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The three of us had been travelling
For weeks, and were getting tired,
We’d taken pictures of everything
And our visas had expired,
We got a room in a gloomy house
And we settled down to wait,
For Julie wanted to sleep a lot
While Francis stood at the gate.

For he was the moody, restless one,
And wanted to travel back,
I was just glad to settle down
And dump my heavy pack,
I took a seat at the window ledge
And I read a magazine,
While Julie said that the light was bad,
‘You’ll ruin your vision, Dean!’

It certainly was a gloomy room
And the walls were painted brown,
We’d had to look for the cheapest in
An ancient part of town,
The concierge was a Capuchin
With a tonsure and a cross,
I felt like I had to bow to him
As he passed the keys across.

The room had merely a single bulb
That would only work at night,
And then, it had such a feeble beam
You could hardly call it bright,
But when it lit we could see at last
On the further, darkest wall,
There hung a dusty old painting that
We hadn’t seen before.

It blended in with the wall behind
For the tones were shades of brown,
The face of an old Franciscan who
Was looking sadly down,
But in his eyes was a faint surprise
As of one with mystic deeps,
And Francis said that it turned his head,
‘Those eyes give me the creeps!’

We ate a couple of sandwiches
And we turned in for the night,
We didn’t think it was worth it but
We still turned out the light,
Then I awoke in the early hours
To the sound of cries and shrieks,
The volume gradually rising
As my skin began to creep.

A sudden flare lit the room in there
From the painting on the wall,
The crackling sound of flames devouring
The monk, I was appalled,
And through the flames I could see those eyes
As they bored into the room,
And then, the crackling disappeared
And the room was plunged in gloom.

There wasn’t a sign of damage to
The painting, or the wall,
But a whisp of sulphur and brimstone
Hung in the air, and overall,
While Francis huddled in terror with
His face as pale as sleet,
And Julie couldn’t stop sobbing then
From underneath her sheet.

We snatched our stuff in the morning
And I handed back the keys,
I said, ‘Just who is that picture of?’
The concierge looked pleased.
‘That’s just one of the Franciscans
Who rebelled against the Pope,
He went to the Inquisition then
And they gave him little hope.’

‘Four of the monks were burned out there
As a lesson to the rest,
St. Francis would have approved, they were
Schismatic, at the best,
This is the town the Inquisition
Righted many a wrong,
They burned the recusant catholics
In the square at Avignon.’

Francis had left before us, he
Refused to wait in there,
He wandered out with his backpack and
Stood waiting in the square,
Just as the petrol tanker rolled,
From a worn and faulty tyre,
And the last I saw, he was standing there
Engulfed in a lake of fire!

David Lewis Paget
st64 Mar 2014
plea of oddities: bring the tinkling back
its bell lies silent


1.
Existing (not entirely) alone
entertaining itself with nightmares witnessed from long ago
It waited and waited
until the neighbour-orb grew to a level sophisticated enough
to house that lovely assortment of fine specimens.. of females
       that flock of dusted-crystals so long dreamt of
       that mould of sensibility, that plug of warmth
       that banner of softness
which all mirrored the opposite of their ways


2.
they fled in quiet-rebellion from inhospitable hands of the boor-males
altogether, in a ship.. down into the bowels of their breaking planet
subtleties long abandoned by the barbed-wire handling of  rough hands
these gentles could take no more and *uncoupled
themselves for good
burning, like the bridges behind them
               they disconnected and slid into a nether-sphere

When the males woke in stupor to find them gone
                 they flipped and fed in anger
and with access to goodness gone and unplaced voracious appetites
It decided to encase them.. in a giant glass-jar, preserving them in ire
until the time was right.. like a tea awaiting perfect steeping
In stasis, they remained for what seemed aeons
the glass-jar which held this army of men, was reduced
became small, like a coin.. which Foog summarily swallowed
and waited . . .  


3.
The sun turned its face in blank-horror of severe sights
                                                               splayed across the surface
forests shrank to toothpicks and died
         blue seas curled and dried
                                 meadows melted to greyish slush
every flying creature lost gravity and got ****** away, too high..
                                                        into harsh deafening-holes
when the tall sentries of oxygen.. twisted and became wiry-distorted
the sky sank and folding itself up.. hid in a black corner
                               behind the crumbling mountains

Foog hid beneath a crater made of ice, on the dark side of said planet
and once every millennium
        it felt the colliding-smack of a passing planetessimal
and it swore that somewhere, somehow..
        that punishment awaited new life

So, it shut its senses to the bay of life
       while hankering viciously for the scream of warm blood
The bell-jar inside, silent and
                        also somehow.. obscenely waiting in its oblivion



4.
Then, came Earth spinning round in flourish.. oh, the day on hand
Yet, veryyyyy far away.. an eye slowly opened
                      / /  roused by the smell of fressshhh life . . . / /



5.
A popping sound and the bell-jar was birthed from a slit on its forehead
It looked nearly quizzically at this odd creation beneath the silent-glass
this assortment of creatures trapped in the folly of Foog:
                                                                ­     oh, shall I, or not?
A cosmic joke, almost.. with so few revisions
The lid lifted and with proportion righted once more..
                                they came, oozing out in droves
Roaring from their milleniac-slumber,
                               crazed in half-remembered wounds
But alive with burning-purpose - - to find the equivalent
of
those soft-crystals

To melt the iron.. inside.



(unsolicited but self-warranted visitations:
camouflaged abductions.. secret prodding..
subtlety re-learnt.. poverty rehashed..
Fugue in a glass bell-jar.. unleashed)  



But alas, when sweet-sounds are closed again
see at whose smart-hands calamity befalls Life
Yet.. who are ultimately the ones
picking up the pieces after devastation wrought?





st, 27 march 2014
woke from nightmare.. to find this on my waking-plate.


sub-entry: day to dawn

It came in a dream.. and told me so
a day to dawn
for reckoning.
showyoulove Sep 2013
Prayer of Confession

  
Lord, I have sinned against You and Your people. Help me to say what is necessary. I have fallen into temptation and sin and Lord I ask you not only to forgive me, but help me forgive myself as well. To many, I should likely be punished, but to You Oh Merciful Lord, I ask for a penance to do. I realize now what I have done, that it must be righted, and Lord may you know now that I am truly sorry, and intend with Your help, not to do so again. In Your sweet name I pray. ----Amen.
Erica DeAngelo Jul 2016
My body language resembled it's own comfort.
It was not preached to me,
although she is attacked,
for those who can not connect with her usual.
Her comfort is a barrier,
created by unacceptance.

I see him,
unclean face, alcohol soothes over his lip.
Perfect symmetry.
With a stumble over his left foot,
his presence was affront my uneasiness.
He speaks a tale of how he reads me,
how he can discover me.
How each syllable spit off his tongue,
craves my body.
He states "my kind" are more appealing lacking voice,
with our legs a distance from another.

I am scolded.
I am scolded for my lack in ability.
They do not know,
I was never taught,
No one is.
One leg is demanded to lay over the other.
The curriculum reads it to be so.
"Your kind is in a lack of grace."

Someone close,
sits aside my quivering body.
Everyone seemed to express immense
freeness.
I was unaware of this comfort.
"Let your legs breathe for a change."

"My kind" is not righted to
the feelings of openness or security.
All for the positioning of the lower part of the body.
Open for a drunken hand to slip where
it mustn't reach,
Closed for the restoration of grace in a society.

My kind is a doorway to be used by the world.
JP Goss Oct 2014
Pretend pretend-pine at a ponytail
And feel this kicking heart
Stronger than the last
Stranger to sit in view of class.
Ah! Comfort in obscurity
Nestled in the corner, darked
but to glass and passing time.
In there, my head, the songs begin
Of lips of Siren, no fear of wrong
I’ll stay righted to and from
Capreae, and meet the mind and face
Of elegance not reflected in the water.
If this lens be infinite
The aethers usher out a sigh
Second only in my own.
But cursed coldness and mock clairvoyance
Had lit a blonde in my vanity
And cast out front in my vicinity—
Oh! Woe to shrugs of dependency!—
Somewhere blown leaves turn to seedlings
As to this aspect I am kneeling,
Fair fall will turn to spring.

Lashes emerge from one fair ear
Casting her gaze, perhaps back here—
A cough and noise what could it be
What disturbance is at of me?
Oh, now I feel the dreaded “L”
Whatever that could mean
Which only its binate twin could quell—
Two gentle abysses pass in their cursory
And all conflagrated, two passions at ends!
Now begins the heavy labor of siding
In both and achieving neither.
What defines my name?.
Life gave me a lesson
i have learned not to trust a person,
But what defines my name?.
Life is a big test,
Its better to wake up in the noon
knowing what to do
or where to go too.

Who am i?
Do i let every person to drive
my life?.
Why should i live my life
the way you want,
Do i need direction for in
which path to use?.
Why every step i take
you the first to judge?.
Oh my God!
who is in charge in this life?.
Is it me or them?.
Why it has to  be them to
tell me on what to do.

I repeat, Who am i?.
Yes the journey it is not determined
by where you are from
But where you are going to.
My life is unstable
i don't know who to listen,
Who to believe.

Who am i?

All Rights Reserved

Copy righted 2016
Barton D Smock Sep 2012
the man began by pointing at the spots on the baby’s head and then he looked to us as if we were to answer for each.  he turned the baby’s head carefully- it might’ve been an old globe to him.  he apologized more than once for his age pocked hands.  his apologies were unsettling, each one moreso than the last.  his assistant minded none of this and sat reading an upside down newspaper while curling and uncurling her bare toes at no discernible prompt.  when the baby squealed the man went pale and dropped it and his coat opened and we saw his naked wrinkled middle turn to ash and we saw the baby scooped up by the feet of his assistant and then saw the baby fit in her mouth.  she never moved from her chair to do the scooping or the placing and we were horrified as she righted the paper and silently admonished the man for being momentarily vacant as to the whereabouts of her shoes.  he went to his fours and nosed the shoes to her feet and we said amen to the tail of his coat.  the assistant then stood and as she did so the man made swallowing noises and because we’d said amen together we were able to form a search party from which we periodically broke to *******.
He undertook
  Such a jolly folly
To search for his heart's twin

O'er plain, and peak
   Never sparing daring
Mad quest he did begin

He careless spent
  All his funny money
For he spared no expense

Heard of a man
   said to uncover lovers
Without a recompense

"He's only known
   as the Giant Bryant"
For there were none bigger

So off he went
  For how dare-he tarry
With the greatest vigor

Within one moon
  He did righted sighted
The giant's stone castle

And cautious stepped
  Midst the towers flowers
For he was quite facile

With guarded prose
  Lest he adverse converse
Relayed his quest of years

And though none be
  A more mighter blighter
Tall Bryant shed six tears

"Your search for love"
    Reflects gallant talent
And will surely quench thirst

In yonder vale
  In a deeping sleeping
A daughter who's born first
    
A true love's heart
   And hair flaxen waxen
Braids tressed with a blue fleur

She longs for love
    To keep-her deeper
Hope steels her to endure

It was just so
  For he found-her sounder
In the vale with fields green

Her braided hair
   In breeze saving waving
With the suns golden sheen

As he held her
  In their blissing kissing
Knew he'd ne'er search again

For in her eyes
   Shown a growing knowing
Reflecting his hearts twin
Tuesday Pixie Mar 2016
When Autumn colours your faded embrace
Leaves paper dry as your skin
When eyes peep from bags of flesh
See not what's in front of them
Will you look back and remember me then?
Will your heart fill with love and regret?
Cos you're blinded now by your fear and your guilt
You threaten to lose and reject
And someone wise once told me its not about blood but the love that we share
And I know my tie to you may be lost: there's no holding onto what is not there
And I know you can't see it all clearly but that does not mean that it is all false
I wish you would look in for the truth is in our, it's in our souls
When my Spring blossoms a gift
Birds and bees sending forth sweet song
When a glow from within enlightens
Would we still not have righted this wrong?
Will they ask where you have gone now?
Will my words speak of love and of sorrow?
Cos I'd be missing you then
You're someone they'd want to know
And someone wise once told me its not about blood but the love that we share
And I know my tie to you may be lost: there's no holding onto what is not there
And I know you can't see it all clearly but that does not mean that it is all false
I wish you would look in for the truth is in our, it's in our souls
-- it's not about blood but the love that we share
-- it's not about blood but the love that we share
This poem turned into a song. When it's recorded I'll post a link :)
Katy Owens Nov 2013
Blurred boundaries whisper,
"Welcome home, son."

Been gone so long, forgot
What words felt like
Softly spoken with tongue so
Gentle and sweet

"Welcome home, son, you
Been gone so long, forgot
What it felt like to
Wrap you up in my arms."

Path was so long,
With each step grew more afraid
Walking up, covered
In muddied shame

Been gone so long, forgot
What your beard felt like against
My tearful face
Arms wrapped around me so strong

No boundaries,
Wrongs are righted
Regrets replaced by a robe
Fully forgiven, now forget

"You've been gone so long,
Welcome home, son."
Izzy Mar 2016
We set out on our journey, that one fateful day
The winds of ****** shrieking angrily above our heads, filling our sails
Our ship tossing from Poseidon’s restless sea, sending us astray

As our journey wore on, and as night soon fell  
We found ourselves awash upon the Isle of Gael

Venturing from our ship, now sunken
We were met with fearsome creatures, their faces twisted and scarred

Escaping from death, daylight soon broke
The sky turning grey
The thunder rolling in, showed the might of Zeus
His anger flickering with jagged lightning, bringing tales of what once had been

A guide approached us, his face sunken and pale
He begun to tell us the fears of the Earth
A time when titans roamed and the mountains burned

As he finished his tale
He stood and led us through to Mother Gaia’s fortress
We walked, hearing Polyhymnia sing her chorus

The art lining the walls, long forgotten
Depicting tales of battles raged long ago
Between the family that ruled
Four elements would battle for control, the throne would be held by the mighty Zeus

Our journey had soon begun to close
We had learned the history of our past

As we returned home, our minds alight with new history
We found the battles had not ceased
We dragged our travel worn bodies upon the shore
Only to have to fight for our lives once more

As our battle on ground wore on, the gods became angry
The mountains rose up and the tides crashed
Sending the world into darkened chaos once again
We would fight the never ending battle
Until all the wrongs were righted
Someone left me a *** of marigolds

on my white porch floor

Afraid to pick them up

I left them near the door

The paper boy knocked them over

dirt spilled out on the wood

The mailman stepped in the dirt

and smeared it as he should

I righted the *** and saw it was dry

then left it in the afternoon sun

and the vermilion sky

Days went by and the preacher called

He asked about the plant

I shrugged my shoulders and took

his pamphlets fast

No one ever told me where those

marigolds came from

I assumed it was the devil

as he was the only one

Who knew I killed my husband

and I would go to jail

A trial would condemn me

they would hang me

by a nail

If you receive such a ***

know your time has come

Leave the marigolds where

they are to die

Giving you time to just go on.....
KMC@2011 All Rights Reserved
onlylovepoetry Feb 2018
you can’t right the same poem twice

hell, yes I can
in pointy fact,
only got one,
which gets re-righted
morning noon and evening-tide

substitute a variant spelling
wright vs write vs right
and the meaning changes thrice

the only thing i can’t not duplicate is those **** love poems
each unique and writ for the woman specific,
each love one, custom jiggered,
each poem, crafted, to her pulse
each poem, drafted, to her scent
none alike, and that’s why I believe
in the god who commanded "create her"
to make love poems in his way,
gave me millions of veins, an extra ribbing,
of inspiration to pray to...
my heart altered, modified, daily


**** poems
**** love poems
**** love
2/2/2018   10:14pm
Madam X Nov 2017
Moon, sweet moon, what have you done?
I look to you from my rooftop.
Your beauty once again has left me stunned.
You promised to no longer eavesdrop.

I speak to you through lustrous glass
By the window in my bedroom.
Waiting for the time to pass,
Breathing in smells of perfume.

So much happens under you,
So many crimes committed.
Though this fact serves to be true,
There's wrongs which can be righted.

Its getting late, the sun is near.
We must say our goodbyes.
Because of you, I shall not fear
You're my friend that's in the sky.
A cute little poem I wrote about my pal the moon
In a quiet inn
         in an aching world
there was a boy with mind
body and strength
he had the talent
the unyielding bent
to wield his power
to unrelent
he was sometimes cruel
he was often sweet
he was sometimes gentle
his word carried heat
people loved him so
his poise and candor
his mind was a joy
his work was pure splendor

he was asked
         from time to time
if you could lead us
with your mind sublime
what would you do
where would we go?
         beyond, he'd say,
to the stars and depths
to the moons and mountains
to the planets and systems
how long,
         they'd say,
would you lead us, hence?
         "A thousand years and a thousand more
         a thousand thence and evermore."

his rise was swift
his patience deep
to the destitute, favor
to the broken, weep
his gifts were vast
his counsel practical
his word was bond
and ever magical
he trounced the greedy
imprisoned the malicious
righted all the wrongs
seldom vicious
and before long
his rule was secured
a man of justice and principle
tenets of cure
how long,
         they'd say,
will you lead us, hence?
         "A thousand years and a thousand more
         a thousand thence and evermore!"
we wish it so!


trouble gradually
like bubbles passively
breaking the surface
of his grand design
officials profited
underclass maligned
body for profit
"all are mine"
there was danger in the air
ripples in the well
poison in the minds
infirmity with no care
and sickness took hold
people lost their hope
they questioned Great Lord Marra,
how long,
          they'd say,
will you lead us, hence?
          "A thousand years and a thousand more
          don't ask me again
          or there will be
          more..."

Chaos in the streets
desenters rounded
deserters uprooted
populace cowered
education
to the masses
knowledge of rights and potential
traded for respect of rule and power
hour by hour
day by day
toil was spilt
for the grand design
the work of tyranny
is cruel and violent
so was Grand Lord Marra
never certain
never quiet
         he would ask of his subjects,
         how long shall I rule?
they'd say,
         "A thousand years! A thousand years!"
"Never forget it!"
         we shant, our lord

Whispers arose
of a new power rising
someone true
someone firm
someone compassionate
someone alight
he roused the dreams in the soul
he broke the chains in the heart
he walked the roads that were barred
he climbed the mountain forbade
and slowly people turned to him
away from Grand Lord Marra
and that tyrannical father felt it
he felt the waning of his power

Like a dragon in the bowels
of our precious, sacred, love
Marra tightened around that
which the people ever adored
the grand design of toil
the great work of tyranny
the state paid for with blood
that whose edifice was a crypt for the innocent
and that someone who was hero
stepped up to that edifice
with chisel, hammer, pen, and passion,
he carved away that
which held the malice within
he let out all
of the death and destruction
that Grand Lord Marra
had caged in the people
the world played with their shadows
that had been nailed to the edifice and its steeple
and in time they shook free
of Grand Lord Marra's tyranny
for when they learned their freedom once more
the old lord looked old and feeble
not a thousand years
       nor a thousand years more
               nor a thousand years hence
                        and nevermore
just 66 years
it took to break free
of Grand Lord Marra
and his projected
infirmities

The illness left them all
         breaths of relief swept the nation
and the hero who had come
         was crowned the king of freedom
and he taught all who followed
how to wield the power he knew
how to be free as well
and every dragon of delusion slew
        peace would not reign forever
        new chaos would come
stronger than the last
        strong as the world and its evolving sun
but in this age, there was peace
        joy like never before
                 and our hero's name was remembered
evermore
evermore
        he did not live a thousand years
but his stories certainly lived longer
in the hearts of the people
in the hearts that were won

Yet a strange thing occurred
       sure as night conquers day
Grand Marra's visions of the future
       did not decay
                 they became the bedrock
of future design
        for light rests on darkness
the grand design
        two sides of the coin
yours
and mine

darkness for foundation
        light for revealing its depth
pathway into the future
        left and right steps...
Thank you for reading!!!
This was fun to write :)
I hope you enjoyed!

DEW
SelinaSharday Jun 2023
When will we.. stop admiringly
distantly..
stop posting afar,
its impossible to try and reach a star,
But I can certainly shout
to the star above
conversate with it show it love.
In my heart and mind
sparkly hype find..
share my thoughts all in the blind.
A traveler at heart is mine....
I quickly rhyme...
yet truthful a blessed find..
I'll leave and stray away..
keep my attention far at bay...
Good day...hope you like it..
my paper plane..
sent to a moonlit sky..
Registered.. S.A.M shardaysCopy Righted notes.
Your way over there up there.. can you get my paper sent planes..
K Balachandran Oct 2011
Like, a work of art
a real genius created,
you are to be counted
special, courted ardently
to be won over,appreciated,
treated with  a reverence.

You have class,
more like a sculpture
of Henry Moore
or 'Blue Poles'
of Jackson *******,
at the least semi abstract
before flabbergasted eyes
that fumble for familiar signals.
None would read you right
except those with an extra sense.
Your true worth
I wouldn't  like to disclose
for obvious reasons.

Let them take you as an ornament
made of wrong metal,
and try to devalue, who cares?
They think, you are a puppet
on a string , I could manipulate.
They are in the dark
on the happy secrets
an exceptional woman like you would possess;
take this for example,
you have a copyrighted kiss,
that makes me swoon at once
by the sheer ecstasy of it.
A mix of searing bites,
attacking tongue in advance
and high artistry of pouting lips.
Domenick Oct 2018
You're the condition to my malicious mission,
The vulnerable variables subject to my evil intention,
The unknowing lab rats of my malignant invention,
The objects of my intensely pestilent tension,

Stuck in your habitual greed
Stuck craving things you don't need
For this many will starve despite having plenty of seed,

In spite of your delusions of grandeur you're no more heaven worthy than an ant,
You want heaven? You want to ascend? Too bad, you can't,
So feel free to end your little chant

My message was tainted by the picture your pathetic minds painted,
You think I'm proud of what I created? Wow your egos are inflated,
little do you know you're actually hated,
and the afterlife is just the pain of existence perpetuated with all shades of happiness faded,

Slathered in sin
If there was a heaven none of you would make it in,
Your toxin will remain in your coffin with your rotting skin

Made weak and divided by barriers I provided
Dumb and broken by travesty I invited
Wrong by nature and I've ensured your inferiority won't be righted

Your happiness is permanently temporary,
Your minds are filled with false clarity and your creation wasn't the product of charity,

It was entertainment.
naxiai Nov 2017
i see her standing there -
and i'm wondering when she
will come inside.

it's below forty outside -
and the tears have frozen to her cheeks
and i can tell that she's becoming numb.

when will she come inside?
i wish she would -
so that i may wrap a blanket around her shoulders
and give her something hot to drink
and let the tears melt down her face.

i wish she would come inside.
but her and i both know better,
than to believe that we have any control -

over
this.
this.
this.
these feelings, i should say.

she'll come back inside -
when the feelings pass
when it's safe again
when i'm me again
when the world is righted on its axis.
Poetic T Oct 2014
And the clock aligned, hands pointing
To that moment,
The moment,
When the veil softened
Pliable,
Torn,
Reality,
Was of all and both, secreted
Upon the evitable realities,
They made there moves, limited
Moments upon an unsuspecting
Existence, But they were misguided
That even though they came through
A
Full
Moon
Shined upon them, much like the sun
The light of that upon high,
They scurried to that point,
To that place,
Moments past
And new statues were adorned upon
Grass,
Tree's,
Ground,
They were frozen, living stone
As night gave in to light,
For there are safe guards of old,
When time became fluid,
Barriers between realities sewed
Into the universes fabric, to Keep
Each safe from prying
Dimensions
Realities
Empty,
Places where darkness waits,  
"And so on this night where moments aligned"
"If you see statues erected when none before"
"Thinking of them as art"
Know the veil was weakened by this night
But the universe righted this wrong, before chaos
Ruled and realties were once again sewed tight..
A Halloween t
Tale
Initial J Dec 2020
To live or give up living
Living is more of a suggestion
Wether you suffer the aches and pains
Of the depressing ebbs and flow
Or you face life head on
Getting past the insurmountable odds
To die, to be free from overwhelming anxiety
That comes with the natural flow of life
We all want to be without strife
And maybe by dying we are transported
Possibly to a better realm of existence
There's the problem though
When we die where will we end up?
Eternal grace? Horrible eternal punishment?
When we push away these normal feelings
You take a moment, to honor that choice
Because that anxiety makes the struggle of life seem that much longer
Why would you choose to prolong such pain?
The people who hurt you, others so proud of themselves they can't even see their flaws
The hearts broken from careless past loves, when proper justice seems like inaction, the politicians that don't seem to take the oath of office to heart, and the pain that comes with the patience of waiting for the wrongs to be righted, but if not you to bear these weights of depression then who would take the toll?
You stay quiet in public but take on the world in the little uneasy rest you can hardly obtain
Taking all this on not knowing what is yet to come when death arrives at your door and no one you know has entered into death and returned to tell you of its glory or it pains and you have no idea if you have the will to carry on with no idea of reward in death
And yet we deal with issues at hand not knowing whether it will be better or worse when we finally give up and die?
These ideas haunt the back of everyone's mind and makes even the strongest of us cower in fear of not knowing what's next
Although we may approach the day with sunny disposition a shadow of doubt is in the back of everyone's mind
We may do something heroic or brave or possibly selfless
But with these thoughts in the back of our mind at all times
These amazing acts seem to lose all merit
If Shakespeare were alive today
I was a single monkey      I drew him in my world
typing the opening of my Hamlet.     I write him in my lines.
different from all I had ever known     a love that will only die with me.
every atom belonging to me as good   the heart that keeps mine beating.
It belongs to her You were none
Her soul was beautiful      now you’re all.
and she kept it veiled     his swiftest blow,
lightly-laced humility and fear     we righted our mistakes
with a strangely aching heart      I trusted in his honest utterance.
I and this mystery, here we stand.     Oh blind cupidity! insane anger!
She went out like a firefly,       I never broke my faith
The heart hoards its thorns     my heart is always propped up
Just as the rose profligates.      in a field ready for the next arrow

**I wondered about you when you told me never to leave.
A collaborated collage poem between myself and Anna Skinner
Tana Marie B Dec 2012
I'm not ready to die
please
I haven't found true love
I haven't righted my wrongs
I don't want to leave alone
not just memories left behind
please
what will they think?
I'm too young
oh this is tragic
I can't handle such judgement
no
Don't do this
I want to live so bad
let me live
I'll do anything
this can't be my path
this isn't me
it's a mistake
12/9/12
JP Goss Sep 2013
What of exactly is a friendship lost?
Over minute trifles so easily tossed?
Or one that disbands in the cataract of Time?
Something worth pain and blood? Which is absolute and wonderful?
And so, too, can it be asked,
To which man is authority given,
Of such astute austerity endowed,
The man to pass such judgment in good faith and conscience,
Is none other than the crowd.
But, irrelevancies, I totter!
The worst is to be discussed,
For far beyond the scope of reason,
Have these travesties been concussed.
For here, I give to you the corpse of this bond,
This once turgid child of innocence
So, perhaps, its unadulterated substance may quickly manifest
Yet, I pray, I hope, I wonder, its marred and tattered mien profess
The noxious tonic it did consume,
Of ancient spleen and venomous ardor,
To rend its former pulchritude, to hands of untouched fury placed,
It suffered the most insufferable fate to befall upon any beast:
To reanimate, to thrive, to live once more,
In the hands of a tyrant and aimlessly exist
Necrotic at its very core.
This beast, this creature of hated stock,
Was my burden, my cross, to bear,
One, I weep to recollect, of part and parcel of my own flock.
But, I did this, I bore this, along with many others,
In spite of righted timbers,
In spite of rationale,
In spite of my fiber and moral code, that kept us forcibly constrained
For the sake of you, authority
For the sake of tranquil minds
I stood obstinate at the lineaments, between those contrasting foes,
In the self-imposed, childish Purgatory,
Completely indisposed.
Between the shining, gleaming face of holiness, and precipice of spite
For manner of serenity and cowardice perpetual,
Confronted this creature, I did not,
For the sake of you, dear authority, for the sake of stable place.
Children we were, yes, but no less severe the gravity,
For the winnowing of unity, at the yoke of caprice, is to blame.
A real friendship will endure, endure through the boreal,
Endure through the malice, the vitriol,
Will breathe new and longing appetite for breadth, for universality,
Of which all parts must maintain accountability.
It must stand resolute no matter how formidable the ballast,
It must be calm, objective, and outlast the harrowing feelings change may accompany,
Will sacrifice and encourage wellbeing,
It must imbue recollection, a past so beautiful,
Be a comfort in the presence of shame and humility,
Its essence, a friend itself.
But I can no longer pay, at the cost of sanity,
I can no longer give what little remnant humanity to forge another bond,
One made of dead and long-forgotten parts,
I can not, I will not,
I am sick, I am weary for all of the injustices I have done
To watch as the seed of hatred continues to bloom,
The veil of falsehood walk without shame,
To see her stride of perverting intent, tainting the world with touch,
Is a miserable folly to me,
A crime which I let permit,
A coward I was to not stop this, to not lay this matter to rest,
No,
My beleaguered hands put this evil in the ground, and left it to the tides of fate,
It grew, beyond my capture, beyond my strength to control,
Into this horrid ****, this miserable plant,
Which, still!, it grows sans disannul
To take responsibility to this, on me, I cannot err
But, naturally, none to the plant, it seems,
And this is only fair.
Nat Lipstadt Feb 2015
Feb. 2015

this writ,
content so obvious,
it begs,
why even bother...

Pen Man Ship

this is who you are,
this is your scent, scripted,
the parfume that memory triggers
declarative self-examination passing grades

if pen and paper
are your skin and blood,
then you, man,
ship to shore,
skinned alive,
in poems verbose spill all

ship in ship out,
the glories and the dreads,
expel ink oceans glorious India blue,
rivulets of tributaries,
spillages of what~where,

you are pen
you are man
you are ship

where intersect these routed things,
one is voyage~bound
for parts unknown

the pen be the oar,
and the man, the ship,
and when the sails raised,
the wind never fails,
only there is no
dead reckoning -

for there are no
landmarks observable
when sit~stand
to commence sail~writing

each writ a latitude recorded,
each poem a longitude drawn,
all together, a
body of work,
all together,
your life's coursework
is the captain's log

Pen is the Man is the Ship

in everyday words
he answers
the questions life poses,
in everyday words,
he realizes
the answers he (doesn't) posses,
with each passing poem
the ship, righted,
though the heading
remans unknown
Martin Narrod Feb 2015
Part I


the plateau. the truest of them all. coast line. night spells and even controlled by the dream of meeting again. the ribbon of darker than light in your crown. No region overlooked. Third picnic table to the drive at Half Moon Bay, meet me there, decant my speech there. the table by the restroom block. While the tide is in show me your oyster garden, 3:00p.m. at half-light here in the evilest torments that have been shed.---------------door locked.  The moors. Cow herds and lymph nodes, rancorous afternoon West light and bending roads, the cliffs, a sister, the need to jump. There is nothing as serious as this. There is nothing nor no one that could ever, or would ever on this side come between. Who needs sleep or jokes or snow or rivers or bombs or to turn or be a rat or a fly or ceiling fan or a gurney or a cadaver or piece of cloth or a bed spread or a couch or a game or the flint of a lighter or the bell of a dress; the bell of your dress, yes, perhaps. Having been crushed like orange cigarette light in a pool of Spanish tongues. I feel the heave, the pull; not a yawn but a wired, thread-like twist about my core. Up around the neck it makes the first cut, through the eyes out and into the nostrils down over the left arm, on the inside of the bicep, contorting my length, feigning sleep, and then cutting over my stomach, around and around multiples of times- pulled at the hips and under the groin, across each leg and in-between each nerve, capillary, artery, hair, dot, dimple, muscle, to the toes and in-between them. Wiry dream-like and nervous nightmarish, hellacious plateaus of leapers. Penguin heads and more penguin heads. Startling torment. The evilest of the vile mind. The dance of despair: if feet contorted and bound could move. The beach off Belmont. The hills and the reasons I stared. Caveat after caveat at the heads of letters, on the heads of crowns, and the wrists, and on the palms. Being pulled and signed, and moved away so greatly and so heavily at once in a moment, that even if it were a year or a set of many months it would always be a moment too taking away to be considered an expanse, and it would be too hellacious to be presumptuous. It could only be a shadow over my right shoulder as I write the letters over and again. One after another. Internally I ask if I would even grant a convo with Keats or Yeats or Plath or Hughes? Does mine come close? Does it matter the bellies reddish and cerise giving of pain? Does it have to have many names?


"This is the only Earth," I would say with the bouquet of lilies spread out on the table. Are lilies only for funerals, I would never make or risk or wish this metaphor, even play it like the drawn out notes of a melody unwritten and un-played: my black box and latched, corner of the room saxophone. Top-floor, end of the hall two-room never-ending story, I'm the left side of the bed Chicago and I see pink walls, bathrooms, the two masonite paintings, the Chanel books, the bookshelves, the white desk, the white dresser, you on the left side of the bed in such sentimental woe, **** carpet and tilted blinds, and still the moors and the whispering in the driver's seat in afternoon pasture. Sunset, sunrise, nighttime and bike room writing in other places, apartments, rooms where I inked out fingertips, blights, and moods; nothing ever being so bleak, so eerily woe-like or stoic. Nothing has ever made me so serious.

Put it on the rib, in a t-shirt. Make it a hand and guide it up a set of two skinny legs under a short-sheeted bed in small room and literary Belmont, address included. Trash cans set out morning and night, deck-readied cigarette smoking. Sliding glass door and kitchen fright. Low-lit living room white couch, kaleidoscope, and zoetrope. Spin me right round baby right round. I am my own revenge of toxic night. Attack the skin, the soul, the eyes, the mind, and the lids. The finger lids and their tips. Rot it out. Blearing wild and deafening blow after blow: left side of the bed the both of us, whilst stirs the intrepid hate and ousts each ******* tongue I can bellow and blow.

Last resort lake note in snow bank and my river speak and forest walk. Wrapped in blocks and boxes, Christmas packaging and giant over-sized red ribbons and bows. Shall I mention the bassinet, the stroller, the yard, several rings of gold and silver, several necklaces of black and thread? I draw dagger from box, jagged ended and paper-wrapped in white and amber: lit in candle light and black room shadow-kept and sleeping partisan unforgettable forever. Do I mention Hawaii, my mother dying, invisible ligatures and the unveiling of the sweat and horror? Villainous and frightening, the breath as a bleat or heart-beat and matchstick stirring slightly every friends' woe and tantrum of their spirit.

Lobster-legged, waiting, sifting through the sea shore at the sea line, the bright tyrannosaurs in mahogany, in maple, and in twine over throw rose meadow over-looks, honey-brimming and warehouse built terrariums in the underbelly of the ravine, twist and turn: road bending, hollowing, in and out and in and out, forever, the everlasting and too fastidious driving towards; and it's but what .2 miles? I sign my name but I'll never get out. I am mocked and musing at tortoise speed. Headless while improvising. Purring at any example of continue or extremity or coolness of mind, meddling, or temptation. I rock, bellowing. Talk, sending shivers up my spine. I'm cramped, and one thousand fore-words and after words that split like a million large chunks of spit, grime, and *****; **** and more ****. I might even be standing now. I could be a candle, in England, a kingdom, in Palo Alto, a rook in St. Petersburg. Mottled by giants or sleepless nights, I could be the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, a heated marble flower or the figure dying to be carved out. I'm veering off highways, I'm belittling myself: this heathen of the unforgettable, the bog man and bow-tied vagrant of dross falsification and dross despair. I am at the sea shore, tide-righted and tongue-tide, bilingual, and multi-inhibited by sweat, spit, quaffs of sea salt, lake water, and the like. Rotten wergild ridden- stitched of a poor man's ringworm and his tattered top hat and knee-holed trousers. I'm at the sea shore, with the cucumbers dying, the rain coming in sideways, the drifts and the sandbars twisting and turning. I'm at the sea shore with the light house bruise-bending the sweet ships of victory out backwards into the backwaters of a mislead moonlight; guitars playing, beeps disappearing, pianos swept like black coffees on green walled night clubs, arenose and eroding, grainy and distraught, bleeding and well, just bleeding.






I'm at the sea shore, the coastline calling. I've got rocks in my pockets, ******* and two lines left in the letter. I’m at the sea shore, my mouth is a ghost. I've seen nothing but darkness. I'm at the seashore, second picnic table, bench facing the squat and gobble, the tin roof and riled weir near the roadside. .2 and I'm still here with my bouquet wading and waiting. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. My inches are growing shorter by the second, cold, whet by the sunset, its moon men, their heavy claws and bi-laws overthrowing and throwing me out. The thorns stick. The tyrannosaurs scream. I'm at the sea shore, plateau, left bedside to write three more letters. Sign my name and there's nobody here.

I'm at the sea shore: here are my lips, my palms (both of them facing up), here are my legs (twine and all), my torso, and my head shooting sideways. I'm at the seashore and this is my grave, this is my purposeful calotype, my hide and go seek, my show and tell, my forever. .2 and forever and never ending. I was just one dream away come and keep me. I'm at the sea shore come and see me and seam me. I'm without nothing, the sky has drifted, the sea is leaving, my seat is a matchbox and I'm all wound up. The snow settling, the ice box and its glory taken for granted. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. The room with its white sets of furniture, the lilies, the Chanel, the masonite paintings, the bed, your ribbon of darker on light, the throw rug **** carpet, pink walled sister's room, and the couch at the top of the stairs. I'm at the sea shore, my windows opened wide, my skin thrown with threat, rhinoceri, reddish bruises bent of cerise staled sunsets. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. I'm at the plateau and there isn't a single ship. There are the rocks below and I'm counting. My caveats all implored and my goodbyes written. I'm in my bed and the sleep never set in. I'm name dropping God and there's nobody there. I'm in a chair with my hands on a keyboard, listening to Danish throb-rock, horse-riding into candle light on a wicked wedding of wild words and teary-eyed gazes and gazers. Bent by the rocking and the torment, the wild and the weird, the horror and everything horrifying. There is this shadow looking over my shoulder. I'm all alone but I feel like you're here.



Part II




I wake up in Panama. The axe there. Sleeping on the floors in the guest bedroom, the floor of the garden shed, the choir closet, the rut of dirt at the end of the flower bed; just a towel, grayish-blue, alone, lawnmower at my side, and sky blue setting all around. I was a family man. No I just taste bits of dirt watching a quiet and contrary feeling of cool limestone wrap over and about my arms and my legs. Lungs battered by snapping tongues, and ancient conversations; I think it was the Malaysian Express. Mom quieted. Sister quieted. Father wept. And is still weeping. Never have I heard such horrifying and un-kindly words.-----------------------It's going to take giant steel cavernous explorations of the nose, brain cell after brain cell quartered, giant ******* quaffs of alcohol, harboring false lanterns and even worse chemicals. Inhalations and more inhalations. I'm going to need to leap, flight, drop into bodies of waters from air planes and swallow capsules of psychotropics, sedatives beyond recalcitrance. I'm requiring shock treatments and shock values. Periodic elements and galvanized steel drums. Malevolence and more malevolence. Forest walks, and why am I still in Panama. I don't want to talk, to sleep, to dream, to play stale-mating games of chess, checkers, Monopoly, or anything Risk involving. I can't sleep, eat, treaty or retreat. I'm wickeded by temptations of grandeur and threats of anomaly, widening only in proverb and swept only by opposing endeavors. Horrified, enveloped, pictured and persuaded by the evilest of haunts, spirits, and match head weeping women. I can't even open my mouth without hearing voices anymore. The colors are beginning to be enormous and I still can't swim. I couldn't drown with my ears open if I kept my nose dry and my mouth full of a plane ticket and first class beanstalk to elysian fields. It's pervasive and I'm purveyed. It's unquantifiable. It's the epitomizing and the epitome. I have my epaulets set for turbulent battles though I still can't fend off night. Speak and I might remember. Hear and it's second rite. Sea attacks, oceans roaring, lakes swallowing me whole. Grand bodies of waters and faces and arms appendages, crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and I'm still shaking, and I'm still just a button. And I still can't sleep. And I'm still waiting.

It is night. The moon ripening, peeling back his face. Writhing. Seamed by the beauty of the nocturne, his ways made by sun, sky, and stars. Rolled and rampant. Moved across the plateau of the air, and its even and coolly majestic wanton shades of twilight. It heads off mountains, is swept as the plains of beauty, their faces in wild and feral growths. Bent and bolded, indelible and facing off Roman Empires too gladly well in inked and whet tips of bolder hands to soothe them forth.-----------Here in their grand and grandiose furnaces of the heart, whipped tails and tall fables fettered and tarnished in gold’s and lime. Here with their mothers' doting. Here with their Jimi Hendrix and poor poetry and stand-up downtrodden wergild and retardation. I don't give a ****. I could weep for the ***** if they even had hair half as fine as my own. I am real now. Limited by nothing. Served by no worship or warship. My flotilla serves tostadas at full-price. So now we have a game going.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------  My cowlick is not Sinatra's and it certainly doesn't beat women. As a matter of factotum and of writ and bylaw. I'm running down words more quickly than the stanza's of Longfellow. I'm moving subtexts like Eliot. I'm rampant and gaining speed. Methamphetamine and five star meats. Alfalfa and pea tendrils. Loves and the lovers I fall over and apart on. Heroes and my fortune over told and ever telling. Moving in arc light and keeping a warm glow.

the fish line caves. the shimmy and the shake. Bluegrass music and big wafting bell tones. snakes and the river, hands on the heads, through the hair; I look straight at the Pacific. I hate plastic flowers, those inanimate stems and machine-processed flesh tones. Waltzing the state divide. I am hooked on the intrepid doom of startling ego. I let it rake into my spine. It's hooves are heavy and singe and bind like manacles all over me. My first, my last, my favorite lover. I'm stalemating in the bathtub. Harnessing Crystal Lite and making rose gardens out of CD inserts and leaf covers. I'm fascinated by magic and gods. Guns and hunters. Thieving and mold, and laundry, and stereotypes, and great stereos, and boom-boxes, and the hi-fi nightlife of Chicago, roasting on a pith and meaty flame, built like a horror story five feet tall and laced with ruggedness and small needles. My skin is a chromium orchid and the grizzly subtext of a Nick Cave tune. I've allowed myself to be over-amplified, to mistake in falsetto and vice versa. To writhe on the heavy metallic reverberations of an altercated palpitation. The heart is the lonely hunted. First the waterproof matchsticks, then the water, the bowie knife, crass grasses and hard-necked pitch-hitters and phony friends; for doing lunch in the park on a frozen pond, I play like I invented blonde and really none of my **** even smells like gold.--------------------- There are the tales of false worship. I heard a street vendor sell a story about Ovid that was worse than local politics. As far as intermittent and esoteric histories go I'm the king of the present, second stage act in the shadow of the sideshow. Tonight I'm greeting the characters with Vaseline. For their love of music and their love of philosophy. For their twilight choirs and their skinny women who wear black antler masks and PVC and polyurethane body suits standing in inner-city gardens chanting. For their chanting. The pacific. For the fish line caves. For the buzzing and the kazoos. For the alfalfa and the three fathers of blue, red, and yellow. For the state of the nation. But still mostly working for the state of equality, more than a room for one’s own.-------------------------------------------------------------­------"Rice milk for all of you." " Kensington and whittled spirits."
(Doppelganger enters stage left)MAN: Prism state, flash of the golden arc. Beastly flowers and teeming woodlands. Heir to the throes and heir to the throng.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------- The sheep meadow press in the house of affection. The terns on my hem or the hide in my beak; all across the steel girder and whipping ******* the windows facing out. The mystery gaze that seers the diplopic eye. Still its opening shunned. I put a cage over it and carry it like a child through Haight-Ashbury. At times I hint that I'm bored, but there is no letting of blood or rattle of hope. When you live with a risk you begin at times to identify with the routes. Above the regional converse, the two on two or the two on four. At times for reasons of sadness but usually its just exhaustion. At times before the come and go gets to you, but usually that is wrong and they get to you first. Lathering up in a small cerulean piece of sky at the end turnabout of a dirt road
Nat Lipstadt May 2024
The sun~poem also rises every evening…

A.P.U (as per usual):
this testimony~phrase tilts me sideways,
to relieve the condition, needy to be righted
one must expel the belly kicking seedling,
looking to be outed as a full fledged tree,
a poem planted, a gatherer of insects,
giving shade, perhaps shedding fruit

the sun bids adieu, self~same~centrifuge
of our solar system, is indeed alway rising
somewhere, though the light of our naked
eyes weak, incapable of trajectory bending,
to follow its course’s curvature, nonetheless,
we know it but struggle to believe just as we
struggle to complete, compare, and compose

replanted words in your heart, words that trigger,
are the notions inherent, of a center, rarely eclipsed,
that never ceases to offer up nouveau hope in each
of the days, a placenta to fret you blood and oxygen,
once purposed, discarded into darkness,

b u t
the words rise again, offering what you seek,
diurnally, need, to find within them, for my child,
is now
our child

7:47AM
Sun May 12
Avenue of York
Cedric McClester Nov 2015
By: Cedric McClester

Conservatives, Republicans,
Potential voters
May I have your attention
I’m not here to praise Obama
But rather to bid him good riddance
Donald Trump and the others
Have said he was a disaster as President
And they are all wise and honorable men

They say Obamacare is a catastrophe
And I’m sure the millions now insured
Who wouldn’t otherwise be agree
Because they are wise and honorable men
Unemployment is at an all time low
As a consequence of President Obama’s failed policies
As his detractors are quick to point out
If elected they would take back everything he’s accomplished
Which isn’t much given he inherited a depression

Now that things have pretty much
Turned completely around
Why should he get credit for it
Things must have righted themselves
No thanks to him of course
As the wise honorable men and others
Would surely attest
Despite the fact that he received little help

He’s been thwarted every step of the way
And in spite of it all, succeeded anyhow
Yet he deserves no credit as we have been told
For they are wise and honorable men for the most part
President Obama is leaving the country
Much better off than when he inherited it
But we are constantly being told
That he has been a dismal failure as history will no doubt judge





Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2015.  All rights reserved.
mars May 2014
I am the queen of stutter.
There was a time every creak and crack in my bones resonated between every slur of a word and every pop in my vowels.
I was a young girl with a white picket fence and yet there were still moments when words mixed and broke and-and-and-and
kids thought it was weird.
So I hid the voice with lollipops and suckers because I was
"That kid" and the "Freak" and I started to believe it like I believed my mothers bedtime stories that rested in her cheeks.
I was a broken jar and no matter how many times you tried to put me back together I always broke again and again and again.

There was a time where words came out together,
like a butterfly hatching from a cocoon and instead having feathers. I spoke with a voice of the age of four and before I was five I spoke no more because ****, vowels came out like clicks and grinds and everyone told me they paid no mind but I knew that they hated it liked I hated consonants. And I think the reason I hated it so much was because it reminded me too much of her and it made me feel like I was turning into her and all I could see was her standing over me like a murderer stands over a corpse and for a moment I forgot what it meant to be cradled to a chest, fluttering with a beating heart.



The first time my mother left, It was June.
She gave me a kiss on both cheeks and said she'd be away for awhile but that her love for me was longer than any mile that she would have to cross. I kissed her on both cheeks and it wasn't until she left that I realized that I was the one pushing her out the door. So when my dad came home from work he found an empty house and nothing more, he knew where to find me. I sat out in the pouring rain on a swing set that was older than my veins and waited to be saved to be rescued to be heard to be found to be be be be be be
I, was the queen of stutter.
And I had dropped that off when I moved from the city and I started a new life, carving it out of the trees outside with motivation and a knife. I did not yet understand that life was difficult.
But then my mother did not return and my father got scared because she had been the only one to ever love him the way he needed to be loved. And I did not understand so I started to carve life out of my palms and wrists and every **** kiss and nothing was ever good enough. I was the kid that turned to pill bottles and drugs but it was a metaphors for my dying bones and cracking lips. I breathed air that was blue and told my dad lies that were true and I was lost in a lost world, where being found was something that happened when you were dead and God, I wanted to be found.

So the story continued on and I wrote poetry to encompass my heart and my lungs and I painted over myself, scribbled all the mismatches and righted out all of the wrongs. Life seemed to continue and my dad had been injecting life into his veins and had been living at the doctors and had been tired all the time and had been lonely and sad and had been gone. He promised me a graduation and maybe even my wedding if he was lucky. I took these words with me everywhere I went and trust me if I could marry now I would in a heart beat.

I am fifteen.
My marriage has not yet come but I feel like I have all the time in the world and the doctor is only a place my dad goes to visit now. I can make words come out of my mouth the way they appear in my head and I now know the meaning to carving life into my bones and into the hues of the sunset. I am no longer afraid of every click and grind and twist and churn in my brain because it reminds me that I am alive and breathing and that my veins are filled with blood and that I breathe air like every other person does.
I was the queen of stutter.
Now I am the queen of hope.
sorry i write really weird stuff and i dont know whats happening but this came from it so i tried to write spoken word and it sounds better spoken out loud i promise
Wade Redfearn Mar 2010
I read a story to my son. Really,
I am composing it, off the cuff, but
there is no reason his mother should know.

One day, Elliott built a rocket ship.
His rocket ship was going to take him to the moon.

The boy sees nothing silly in this, and
for a second, I don't, either.

And every spare minute, Elliott worked on his rocket.
When he was at school, he drew out in
blue, and chalk-white, a dream for his rocket.
When his mother told him to do his homework,
he worked on his rocket.
When his mother left him
in the dining room to finish his carrots,
he worked on his rocket.
"I wish I could work on a rocket,
instead of eating vegetables."
Tonight, you won't have to.

One day, Elliott finished his rocket, and he went to the moon.

From the Moon, he heard the earth mumble.
From the moon, he saw the tide hug the shore,
and knock down his sister's sandcastle, left
on the beach from the summer before.
From the moon.

"He saw China!"
And Brazil. And India.
"And he got to see what his school looks like at night!"
He wouldn't know that, as a a boy, I went safely walking there,
and as a foulmouthed teen, I was drunk in the playground, at night.
That I looked down, from the hospital adjacent when my father was there.

He asks if, from the moon, you could see plain
the shadows of the craters on our planet, too broad
to behold, on sidewalks and soccerfields, during a game.
"You could. All the shadows, in the cities and the seas."
And his ruby face relaxes, deeply struck,
and musing, I think, that maybe
shadows aren't all bad.

Elliott came back, in time that his mother,
could wake him up, and he could loudly fake a snore.
And he righted his sister's sandcastle.
He went to Brazil.
He was drunk on playgrounds.
He saw shadows. They weren't so bad.

And often, when he would walk on the
sidewalk, his feet would feel light, like he
was on the moon again.

"Because the Moon has no gravity."
No gravity at all.

When I leave, and land beside my wife in bed,
I admire the helmet on my mantel,
I crumble old moondust in the paw of my suit,
I feel, still, the dimples of the sheets,
light, and shadowed, like the clefts of the moon.
Just ask me.
rose14195 Dec 2014
So im happy
this is weird for me
the first time Im awake in the middle of the night
and not silently crying
im smiling
my face isnt use to this
a part of me thought this wouldnt fit
but it does
I'm connected to God
righted some of my wrongs
can breathe again
stepped out from the wrong
now im in the light
and i couldnt feel more right
quinn collins Sep 2013
there are secrets wrapped up in the blankets
that are thrown haphazardly onto my bed,
all the lies that i’ve told,
all the wrongs i haven’t righted,
those people who i tried out
and then discarded just as easily
as if they were an empty wrapper
i had no use for anymore.

if i keep them bundled up,
the secrets will stay at the foot of my bed,
forever locked up.

but at night they fall over my body,
covering, enveloping me in a warmth
that soon becomes suffocation,
an endless drowning that i can’t escape.
Barton D Smock Jul 2012
grandeur

had brought the well outta ground the muscled men and she came upon them when they had split into teams and were rolling it and had not yet become competitive. the hands of her gone infant came back to her to see these men heave back and forth a vanishing. of her many fathers one had said ‘the deep train went even deeper and I could not wake’. he had said it to excuse his one day feat of linking unadorned toilet paper rolls to stretch a rat’s mile. her stomach had yet to go down and she was comforted by such literal remnants as thinking of the last place you had it.

libel

two white boys come outta shack each with a wrist one left one right being ****** at the mouth. their laughing I wouldn’t say manic but still not righted. like certain bible stories seem to tumble outta that book it’s the same with their eyes and ears. their heads each one shrunk so as to be united. I want to say here at least a ****** knows what it’s mocking. I only know one of’em and only as far as this thing being passed and told that he ain’t a foster but he was born in a pan and taken from the offices of the parent company his father got laid from. you think that’s the joke but had I not said white you’d have thought they were anyway. here come two girls grisly with month and I never seen two boys so quick to put down the shack they come from.

prayer

I like it best when my girl is pregnant because I get the sympathies. on her hand, she likes me drunk. at any one time, I can remember seven of our eight kids. this means of course one gets left home but also that not a one gets left grocery. I’d tell you their names but then I’d have to split this saying into parts. but I can tell you seven are boys. now and again they’ll slip on sister’s dress to **** up my math. a good joke I start with is that they take after their mother and if they take after me it’s with sticks. I change the batteries in the alarms for fire and carbon monoxide every two weeks mostly outta fear that I’ll lose them all and have to recount them to some fireman I went to school with. I don’t know if batteries are cheap or not, I don’t know anything about them, but I know I spend a healthy chunk of my portion to have. wife and I are keeping the ninth at bay the ways we know how. she don’t ask me and I don’t her. one kid a week goes with her to church and it’s up to me to remember who in my charge caught a fish the week previous. but I’m not wrong with god; no book is the bible, I believe that. at cemetery by which I am lack whelmed: I wish I had his memory.

nativity

wonder they ever told him grown, that black foster, how he'd been at three years dropped manger while crying for the congregates. straw in everything. back a throat, bottom a shoe. pop said he just about caught himself afire at work, straw sticking out his pocket. pop unable to split work clothes from churched. some wanted to resurrect a fuss about color; don’t go resurrecting a fuss and waved his hand he did that pastor ingénue. heard then I the word negress and after its saying the sayers looked about as if she would appear. this was our town after god and many were still making their own. this answers how the black foster needn’t audition. the gold I brought was soft on my thumbs and the flakes stayed in my nails weeks after. pop could tell for that time what I’d been touching so I’d cover when I could. we were quite a pair in our fooleries what with his straw and my gold. he stopped going on about the blacks and I was able to skip school with your sister the ****** mary. the town was never up for nightmares or for dreaming so I kept your share to myself until now how you seen mary fingered by a man with seven. heard him saying it's okay baby, this one's asleep.

holy ghost!

I will cut myself, Horror Film. will fidget my nethers a last time. maybe make the snow an angel with a third leg. which means I have gone outside. maybe my father will happen by you and put his beers together. but I will be gone. into the woods dragging my feet so some will think it took two to take me. I will whip branches about me and generally scuffle so the some will better convince the left. my poverty will be confirmed by your presence on videocassette. my father will hold you aloft and your tongue will droop above the depths of his hair. my father will claim a vengeance he owes on and the some and the left will follow him over the states of my angel and into the woods. when they find me I will say I had an in body experience; that the two men nearby sleep and it’s what we’re walking in.

haptics

little he knows that in holding them hoppers until they spit and before they go wing he is making hitch the upcome carriage of his *****. his future nudes are backtracking and the gravity of this has been diagnosed as your emphysema. he is your, nothing more, son. he will rub your back and worry his thumbs orphan. oh thumb; toe six. the way you deeply stand arms folded he sometimes thinks you have been replaced by a statue of his mother. it is then he remembers the fence his father built and the collective plank his father carried under his arm. you want life to be good again; your son’s low hand and the pups it could feed.

verbal abuse*

she has brought with her a shoplifted teddy bear. on a good night her age is seventeen. two days ago the voices in her head moved to her mouth. she has seven teeth that remain quiet. she fears so much how this third day will go. she has been told, and she believes, I am only in her mind. but there she is, at the sitting rock where we met, the rock I told her I could see things in. unprepared for her faith, I am unclothed. I am glad she has the bear and glad for my part in her having it.

spiders

we got some kind of plague in our toilets mama.*  that’s my dad calling her mama, my mom. that’s him declaring another plague. week don’t stop until a plague has been pieced together by this man so named Paff Snull on the subscription stubs of any number of unread magazines mom uses to swat dramatically at imaginary flies and wasps and locusts depending on the week. this time though I’m ******* because when dad cracks his knees and ***** himself to fetch mama from silence, I look in the toilet up and it’s true and in the toilet down and it’s more. spiders grey and black and off white. with our low water pressure, spiders having a ball. mom and dad they get tents and tell me twice to get inside mine once it’s on the front lawn. I get told things twice because I was born thick and I haven’t the heart to tell them that after the first saying the saying of it is diminished. I mumble to myself in corners, sure, but it’s the same mumbling. our dog gets a separate tent and I sneak into it when dog allows. seven nights so far outta three weeks I haven’t. mom says it’s because of my acne dog don’t recognize me sometimes. ******* bit the meatsy of my right hand a month ago and my handwriting got so neat I was sent from school for cheating. it’s most of my summer and the house is still spidery. the dog has gone to the river to drink and seems okay with it. mom, dad, and I **** in the backyard in shifts. mom ain’t swatting anything, she doesn’t have to on account of the spiders. when right now I mess up my shift I find myself next to dad and he’s just some guy telling me them glass-full people got the joke on them because the water is contaminated. he’s so happy it makes me think I’m the devil to be grinning so big. long wasn’t the reign of Paff Snull.

— The End —