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Brent Kincaid Apr 2016
Spring sneaks by the door to the ghetto.
That's okay, they can't afford the seed.
Trees take too much room from the rentals.
No one saw the end of ghetto weeds.

Ghetto weeds once grew up sudden.
They took the food of those in bloom.
Ghetto weeds we're awful sorry,
But we haven't got the room.

Yesterday a man sold his garden
Bragging how he made such a deal.
Bought himself a high-rise apartment.
Who can tell the fruit by the peel?

Ghetto weeds once grew up sudden.
They took the food of those in bloom.
Ghetto weeds we're awful sorry,
But we haven't got the room.

What about the children of the ghetto,
Do they have the playgrounds they need?
Have you seen the children how they're growing?
Don't they shoot up just like a ****?

Ghetto weeds once grew up sudden.
They took the food of those in bloom.
Ghetto weeds we're awful sorry,
But we haven't got the room.
Andrew Jiang Oct 2011
Dig
We are flighty creatures
Always narrowly escape love
Tip-toeing the tepid water of
Forever or not-at-all

Dancing the day-rentals of
Bridesmaid and groomsman
Always hastily tucks in
Always casually skirts out

Dig in and fly out
Flying away before digging in
Day dream the day dreams come true
Dream the day dream I will say to you:

All                                                        ­                               just
I                                                           ­         so                   you
want                                    I                    ­                          to
is                                  ­                                                       back
to                   can                                                              ­ fly
fall                                                         ­                             to
so                               ­                                                         time
dee­ply                                                              ­                  life
in                                        ­                                                a
love                                                            ­                         take
with                                                        ­                            will
you                             ­          that                                        It
J Nov 2020
Brown. I said brown was my favorite color. Deep, dark, opulent brown, like coffee, like the dirt, tree trunks, hair, the deepest of honey, like dark chocolate. Brown, I said. Brown, you remembered. But you see, as I've told you before, this color was associated with disgusting, horrid things. It was associated with a psychotic, abusive, manipulative, ****** person, associated with the screams and tears and blood left in his wake. I took the word, the letters, and I weaved them with meaning and memories and forever promises and the phrase "forever and always" which was something that used to be very important to me. I promised very few people that, and by few I mean one other aside from him, and that was Kenzie. I told them "I'll love you, forever and always." Kenzie and I made it first, and then we both made it to our partners, the partners that we believed would last. She's married now, with a kid, to that man, and I? Well, here I am now. I don't say it anymore, it means nothing to me now. Albeit brown is lovely, and after the said past promise-breaker left I tried not to think of it as eye color, I struggled to see it more akin to nature, as something natural. "Earthy tones, right?" You said earthy tones, without hesitation, when we were taking those online quizzes about personalities, it was the question was about my favorite color, so I know that you remember. "Browns and greens, right babe?" Greens and browns, the Earthy set colors, not those ****** betraying eyes of a Ryder. He told me my eyes were green. He often told me about the green storm that threatened to flood the very existence of himself. My eyes change color, according to friends. Brown, green, sometimes they get this weird blue color, sometimes they're two different colors, one being green and the other brown, but I'm not sure. But anyhow, I thought that was my pull. I thought that if I had to get specific and create the perfect person for myself, I'd at least know what eyes I wanted them to have. You see, I love things that are underappreciated, everything in the category is something to admire, as long as you leave me out of it. But now, Sydney, now? Now I know, the hottest fires burn blue.

  To this, your eyes are no exception. Brown was the Earth, still is, and it's what lurks in trees, the ground, the beverages and food we ingest, but Frenchie, love, eyes like yours? They burn those trees, the grass, physical objects, and then they demand hearts to ashes. They turn universes upside down, OH LOVE! your eyes drive people mad- they drive ME mad. Eyes like yours BURN, not the freeze everyone swoons about. Your eyes don't drip tears, they let off smoke in warning, and though the flame may seem like a liquid, it's not in any sense. Your blue is not the sky, your eyes are not something to gaze at, half-mindedly wondering and completely misunderstanding. You're not something to zone out for, towards, or to. No, your blue needs to be watched carefully, your blue cannot be left unattended. Your eyes don't hold people captive, they don't make people pause and romanticize them(at least they shouldn't), they trigger the fight or flight. Your eyes are not sad, they are not the ocean. Fire is not something to jump into, nothing about it symbolizes drowning. Oh no, no no no, Frenchie, love, your eyes, YOU, are a force to be reckoned with. Hell's fire, that's what I see rather than some stupid cliche body of water, Satan envies the heat. They're not something to submerge yourself in, they won't clean or wash away the sins I have, they'll burn the physical, mental, and emotional flesh, and then said flesh will wilt off, simply floating away as if they were petals stolen by the wind. Burnt ashy peach petals, that's all to be thought of the skin, hair, thoughts that are charred. Hear me, lovely, eyes like yours make the cigarette burns seem like a mosquito bite, they make blades dancing across skin feel like kisses, they make these thoughts of hate feel like vows of forever in love. Your eyes betray those who don't pay attention, because, yes, at a first glance, they're like the ocean. They're like an ocean, I mean, if you're basic and OH WOW BLUE! BLUE EQUALS SKY! BLUE EQUALS OCEAN! Oh yes, yes! The same way that salt looks like sugar, like coke looks like tea, just like water looks like bleach, the way that I look like a girl, but, ****, I don't know what the hell I am. They have similarities, but we all know there's a significant difference. Your eyes **** a soul, your choice on how rapidly this happens, though, and it lets the soul believe it's in love with the feeling. Being in love with the feeling of decomposing, can you imagine? I know I can. I suppose I don't need to be telling you this, do I? Because you knew. You've always known that part of you didn't come from the ocean, but much much lower. Hades granted you this gift, no turning back now. But I suppose I'm fine with others mistaking blue for water, I'll know the truth, I'll know some part of you in this writing, even though you've admitted I don't know you at all. Maybe I'll find you out, hell, maybe I won't. Regardless, my lips forever will work to light those eyes of yours up, I'll always be your pyromaniac, but what's the difference between fascination and contemplated arson.

  Love, colorblind love, allow me to show you my colors as we find yours, yes? Will that be okay? You're so sure that I'm finding me, but all I've done is realized I'm coming back with pieces missing, even after doing something as simple as sleeping. I lose myself in my words, and then they flake off like trauma, which is to say they don't disappear at all, just bury themselves under the flesh that I yearn to flay. We don't know who we are, and maybe we're both losing ourselves, but we have to drop off some things to pick up more, don't we? Maybe I'm dark shades of brown, lighter even, or maybe I really am green, maybe I'm white. Until either of us really know, I'll show you exactly what you've been missing. You see, we'll lose ourselves to our respected colors, and from there we'll find each other again, and drain ourselves against one another to create something entirely new, just for us, and then we'll weave ourselves in and out of the universe until we're nothing, and yet everything. The greys that plague you, your little stand-ins for my obvious surroundings, will shine like neon, The colors, they'll take you in, pull you down, and you will bask in the glory your past kept hidden, you will be one with the colors you can't yet imagine. And through this, I'll be your glasses and your coordinator, I promise to magnify and guide. I will be your sword and your shield, love, use me as you wish and I'll take the damage. Whatever you need, whoever, whenever, I'll be here, I'll be it, I'll be yours, forever with my hand out for you to grab hold of, to steady or to comfort, and we can be better together, happy together, simply together. We can be safe, against anyone else, against the world if you'd rather, and I? I will show you this. I will hold you into the blues, into the greens, and in-betweens, past the whites and blacks and... and we will be the rainbow, you and I. Unlike anyone can be, I am here now, and I will paint you exactly what love should have been for you, what life should have been. It should have been soft, like silk, not rope. We accept the love we think that we deserve, and even though I'm not anywhere near that blasted rope, I know that's why you're with me, for I'm not exactly silk, either. I'm something of leather, perhaps. I'll make you feel beautiful, powerful, but I won't last there forever, you know. I'll flake off, you'll grow tired of the mask, you'll grow tired of me, but at least I'm not rope. And we both know that you wouldn't want the silk for yourself. But until I'm something in a pile that you can remember rather fondly, allow me to be the reason you're smiling and walking like that, leaving flames for a trail.

   I'll first show you a better white, white outside supremacy of course because white is nowhere near a dominant color to me, but I know that you've seen enough black for now. I will lay next to you in a field of lilies, snowdrops, hyacinths, dahlias, and daffodils with the beautiful floral scent filling our senses. We will be surrounded by all that is pure, soft, safe. Dandelion will fly around us, make a wish if you must, they'll fall everywhere; you can wish for everything in the world and still have excess seeds. On milk-colored cotton blankets, we'll gaze into the night sky, where foggy shapes spread around the chalky Moon, capturing Her beauty rather nicely. In this perfect world, Scorpio and Cancer will be right next to each other. Relax next to me, go ahead and put your guard down, as I weave my hand into yours, the peach and creams of your existence make me feel olive in comparison. I could be olive for you, but olives and milk don't go together, so perhaps I can be a soft caramel, very soft, I'm not too entirely tan, but I like the thought of that. It's further proof of my imperfections and proof of your opposite. Caramel and Cream. Beneath the pearly light, we shine quietly, soft glowing fae, you and I. We're goddess's, y'know. Crowns of the pale flowers on top of your head, now that I think about it they make you slightly coral in comparison, then lace down your arm, around your fingers, covering the parts you wish to hide. Can't you see you're a perfect representation of something to worship? Goddess of Comedy, of ****, of What Love Should Be, of Selflessness, of Cuteness, of Protection, of Not Knowing How To Control Anger, of Music, of Koalas, and I? Suppose I'm some sort of gender-neutral Goddess of Laughter, Magick, Crying, Being Overdramatic, maybe of Poetry, maybe of Avoiding Issues, maybe of Frogs, and maybe of Empathy. Oh yes, and I'll show you this. I'll show you the alabaster watercolors and paint and pencils, I'll show you how a Goddess paints the stars, but I won't ever(EVER) show you those ****** impressionable Crayolas again. They're childish in their waxy ways, Frenchie, and you don't deserve that anymore. White Crayolas are pointless and deceiving anyway, aren't they? You deserve so much more, so much better, so, I shall provide stability and vision.

  And this? I will show you.

  Because words are empty. And you need to see to believe it.

  You see, I am in debt of your presence. I am in scars of your truths. That might not make sense. To explain, I try so very hard to keep my own blank face when you're talking to me because I'm afraid I'll give you the wrong expression. You need understanding, not to be singled out and felt like an outcast the way that I know you feel already. I do this because I know what you've been through, but you say I don't, that I would never get it. Maybe not in exact ways, but I do in some fashion. But I don't know you, so maybe I'm just blathering. Anyways, I try to keep a straight face, hearing of your abuse, your insecurities, your everything that you slowly open to me. Do you know how that makes me feel? I'll tell you. I'm angry that such things could be done to you. You don't see this, I make sure of it, but it takes everything in me not to hunt them down, Sydney, because why. WHY. Why would anyone do such a thing.. to you? To you. You didn't deserve it. ****, no one does, but you especially didn't. Hearing this pains me emotionally, mentally, physically. But I keep a straight face, please don't assume it's because I don't care. Please never assume that it's because I'm bored with the topic. Because I do care, I care so ******* much, I just don't want to make you feel like I'm afraid. I'm not. The thought of losing you, THAT'S what scares me. The mere thought of you loving someone else the way that I love you, that's breaking away my soul with its phantom grip. I refuse to lose you, I can't. I don't think that you quite get this yet, but there's something about you that makes me worry so much that I get sick when you don't reply for mere seconds. It's like I need to constantly hear from you. Like if I don't, I'll be dead, alone, because I know better than most people how quickly a life can be taken. I know that I get mad easily and that sometimes my overdramatic selfishness gets overwhelming, but I really don't want to shove you away or make you annoyed by me. I just want to talk, and show you these flaws, so that you know I mean no harm, that I'm getting better, that I can be good for you. I also understand that such is impossible, you're bound to not want something about me, I know I won't match you in every way that you need. But I do want everything of you, I want your anger and your sadness and your insecurities. I want you in tears for me, because I know I will always be here to clear them up for you, but I always hope to never be the cause of your crying. I will never purposely make you cry, I will never try to make you leave me(unless I think that it's best if you do so). You say that I helped you, that I was the reason you felt that it was good you're not dead. One of them, I know, but still. When you wrote for me, it was something interesting. You see, people don't write for me. They write for themselves, they write about themselves, they write to feel quirky, they rarely write about others, hell I know I do. I don't get written about, and if I do it's lies. He-who-shall-not-be-named wrote a few things for me. In his letters or texts, promising his life to me, vowing that he'd never leave, never hurt me, never cheat on me. He gave me empty words and full-blown everything else if you catch my drift. He showed me that words were nothing, never to trust them. "I love you" is the biggest and most frequent lie that I get told. But something in me believes you when you say it. Because you said it without getting anything back for such a long time. You could have given up, moved on, walked away, but you didn't. You stuck by me, even when you had the world of people you could go with, you wanted me. Me. And so I owe you at least a little bit of trust when you say that you love me, and doing so should make you see that when I say it back I also mean it. I've never written this much for anyone, you make me want to write even if it all sounds ******* cliche and mushy.

  Deep breath.  

  I will kneel for you, Goddess, and be here, waiting. Here, ready. Here, open for you. Pick me apart, I'll show you my inner mechanisms, do with me as you please. I'm going to work for this, just give me time. I don't know you, you don't know me, that's what we agreed with. We hide behind these words, YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME! because we're afraid that if we DO know something about the other, we'll die for it. We'll be hurt because knowing is knowledge and lack of something new to tell is weakness, is it? That's what you've been taught, that is what I've been taught, but listen. I have nothing to hurt you with. You've always known that you're stronger than me. I can't hurt you, right? I can't.
  
  I will always be full of stories, as will you, just tell me them. Just talk, I'll be quiet for once, you can tell me everything. You offer to listen to mine, say that you want to hear about me, but God let me just distract you so you'll talk about something, anything, else. I'm so stupid, I know you want to talk. I'll be quiet for once, let me work harder for you, I don't want to pretend that it's easier not to know you. We have to know each other. We have to, don't you want to stay with me? I know now that it is I who is the toxic one, let me try to be better for you. You told me that you didn't think that I stopped cheating, that I stopped being toxic because I met you, but I did. Sydney, I did. Or at least I've gotten better. I don't cheat, I've never cheated on you. I won't. But I know that you said that only because you were mad and overthinking. Or maybe you really meant it, I know everything that you said had some truth to it. I'd let you in if I could. Truth is, I'm an open book. For ****'s sake, I'm emptying this **** onto a ******' website, I don't have any ****** secrets. . . okay, I have a few, but only because I don't know how to bring them up. And yes, there's a lot of my past that you don't know, but there's also a lot of yours that I don't know. You have secrets you'll never tell, this is just truth, everyone does, yes? Do you want to know everything? If it will make you feel better, I'll tell you the world, the world of J, everything, you can have all my secrets, I'll be nothing but empty for you, you can have me. Would you like that?

  I'll erase the past lovers who made me fear, made me mad, made me, well, me, just for you. I won't mention him anymore, just don't leave me, okay? I'll stop talking about it, I'll stop getting so mad at you, I'll stop twisting your words, I never meant to. I never meant to. I always seem to make you feel as if you can't open up. You can. You can open to me, always, forever. Please. I can be better. Just for you. Always for you, only for you, please. I'm sorry. I say that so often, but that doesn't mean it has any less meaning, I am sorry. Quite often, I admit. I'm sorry for thousands, millions, trillions of things. I promise I'll get better with that, for you, just tell me how, tell me what to do, I will. I'll do anything. See, my past people weren't good at many things. Some could write a bit, some could sing, or both, or neither. Some could just talk right. But they all were good at one thing: leaving a scar. I remember you compared your past lovers to people with rentals, aka you, that they trashed. I think that if I could compare them to anything, they were feelings that I couldn't quite let go of because I knew that if I did, I wouldn't know what to do. I liked fear, maybe, I liked being hurt. I was used to it, it felt like little kisses, it meant they loved me. Manipulators do that, they make you feel like you need them until, bam, it's been almost a year and ****, you're alive aren't you? I feel things too deeply. One person's favorite thing would become an obsession for me. I don't know if that will change, because here I am telling you that, honey, you can be my addiction. But I wouldn't compare you to you a drug. Not the way Edward called Bella ******, how toxic, you're not ******. You're wine. You're champagne. You're "Veuve Clicquot." I know I don't really have to say this, but drugs are ******. They make you feel ******, that's why I won't ever relate you to them. You don't make me feel ******, not always. Admittedly so, sometimes you upset me, and sometimes you make me want to die, but that really is more along the lines of my fault, because we know me- I'm really overdramatic. And you, you say you're bad, that you're entirely something to stay away from. I think that's funny, really, cause I'm an alcoholic, I've bathed in poison, and Honey? You don't have its burn. I'll say it, you're not perfect, not in a sense that everyone will understand, but you are to me. Even your unobvious toxins are things that I find perfect. See, those things, they're deep down, but you're not toxic, you're not entirely deadly. But of course, you can be, if not handled with care. Though everyone can be as well, so please stop acting as if you're something that needs to be locked away from people. You're a person, a good person. Stop telling me that I'll never understand you. If you want to shove me away, my goodness, keep trying, but I've been told much worse by my own self, love, and I love being degraded. You're safe with me, and I will love you, though I know my affections can be quite unorthodox. You're my drink, not my drug, but somethin' I'm very much so addicted to. You feel good going down, hell you make me feel like a ****** lightweight, but god you show me what it means to be carefree, warm, happy, it's like I can do no wrong. You feel right for me. So, I'll drink and drink, and I'll dance and dance, soft yellow, and you? You will be swaying beside me. Mixing our hopes with our pride, you and I can twirl.

  "Distance makes the heart say you want her, distance makes the heart grow fonder."

  Regardless of the forevers between us, infinity called miles, I want you. Even though you **** me off really often, I want you. I don't like you sometimes, but I want you. I think that you're perfect for me, but I want to choke you. Often. But I mean it lovingly because I want you. See, I'm allowed to choke you, I'm allowed to want to at least, but no one else is. I don't actually dislike you in the slightest, I just think I have a lot to work out with myself. I didn't actually mean it when I said that I hated the things that you loved. I think the word was envy. I envy the things that you love, I envy being able to like things, being able to handle things, because **** I can't handle anything for large amounts of times. And I do envy the things you love because some part of me(I'm sure there's a name for it somewhere) wants to be the only one, the only thing for you.  I get frustrated so easily, I'm ****** I know. I'm so ****** used to being in this little fantasy I have for myself that I don't know what it really means to be in this reality. People don't act the way I want them too, I lose control of everything when I find I can't make people do as I please. In my world, you love me completely, so completely that you don't need anyone but me. But in reality, if anyone left your life, you'd break down.
In reality, you don't need me. You just happen to want me, you love me right now, but you don't need me. I'm not oxygen, or food, or water. And to be honest, even if I was, you'd be able to live without me for a bit. You avoid those things anyhow, don't you? I want you to see that I do love you, that I do want you, that I would never cheat on you or hurt you in that way because I want to be different from what you're used to with your lovers. I want to be something that you remember quite fondly if we don't end well. I want you to be able to say, "yeah. Yeah, they weren't ALL bad. There was this one person... J, I think, yeah. J. They weren't too bad."

  See, you're a blue flame that tastes like that yellow champagne, but I'm Agave Reposado. I mellow as I age. My natural citrus and spice round out as I grow, creating these complex notes of dry chocolate, chilies, vanilla, and cinnamon. Some prefer me with mixes of something else, say Cognac or wine, which might **** with my flavors even more. Parts of me are hardy enough to support cocktails, while the subtler parts are best sipped neat or over ice. Take that information and do what you will with it. I only speak these words so they'll have some sort of meaning to you. I taste like that gold tequila, but I'm nothing more than a candle.

  "I know we'll never grow old together, cause you'll never grow old to me."

  I will want you until you decide you don't need me, and, even then, I'll want you. YOU. You alone. You, Sydney Grace Collins. Because once I love, Darlin, I don't stop until something dies. The things that usually do are patience, longing, energy, faith. Will you get tired of me, no longer wish to see me, be finished with my absolute *******, not trust that we will last any longer? Will you wake up one day, see me and realize, "****. I'm done. I don't want THIS. I don't want this anymore, ever again." I said not until something like that dies, but I don't really think that I'll stop. I don't think that it matters if you love me or not, because I'm going to love you. I mean, it definitely matters if you do or don't, but it doesn't affect the way that I feel. See, when you stop loving me, I'll pretend I never did. But I'll know the truth, and when you read or hear this you will too. If I cared about you, even after you-know-who and everyone before him, it means that you're something very special to me. Even though I really wish I didn't give a ****. It would just be easier that way, I think, easier not to want you or care or worry, I would much rather not ever worry about you again. BUT. We both know it's not really something that I can choose, so until YOU leave and cover up your tracks, because I can be a hella good FBI agent,(or stalker, whatever you wanna call me) you're stuck with me, huh? Which shouldn't be taken as a bad thing, being stuck with me, and if it is I think that maybe I should probably tone it down, but, seriously, when have I ever really toned anything down?

  I can think of at least two times where you've asked me why I love you, what draws me to you, and I think that I've finally ******' figured it out. It's your laughter, love. It's like I said before, you do that cute little wheeze when you laugh before the cute musical notes of the actual giggle erupt, and in the middle of this, you find ways to take breaths. You toss your head back, and then you double over before you proceed to rock back and forth like that. I love seeing you happy. I love seeing you be THAT happy, and I like that most of the time that I see you do that is because I make you, I give you a reason to. I can't really deal with things other than laughing at them or making jokes, it's a serious flaw of mine, but I like that it can help you sometimes because, hell, you can't deal with your **** much either. It's the way that your eyes crinkle when you smile at me, or the hopeful look on your face when you sing, or the eager face you make when you're talking, or the simple resting ***** face, or the way you sleep, breathe, exist. It's the way that you reach for leaves with your burning touch, you reach for things that fall eventually on there, and you save them when you tuck them into your pockets. Little stars, little shooting stars we'll call them. It's the way that you can brush off an entire tree falling on you, but heaven forbid a leaf fall on your loved ones. It's the way that your anger flares when something happens to hit you the wrong way. It's the way that you dance. It's the way that you eat. It's the way that you talk, sound. It's the way that you tuck your issues down into that same pocket as if your crumbling life was a loose strand of hair falling onto your face.

  I like that about you, about how you bottle things up, sweep them away, avoid things. I love it, really, because I've always liked to research, to figure things out, and I know that I'm not too good right now, but I'm going to help you. Oh, yes, I am. I'm going to figure you out. Run away from the words I'm saying, but it's true. And you'll either accept that, or we'll fall apart. Not because I want to, but that's what happens without communication. You've gotten so very good at talking about your issues though, so so so very good, love, and I'm so very proud of you, not to mention grateful. But I know that it barely scratches the surface of that pain, I know because you've told me. So tell me, blue flame, where's the source? Where do I patch up, where do I sow, and what can I do to make sure it doesn't happen, let me help you. I want to patch you up, and then I want to love the scars. There's nothing wrong with you, did you know that? Nothing at all. You're perfect. I love everything about you, even the things that I don't know about you, I love them. All your secrets and thoughts and plans, I love them. I yearn to be a part of them, but I know that takes time. I'll wait, and I respect it but don't ever forget that I am right here, even if I won't understand the pain I know that it's relieving to be able to just ******' talk about it. I'll listen.

  You're so ******* important to me.

  Look at me, baby. No, seriously, look at me. I want you to keep this in mind, love, this face, the look of my room, how I talk when I tell you all this **** that goes on in my head, look at how I'm opening for you, for YOU. Remember this round, unorderly face. See my eyes, love, as I read this to you, this other poem-related thing I'm writing, notice how wide they get? They're passionate, they are, do you see that? Passionate because of you, the thought of YOU, love for YOU. Do you see how your hoodie looks on me, and if it isn't on at the moment, your chain. Look at me. I will make you want to stay, look how tiny I can be for you. You can put me into your pocket too if you'd like. I can make you want to stay, right? I can make you miss me, I know it. When you do leave, I'll make sure I haunt you with this voice, these eyes, these I-love-you vibes, Darlin, you won't leave without an extra soul following. Cause you're gonna remember, you're going to remember me even if it kills us. You'll remember the way it felt when my lips crashed into yours, you'll remember laying in my lap while my hands roamed your face, you'll remember it all. You see, I don't remember things very well. For instance, I don't remember exactly when I first realized I loved you, which was after I had loved you but before I could admit it to myself much less to you. I only remember wanting to hold you, the times where you were the only one that could make me happy, and I know that's still how it is, at least on my end. Something about you makes the green storm halt. I don't remember what made me want to say that I loved you back, but I do remember trying to find something funny, just to say, to show, so that I could watch you laugh again. I love your laugh, Sydney Collins, I love you. I don't remember what made me fall for you exactly, but I do remember noticing you were being quiet when I finally stopped talking about myself once, and I remember knowing that I would do anything to make sure that you're okay again. See, I **** at really helping, but I want to, believe me. I want to help so many things. I want to help the voices and the thoughts get easier. I want to help the anger and loneliness, I want to help you. I want to be YOUR person. Forever. I want to protect you, let me check under your bed for beasts, back into the closet I go for monsters, I REMEMBERED, but you see, you don't need me to do the second part. The secrecy and skeletons, the ones you lay to rest, you keep it shut for a reason, don't you? Locked and sealed, like your mouth, never opened long enough for anyone to know what's going inside, but I will check regardless, and if you say, " J, don't say **** about that body," I'll smile and ask "what body?" and shut the doors, find my way back to you, and tell you that you hide the smell very well. Because I'm on your side, love, I'm not the enemy. And, just so you know, I always bring a shovel with me, should you need it. Closets can only hold so much, and you'd understand that, wouldn't you? Wouldn't we? GOODNESS! My heart is ******' POUNDING.

  You make me see gold when things are black.

  We are Not Veronica and JD.

  I have to admit something to you. When you talk like, oh it's happened so rarely, but like.. that. I freak the **** out because, wow! how do you do that to me? DO I DESERVE IT? No, no, no. OH, no I don't, I could never. I don't deserve a lot of the things that you tell me. But I think of you, I think of you so often. When I'm alone, I imagine you're touching me, I think I need your touch. You breathe sometimes and these knees buckle and this heart swoons and I cry out "ASEXUAL" because holy ******* **** *** with women seems so scary, and oh **** how do I hold myself back. I just want to see you smile, hear you breathe a sigh of relief, and listen to your sweet nectar laugh when flattered by one of my compliments. I want to feel the warmth of your skin while your body is wrapped around mine, and hear the beat of your heart while I lay against your chest, though I'm happy if you'd listen to mine instead, I know how you prefer to lay. I want to watch your chest rise and fall as you sleep and kiss you until you wake up. I want to feel safe with you. I want to feel...small.. with you if you get what I'm saying. I want to trust you.

  Let's talk about our issues from now on, rather than ignoring each other, please.

  I really don't care if I have to cross a sea of vulnerabilities and emotion, I would do it all for that time you said that my, MY, smile made you happy. Because when you're happy, I'm happy. And ****, my chest feels all fluttery whenever our eyes meet, and jeez I'm just a frikity freakin' mess whenever you make me laugh, and GOD I love it when you call me baby or princess or kitten or whatever name because hell I don't have to be a girl for those names to mean the world. I'd love anything that you call me, just as long as I can call you mine, still. I will say this, love, I will tell you that I'm gay, just for you. I'm a ******, I'll scream, until my mouth grows numb, tongue forgets how to speak, teeth rot out. Until I die I will cry your name, and from then I'll sign it, and you'll teach me how won't you? I will never NOT want you, Sydney. You're part of my life now, a big part of it, and that means that even five years from now I will remember you. We can't go back, now, these are important memories. I'll write I love you until my fingers forget how to hold, how to touch, how to be fingers, I'll write until said fingers break and ******, I'll write until my fingers forget how your hands feel wrapped in mine, until my poems no longer reek these cliche pitiful words, and then I'll continue because I will never stop. I will look for more ways to make sure that you are HERE! In my heart, in my eyes, in my head.

  "All I wanted was you."

  There are very few things that I can be sure about, and one of the only things that I'm sure about is the fact that I mean it when I tell you that I love you. YOU cannot help how I feel, and, quite frankly, neither can I. Nothing will change it unless I want it to, and of course, why would I want that? your voice whispers a gentle need back, I know you feel this too. So I beg of you to call me a thousand, billion, trillion times, tell me that you want me, too, just me, only me, that you love just me, only me. Babe, I'll write your name times infinity between each phrase, I will love you more than you love me, and you'll drown, fire child, in my love. you'll hiss, I'll cool you down, but I will not ***** you.

  For I am just a candle.

  And you're the flame that takes me away.
sometimes I just feel like writing, and that's okay. usually, it isn't much. I struggled with a title for this, so I just started to write until it was okay again. I think that some of these things don't really make sense, but I scramble to hold the things I write. They escape a lot. I read this to her out loud, she said that she had never been compared to a flame, not like this. she said that her ex compared her eyes to the ocean, so when I said, "they are not the ocean, not something to jump into" she smiled. that made me happy to know, that I did something like this right.

I edited this a lot after reading it to her, and after listening to what she said. I apologized. I told her "Yeah... Yeah, apologize. Words are ****. But that's all I have. Yknow? I'm sorry. I'm sorry for assuming that I knew you, for saying that "I get it" even though I couldn't possibly get it. I'm sorry that you're losing yourself, and that I twist your words when you try to talk about me, or about your ex's, or about anything. I'm sorry that I'm one of the people around you that's always ******* up their arm. I'm sorry that you think I won't love you unless you're funny. I'd love you even if you were a tomato. I'd love you even if you were coffee. I'd love you even if you were my worse nightmare. I'm sorry that I got mad, I didn't understand, I'll try to be better with that. I'm sorry that I took you listening to music as you not wanting to talk to me, I forgot that you have other things. You're more than what meets the eye, I'm sorry I forgot that, I'm sorry I assumed things. I'm sorry that I won't understand your mind, I only ask that you help me try. I'm sorry for shutting you down. And mostly I'm sorry that you think I never changed from my past, that I'm still toxic, that you don't doubt I'll cheat or have. I haven't. I won't. I'm sorry that I'm toxic, I'll fix it, I'll get better. I'm sorry that I said I tell you things that everyone knows. I'm an open book, like you said I'm easy to read. I shouldn't have said it in that way, truly I have nothing to hide. I'm sorry that I keep repeating my past mistakes. I'm sorry. And I love you."
She was supposed to call me, but she didn't get the chance to. it's almost three in the morning, I'm pretty sure she's sleeping. I'm very glad she is, though, because I know her insomnia has made it really rough on her.
anyhow, enjoy yet another one of my entries.
would you even call what I write poetry?
Paul Rousseau Aug 2012
The empty calories are all full of rage as
My double-edged pen cut dinosaur days with
Little bow peep and that chick from down the street
Both swallowed the fluid keeping the cosmic egg clean
Mary McCray Apr 2014
(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 12, 2014)


Can poetry survive? Can we survive as poets?
There are more poets than tigers or black rhinos.
There are more readers of verse than Leatherback Turtles
or all of the Yangtze Finless Porpoise.

Grand Theft Auto, Strive-and-Thrive books,
Brave-New-World movie rentals—
they may have taken over living room pleasures.
But now with our tweets and submittables,

our bad poems travel fast.
The wires and workshops are still full of weedy thinkers
and word-tinkers. Maybe the distribution will change
and who makes the money, like the printing press

set the monks to the curb. The medium was always unstable.
As soon as an invention is born, it begins to die.
Don’t put all your eggs in one anthology.
Speaking of which, we’re not as big as a chicken-

processing lobby, nor our players as emboldened
as enthusiasts visiting Comic-Con. But we’re full of deviance
and underground custom, perfectly respectable as a cult:
religious, novel, obsessively durable.
Sora Dec 2012
Trenches have been dug
I dug them and now I'm called nothing but a wretched ****
River banks have started to erode
Seeing my home town again, a mess, made me implode
*** holes have been filled
The tar were my emotions that were killed
I've been used,
Too many rentals before I crack.
Scratches spread,
Like butter on bread
Couples split
Their hearts turning to a dark, deep pit
Trenches have been dug
But to no prevail we loose life, loose light.
Tornadoes of another kind have come
Ashlee Reyes Jan 2016
I try as hard as I can
To go back to those summer nights
When you were mine.

The cheap movie rentals play
And as you get up to leave
I beg you to stay.

It's been months since I last heard from you
I barely drink coffee anymore
'Cause it never is as fresh as the one
You'd brew.

All I have left is your unwashed tee
And the trail of polaroids you
Always took of me.

Sometimes your touch I still feel,
And then I realize it's 4:03 AM
And again, it was a dream and
Nothing real.

I close my eyes and think of you
And that time when you
Told me not to cry
And that
I was truly only mine.

I never believed you when you said
You'd leave
Cause it never seemed
Like you'd grown
Sick of me.

I try as hard as I can
To go back to those summer nights
When I was yours.
When you were mine.
Francie Lynch May 2014
The **** on the steeple
Proclaimed and denied to
Four corners, looked down,
And twisted.
Old men in green suits with crow's eyes
And alabaster covered bones push open doors
With wooden feet.
The postman, empty-kneed, rides his Deere
Over green fields with rabbits,
Laughing to himself.
Rentals in drives plan the day's jaunts
To ****** or Kenmare.
Shops carry faded signs:
Donovan, O'Sullivan, Finnegan.

The crow drops on the roof of Holy Cross
Which doubles as a retirement home;
Its clients plaint palms skyward with the wind.

Five hundred leave each week:
          "Ireland's best... so fresh it's famous."

The laggers serve tea and scones,
Or ply in shops they may someday own.
There are no slow boats here.
The green suits leave naturally,
Others by air.
This is no country for the young
With their hillside tilting windmills of power.

Below, a young woman eats, holding
Her knife like her father, eating,
Silent, staring.
Crow and rabbit inhabit,
Stones tumble and lay for a hundred years.

Each day a new apocalypse offering
One opening. No wrappings,
No ointments, no fresh water.
No throne to approach, no voice calling
Them home.
No seventh son to dip his finger in the well
And soothe.
Devon Brock Sep 2019
We got 6 bars and 6 churches,
each with similar congregations.
You might say we got that perfect
balance between grace and humiliation.

It doesn't end there, though.
We're run by a council of six,
if you include the mayor, Orin,
who lost the state election
because he couldn't represent
a cow if he had
crayons and construction paper.
He's got some creds,
if you take into account
he built a tractor museum
in a train depot
moved a half mile down
a minimum maintenance,
travel at your own risk road,
frequented by the hormonal.

But I digress. Oh yes,
we have a council of six,
each from one of the six
similar congregations,
each from one of the six
houses of libations.

However, every first Saturday,
they meet, informally so to speak,
under the torn tarp at Ernie's,
next to the beach volleyball pit
nobody uses, between the dumpsters
and the railroad tracks,
to discuss matters too urgent
for the formal published minutes.

They crinkle their Grain Bin cans
like phrenologists picking
out small crimes that paint
this town true, rural,
downwardly mobile,
cordoned off at the rim.

Few years back, they annexed
Bob Olson's back forty
for one helluva football complex
for our losing team. GO DRAGONS!
But we gotta have it.
Pay itself off in five years they said.
Rentals, events and all that claptrap.
Gloria walks her dogs on the track
everyday. Return on investment.
R O I.
At least she picks up the ****.

Third and Main got ripped up
a year ago last April.
Ain't been paved yet.
I suppose we're waiting
for those more appropriate
appropriations to accrue.

But that's alright,
we saved a fortune firing
our Andy and Barney PD
while Andy was in Afghanistan.
Don't know how they got away with it.
We get two hours of laws a day,
Deputy Dawgs, and meanwhile,
somebody's siphoning gas.
Pretty much sure it's that Keiser kid,
can't hold a job anyway.

I thought better of mowing the lawn today.
I looked at it a bit. Betty, across the street,
is giving me the side-eye as she sweeps
harvest dust from her shingles.
Well Bets, you fussbudget,
I'm working two jobs,
six days a week,
to live in this runt of a town,
so back the hell down.
You may be eighty and spry,
but you got five, count 'em five
courters with John Deere riders tending.

You see, here in the heartland,
where politic is a game played
with cheap beer and hard glances,
where the clapboard houses lose their paint,
where the new, polished surrounds
of seamless siding dictate appearance,
priority and expenditure,
where the churches and bars conspire
to define reputation and aspiration,
the manure-booted men
are denied the dignity of manure
for a sham - for a show
that barely covers the crust and wrinkles
of a town dying slow.
Poemasabi Jul 2013
It's Friday,
and I used to look forward to this day...
when I was in school...
when I was at one or two of my non-retail jobs...
while I am at my current job.

Friday used to be the start of a break,
in the routine,
in the tasks at hand left behind until Monday.
we'll talk about her later

We bought a house recently
and after 20 years of rentals,
it is now our responsibility to
keep things up...
looking ship shape...
like someone who actually cares
lives here.

So now Friday no longer's the respite from the daily grind
but the start
of weekend work.
Hole in Hollow


The end was brought by men of sand
born creeping blood and streaming water.
Apocalypse fought in the heart of nature
by the hands of her heartless keepers.

In these glorious hours, mourn the grieving
this last morning, this gory evening.
Victory swept when they were dead in treason,
the ****** drenched in sweat and the wet bodies lie bleeding.

This is the end of everything,
the final fall season.


Foreword: My Plague

   This is that dream.
   I found myself on a long barren road, winding, far from the city, civilization for that matter.  My road meanders, slowly reaching my destination in what could have been a straight and focused line.  The curb reads my mind and takes me further as I try to escape it, following me.  I stutter in cursing and the clockwise becomes counter, but I age.  I age more rapidly than ever as the tape rewinds, or the record spins backwards.  My record sings supposed messages from the Devil as my existence lessens yet my sins become more.  How can I repent when there is nothing left?  There will be no wrong when I am done, but I will suffer for what wrong I had.  I will be a lie when I am not here to give the truth.  If this pain cannot be corrected, it will be shared.  This is my plague.  I will drown in this sea only knowing that I've spilled insanity's seed to blemish the water, blot the page.  This is my plague and you will feel it with me.
   I am telling the story and you are listening, with every page you read, you are the sinner's dream.  I have you.  This is my plague.  Action.

Chapter One: Love and Marriage

   "Oh, God, Bill, you must be ******* me."
   "No, Drake, I am never ******* you," I nearly shoot myself in the face and respond.
   "Same lady?"
   "Same lady," I think about how ugly she must be to keep calling and how much makeup it must take to bring her face to a tolerable state of viewing.
   "Drake, it's an outstanding fine of five thousand dollars, it's not even that big of a loss for you."
   "Then it sure as hell isn't that big of a gain for Master Rentals, BILL.  Are we even talking about the same money-******* corporation for Christ sakes, Bill?"
   "Drake, this will end in a lawsuit.  You don't have much of a choice."
   "Bill, God ******, BILL!  Stop repeating my name.  This is the reason I shouldn't have hired a male secretary in the first place, I'm entirely stressed the Hell out and have no one to comfort me because I'm not even the least bit attracted to you."
   "Drake, you're getting married," casually.
   "Bill, you're getting fired," seriously.
   I throw the phone and its base out of the open window, screaming in a wave of relief as it leaves me, and again, in pain, when I find the line still connected to the wall, and the unit hanging outside of my 12th story office which pans a great view of the Los Angeles sky and the pathetic bums beneath it.  At this point I would much prefer the phone's position in hanging from a ledge to mine, sweating in hatred, with a possibly homosexual secretary.  "Homosexual ex-secretary," I shed a tear of happiness upon this remembrance and see him in a daydream bleeding from several moderate wounds, with the only real puncture between his legs.
   I leave my office and would proceed to stab to death every male co-worker wearing a tie with a graphical pattern, but I have to get back to my apartment as soon as possible because I miss Sharon, my soon to be better half.  I am confronted by a beggar upon my exit of the building.
   "Amazing!  Two and a half seconds into hearing the door open you're already asking me for cash.  I bet you would be happy with yourself if you weren't such a worthless *******.  You'd make your father proud, but he's probably dead by now."  I remember the phone and shove the homeless Mexican to the ground, where he probably thanked me for acknowledging him.  I turn to my office window and wave a ******* at the device, dangling, swaying back and forth still.  I realize now that I had left my lights on when I came to work, but it doesn't really matter because I've only been here for a half hour and I'm already leaving.  I use a handkerchief to open the door because the handle is ***** and I fear the *** may have touched it.
   I remember on the drive home that people are **** when I see the passenger of the car in front of me throw assorted trash out of his window.  I consider beating him and the driver to death with their own exhaust pipe in the next ******* toll booth we pass through, but notice a police car following directly behind me.  The rest of my drive is calm and quiet and I try not to push too ******* the gas, as an inconsistency in acceleration is considered illegal in Los Angeles because these inconsiderate ****** don't have anything better to do than harass people who make more money than they do, maybe even by doing less work, of which I am incredibly proud to be in that sort of a position.
   I take a deep breath and enter my apartment.  I smile firmly as I notice my fiancé's puppy leaving a surprise on the welcome mat and carpet before me.  Startled, he stops abruptly and skips gleefully into the kitchen where I'm sure he will soon finish.  I apologize for interrupting.  I see the blood of my lover puddling on an expensive leather sofa that, to my memory, wasn't even present on my last visit, and follow a trail of the substance leading to the bathroom.  I realize I am fantasizing when the bathroom door swings open and Sharon smiles to my own disappointment.
   "Hunny, you're home!"
   "Hunny, I'm home.  Why did you buy that dreadful couch?"  I light up a cigar and pass her open arms for a fall onto the sofa's cushion on which she should be lifeless.
   "They say smoking causes cancer, you know?  It will **** you," sarcastic, but at the same time realistic.
   I shake my head back and forth, looking up as if I were falling, then looking down as if something fell in front of me.  Rolling my eyes in dismay, I'm thinking of something else to tell her.
   "They also say professionally trained dogs don't **** and **** on expensive carpet," quick, but at the same time commanding.
   "Why are you always so **** negative?" She screams softly, tearing up more quickly than usual.
   "Why are you always so **** positive?" I wonder if she's ever thought of dying her hair a ***** sort of blond, or dying at all.
   "Drake, you are killing me!" She screams, at the top of her lungs now, confirming my subconscious inquiry to be as positive as she is.
   "I'd have to see it to believe it."
   I am now calmly and cleverly reading the sports section of an outdated newspaper, wondering if the dog's already claimed territory on today's, showing neither affection nor displeasure in my response.
   She leaves the room crying in a manner too painful and obnoxious for me to ignore.
   "I LOVE IT HUNNY, I LOVE IT!  Keep it coming, baby.  The cameras are going wild!"  I mention this in reference to her joke of a career she took with modeling.
   How I love that woman so.  I confuse myself as I dream about making her swallow that engagement ring I got her at some point for a reason I don't understand or have lost the compassion for.
   "Did you know it was supposed to rain last month?  Have you seen today's paper?"  She had already left.  I know this because I heard the door shut two minutes ago and she left the way I came in.

Chapter Two: Milk and Eggs

   I try to act surprised as I answer the phone, but I'm entirely too fake.
   "Hey darling, I'll be home in about an hour, I decided I should get some milk and eggs before the supermarket closes."
   Milk and eggs?  Does she realize she was having a nervous breakdown only ten minutes ago?
   "Shannon, milk and eggs?"
   "..."
   "Sharon, milk and eggs?" A smooth recovery.
   "Yes, milk and eggs.  We're all out." Alright.
   I hang up the phone slowly, stalling when the receiver almost touches, waiting... nothing.  Disappointed, I walk into the kitchen and forget what I was going to do.  I remember my high school sweety as my first real loss, Shannon.  Thirsty, I reach for the milk carton and upon lifting its weightlessness, I scream and hope Shannon knows what to expect when she gets back.  Sharon.  I look at my watch, quickly realizing I had spaced out for a time period of at least forty-five minutes.  I have fear that she will get back sooner than she expects, so I leave and choose to head for my office, but panic at my choices in transportation.  I never have this problem in the morning, I'm always wholeheartedly Bentley or Mercedes, but the afternoon is an entirely different story.  Sporty or speedy?  An eye at my watch tells me I don't have time for this, so I sob and hail a taxi.
   I can't become comfortable upon settling into the cheap interior with the non-leather backseat and realize I should have taken the Mercedes.  It's too late now because Sharon might be back.
   "Whey' you wan' go?"  The hardly English-speaking driver wails like a Puerto Rican, but upon further study, seems to be quite a Mexican.
   "Wan' go office."  The driver gives me shifty glances after this, squinting with a suspicious paranoia, first into the rearview mirror and secondly after turning around to face me.  I laugh and tell him to just go straight and stop stealing all of the American jobs.
   We pass by my office building where I wish my phone had fallen to some young child's death, or a welfare-dwelling tax-money-******* minority, but it hangs, relentless to my hunger.  I aspire to one day not think of ******, but I could stab the driver and roll him into a pond and be on my way just as well.
   On the walk home, I notice the relationship between the night sky I sleep under and the monster of which it makes me.  I'd try to elaborate, but I'm not quite sure I could.  My sleep is done when I wake up with Sharon nudging me, taking the best of one world and murdering it with the worst of another.  It is so unnecessary but happens nonetheless, hopelessly.
   Here I am, on my bed soaked in a cold sweat, Sharon crawling naked over me, salt on my tongue from my cheeks' streaming.
   "Good morning, sunshine.  Why the tears?"
   "What happened to the evening?"
   Upset, I'm sure now that I should remember something of the night before, probably better than I just made it out to be.  I've just had problems caring since she began speaking to me two years ago.  She flattens herself, chest to my lap, smiling to my reaction.
   "That always happens when I wake up." I try my best to **** her satisfaction.
   "I'm so sure."
   She has a great body, I'm just not sure I want to remind her.  The television suddenly turns itself on as the button on the remote must have pushed itself under the sheets, her eyes roll and she stammers, then passes out on top of me.  I slip out from beneath her, making that light slurping sound that means you're being careful with my lips tightened to the muscles in my neck.  I realize that was entirely unnecessary when I see the empty pill bottle on the counter, Xanax, prescribed yesterday.  I slam it against her face and pull her off the bed by her hair.

Chapter Three: New Girl

   "So, what's been in your system lately?" Roger asks lightheartedly.
   "It's been a heavy rotation between Bright Eyes and Chevelle."
   "Bright Eyes can cry me a freaking river with Justin Timberlake for all I care.  Goodman, the indie scene *****, get over it.  Have you listened to the new Hawthorne Heights I loaned you?"
   "Maybe."
   "Well, did you like it?"
   "Yes and no..."
   "Eh?"
   "Yes, I liked it... and no, I lied."
   "What's wrong with it?"
   "You know how you said cry me a river with Justin Timberlake?"
   "Whatever man, they scream and stuff though."
   "I'm leaving."
   "What did you do with my CD?"
   "I don't remember.  I would check the surrounding dumpsters of the place at which you forced it onto me."  I almost interrupt myself.  With frustration, "Again, I'm leaving."
   I get out of the car and walk around the traffic jam around us.  I arrive at the office thirty minutes before Roger's emo ***.
   "I thought you were carpooling with Roger this week, Drake?"
   "I don't carpool, I'm rich."  This nameless ****** is wearing a tie with a Christmas tree on it, out of season, and he will regret it one day, if I have to do it myself.
   I'm sitting at my desk and my view of the new secretary's skirt is brought to a sad closure when Roger bursts through my door, interrupting her sorting of my files and sending her backward about two feet in fright.
   "Where is my CD, Goodman?"  He has this real joke of a ******* look about him and it really makes me want to see his small intestine hang from a ceiling fan.
   "I'll get you a new one once you apologize for what you said about Conor."
   "Conor?"
   "Yes, Conor."
   "... Oberst?"
   "Yes, Conor Oberst."
   "Oh my GOD, you are still not over that whole Bright Eyes thing?"
   "Get out of my office, you little ******!"  I seriously pelt him with tens of pencils from the intricately placed holder on my desk and he leaves, feeling my superiority reign.
The phone rings three times and I let my machine pick it up, I thought it was set for two rings.  I remember now.
   "WHO the HELL put the PHONE BACK IN MY OFFICE?  WAS IT YOU?  YOU LITTLE *****!"  I'm sure she hears me and is petrified, wherever she has run off to in the time of my distraction.
   "I'm sorry I can't make it to the phone right now, I am at an important meeting with representatives from an almost higher power.  If you are calling for business discussion, leave a message at the beep.  If you're Sharon, take the phone and-"  Click.  They forgot to leave a message.  I paper airplane a death threat into the back of a fellow employee's head, he's been standing outside of my office looking at something on the floor for at least thirty seconds, ***** looking skater hair.  I quickly get back to reading papers of a nature similar to the one I just used.  He turns ninety degrees and reads, almost aloud, I surprise myself as I read his lips to remember what I put.
   Another ninety degrees and I see him glance at me in the corner of my eye.  I lower my forehead to see past my reading glasses, raise my eyebrows, and then tighten my chin, waving ninety with my left hand leisurely.  He turns as my waving registers, entirely stiff, ninety to the left, robotically, and continues on his way, probably to a cubicle.  I shake my head.  Left, right, tilt down seamlessly, left, right.  I hope my secretary saw that, as it was a rather smooth execution.  She already left.  ****** at this, I throw my papers outside of my window and the phone rings.  "Who put my phone back in my office, anyway?"  I'm ******.  Sharon leaves a message this time, still at the third ring.  "... I was just wondering if you wanted to go with me to church tomorrow.  That's all."  This just reminds me that I'm at work on a Saturday, I don't remember why.
   "Idiot."  I swear I hear her digestive system breaking down a variety of entire pills, maybe whole bottles, as she hangs up.  "Sunday ****** Sunday" by U2 surprises me on the radio.  Nothing that good ever gets played around here.  I'm not going to church and I'm leaving work early today to wring some dove's neck in the park.

Chapter Fear: Satisfaction

   Fear is a funny thing.  Some people claim they've known it all of their life and then they go on to say that they can smell it.  You can NOT smell fear, if you could I would be among the first of its acquaintances.  You can see fear, you can hear it, feel it, sometimes I think I taste it, but you only smell sweat and body waste.  Sweat can be brought about by many different methods, but it smells the same within all of them.  Fear is only one of these occurrences.  Jogging too fast makes you sweat, even I sweat.  Seeing someone's eyes grow wide with awe is fear.  Watching their body twitch before you've even touched them is fear.  A grown man crying is fear.  Hearing it... the certain deep breathing not attainable by jogging too fast is fear.  It sounds as though his or her life is about to end and he or she wants to take as much air as he or she can with him or her in one breath just in case it is his or her last.  I feel as though I've rambled or that you've lost yourself somewhere, but far beyond that, it is disappoint
Devon Brock Aug 2019
I used to live downwind of the slaughterhouse,
the one below the high bluff where the state pen towers,
commanding the best view of the marsh lands
and the stink ponds making lime outta ****
for the crops not meant for human consumption;
by the dry grass parks with the broken backboards
and the netless hoops that never slow a ball down.

I used to live downwind of the rendering plant
where the bubbling lard becomes aerosol
and the air reeks of freezerburn bacon and feces,
below the high bluff where the trustees cut grass
in the clean air not meant for the locals
mixing with the immigrants and loser folk
who have knots in their shoelaces that
press against bone when chasing a loose ball.

This town never grew up. Doesn't need to.
There's plenty of ground for the taking.
Plenty of farmers selling out to the downtown club
who cobble the streets in past time fashion,
netting big gains from the professional set
lining the smooth roads annexed to the east.

I used to live downwind of the closing in stink
of renewal, where the cheap rentals and struggle
stores with the marked-up Walmart brands
lining the shelves - expired but still edible -
bide their short time compressed and diced
up like leftovers for dogs.

But this is America. I don't live there anymore.
I got myself a cush gig with a padded ladder
to the top. Did everything I needed to do
for that sure climb out into a cleaner air,
only to find myself bruise-faced and reeling
when the profits didn't match the dream
and the ladders were sold for scrap.
Madeleine Toerne Aug 2015
Folks shopping for a car at a car dealership
is a depressing sight out of the car window.
All the sedentary businesses along route 131
in Michigan were vague. "Distribution Center"
"Shasta Rentals"  "Oasis Family Restaurant"

And PEACE in a flowery calligraphy
on the bumper of a gray dodge neon
on the bumper of a red denali.
A maroon sedan.
A silver-blue ford truck.
A pale red camero.
Harmony Sapphire Jan 2015
HOPE there is honor in love.
Designs that may not be mine.
DRINKING wine can't freeze time.
Make peace with your mind.
Left behind for one day to find.
A new life with a caring wife.
A husband to understand.
When he takes you by the hand.
It is a silent command.
No outrageous demands.
No children of the corn or village of the ******.
No red box rentals which have been banned.
Only a spirit who climbs.
Just everything hat is fine.
Not like talking to a mute mime.
Where being a momma is not a crime.
© Harmony Sapphire . All rights reserved,
Francie Lynch Jan 2015
don't call me old til 75
and only then,
if still alive;
only then
i'll let you drive
to florida -
the west keys,
and only then,
if i please.

i sleep late -
i seldom rise
without the help
of pfizer.

i soak my teeth
i wear a diaper
you think
it's yours
ever after
that's if the kids
agree.

yes, i have property
on the lake,
income rentals
you'd like to take,
but the kids,
they won't agree.

i am daddy,
sugar-coated,
yes, i know
my ego's bloated,
yet you signed on
for free,
but there's a hidden fee;
leave your family.

and you thought
lunch was free.
A narrative persona. I'm just the writer.
Edward Coles Sep 2014
We are drunk again.
The smell from the dustbins below
rises up to our luxury balcony
that overlooks a building site.
A phoenix is going to rise
from the ash, when the city burns.
I think it will come in half-price rentals
and coupons for a sack of rice.
Nothing makes sense
in this dying skyline,
all the people in planes
will go back to where they
came from before.
If they are lucky.

You asked me to talk some more.
To acknowledge your existence.
A selfish mood and darkened clouds
cut in by September.
It kept us inside and barely alive.
Everything became a block of thought,
each separate from the rest.
I lost my peripheral vision.
Could only see my sadness,
and not the wave-breaks that it makes.
We sat on a beach in Indonesia.
Ran to collect shells in the peculiar
ocean retreat. When the waves
came back as a cathedral,
we never stood a chance
in the blood-shed
and lack of air.

There is a rubber ring
out there for me.
Beyond the paranoia
of possible sharks and oil spills.
When I get pulled on board
they will slip me into a suit.
They will let me write poetry
in the day-time, and be cradled
by the sea as I search for sleep at night.
In the morning I will eat without sickness.
I might talk to the waitress,
prove myself sober with an orange juice.
She could laugh at a joke
I would only tell about myself.
If I was lucky.

I can run when we make the first port.
Whatever tongue, whatever lips
to set upon, I will take it.
A bed for the night
or coupons for a sack of rice,
I will drag the loot home
and fall asleep in my clothes.
Learning Spanish from a folk-singer,
he stubs cigarettes into my fingertips
and feeds me whiskey
to **** the pain.
The wine is cheap and the people
are easy, they let me smoke inside
if the weather is turning blue.
They bring grapes when
they sense a sadness,
and will not gripe with me
until I am ready to gripe with them.

I tried to write you a letter of apology
but it read more like a suicide note.
It is hard to talk about circumstantial meetings
when you can see this nonsense world
dissolving into parts.
The sun-set makes no sense to the poet,
and still he will quote it all the same.
A convenient landscape for any occasion:
you can use it for the end-piece.
Everything I could write to you
would only sound formulaic;
the best melodies have now been played,
and so we are left with imitation.
For now I will have
a plastic-bag career,
walking home on foot
and sleeping soft at night.
There are no chances
of new landscapes in the present.
So I will lay open in bed
and allow this landlocked town
to be my paradise.
E
Rebecca Rose Feb 2018
Home is a place
And not a person
I do still believe in that
But I've been living in rentals
Until I can still pay up
And then I'm homeless again
Cody Cooke Feb 2019
Bottles of alcohol squat on the counter, and cigarette butts
like yellow dead June bugs on the floor.
Bottles of shimmering reasons to not care about a hangover,
to leave prom early and rejoice in your parent’s absence.
Glistening necks, elegant glass nubs with no cap
tipped up into mouths screaming proud and hoarse,
We are STUPID! And CONTAGIOUS!
our ***** voices breaking under the radio sound
to a loud song whose generation no longer cares.
But we do, dumb boys and girls in a truck, rolling around town
like Haylee’s bottle of Jack Daniels in the trunk—
aimless, optimistic, and looking for reasons, so
buy a pack at the Chevron and let’s go smoke!
That’s enough, after all, isn’t it?
Reason enough to crack the windows, find a Carlyss backroad,
waste away midnight and half a tank of gas.
Still, as I drive on, a 90s rock station stimulating rotation of the spliff,
that smell puts my mind out of guitar solos and into placid hallways,
Smells Like a night in my dad’s apartment,
the stubbly couch with the nicotine blanket,
the Marlboro tone in the air, concrete crumbs and a lighter’s grating chrrt.
Divorce sounds like alcohol—
a word that burns, something sterilizing and for adults only.
But I don’t care, it’s my turn on the spliff,
and the backseat of my truck sounds more Alive
than the old horror movie rentals he would put on.
And why should I worry about what sobriety means
when we’ve been planning this night for months now?
All stocked up on Bacardi and Smirnoff Ice, Captain Morgan’s, Svedka, Mike’s Hard,
Swisher Sweets wrapped up in the **** bag—
We shoot our ***, soldiers eager to start the war,
that war against a domestic unknown enemy,
an enemy dangerous and subversive, like sober-minded aspirations.
And while Zack rolls the blunt, while Jack finds his Camel pack,
while you ask for a hit of Haylee’s cigarette,
I fill a glass with water, my intention to hydrate
exactly as genuine as my intention to forget about it.
Fionn Sep 2021
I see you in my dreams
In vacation home rentals, 
over the garden wall, in the soft paleness of my underarm, the freckles traced into constellations

I pull open empty closets that smell of mothballs and salt. I look for white space, for that empty feeling life gives me, for the sweetness of life on my tongue. All the while, time passes me by, aging my face.

I could cry because the sky is so blue
For my mortal soul is just a fractal in this lonely universe!
For I have no direction, other than that of my heart.
Martin Bailes Mar 2017
Trump has overseas businesses
& assures us he has no conflicts
here, there & everywhere ...

Oh well sure,
we're reassured that he won't
actually be using every angle,
turning every corner, fine-tuning
every legality to bring those dollars
rolling in ...

just as he did with Trump University,
his pitiful bottled water & steak props
at his 'news' conference, his ties made
in China, his Mar A Lago Winter White
House operation, his Trump jet rentals,
your seats next to the President-elect for
close to a cool million ...

his Paul Manafort with his Ukraine deals,
his numerous go-fers all bouncing around
from here to Moscow, his secret deals we'll
all soon know about, his money laundering
Azerbaijan hotel racket, his red ******* hats,
all your Trump makin' a buck wheelin' & dealin'
that continues as we speak ...

& the hell of it is all the poor schmucks who think
you're Daddy Bigbucks & would love the chance
to one day make it just as you, all gold this & big
that & pomp & privilege & trickle-down & *****
the little man, the brown man, the other man &
yes by Jesus he's the man to get it done,
he speaks our language,
feels our pain ...

the only language he speaks is monetary,
the only values he has are green-backed, the only
everyman he looks out for is the mark he's about
to take in Donald Trump's corner store 3 card monte.

Trump sure loves his money, & thanks you all for
this great opportunity to use the Presidency of this
here United States to just plain rake it in like a
chubby, orange Scrooge McDuck in his golden,
tingling, vast & filling basement.
wordvango Jun 2014
Cancel my reservations
                 appoint my appointments
I sip per diem and sup A la carte
                 my destination unknown to your heart ,
my laptop, of course, searches rentals
                 of sorts, no plane needed, flight warnings unheeded,
a trip, for sure.
               Away on Business...
or pleasure? ... or both?
Chapter One: The Awkward Encounter

It was September, 1972, and the fall semester had just started.  Tonight was the first day of class.  I should clarify that as evening instead of day because this was night school.  I was a student majoring in English and Philosophy at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Only two weeks ago, I had moved into an old Victorian apartment building across the street from the University Field House at 54th St. and Woodland Avenue. Everything in Philadelphia is referenced as the intersection of two streets or thoroughfares.  Saint Joe’s was always referred to as being at 54th Street and City Line Avenue.  My apartment was a ramshackled old building in the middle of a black neighborhood.  I was the only white resident in the old three- story apartment building, and my apartment was on the second floor facing front. Every one of my new neighbors treated me great. There was a Baptist Church just to the left of my building and every morning at 8 they held services.  I never needed an alarm to get up in the morning because the singing and ***** music coming through the windows and walls were a reliable wake-up call.

I was working days in an Arco (Atlantic Refining) gas station about 15 miles away in North Hills Pennsylvania.  This station also rented U-Haul trucks, and my job was to pump gas and take care of the truck and trailer rentals as the owner of the station, Bob, was busy with mechanic work.  This worked well for me because between gas fill ups and truck rentals I got to sit in the office and finish my schoolwork.

Since moving back to Philadelphia from State College Pa., where I had been a student, all I brought with me was my most prized possession — a 1971 750 Honda.  I had customized it with café-racer accessories from Paul Dunstall because in those days you couldn’t buy a bike that looked like it belonged on a racetrack like you can today.  You had to build it.

I worked at the station five days a week (Mon – Fri) from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.  Then I hopped on my bike and headed back to my apartment to quick shower and change and then walk across the street to campus and hopefully make my first class by 6:00 p.m. On days when I got stuck in traffic or couldn’t leave at exactly 5, I would go straight to class wearing my Arco jumper with the smell of high-octane gasoline going with me.

Tonight, I was sitting alone on the first floor of Villiger Hall which was where my third level Shakespeare course was supposed to be held.  It was almost 6, and I was still the only one in the room — but not for long.  All of a sudden, I heard a high-pitched voice giving orders: “Yes, Dad, this IS the room.  Just push me in and drop me off.”

And that’s exactly what happened. A kindly older gentleman in his late fifties or early sixties pushed his son into the room. I say pushed because his son was in a wheelchair, and he parked him right next to me.  This made me very uncomfortable, and I actually thought about getting up and moving to the other side of the room, but my mother had raised me better than that. The boy in the wheelchair was in a full body brace with a special neck harness to keep his head upright.
If I had been uncomfortable before, I was beyond that now.  We both sat there in silence as the big industrial clock on the front wall ticked 6:02.  It was then that a proctor rushed into the room and wrote on the blackboard in chalk: “THIS CLASS HAS BEEN MOVED TO THE BARBELIN BUILDING, ROOM 207.

Chapter Two: Time To Move

As soon as the proctor had finished writing on the board, I saw this as my chance to escape.  I grabbed my bookbag and started to bolt for the door.  I only got halfway to freedom when I heard the loudest and most commanding voice come out of the *******’s body … “All Right Moose, Let’s Move!

I couldn’t help but hear myself saying (to myself) … “The ******* Really Can Talk.”  I was surprised, blown away, and his voice had frozen me in place.

“All right Moose, let’s get this show on the road.  Do you know where the Barbelin Building is up on the hill?”  I told him I did, and he said … “Put your book bag on the back of the wheelchair so you can push me up the hill before we miss too much class.” Again, his voice had a commanding effect on my actions and in robot fashion I put my bag on the back of his chair, grabbed the two push handles, spun his chair to the right and headed out the door. I was careful not to touch him directly because I didn’t know if what he had was catchy.

As I headed to the stairway to go down the 6 steps leading to outside, I heard that voice again … “No, not that way, toward the elevator” as he pointed off to the left with an arm that was not much bigger than my fingers. “The elevator key is between my legs.  Reach in and get it and then put it in the key slot and we can take the elevator down.”

                      THE KEY WAS BETWEEN HIS LEGS!

At this point, I was totally disoriented but had fallen under his spell.  I took a deep breath, reached between his legs, and found the key.  I then put it in the semi-circular keyhole and turned it to the right.  “Good, he said, it should come quickly, and we’ll be outta here.”

The problem is it didn’t come.  Seconds felt like minutes and minutes like hours as we waited for the elevator door to open. Finally, after an excruciatingly long time the elevator door opened and standing in front of us was the last thing I expected to see. It was another ******* in a wheelchair being pushed by a healthy student about my age.
As they tried to make their way out into the hall the ******* I was pushing said … “Don’t move!  Don’t let them out! And then he said … “I don’t know who you are or where you think you’re going, but this school’s only big enough for one ******* — and that’s me. For seven years I’ve been the resident ******* at St. Joe’s.  The next time I go to use this elevator and you have it *******, my big friend behind me is going to kick your measly friend’s ***.”

By now, I was in a kaleidoscope wrapped inside a time warp spinning at the speed of light. I had never been around anyone who seemingly had so little and acted so grand.

We made it up the hill that night in time to hear Professor Burke say … “Be prepared on Thursday (our next class) to talk about your favorite Shakespeare play and why.”

As I wheeled him toward his next class which also happened to be mine — we were both English majors —he reached out with a tiny hand and said: “My name’s Eddie, what’s yours.”


Chapter Three: So Different Yet So Alike

For the next fifteen months we were inseparable on Tuesday and Thursday’s nights.  We adjusted our Spring course selections to make sure we took the same classes.  Eddie was taking two courses each semester and I was taking four. It was a real struggle for him to take notes, but luckily, he had what many would call a photographic memory.

Many weekends he would visit me in my meager apartment, and we would listen to Van Morrison and the Hollies until the early hours of the morning. Eddie had two good friends named Steve and Ray who would drive him back and forth from my apartment.  My motorcycle wasn’t an option, although we fantasized about how we MIGHT be able to rig something up so he could ride on the back.  Eddie was a magnet and drew everyone into his circle.  He had defied the odds and not let the polio that he contracted at 4 dominate his life.  He slept in an iron lung because it was hard for him to breathe while lying down.

Eddie was bigger than life and bigger than ANY of the obstacles that tried to take him down.  Many times, I tried to imagine myself in his situation, but it was impossible. God had given Eddie a special power, and it allowed him to leverage the people and circumstances around him to make it through. I noticed early on that Eddie lived his life vicariously through the lives of others that he would have liked to have been.

Let’s say that my backround was at least colorful and unconventional.  I had been on my own since age 18 and had wandered the eastern half of America by motorcycle from Maine to Florida.  Eddie got to where he could tell my stories better than I could and when he did, I could tell he had actually lived them in his imagination.

Eddie and I had another connection.  We were both poets and loved to write.  He understood at a quantum level that to be a great writer you have to experience the words.  He had the remarkably wonderful ability to be able to do that through the actions of others. He also recreated the great stories of the famous authors we read.
  
Two weeks after meeting him I stopped thinking about him as a *******. Many times, it seemed like he had advantages and strengths that those who knew him could only envy.  The longer I knew him, the more I felt that way.

Chapter Four: The Invite

We had just returned to classes after a long Thanksgiving weekend when Eddie said: “My dad wants to talk to you.” My mind immediately wondered:  What’s wrong, have I done something I shouldn’t have.

At 10:05 p.m., when our last class ended and I wheeled Eddie down two flights of stairs, (this building had no elevator), his father also named Ed was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.  He had that big smile on his face that he always greeted me with as I handed the wheelchair over to him …

“Kurt, my wife and I are having a little party at our house the night before Christmas Eve, and we’d like you to come. All of Eddies friends will be there and you should be there too.  Please think about it, it would mean so much to my wife Margaret.”

I thanked Eddie’s father and told him I’d have to check the holiday schedule with my parents and then get back to him.  Being the oldest of 21 grandchildren, who were brought up in an enclave or compound of five adjoining houses, the holidays were always jammed packed with activities the week before Christmas.  Those activities though were not my main concern. I had nothing decent to wear.

My wardrobe consisted of 2 pairs of jeans and 4 t-shirts plus one pair of quilted long johns that I wore on the motorcycle when the temperature dropped below 40 degrees.  Add my brown leather WW2 surplus bomber jacket to the ensemble and that constituted my wardrobe … not very impressive for a 25-year-old man. In fact, staring into my closet that night, it brought home to me in a way it hadn’t before that my life was about to change.

I had recently decided to take a sales job with a local company that specialized in selling home furnishings to local department stores and general merchandise retailers.  This would be a major departure for me, but the salary would be four times what I was making at the gas station.  I hadn’t told anyone about this because inside I felt like I was selling out.  The company had advanced me $250.00 — a large amount in 1973 —to buy suits before I showed up for my first day of work on January 3rd.

I still didn’t have a car but that was another perk of the new job. They would be leasing me one after my period of orientation was over in early February.  But now, back to my quandary about Eddie’s party.


Chapter 5: E.J. Korvettes

Brightly lit with fluorescent lighting, the store seemed enormous as I walked from aisle to aisle.  I wasn’t shopping for suits. I was trying to find something suitable to go to a holiday party and meet people I had never met before.  As I got to the end of the aisle, I looked into the mirror that marked the end of the men’s department and took stock at what I was seeing.

My hair was shoulder length, and my beard was at least 4 inches long.  I had told my new employer that I would cut my hair and trim my beard before starting in January but hadn’t done it yet. In all honesty, I was still having second thoughts about making such a drastic lifestyle change, and I would wait until the last minute to radically change my appearance.

I stared into the racks of men’s sportswear until I found what I thought might work for me.  It was a beige, fisherman’s knit sweater in size large.  The sweater looked great, but the price did not.  It was marked $10.00, and unlike many of the garments surrounding it — it was not on sale.

I had $24.00 to my name that night, and $10.00 would mean I would be eating oatmeal and peanut butter until my next pay at the gas station.  I walked around for at least a half-hour until someone came over the loudspeaker saying that in 15 minutes the store would be closing.  I started to walk out but something dragged me back.  I put the sweater under my arm and headed for the register. I had made up my mind not to use any of the advance money from the new company until any doubts I had about taking the job were dispelled.
The next night at class I told Eddie and his dad that I’d be happy to join them on December 23rd.


Chapter 6:  December, 23rd

It was 6:45 on Sunday, December 23rd, when I arrived in front of Eddie’s brick row house in what is known in Philadelphia as the Great Northeast.  Every house on the block looked alike but the front door to Eddie’s was open with just the glass storm door closed.  I could see the house looked packed from the outside.

I didn’t stop but decided to go around the block.  I had one more problem to solve — what do I do with the motorcycle?  I knew Eddie’s dad knew I had a motorcycle, but I wasn’t sure about his mother.  Some people had bad impressions of motorcycles — and their riders — in the 1970’s, and I terribly wanted to make a good impression.

As I circled the block, I found an empty spot on the street about 5 houses away from Eddie’s house.  I parked the bike and hid my helmet inside the hedge that was separating the street from the sidewalk. I tried to flatten my hair, took off my bomber jacket and walked to the front door.  I never made it …

Before I could even get to the front door, a petite, silver haired woman dressed in red and blue rushed out on her front walk, put both of her arms around my waist, squeezed tightly, and said … “Oh Kurt, we are so glad you’re here!”

I’ve been greeted and hugged many times in my life, but nothing has ever come close to the hug I got that night from a stranger.  By the time she walked me through the front door we were strangers no more.

Eddie’s immediate and extended family were as warm and inviting as both he and his father had been.  I felt immediately welcome, and the night passed quickly as I met one family member after the next.
At 10:30 Eddie said, “Let’s go downstairs and listen to some music and we can talk.” I picked Eddie up off the sofa he was laying on and carried him down the 13 stairs into a finished basement.  You knew right away this was Eddie’s domain.  His stereo was against the stairs and pictures of the local Philadelphia sports teams were up on the walls.  

It was good to see him at home in his own element. That night we talked about the, once again, lousy year the Eagles had had (going 2-11-1) and the state of the war in Vietnam.  This was standard stuff for young men in their twenties.

At 11:20 I heard the basement door open at the top of the stairs and saw a girl with two legs covered in white stockings come down only 5 steps, sit down, and look over at us. I could tell immediately from the look on her face — she was not impressed.  She then got back up, headed into the kitchen, and closed the basement door.

“Oh, don’t mind her.  That’s just my sister Kathryn. She works the 3-11 shift at Nazareth Hospital. She just wanted to see who this guy is that she’s heard so much about.”

“I don’t think she was very impressed by the look on her face,” I said back.  “Oh, don’t let that bother you, you know how girls are — she’s just my sister.”

She may have been just his sister, but she was now inside my head, and I couldn’t get her out.


Chapter 7: Force Majeure

“My God, what is all that racket upstairs?  It’s a woman’s voice, do you think she needs help?”

“No, that’s just Kathryn screaming at her boyfriend over the phone.  They haven’t been getting along lately, and this has become a regular occurrence.”

There are watershed moments in life, and I knew this was one of them.  “I better go check,” I said. “You’re out of coke anyway.”  Without waiting for an answer, or tacit permission, I grabbed his empty glass and headed up the stairs two at a time. I opened the basement door and stepped into the kitchen just in time to hear … “Ok then, we’re OFF for New Year’s Eve.”

Kathryn’s mother looked at me and with a twinkle in her eye gave me the ‘Irish Wink.’  Having an Irish grandmother, who had always been the love of my life, I knew what that wink meant, and a voice deep inside that I had no control over started to speak … “So, you don’t have a date for New Year’s Eve? What a shame!” She immediately glared back at me with venom in her eyes. “Well, as it happens, I don’t have one either. Why don’t you go out with me unless you’re afraid of a guy like me.”

I could see her mother standing behind her shaking her head up and down as if to say … “Ask her again.” “I’m not afraid of anything — especially a guy like you.”  “Good I said, then I’ll take that as a yes.”  Kathryn stood there by the phone with a look that was a combination of anger and intrigue.

“I don’t know. Where would we go, and I’m not going on the back of any motorcycle.”  “We can go wherever you like, and I promise it’ll be in a car.  I hear Zaberers in Atlantic City has a great New Year’s Eve party.” Kathryn was still silent as her mother Marge answered for her: “That sounds like fun, I know you’ll both have a great time."

At every point in my life when I needed saving, it was always a special woman who saved me — they didn’t come any more special than Marge Hudak.
As she walked me to the front door that night, she hugged me again as she said … “Next time, just park your motorcycle in front of the house and bring your helmet inside …

                                    How Did She Know


Chapter 8: The Aftermath

That New Year’s Eve would be the best night in my entire life.  We danced and talked, laughed and gazed, and I think in both of our hearts and minds — we knew.

I went on to take that new job because now I could see a clearer pathway to the future, and it included more than just me,
Sixty days later, on March 5th, I asked Kathryn to marry me, and she said, YES.  Six months after that we were married on September 22nd, and this year, 2024, we will celebrate 50 years together with our 2 children and 4 grandchildren.

We lost Eddie, and both of his parents, several years ago, but their memory lives on inside of us growing stronger with every passing day.

There’s no telling where my life would have gone had I ‘escaped’ out of that classroom that night and gotten away from the *******. Meeting Eddie confirmed what I think I already knew deep inside — that it is our own insecurities and fear that handicap us the most.
That night, Eddie offered to me more than just his friendship, his wit, his intellect, and his great strength of character. Meeting him turned into the greatest of all of life’s gifts …

                                        His Sister Kathryn
Ottar Mar 2015
Tis quiet now, most won't be
Like the flowers patiently

Waiting and watered by the dew
As we sleep side by side, I by you

Temporal are the petals
Yet dressed in rentals

Silky soft silent green
Stalks and leaves lean

Flowers will fall in time
Think of only the sublime

The next Sun's rise and shine
Say it with whiskey or Earl Grey Bergamot Tea in your hands
Kowalski Aug 2017
Miami, 1989

The moving vans
keep on the go in
this little neighborhood.
The rental companies
make special mailings
advertising low rates on
half-day rentals.

They know.

Their advertisements are practical
and somber like a funeral home bill.

On Sundays,
the men fill one house
and then another.

Their slow procession
cuts along the sidewalks,
moving between the houses,
as if among tombstones.

From the houses, they carry
stacks of books under their arms,
strap end chairs to car roofs,
fill trunks with tennis rackets and roller blades,
and beach chairs that sometimes spill last summer's sand
over a black carpeted spare tire.

You can walk into any house here
and sit on a dead friend's sofa,
watch a dead man's TV,
eat breakfast
at a dead lover's table.

You'll water a fern that survives him.

A time or two, usually just after the funeral,
you can look over at a chair,
and see him in it.
You can listen to a record
and hear him da-da-ing along.
You can read from a book
and see him in his chair
the book laying open on his lap,
as he nods in and out of sleep
and back-lit by a shimmering
Sunday afternoon.

Other times can you drink
from a pink flamingo coffee mug
and see him sitting cross-legged
on a tightly-cornered bed,
with bruise-purple blotches
spread like storm clouds
across his tight, pale scalp,
his dark eyes resting at the bottom
of their sockets, like sunken ships,
as the jagged corners of his bony body
break the surface of bleached white blanket.

But soon enough,
the visions stop.

That chair
becomes any chair.
That book
becomes any book.

Around here,
Sundays are moving days.
The rest of the week
is for dying.
Written during the late 1980's AIDS crisis in Miami.
Ken Pepiton Jun 4
Creating a passing remark… recreation…
in a mind, a reified fine distinctive will…
said in such a way
as to hold reason on rails, as we rise
slowly to the apex, before the drop.

Such sorts of talks as one might hear…
while thinking something missing…

listen, instants reminding winding
ways, whither so ever this mind listeth.

Then and now, originating force, used
in fact as wind fitted 'round makes uses
of letters leveling the imbalenced powers
using long slow upslope with peak powers
pulling from the down side, launching
minds into wonders yet beheld hid in
understandin' laws selecting ears, hush
such as seek the source of joy used to lure.
The joy strength knowing
Words was writ becoming

Power, to make motion, umph
to push the self positioning
reflex past off imbalence,
back to on imbalence,
patient
waiting being not on or off,
but here in time at a tempting,
attempting attended by all who
have ought against my will to be
as plain as day and simple as phi.

A Sermon on Novel Incomplexity
spiraling wider in reaching for more

in an autodidactic country church,
carried on by disciples of the founder,
the called of Truth, and chosen to teach,

to cultivate as one tends to tender vines,
those lost souls caught in strains confusing
will and ways, mixing will and spirit,
soul and minds creative by nature's go'd
and we the goaded on, kicking not back, but
some will to know, in terms we all agree with,
using terms that yoost to be ere words empow'rin'
agreement to trial rentals,
old works, functional,
used goods
to be retold as true
by some, so called holders
of the lessons learned
for sharing, as affection, any surplus seed.

Did I act, in course of time, of course,
gravity does matter, all ups have downs,
strange and charming ins and outs.

Fast make my point, in effect, a will to make, machen,
means make, manufacture, reify imaginary ways,
same as Latin facere, as a matter of fact, says

Google Translate, at my behest, hight, answer swear
"take or utter an oath,
make a solemn declaration
with an appeal
to divinity" deus "god, deity"
(from PIE root *dyeu- "to shine," and sworn so

to tell me all the etcet'ras as ye's called, Wille zur Machts,
"the driving force behind all living beings, including humans" making thinkable things
useful to rethinkers, at some point…
any wishing uses wills of some sort in fact,
so if your wish were peaceable,
imagine it taken up by all, at this point

try umph und dinkum, humm as manly virtrutheous will to make stuff up allows,
to lighten the load
of memory reminding me
of olden meanings fed me
to teach meekness, as penance
for troubling my house to inherit wind.
As grace, breath, taken, forming this fected
will to use and by using gain more of this will
working wonders to let us think we understand,

three point curving arches in a process known
as growing through the creative process,

supported by the will a toddler achieves upright
status as a force
to be reckoned with
on new terms, better balanced
at agreement, mental fixedness of purpose,

supposed and set as pivot point in time,
myrrh tipped darts - cursor arrows telling course, marking distances in steps,

exclaiming this is the pleasure pursued,
subconsciously diverted in to golf,
{I sell rescue *****, I never played the game}

a fruitless pastime perfecting will
with aimed at pride, some cheat for.

Ranting chance expletives,
followed by, amen…

there above, our letters bringing the common tongue,
into total disarray,

to think the meaning -breathing, the common sense
since simplicity stepped from sublimnity,

to light the way, by mind's alit with news,

actual knew knowns, new translations,
accepted as accurate, aimed
from then to now,

another day in your life,
another day in our life, we wordform spirit minds
kinematic cinematic role inversion,

existing Ich heize, Herr Klumpen, ein Pepito, no mas.

A ******, a loogie, a phlegmish mass spat at nada,

deemed as worth a minute
as any made up will let go
in just right down sloped acceleration
joy may spark an avalanche where avalanche's wait.
Growing old in an easy-by-luck old age, in a presummer quiet,  
before school lets out the seeds
of my past perspicacity, Will to power, is better thought willingness to make.
for taking that chance
to have babies who had babies,
that look like my selected
perfecting other , and read like me,
in hammocks I can see from my porch.
Summers become alive here.
Brian Rihlmann Mar 2018
She worked hard,
had a couple of rentals now,
and it seemed reasonable.
Rents were rising,
why not cash in?
Her friends said,
“Good for you.”
“That’s smart.”
“You deserve it.”
They can afford it,
she thought.
Or if not, work more,
get a second job,
find another place.

He got the email,
late that night,
and wished he hadn’t seen it.
A numbness spread
through his chest,
there would be no sleep.
“That’s a 40% increase...
how can she do this?
We were friends for
like five years before
I became her tenant...”

It’s morning and he’s
red eyed, exhausted
and running late,
“Get the **** out of my way, you ****!”
Weaving in and out,
“Can’t be late,
can’t get fired, not now.”
And every other driver’s day,
is made just a little worse.

It continues,
the decision makers
changing direction
like a flock of sparrows,
one following the other
not because they must,
but because they can.
It is rational, after all
to seek one’s own self interest.

And the people are wondering
how they will afford to live.
“Why is this happening?”
Angry drivers on the road,
angry shoppers in the market.

He thinks, “Maybe I’ll
get a roommate.  Might not
be so bad, having somebody
around for a change.”
Many others will do the same.
Like that same flock of sparrows,
huddling together in the cold.

She’s at a party,
with some other
would be moguls.
They stand around,
congratulating themselves,
wondering why more people
are not like them.
“We did it, anyone can.
Look how we’ve built
this city, made it better
for everyone.”

They keep a certain distance
and eye each other
a bit suspiciously at times.
But that’s ok.
Just part of the price
of admission to the club.
Wk kortas Apr 2020
It stood on a mound, prepossessing in its own right,
But the height of the grim, unadorned steeple
And the tableau it cast when storms would roll in
From the cold gray waters of Lake Erie
Was somewhat intimidating to small children
And others predisposed to being dominated,
Though what awaited one within
Could be equally intimidating, if no more so;
Oh, there was the nod to brotherly love
And coming to God with a joyful noise,
But the occupants of the pulpit
(Invariably square-jawed, gray-maned older men
Whose visages were brewing maelstroms,
Incipient cloudbursts on the very precipice
Of drenching the insufficiently pious)
Left no doubt as to the serious of their mission,
And were equally up front as to the cataclysm
Which would rain down on the congregation,
The mills, the town and all those
Who proved insufficient in their piety,
And while there were questions
Concerning prescience and cause-and-effect,
Most of what they threatened came to be
(The Montmorenci Company shuttered and silent,
A sad procession of U-Hauls, all on one-way rentals
Tottering out of town after the muted goodbyes)
Though, as an unintended and unforeseen consequence,
Taking the church as well, its grounds now only visited
By mothers and small children
Clambering upon the playground equipment
The church begrudgingly installed
Shortly before it closed its doors for good,
And when the gunboat-gray clouds
Rolled on down from up near Buffalo,
They would hurry on home
As the droplets, relative leviathans
Slapping on the pavement as they scurried home,
Came at increasingly frequent intervals,
And though they could hear the rumbles of thunder
Grumbling with a certain portent as the storm moved closer,
Their procession, though quite brisk,
Was more unless unworried,
The adults knowing full well the downpours
Were merely succor upon the carrots and gardenias.
There he was eating a
banana & I slapped a for-rent sign on him. He rented quickly,
more like leased. I thought my talents lie in monkey-leasing
or at least, monkey rentals.
would I be with you? Was I
your last resort when all
the rentals were booked. Would you
have looked at me if

they opened up
to you? Funny how life picks
the woman that wears white. If he
said yes to me would we still

be? Funny how life
carries me out to sea like
the tide. But like the tide too,
pushed me back onto the

shore. Funny how the man picks
the house where I reside, like flowers
in his garden. And our castle dreams
harden. Funny how we say we had

a voice when we were frozen, like icicles
hanging on the eaves. We're knocked
to the ground like crimson autumn leaves
from our backyard trees.
my mum used liquid paraffin
on the boys hair fortunately
nothing on mine

she slicked theirs flat with a severe
parting

until one had a crew cut and got into
trouble for it at grammar school

there was a hell of a fuss

i remember

talking of which she would send us
up the garage for pink paraffin from
the pump

next door the tv shop where we watched
the programmes through glass

later mum rented one from radio rentals
in winton

she rode her bike up there
sometimes stopping at the
bakery for a cream slice

james

picture this
the plastic skirt guard

— The End —