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James Traylen Aug 2016
Water flows by,
Quietly polite.
Green under sunlight,
Silver at night.

Is that my monarch's head
Shimmering between wakes?
She looks down and kisses Georgian rooftops.
She dives and twists her celestial face.

But as rain falls my monarch distorts,
And in the first snows she poses for me.
And as we celebrate new solstice a hail of thin ankles bruises the water.
Fish dart from them.
Sharp stones bury themselves so as not to offend.
I remember my feet in there...

All the times comes past here.
All the times yet to come.

I cross a bridge and the town's vein is out of sight.
I breathe the smell of ecclesiastical ceremony
And the cut-grass stench of various friendships nurtured and deflowered.
I mimic footprints that I've pounded into the ground.
The same drunk campaign.
I drink the river and become its flavid run-off.

Water flows by,
Timeless in flight.
Not at the front of my mind,
But in sight
As I recross the bridge.

I'm accustomed to its murky silence.
The distant, sporadic car horns.
Avoided emergencies, obnoxious goodbyes.
I hear them all.

I smell fuel emissions and nocturnal suffering.
I taste staling alcohol and summer's fruits.
I see the town that has cradled me.
I pick at its foliage and try to feel something.

I'll remember praying for floodwater.
I'll remember plains and peaks.
I'll remember the wall that can't hold it all.
The long, loud day
And the long, quiet sleep.
Available in James' book 'Somniloquy'.

Growing up in a small, country town.
Its academic in a way,
to recross what we say,
a dance for the time,
because at least I know you were mine,
a museum in my mind,
that I retreat to to avoid the line,
goodbye.
they aren't coming and neither am I,
so watch the end of a movie and try to sleep,
the hero loves to die.
Pouring oot through fingers on fire.
Ken Pepiton Feb 2022
2022 2:04

the VA Webex conference
future, bogus billable hours, a job,
and something to use old sad men for,

measuring, me re assuring, my more
aggressive conserver of self-will,
trained to lead, since learning to read, DID
that not occur, in each boy's life

dread of the cobalt bomb,
constancy of light speed and pituitary assisted
thought speed,
pinging pong responding, thinking we may
think
along similar lines, so, I
decided,

to find a reason to bring to any reasonings,
I recross, as many of my first reasons
are in a framed loom, with four corners,

that bronze on the map coordinates,
marks nothing, four lines dividing states,
grants given the takers and tamers of the land,

whose sons have gone on to inherit this wind.
Imagine that.
Millions of letters aligned in code to readers
of ascii nada mas this exists in a series of events

solid backups, foolproof, we say CFO proof,
in the pre-Y2K IT game, geek veteran deaf,
high-demand HR,

so much so, mucho mucho, skip the queue
step right up
look achew

gotta tale or a story, is that your's that
you're eating?

Oh, my camera is still on I'm talking to me,
in my perifery
a mete-able bit of time delay,

the in, the way, das sein, dime a time

slip on through, think we may
as well
as any, I'd agree, and off we'd go

wild blue yonder, but that,
was no longer than this two weeks,

less, far less, threaded through now,
the real me in this chair,

in the back ground, one of the service's
perks, choose from these the background,
set and setting, photo director's call

Art's call, talent is a tool, shut up,
Intuit, tweak. Test… fo' won't you shut up see

that's me. On TV, in my easy chair,
on a Federally mandated budgeted service,
to me, that allows me eight easy
pseudo-greenscreens sets, one,
defaulted to my subconscious profile,
I'll assume,
that's me. On TV, in my easy chair,
rocking in floor lit wonder in front of
Gobekli Tepi,

and nobody says a word.
Convergence foreseen in the nineties,
has occurred,
much of this sub-mit-sci-o-usly con meat
mind excuses for war,

well, long ago, it became this game,
few lived so long as to need to know
the patience going gives a slow belly
and a liar.

Dancing at the door of the iliad within,
feel free to think, that me.

The camera is on, in text, seeing me
seeing me glance down, my fingers,
pointing from the mirror, not in the mirror

my face me face, same effect, not mirrored
neurons, my neurons, feeding back

way too late to care, no coda queue for me
that is no monkey in that mirror, that is me.

Tvme offers me his right as I offer mine,
omagod that's me. On TV, in my easy chair,

this never gets old, this phase on one of these
fridays, I can do one of these groups.
with some pretty sad sacks, when seen on TV,
I fit right in, with
Gobekli Tepi, floorlit, pre-roof

Real as can be imagined, this world
common old men, commonly share
live talking head time, everybit as
trustworthy as Kronkite spelled with a c.

The c at the center of we in time where u
find sounds form some things that seem ok
if a crow caw does mean something, only that
I heard you, ok, did you hear me I don't know.

That may be life's most enjoyable time
for any idle thought poured into a word,
there, breathe, you have it, I read, read
I said, I can.

I can tell you, partly, how I came to know
I can read:

We lived behind the courthouse
with the machine gun from world war one
and absolutely olympish champs from
army navy and marines, over there
over there,
across my street, is the lawn I play on,
over there,
over there, is the jail for drunk injuns
over there is where I learned the audience

reaction to a Hualapai child, being
evangelized, he was in a mob of snot nose,
rez kids, in the nineties, eh, think about it,

this kid in the crowd looks at me,
and my stunningly ebullient zealous wife,
he says,
my grandpa has never been in jail,
and I think
my grandkids won't be proud of that.

And I'm kinda proud to think of that,
as a test, love your neighbor as clause…

that part you work out, some days amaze,
some days,
right back in the maze,
picking up fragments of prayers we made
effective,

sort of, means, sorting idle words for worth,
is what sorting any thing is for, what it's worth,
or what its worth, that difference,

a breath equivalent,' force of mind to think,
after one another then and now, the
whole life on earth is better 2020 wide,

on the layer where nothing we learn is new,
we passed that so long ago in terms of
jellotime and bulletspeed and thought
godspeed in biblical time

using the stacking of the stories for effect,
the honor to the scribes taken from the brite
sons of the weavers and spinners of yarns,
tenders of tavern, need not apply,

ah, but when the Hans were in, we could test,
life was to be examined, prepare to enter

the gate, and wait for results,
life is that test, still
smallest yes voice says.
july hearne Jul 2021
it was a picture i didn't want,
that is what she gave and that is what i got

the scared children huddled together
in the middle of the shabby bridge
as the angel hovered wingedly behind them

a forever that comes stuck just in time
dressed in white and angel abright


it is all so suspended
implying they cross
and safely cross

well in that one way it's just so sad
that hell is real
and time so irreversible

and in another way it's just the way it has to be
when i see you from the ugly side
and i see you so uglified on the ugly side

getting excited at $40 CAD profit on a baseball card trade
a 5% gross profit $CAD
not so much now

you're just something
gathered in bits and pieces
by stray gleaners in strawless fields of straw
that or the unnecessity on the otherwise empty shelf

the events of the day are so embarrassing these days
some man in a wheelchair in the middle of the safeway parking lot
smelling up the hot sun,
stuck in the middle of the safeway parking lot,
he says, "yes, he needs help" when asked,
"he needs to be wheeled to the shade", he softly moans

but he does all the heavy wheeling as I push
when he gasps for spare change, he will get the $5 USD,
then leave his uneaten take out that someone else he met in the parking lot bought him.
he will keep the $5 USD.

stinking in the hot sun
looked as if he had been good looking once
making his money in the parking lot

Excited to make the $40 CAD,
not at all net of any uncharged packaging, shipping
or taxes,
Excited to make the $40 CAD
can always be counted to be

comfortable with trudeau,
uncomfortable with anyone vocal about their discomfort with trudeau

and to know the correct placement of commas, semicolons, and periods
never using the exclamation point
or regarding unhappiness,
other than his own

but we can't recross the creaky bridge
or get the $5 USD back
or ever care about $40 CAD
we can't uncross the creaky bridge

as sad as it is
that is the way hell has to be
the way you have to be
in a house built upon sand
that stands and stands

— The End —