tape you wake up with because that's the one they are gonna pull out when the man with the answers recites your yagooogaly

When you measure dare to recall that when the air says adeui and all that is left is your spirit and as your body falls let spirit rise tall
Brent Kincaid Jun 2015
Micah The Mouse was a rat;
At least that’s how he behaved.
If he didn’t get his way every time
He’d holler and he’d rant and rave.
He got to be such a big mouse
That his head swelled up too.
He became so hugely obnoxious
Other mice didn’t know what to do.

They held a spontaneous election.
They needed to elect a top mouse.
Micah bribed the weaker leaders
So, Micah got the run of the house.
He kept up his pattern of bribery
And threatening those in his way.
Without anything like scruples
He’s still on the throne to this day

Micah The Mouse takes with both hands
And it’s too bad if anyone disagrees.
Those who think he cares about complaints
Will spend a lot of time on their knees.

In Micah got horrendously fat
By overeating just a tiny smidge.
He got to be so much like a big rat
He grew too heavy to cross the bridge.
So he roared and ranted and raved.
And blamed everybody around him.
That he was the cause of his problems
Seemed to completely astound him.

The wonder in all of this sad story
Is why the other mice could not see
That Micah was only in it for himself
And not for members of the citizenry.
Micah got to eat while others starved.
He got what he wanted, moved on
Yet somehow those that elected him
Never quite seemed to catch on.

Micah The Mouse takes with both hands
And it’s too bad if anyone disagrees.
Those who think he cares about complaints
Will spend a lot of time on their knees.

(Image from www.sharktacos.com)
Alexsandra Danae Oct 2011
Words, phrases, exclamations...
great efforts to birth well-articulated strings
sentences, paragraphs going nowhere
just evaporating into the air
- after their pleading, violent spewing forth!
mad workings of mouths and lips, of tongues
raging torrents of language
worthless, pointless, meaningless...
one could say anything -
say everything!
enunciate; flowing, eloquent
or ranted, rambled
lightning-speed creation: disastrous!
no matter to be coherent -
to be nonsensical
speech is of absolutely no value;
devoid of all worth
perfectly useless, audible abyss...

So I'm finished and ******* surrender
it's been a journey traveled far too long
hope has long been departed and gone
painfully overdue, it's undeniably time
-So I'll shut my ******* blabbering, jibbering jaws
and I'll do it RIGHT NOW!
Nike Kaffezakis Sep 2010
A scuffed black mastiff entered stage left
Grumbling, growling, it pulled on its chain
It wretched and snarled, screaming for release
But it was beaten back by faceless master
It looked upon the watchers with eye of hell
Blood dripped from fresh made cuts and welts
There would be vengeance, the creature thought
As with hate, it looked toward the west

In stage right was a victim of a vicious world
A slave, a prisoner, beaten to the verge of death
A man once noble and just, forced into action
To protect all he had, he stole the bread
To prevent starvation, he fought authority
And now he was sentenced to humiliating decay
He would become the star of a roman play
That would be the last scene he’d perform

An order was given and the hound released
The dog was allowed to fill itself on the feast
Like death rising from below, the mastiff struck
Sinking razors into sweet warm muscled flesh
With back on the ground, the slave did not fight
And the mutt was confused by such a stance
Expecting a fight from his opponent, it waited
It waited with suspicion of the imminent strike

But the last flailing lashes would not fall
The transgressor would not fight one of his own
He saw in the beast, the same eyes as his son
And he understood the frustration of the beaten
The slave would not blame the simple dog
For his own faults, and the evils of the master
And the dog lessened the brutal assault it laid
Knowing that the one on the ground was friend
With dignity, they rose from the dirt together

The senators pondered as they looked on
The reason for the bond seemingly impossible
The lord infuriated ranted to his guards
Over such a refusal to die for the empire
The poor, the hungry, the oppressed rose
They fought back, chanting “We know why”
Why the man went to sleep with the dogs
He went to bed to be rid of the fleas

— The End —