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Firewalker Oct 2014
Walking with the weekly dregs, of soup cans, tomatoes, & cauliflower,
Passing the empty stares, vacant looks and rude remarks,


It must be Halloween, look at all the Zombies, please no treats,
or tricks,
I have joined the masses,

My cart has a broken wheel and constantly shifts to the left
Pressure to the Right, no back to the Left,

The 200lb's of cat litter doesn’t help,
Beware of The “Cat Lady”, Yes, I have become The “Cat Man”
Just as Crazy,

Listening “Sir could you tell me where I can find the lower sodium Gefilte fish”? did I even spell Gefilte right?

Aisle 10 next to the Tuna

And then it happens! Crash, (I wasn’t looking, I wanted to see if Sorry Charley was really next to Gefilte) right into the luxury cart, parked in my space,

I was ready to give my mean, meaningless I’m sorry I’ve become the one person I feared as a child The grumpy old man.

I look up and my breathing stop, she captured me with her lovely face
I was sent reeling to a distant romantic time & place, centuries ago

Did she drift slightly towards me? Or was it just my imagination,

Did our eyes hold each other in an embrace? Or was it just my imagination

Did she see the poet in my heart?, Or was it just my imagination

Was there anything at all?, Or is it my imagination.

Either way my heart is closed and youthful energy gone,

I gave a soft I’m sorry lowered my eyes and walked away,

Scowled a couple of brats, get out of the way,
**** cart shifts to the left,

I had to look back, I caught a glimpse,

of a single teardrop running down her cheek,
or was it just my Imagination

Firewalker
Fiona Biju Aug 30
Love is temperamental,
exhausting.
relentless.  
It drains you, shifts like the tide.  
But Hatred?
Oh, hatred is sharp,  
malleable,  
a blade you can hone.  

Love leaves you hollow,  
but hatred?  
Oh, it holds you.
Love doesn't always quench the thirst. Sometimes it's the rock I can't break. Sometimes it's the light that refuses to let me hide. But hatred... when did it become a place of comfort? When did it learn to hold me and hear my cries?
Why did the very thing I wanted most become the source of this void? And in that emptiness and void, I learned that hatred has a shape I can finally hold onto.
Josh Koepp Sep 2013
The story opens
and the curtains reveal a man pacing back and fourth
but only within his mind
as he shifts his legs in a well used chair

We the audience, and the cellos ambiance
wait for any kind of sound apart from the squeaking of chairs
it would seems our eager stares
and judgmental glares
stretch the time between the shifting of legs
and silence becoming sound

sweat beads from his brow
because now to the eighteenth minute
he will sit in silence, broken only by
his last breath before he is to bloom
into transcendence
as written in the type face of the script

and he is nervous
the set may be alive, the dancers may be lively
but he in 15 minutes shall die dramatically
the story shall be driven upon death,
his body shall lie motionless
his heart will beat ferociously
he must be emotionless

The story closes
behind the curtain a body is risen again
a personality is peeled from his face
struck blind by seeing light through his own eyes

That night he sleeps and dreams
about being dead without a heartbeat
for once
Hannah Marr Feb 2019
Sahara cradles
the sun-bleached bones of a temple,
still strewn where the blazing heat
washed over it in trembling waves,
draining it of colour and shape,
reducing it to the gnawed on toys
of Sahara's chittering children.

She sighs
as the wind caresses
the curves of her back.
She shifts, slow,
and time covers
the shadow of the holy,
granting it final rest
in a dusty grave
under the watchful silver eye
rising in the heavens.

Sahara cradles
her new ward
to her chest
as the night comes awake.

h.f.m.
Whether it helpful, useless, or a little too late.
The voices in my head give me advice.

Here's a list of ****** up **** my brain has told me.

1.
Dear Maggot,

As we march
further and further
into the territory of single life.
Which unfortunately
is what happens
to calloused hearts like yours
You'll realize that.
As the goal of *** shifts
from making love,
to meaningless pleasure.
The "unspoken rules."
Of the bedroom
Are always different
And should be spoken.
Loudly.

2.
Although ******* inside a woman
Who loves you enough
To want a baby is a fulfilling
Romantic experience.
******* inside this stranger,
Without a ******, and
Thinking she'll be happy about it,
Is not going to end well.

3.
Not every person
Is going to ask you to
Use a ******* ******.
Take initiative, and wrap it
Before you tap it.

4.
Now that you don't have a girlfriend,
Sleeping at a friends house
Is not always innocent.
A majority of your friends
Will try to sleep with you,  
At the very least.
All of the men will try to sleep with you.

5.
Having *** with a new gender
For the first time
Is exactly like losing your virginity
All over again.
You have no idea what you like anymore.
Why isn't this working?
That doesn't go there.
Oh my god,
Please put that there.

6.
Some of your previous ex's
Will start talking to you again.
You should still probably not sleep with them.
You should probably still not...
...Oh never mind.

7.
When a girl reaches for a 2-liter of soda
After having *** in the backseat of your car.
Do not assume she's thirsty.
She may lift the soda bottle to her ******.
I know what you're thinking,
And yes it's that bad.
Watch, as the soda magically disappears.
When she spreads her legs and says
"Drink from me"
And of course when you say:
"No"
She will get extremely upset at you.
And scream at how terrible of a person you are.
While squirting
****** coke
All over the back seat of your car.

Be very clear about where you stand
On drinking ****** coke
From the beginning.

8.
Just because someone is in a relationship,
Does not mean they won't sleep with you.
Asking if the boyfriend or husband is okay
With you guys hanging out
Is a good first step to taking the higher ground.
Asking during ***
Might **** the mood.

9.
Not every partner wants you to penetrate them.
Some people just want to be whipped.
This is not weird in the single life.

10.
These people think you are vanilla as ****.
Fetlife is not for you.
Stick to tinder.

11.
Listen here maggot,
When a girl leaves something behind,
She probably wants a second date.
Even if what the woman left you was
******* ****** coke
All over your brand new leather seats.

12.
Some of the girls you sleep with.
By some miracle,
Will still want to talk to you.
You crazy *******.
They might make amazing friends.
You might even have *** again.
And if you're lucky, they'll teach you something.
Kaitlin Frost Nov 2012
Sometimes a person can feel alone,
even in a sea of people.
There is so much noise in the room and
you are just sitting there.
Alone.
So many thoughts are going through your head.
He is talking
She is talking
He is yelling
She is yelling
The sound of silence.
Everything can get quiet really fast,
time shifts.
Then it's over.
Axiana Jan 2015
I am no longer afraid of my own skin
I'll watch you uncover a soul that had been
Slowly unleashing these butterfly limbs
Singing emotions like a hundred sweet violins
Serenading every single invisible hint
Of the ascended master that was growing within
All this time I was more than your eyes could take
Layers upon layers of old energies, they'll fade
Let it change, arrange, let it rage for its own sake
Now I'd trade anything to witness the form that you'll take
As Gaia rises to higher and higher physical planes
Yes, I'll trade this egoic state for an emotional taste
Of the spirit that shifts into this form as of late
Beautiful, magical, powerful human beings make
For the home that will house all that we will create
You will discover and never a moment too late
The ancient illusion will break
A new reality has taken shape
PelicanDeath Jun 2015
afternoon light flickers
through the curtains
like a moth
her fingers brush
the lined edge
of a plate
as the sink fills
with water

the sound of paper, displaced
shifts behind her
she counts
the careful steps
the cat takes
across the table

outside the roses
trace their shadows
across the lawn
DaSH the Hopeful Feb 2015
Nero: Deep cover another 187 on these hoes with my flows ya know I riddle like little Italy Punisher life Frank castle I slice ******* up like cattle I'm a lover but undercover like Eddie Griffin my brother I'll slice up ******* and leave they men in the trunk nervous with trauma twitches I'll cement up your shoes I'll use my pen to get the message to you headless hunters I'll be the soul edge and slice the heavens asunder I can feel it in my head and soul I'll reap with the flow and grow the flowers on the tombstone I'll make ya ***** moan and groan while I **** her in your stead while she gives me head I'm deciding who's the next to be blessed from the deliverer of death

DaSH: Kept the switchblade in a balled up fist
Probly ******
Off a lot of *******
But got longer lists
Like ******* who tasted blood soon after my ******* gotten licked
Threw up on my ****
And promptly dipped to get the shotgun grip
***** spit
Got me not wantin to work these long *** shifts
I know im sick
Smell my aroma tell its ebola when
I walk up in the room
Shut up talking and get a stronger whiff
Im the kid who was too demented to have gotten picked
For any extra curricular
Anyway I was busy plottin how to get to ya
Radio waves confuse em make em **** themselves
Silly me Billy Madison was happenin
And i was in the back with Chris Farley doin smack again
Rappers get smacked with used **** pads
A ****** *****
Is all I'll ever be in their eyes
But in mine,
All I see is bodies burning alive
Ben May 2013
The Morning After Part I
What the hell have I done? It feels like my temples are about to explode and the early morning light burns my eyes. My shirt is missing and I’m curled up on my Lovesac. I glance to the left to see Alice is sprawled out on my air mattress. She looks drained, even while asleep, and I think that I probably look a lot worse. Last night… What happened last night? It’s all just a jumble, my memories out of order. It’s a flash of colors, sounds, feelings and sensations, a blur in my mind. It feels like a tilt-a-whirl of sensory overload and I kind of want to puke. Then, like a dam breaking, fragments of memories flood my mind in a sickening torrent, too much, too much. ****. It’s starting to come back and that’s not even remotely helping, just making it worse. I feel even more confused and all I can think is What Happened…?

Ok! Let’s Party!
a three am party a trip edge
a witching hour emprise time to begin
a black and white strip of paper so thin
it looked so harmless, inconspicuous, even then
five hits for me, four hits for you,
placed under our tongues, we expectantly raise
eyes round the dark room for a white rabbits maze
or floating cat ears and Cheshire grin
the seconds pass, then minutes do spin
nothing
nothing
nothing shifts or shapes, bends or breaks
we wander to seats, choose movie to play
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World comes to life on screen in a blaze
and…

Trip # Cats Everywhere
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4 - !”
cats are crawling slinking stalking
their eyes are glowing growing pulsing
and bodies moving sinuously serpentine
flowing round the corners of my eyes
fleeing from sight like shadowy wraiths
insubstantial  sensory stimulation
hallucination

Trip # ****** Coma
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

ringing blue lightning flashes razor sharp quick
cutting my mind in jaw breaking half
gasping for air I lunge forward hard
and break into silence, stillness, calm.
you have to remember to breathe
when things get fuzzy or funny or anytime now
otherwise sanity slips like water through fingers
or like rabbits down tunnels
on time to lost minds and messy motor control
****** coma, giddy, ecstatic, inescapable, unrelenting

Trip # I’m Melting
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

I have to **** but the whole world is breathing
standing and swaying every step an adventure
entranced by the swirly dripping dropping walls
i barely stay balanced though trousers do fall
relief, ahhh, glance down what the ****!?
maniacal laughter rings through the room
I’m melting I’m melting in big drops and small
being pulled ever downward but never disappearing
warm like candle wax, thick and viscous
I’m leaving a trail of me on the floor

Trip # Music
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

complex strains of sounds by vibrations
subtly influence the mood in the room
emotions experienced changing by song
upbeat pulse lively down tempo drops dangerous
I can feel the sound envelope my soul
Alice enraptured marries the music
sitting on moment to swaying the next
pressed up against me, blink, appears on by wall
(don’t drink and drive, take acid and teleport)
this controlling cacophony swells then settles
an ocean unseen deciding the trip

Trip # Alone
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

Alice embarks on adventure to leave
a trip to the restroom a momentous maze
breathe deep and hold, keep it together
I slip from this plane to a place so strange
the chair is moving and so is her hat
were they ever just objects or always alive
pink and white fur slithers up in answer
caressing my arms sensual depraved
the laughter returns ever occurring involuntary
in fast rolling eyes at madness do gaze
I cavort around with fluffy new friends
tumbling and squirming wiggly worming
the fun never ends the fun never ends
“are you ok?” – Alice inquires
back after minutes turned hours
“is this how it feels to know you’re insane”

Trip # ******
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

the blurry lights shimmer in colorful haze
I swim towards the surface lost in a daze
“hush now hush now you’re ok”
“how long was I out for” a question…a phrase
“ten minutes this time” “it felt like days”
harder to come back, feels like I’m drowning in rain
blood mixes clear with needle in vein
and fading to black and fading to grey
the blurry lights shimmer in colorful haze
I swim towards the surface lost in a daze
“hush now hush now you’re ok”
“how long was I out for” a question…a phrase
“ten minutes this time” “it felt like days”
harder to come back, feels like I’m drowning in rain
blood mixes clear with needle in vein
and fading to black and fading to grey
the blurry lights shimmer in colorful haze
I swim towards the surface lost in a daze
“hush now hush now you’re ok”
“how long was I out for” a question…a phrase
“ten minutes this time” “it felt like days”
harder to come back, feels like I’m drowning in rain
blood mixes clear with needle in vein
and fading to black and fading to grey
“I haven’t slept in eight days”
a half muttered phrase
“what are you saying, it’s been 10 minutes”
alice mouths back with questioning gaze
fade to black

Trip # Telepathic
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...
“mhm yeah like what like yeah what”
“mhm like yeah like what oh what like yeah”
“mhm yeah like what oh **** like what huh oh what”
“mhm yeah like what oh yeah like what mhm ****”
mhm yeah **** like what oh mhm yeah what”
“wait what?”
“****”


Trip # Blue Gum Matrix
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

bubbles bubbles popping in pink
filling my mouth with cotton clouds
sugary sweet deliciously soft
seducing my mind into boiling blue bliss
I don’t notice the binary program lurking through unconscious thought
uploading software for changing perception
the transition to fiction so seamless like silk
I’ve jacked into the system with every chew
it’s twothousandwhatever in metrohive Tokyo
the future is different yet still feels the same
Alice sits solitary in darkened apartment
with wires like web strung throughout the room
all tracing with tracers glowing in ambience a glistening path
to electrical heaven, a desktop computer
my visual sensors are booting and loading
with mechanical perfection clarity arrives
a robot, I robot, created as A.D.E.M.
(Artificially Developed Emotional eMulator)
or A **** Excellent Machine (self-titled)
I sit up and blink as synapses fire
electrical currents carried on nanobig wires
I go move towards alice and watch binary code scroll
plugged into the network a direct hacker helper
this job’s objectives flash ‘fore my face
“we’ve got a big heist, security’s tight”
the scene’s fading out, cameras pan to the night

Trip # In Which I See the Future
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

Alice and I curl up as one
excessive I know on this excessive night
but excessively is as excessively done, the social norm
it’s experience together and not alone
that draws us closer to breathe in unison
a chance to express feeling in this
uncharted sensory undertaking
together hearts beat in arrhythmic understanding
a feeling of pleasure creeps down my spine
and spreads out in ripples turning to waves
crashing and breaking on the sweet shore of…
alone in the bathroom I reflect on actions
for minutes and hours and finally days
I watch myself age and age and go grey
tormented by thoughts of actions and actions
guilt like creeping mold consumes my visage
decrepit and wasted I stumble from chambers
to find five am clock arms right in my face…

The Morning After Part II**
****.
lysergic acid diethylamide.... an adventure every time
lazarus May 2017
i bought myself steel-toed boots for
christmas like it would matter
as if i could kick things like paranoia, fear and vulnerability

my whole head is making this strange, dissonant noise
it feels kind of like pressure building, by surprise

because i'm going, going, going with my
hands touching all of the things

i thumped my corroded heart onto the table and asked if he wouldn't
mind sitting with it for a while

did i know then that his body moves just like theirs?

i have blades in my palms walking home
despite how i interpret my murmuring heart
mostly i think it's reminding me to live, i think
it's especially easy to forget

i'm choking, go ahead and tell me how much you understand it

i have blades in my palms, the boots and buttons up to my neck
i can taste their eyeballs anyway and the rotting is sand
it's getting underneath my toenails now, stop just a second
the boots and the buttons might as well be silk
the way their bodies are closing in feels like absolute reliable death
i'm thumping and shivering and their voices
the way everything shifts a little as my hands tighten around the mace makes me wonder if i had ever been safe to begin with because it seems like i've only ever been trembling in anticipation of your violence

my father is strong and firm and knocks at the window in the way that punches a small, undeniable hole directly through my windpipe

there are a lot of things about this canal that the probe cannot understand

clearly evident in the shift in your spine as the door slams behind you

did i know at eight years old that footsteps would come to sound like fists to me? i always knew the tenor of arguments would send me over, but at this point i've lost count of the ways through which my environment stands to strangle me

how many voices eked out, slowly do you have to
miss before you'll hear me?

they might as well be constricting my limbs on the spot with the
ways they graze my hot, sweating flesh

does it count as purgatory if you're burning from the inside?
grumpy thumb Nov 2015
In a cafe sitting quite
wondering how tired
the waitress's smile is
as she shifts a slinky pivot
around tables
a routine on autopilot.
There's a tattoo shreak of violet
on her wrist.
Last night purged brightly from regretful mists:
Sprawl of limb
hinge and ******
flesh contorts
then erupts.
I read her script
she knew my score
rebound *** nothing more...
I think.
am sure.
...aint I?
Every cell like a highway
Connecting the places in his mind
the memories dark and bright
The sound of the street and the trains in the distance
The sounds of the city and st. clair avenue
The howling wind and snow.
The light soothing breeze coming through the crack in the windowpane
All the things that used to put him to sleep like a soothing urban lullaby
the city in the distance lit up like a star filled sky because the lights of the city block out the stars themselves
the violet/orange sky
the cold crisp air that carries the sounds of the neighbors neverending fight past the huge piles of snow
through the maze of falling snowflakes to his window as the icy snow covered streets are being cleaned by a plow truck
too cold for the honest hearted so the devil comes out to play lying ,dealing,killing,stealing
the leafles trees making wierd waving shadows as they moan and groan in the wind
in the window the poinsettia still left over from Christmas like a forgotten messenger of joy
in the factories in restaurants and from all over people changing shifts and leaving work to get to their families at home
in the winter
in the city
in the night.
I **** i know
im getting better trust me
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
The hawk nosed general in the grey suit sniffed
out his enemies, labrador like, nose to the noise,
chest beating, bleating, blaring in the thunderous
applause, that made his ego bloom amongst the corpses
of the shrunken heads and hands reaching out for bread,
in the shut down quarter of the empire
where the eagles flew in/ out dropping mustard,
caught between a  deadly sandwich of
closed escape routes.

"Burn them all" he said, and turning to his sidekick,
he smiled a thin smile, devoid of the god he worshiped
in the minarets on the mosques that stabbed the  blue sky
with their sharp bulbous  needles of  attention.

At twelve the muezzin called the faithful to prayer and
moaned for mercy on the unbelievers.The call echoed
and reverberated down the streets.
The mustard closed the eyes of  the city where the
gas cannisters jangled on thin nerves and let the
people  sleep forever.

The grey suit, now eau de cologne  scented handker-
chief  
hawk nose sniffed
wiped his forehead and walked
spritely to his armoured vehicle, to call his wife
and enquire if the kids were enjoying their summer swim.

"Yes, darling!" she tingled with excitement.
"How's that part of the city
where these rats live?"
"Good love! Just need to smoke 'em
out some more!
By tonight I'll be home for dinner. Bye for now!"

The line went dead
with twenty others, fried in the concrete
pan of a bunk buster bomb dropped from a drone
with butterfly wings and a sharp upside down minaret
nozzle of spray now stabbing the earth.
Earth to sky, sky to earth?

The barbed wired brains circled the city.
Children soon crunched cockroaches,
mice and rats and grass salads, autumn leaves on wild spinach
thousands  died eating succulent poisonous roots.

Even the carrion claws refused to descend into the darkness
of carcasses that lay down in the streets to pray forever.

The water turned green with envy as lichen,
clogged with blood and ***** and bones rotting
under bridges, ****** up the blue river
and sent the beavers into burrows of omerta
The world watched and waited.

?

Around the dinner table the grey suited general
tucked his napkin under his red,wellfed face and smiled
at his lovely wife in a designer outfit.
" Pass me the mustard please, darling!"

Author Notes
The revolution shifts elsewhere. Follow it.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Mayah Seals Apr 2013
As the days go by the colder I get
I hide in the dark hoping to forget
Yet, silently I sit as my life ticks by
Hoping my hero would save me tonight
A long while does pass before you're brought back to me
To finally silence my inner screams
You stand before me, glowing as red as my sins
A sly smile on your face and a fiery glow to your skin

After all these years, you were brought back to me
As I feel your touch I know I am free
Free of the tears I have cried every night
And as you hold me fast, I cannot feel your burning light
But, when you let me go I can tell something's wrong
For instantly, everything I felt was gone
Your eyes glow fiery as you reveal your true self
As my very own angel, sent to bring me to Hell

You apologize for leaving and withholding the truth
For causing all my pain from your love that is true
I contemplate what to do in this mess
Should I leave you now or is staying the best?
A frown falls upon your perfect, pale lips
But I fix it easy, drawn to your deadly kiss
Suddenly, the ground opens as the world shifts
And what should appear, but Hell's Fiery Pit
You look at me quizzically with a sadness in your eyes
My only way out of this world is below, so I kiss you in reply
We jump at the thought of immortal love; so exciting!
Who knew Hell would appear so inviting?
j f Jan 2013
mal
you wear your tin pan stripes
and dash casual away
with nothing better than half assed goodbye to say
a bottle of boxed wine and
a pack of cigarettes later,
the world's axis shoulder spinning like a softball player
no mittens on the floor and no songs at the door,
theres a two step left to greet the things we abhor, you
got a twisted sense of humor for a kid from nowhere
swinging off the rafters of your independence


kicking the **** from her shoes in shifts and
a last ditch effort to  give a ****

I'm high in my tower, breezes tearing through the eaves
watching the world turning,  looking so **** carefree
i got your word this will be better than it was
but your heart doesn't have the experience it thinks it does
i'll loose my tongue finally now that you've started coming around
but you don't seem that comfortable coming to my side of town
we let each other down and that will never change
i'm just glad you're back in speaking range

the shoes are by the door
now clean but still messing the pristine floor
PK Wakefield Mar 2012
mouth lingers body fragrant

     (dreams peculiar)

violent of redhair sits pretty
alone awkwardly of nothing
precise in a corner quietly
shifts wonders of skin and
reads a book looking like
naked would be better than
Jay Nov 2024
A lover boy, not destined for real love. He holds love like grains of sand, slipping through his fingers no matter how tightly he clings. Each touch, a fleeting promise; each gift, fragile yet profound. Yet nothing stays, everything shifts away, dissolving into the ether. Every heart he’s held, every vow whispered, felt like the final door, the last chance. But love, to him, is like thin air, a bond of whispers that scatters before it can take root. His world is built on trembling ground, every shot to the heart threatening to bring it down. Each kiss plants gardens, only for them to wilt before they’re truly found. Hands reach for him, yearning for the warmth he carries, but all that lingers is his name, murmured into the night. At first glance, love blooms, sweet and sacred, a delicate dance of entwined souls. He gives all of his borrowed light, yet shadows creep through the cracks. No matter how hard he tries to stay, the tide pulls love from his grasp. The warmth of his touch fades; his love, no matter how pure, never seems to hold. He’s a witness to his own heartbreak, time and time again, a love wilting before its prime. Each time, he assures himself, ‘this one will be different’, but the truth remains elusive. Perhaps his heart is wreathed in thorns, unfit to be held or owned. Yet deep within, he longs for a love that roots itself firmly, weathering even the fiercest storms. But for every wall he builds, cracks form in the mortar. The weight of love bears down until all collapses into dust, leaving behind the remnants of broken trust. He wants to stay, to hold on, but love always seems to come with chains and whispers of fear. It vanishes the moment he reaches for it. And when love leaves, he mourns not only its loss but the life it promised, a life of unwavering devotion, never truly begun. Every soul he’s hurt carries that pain, stretching across time like an echo of his own sorrow. If only standing still, planting his feet, could anchor the love he holds so dear. But every time he tries, it slips away, a sun disappearing over the horizon, leaving emptiness in its wake. He’s not meant for what others dream of: the steady fire, the gentle stream. His heart burns brightly, a beacon in the night, but the love it craves is always just beyond his reach, a fleeting flame, extinguished by the winds of fate.
Pat Broadbent Dec 2017
Day closes to an open window–
A sill, a still rest for my spent legs;
Torqued over to face the breeze, welcome chills
Swing the brush with each croak of my knees.

Laughs crane over amber roof clay–
And somewhere behind a white fence
It’s someone’s birthday, a dog brays, coos rouse a baby
Who cries off-key with the family’s song

A dark cluster shifts in the sky,
And the moon emerges from nil.
I’d forgotten my eyes but to see like this…
So long since the night kept me filled…

Spark lights strung in beads on a rope
-Chatoyant, chatoyant comme diamants–
“Brille et brille petit étoile” string the notes
of a mother’s rock-a-bye song

My squeak of a refrain pitters into the air
-Cassant, cassant comme verre-
No love from eclipses we sing to,
No peace from mullings in prayer

Then a fairy book glow sweeps this vision–
Its air thick and sweet to the tongue–
My glance caught by shimmering scales on the back
Of this Ville like a dragon in slumber
—oh, to dance on that spine
—to leap from his eaves into air!
—to fly with these legs where I don’t have to sleep
—and days don’t sit brittle and spare

But fingers to the pulse in my cheek—
To a cauldron of wicked alchemy—
Trace an infection spreading like dragons’ wings
Where beasts may be best left sleeping.

Painfully pretty, the light grows ever fainter,
I should drink it in while I can still see—
There’s a reason art’s left to the painter,
And my brush colors sorrow on everything.


But I’m not sorry now, nor sad, though my eyes water
And wobble the world ’til I blink;
With my back towards the concrete, grounded, this altar
Casts a reverence over everything.
Still in works
Em MacKenzie May 2017
The first time I walked into my home was when I was five,
My mom and her best friend Louise signed me out of school,
we ate McDonalds on the hardwood floors and looked at the bare walls,
they were actually blank canvas's, waiting for life's pictures to be painted upon them.

When I was eight, my sister and I got into a fistfight,
in our shared room, a mere five feet away from my parents.
They knew it was time for us to have separate rooms,
and they turned an old den into a makeshift room that night,
where my sister would sleep until her teens.

I remember Sunday mornings,
stumbling down the stairs with sleep in my eyes,
and hearing oldies playing on our stereo,
smelling a big breakfast cooking.

I remember Monday mornings,
procrastinating to come downstairs and face the Canadian winter weather,
my mother getting ready for work,
but not before making us toast even though we never had an appetite in the morning.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

I spent countless days and nights in my first room,
always an introvert, always alone with my imagination.
It went from playing with Star Wars action figures,
to playing guitar, to writing poetry,
and eventually when computers were the big thing,
I spent my teen years playing xbox and downloading music.

Some nights I drank in that room.
Most nights I smoked countless joints and cigarettes.
A few times I even did mushrooms,
paranoid the entire time my mother would open the door and question me,
but usually she was more concerned about the candles I lit to cover the smoke,
100% certain I would light the house aflame.

My sister eventually moved into the basement,
the same one where we would sit on the rough carpets,
far too close to the TV,
playing Legend of Zelda, and Greenday's "******" blaring in my ears.
I'm still half deaf till this day.

I remember falling asleep outside,
rocking back and forth on our cushioned swing,
surrounded by greenery and sun,
bird chirps intermixing with my mp3 player.

I remember my modest above ground pool,
and my sister teaching me how to swim at six,
only taking breaks when she would attempt to drown me.

My sister moved on and I moved into the basement,
and spent an entire weekend painting and making it my home.
Bright green paint with lilac purple,
and posters of Sid Vicious, illuminated by lightsabers.

My mom got sick with Cancer,
and I remember sitting in the living room while she cried,
telling myself she would be ok,
that she would live even against impossible odds.

I remember coming home from overnight shifts at the women's shelter,
lying on the shaggy carpet and watching her with half lidded eyes.
"I'll go to bed soon."

A week before Christmas my mother moved into the old den,
the one my sister moved into when we were so young,
so she'd no longer need to go up the stairs.
The same stairs we used to slide down on with pillows.

I would lay awake in my basement, listening to her footsteps,
the same footsteps that used to wake me up far too early.
Now keeping me awake and on edge,
ready to run up to her in case she needed help.

I remember Christmas morning,
how the walls echoed "she's gone" and "call the doctor."
How my father sat at the living room table, pouring himself drink after drink,
how my sister lay on the couch crying,
and I, trying to make my mother proud, cleaned the house.

I was alone for years,
in a house that wasn't a home,
my mother dead, my sister moved out,
my father taking anything of value to his new home, with his new girlfriend,
a woman who shares the same name with my mother.
But not the same heart.

I stayed in my basement,
getting high and writing poetry,
listening to music so there would be another voice but mine.

The first time my wife walked into my home,
she surveyed the damage done to the house and made it a home again.
A nice mixture of our belongings now mix with my mothers,
keeping her memory alive in every room.

We spent many nights in candlelight, inlove, laughing,
and again the house had life and love in it.

This summer my home will be sold,
and in a matter of months this little 50's house will be destroyed.
Our medium sized lot will make room for two modern buildings,
and the twenty-three years spent here will be demolished.

There is mold in the basement,
the electrical is gone to ****.
The drywall is crumbling, the paint is scratched,
and the plumbing is sketchy at best,
but this home will always stand strong in my heart.
After living here for twenty-three years my father has decided to sell my home. For the past four years I've lived here alone, with my girlfriend, and recently with my sister aswell. The next chapter in my life is exciting, but I've been feeling down knowing my family home will be destroyed. Such is life, I suppose.
Answered, thus labeled because views a similarity. Who had this in the hand of the eye’s compact? If presence shifts to absence and believe it is safe in transit, what contract aspires to be an object used against it?

Here must be another present, moving thing for this nonattendance to take place. Its duty need not be nominal. And when it takes place, there is a guarantee for a statement: almost, to a certain extent. Had, adhered, temporary.

This was taken as an insistence of its exclusion as an avowal of its state: when a thing ceases to move, it has named a boundary all within a venue with already christened boundaries. To rise from its nomenclature, a question: what for is this mode? The unassuming and deliberate twofold of its chrome is indicative of something. There are only two possible answers to the question, but never warrants indemnity.

If amorphous then suitable to bend or assume over and over, a confrontational: to hold it against walls everywhere, its color only when dual fixing not a shadow, but the possibility of a shadow. To spill light over the malleable – notice how a body contorts.

If distinct then determined to traverse a straight line, a sanction: to furlough the idea of its controlled variable which is its many possibilities, its shape now not only a name but a force that deals with a believable architecture of compressed options. There is no need for appellation when related to dislimn as a shade is necessary for this disappearance to simulate. But the treachery is that when light surrounds no longer, form somehow a myth as if pausing all lightness to declare something: this is of two explanations merely a single.
Daniel Handschuh Oct 2015
A bird glides gracefully whilst the discolored leaves are aflutter
   In the wind that rocks the cold rotted wood of the window's shutter;
   All while the obstructive trees cause the wind’s speech to stutter.
   Yet she still howls with an intense pressure on me chest; I can barely utter
   My feelings toward this heavy air of eeriness about me—
   Nearly as heavy as the insignificance in the noose of the tree—
   A decomposed mutilation of all that is good, hung for all to see—
   A shriveled neck and half-dissolved eyes that still long to be free—
   The blood long lost, the body now pale—why does it stress?
   Why is life in its eyes, why does it shrug off Death’s caress?
   And as the sun is fully blotted by the black clouds, unfatigued,
   A hot stench like the enhancement of rotten fruit—yet I am intrigued—
   Descends upon me with the force of a vise equipped with knives—
   ‘Tis the horror of what only the spirits of the dead can contrive.
  
   And visions—horrible visions!—overwhelm me and present terrors:—!
   Rain steadily falls and patters incessantly upon an accursed Earth;
   Surrounding the hanging man are graves—and so begins the second birth:—!
   The tombstones crack and crumble into hundreds of jagged stones;
   An earthquake manifests quickly, and violently rattled my bones
   And remorselessly disembowels the Earth of the trees’ roots;
   Suddenly far more prominent is the awful stench of the fruits;
   An unsettling revelation is brought to my undivided attention:
   The tombstones’ collapse and the earthquake are not in relation,
   But the earthquake is a result of monsters unleashing their power.
   And the tombstones—but what of the tombstones’ fall?
   Startled, I see that replacing the hanging man is a voodoo doll,
   Dancing with its tiny limbs and smiling nonstop, locking its black eyes
   On my horrified self; I cringe and tremble in this demonic guise.
   A screeching note erupts from its unmoving mouth; it hovers in the air
   While I am frightfully dehumanized by the doll’s inexorable stare.
   While the screech lingers, the wet soil of the graves shifts quietly,
   The noise of splitting, wet dirt drowned out by the screech of cruelty.
   As it becomes clear the voodoo doll’s dance is one of conjuring,
   ’Tis revealed to me that the tombstones fell because of remembering:
   The dead do not believe they should be remembered, reflected upon...
   The second birth’s process is agonizingly long as I become wan.
   But before I nearly faint—and leave the visions—I receive an unwanted help:
   The doll’s gesticulations are directed toward me; even so, she raises Hell.
   My mind is frightfully clear to see all before me, and the dizziness has left.
   Oh, why these visions? Why with this horrible curse I am blessed?
  
   I am met with the most terrifying sight of all; my heart quickens.
   As the rain falls harder and begins to puddle, my blood thickens
   And very nearly ceases to flow as I watch the dead come to life.
   Gnarled fingers, some broken and some missing, ignore Death’s inflicted strife.
   Fingers—disjointed, protruding in random directions, treelike;
   Grime under the fingernails—fingernails, chipped or long spikes;
   Hardly any flesh on the old, ***** bones; muscles dripping off.
   Bodies, mutilated by natural decomposition, burst with raging coughs
   From the eviscerated Earth, black with age, red with dried blood.
   The dead, limping and holding what organs they still have, slip in the mud,
   Fall, fill their empty ribcages with it, and scream as limbs are torn away;
   Scream, as they are free from the grave, the path that led them astray.
  
   Oh, the feelings of dread that are eroding my scarred mind!
   What awful horrors have I stumbled upon, what did I find?
   One undead woman is staring at me with unfortunately soulless eyes;
   A few long hairs messily fall from her shriveled head, infested with flies,
   And her eyes—oh, her eyes!—are as small as raisins, wrinkly and white;
   They hover in her sockets, the skull only half-covered—pure fright!—
   With dead skin. Why is her toothless skull grinning mischievously?
   Is she enjoying my terror that leaves my trembling grievously?
   Abruptly, the still, deformed grotesquerie releases a sickening gurgle
   And violently shakes, as if under some overwhelming mental struggle.
   Her jaw falls open, unattended from the necessary muscles’ absence,
   And screaming laughter flows out of her agape mouth; malevolence
   Seeps from it in the form of pitchy black smoke and tightens the air.
   And all the while is still her unfailing, gut-wrenching stare!
   Her chest, dilapidated from the Earth's engulfment of her, explodes—
   A black skeletal hand, emerging from the body that was its abode—
   A demon, a black skeleton, blood gushing from its mouth, fire in its eyes—
   And tattered wings spread as the screamer takes to the hellish skies.
   It hovers around the dancing voodoo doll, circling her,
   Worshipping the smiling thing that was sewn with maleficence and fear.
  
   “But what are these things?” I ask as the undead congregate.
   “Is this how horrible life will be beyond Hell’s gates?”
   But it is made revealed to me that the people are eternal
   Inhabitants of Hell—Hell inside me; the spiritual realm is internal.
   “Why do they gather around the doll and bow in submission?”
   But, to my dismay, there is no answer to this deathly war of attrition.
  
   “Vultures!” I hear, a thunderous, wicked voice from up above.
   “You do not know what you are to believe, or what to love!”
   The dead dance in slow, uncoordinated movements, circling
   The doll. Even the shadows ominously flicker, no longer lurking.
   The black demon floats and gestures to the moaning dead,
   Beckoning them to rise from their permanent deathbeds
   To chant and flail their measly arms in worship of the voodoo.
   What have I done to be cast into this dangerous world askew?
   “You are a vulture, searching helplessly for something to feast
   “When the desperate hunger is turning you into the demons’ beast.
   “And when the food is gone, you search for your next dying idol.
   “For you, the inevitable conquest for falsities will never be final.”
  
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
  
   The room of a once peaceful dwelling is a victim of an apocalypse:—
   ‘Tis as if it has mutated into the imagery of a drug’s dangerous trip:—
   The walls are bent in, threatening to collapse under the pressure;
   Books are shredded, shelves are upturned, and obliterated is the dresser;
   Blood drips from numerous cracks in the ceiling and paints the walls.
   ‘Tis many moments of being awestruck before I realize the mirror calls.
   Vision is blurry, a hollow ringing sings, and my surroundings fade.
   My legs of jelly drag my heavy body into the dark hall’s shade.
  
   I yell at the sight in the cracked mirror, but my voice is painfully missing.
   It appears as if my entire face is losing its grip and is slowly slipping.
   Gravity’s grappling hooks have taken a strong hold and are pulling.
   The entirety of my eyes is almost visible from the disturbing lack of coverage.
   My jaw refuses to rise back up, as if the muscles have lost their leverage.
   It adds to the terror—how unsightly I am! How revolting!
   I am no longer human but an otherworldly, disgusting being!
   A scream that is not my own bursts from my agape mouth and shatters the mirror.
   It deafens my ears like a knife; I feel the fiery tearing of my vocal cords.
   “Vulture,” I vaguely hear but clearly curl my dry, thin lips to.
   “Go, find your food, find your idol, bathe in what you think is true.”
   Violently, desperately, crashing into walls with wild, uncontrollable limbs,
   I purposelessly search for the spirit that will welcome my immovable sins.
Yes, it's gory and has some disturbing elements in it, but I use these to instill certain emotions into the readers. On other forums, I'm known for how frankly I put my words, so if you enjoyed this, expect me to post more without being afraid to say anything.
Zero the Lyric Jan 2013
Hello again my cute little coy butterfly net
I know that with time you may fray and fret
Though I wonder at which it is you wake to yearn
To be re-woven by one's intricate concern
Or the display of versatile reverberant things?
I recall your temporary retention of those beautiful wings
Your cornice of vivid vitality forever vicarious
Are you- the gentle jailer, nervous ******, or simply fastidious?
Those lives that you catch into your fluttering heart,
I suppose they may change you when pinned and ripped apart
Whether that be or they are released to fly free
In what you have yet to see spins your sense of serenity
So forget them, when you remember your demure nature
For history is just a child caught in sincere nomenclature.




Shakespeare's Sonnet #9

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
   No love toward others in that ***** sits
   That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
Hadley Oct 2013
World shifts

I see truth in the cracks
Everything is beautiful

And you see everything

I don't know what we said
Heads spinning on the room
Looking at the moon
I drew and drew and drew

Beautiful Moon People is the only thing I remember you saying

I only remember tracing veins
and Squeezing hands

I trace your back
Someone tries to sleep
I have to deal with so and so tomorrow
Don't let tomorrow consume you
Tomorrow is tomorrow and now is now
You can only be sure of the present

or can you?

Melt swirl run turn
I see the universe
Alam kong maraming patalastas sa buhay ko,
Hindi naman yun ang mahalaga
Kundi ang istorya, yung kabuuan.

I know there's a lot of commercials in my life,
That's not important
But the story, the whole thing.

Alam **** maraming sakit at saya sa buhay ko,
Pero patuloy Mo pa rin akong sinusubaybayan.

You know there's a lot of hurt and happiness in my life,
But You're always there, monitoring me.

Kapag hindi mo gusto ang mga nakikita mo,
Pinapatay Mo ako o kaya lumilipat Ka sa iba
Hindi dahil ayaw Mo na sa akin,
Pero dahil hindi Mo kalooban ang eksena.

When what you see doesn't please You,
You're killin' me or simply changin' Your route
Not because you dislike or hate me,
But because it really isn't Your will.

Pero hindi Mo ako iniwan
Pinapansin Mo pa rin ako.
Pinagtitiyagaan hanggang sa matapos ang eksena
At muling aabangan.
Ganoon pala ang pakiramdam
Salamat sa importansyang inagkaloob Mo
Kusa **** ginagawa ang lahat,
Hindi ako perpekto pero hindi ko alam,
Bat nandyan Ka pa rin para sa akin.

But You never had left me,
Your eyes were always on me.
Pursuing me until the shifts and end of scenes
And will still wait for me.
So that's how it feels
I thank You for the importance You're showing me
It is Your initiative to do every thing.
I ain't perfect but I still don't know,
Why for me, You're still there.

Salamat, Panginoon.

*Thank You, Lord.
Kelsea Woods May 2015
I'm setting out on the good road
Don't know where it's going
The sages from across the years
Conditioned me not to fret
For a warrior never knows
What will happen next

I'm following the good road
With a fighting spirit
Powered by a needless compass
Driving straight into my chest
To the glowing space
Tucked behind my center left ribs

The good road runs through me
Right to the strumming strings
That bring light to my eyes
And color to my cheek

I'm out on the good road
It's paved with miraculous shifts
Illuminated under a boundless sun
That warms everyone I meet

I'll be traveling the good road a while
Don't know where it's going
I've got to keep moving on
Then I'll make it there
This work by Kelsea Woods is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Micah May 2013
The awake hummingbird flits,
At speeds beyond imagination over dark daisies and roses,
Little Pearls unerringly grow in deep ocean sands,
Concealed behind deceiving waters from the times of Moses.

A wobbling chair shifts on the glistening porch,
By the sands that move with the soul of the azure sea,
Where Calypso sits nestling the locket of the man she will lose tonight,
All of creation moves with her sobs in perfect harmony.

In the vistas of far reaching coconut trees,
The wind rushes to and fro,
Concocting a strange chilling melody,
A song that the seagulls forgot; that now only the ancient spirits know.

These notes that precede and proclaim the farewell that is to come,
Once again trapped within the confines of her paradise,
Calypso will cry once more when the man she had loved would have to go,
Deep within her aching heart without any comfort, her tears would have to suffice.
Calypso in Greek mythology was the daughter of the evil titan Atlas. After the war between the Titans and the gods, Calypso was detained to island of Ogygia to live in isolation for eternity. Even though she wasn't evil she was punished for her father's sins.

In the recent fiction novel series "Percy Jackson", Percy, a demi-god (son of Poseidon and a human) is trapped on the island. Where Calypso falls in love with him but he has to leave as early as possible. So Calypso for the second time in her long life is forced to let go of the hope that she would at last have a companion.
Martin Narrod Aug 2015
[on the verge of a cry]

Darling penguin,

you've brought me here yet again. whether we writers are on the page of paper, Moleskin, notebook, website, or smartphone, here again you have brought me. Having just lit another cigarette, drinks and drugs and smoke and music are in this place you've brought me with these ***** fingers pounding away into a bluetooth keyboard as the long lonely nights I've taken to find you melted away the keys of my computer ash and burnt plastic have taken to so many letters: H, command, I, R, and D too. I have a fixe and it won't be cured alone. I've been on so many lines and numbers, and I keep trying, and I'll tell you some people might consider these women absolutely marvelous, but to me, they too often prove to be nothing more than the hollow engravings of tales told too often, and where am I with you?

I'm cracking my knuckles again, and it's so ******* hot in here. Morphs, subs, percs, and oxys, pain and agonizing pain. And I'm growing a beard and mustache, very soft hair for you to nestle into when we move into the house in Evanston. I've been touching my lips with these ash stained fingertips drafting your lips upon mine, while the piceous nexus of this cold untouched skin shifts restlessly in the drear and yellow light of another sad and melancholy hour away from my arms around you, abreast and grinning with excitement, contentment, contagious glee. i bring my clean soft fingerds through the strands of aurulent glistening gold hair of yours and press my mouth into the crown of your head, the temples of your face, and your face presses into mine, and it's 1:41am and these eyes wander endlessly around this room ******* down carcinogens and poison, holes in these jeans, black denim tapered cut, your black leather studded cuff around my right wrist and the peace beads a wandering monk granted to me with a gold card and a bow while amassing friends in the herds of people gathered in line to go into Lollapalooza. I am brimming over with excitement, even for the taste of dog feces in the cigarettes(I will brush of course), you are my event horizon, my vessel of light beams, lasers, and the most immense love for which of course more than a dozen different writings attempt to share with others and imbue the world to even come close to the extraordinary magnanimous love and adoration unto the both of us, but between ourselves especially.

Earlier this evening I was speaking to Elizabeth on the propensity of how valuable having a soulmate really is, not to say the words but to know the person, to know you in the full grace and integrity of what that means. I was saying how with you, there is no one or many or anything about you that disturbs me or that I could find gross or that could keep me from wanting to be close to you. That no matter how sick you could get or **** it- what I was saying is that I love you so much I want you to spit in my mouth, smear every part of your body against every inch of my body. I want to smell, taste, touch, and see all of you that there is, to sit again and stand again and stand up and sit down just ******* staring forever in the most beautiful enchanting, ethereal, and beloved face I have ever seen. And if I must I would carry you over molten lava, burning steel, broken glass, but instead I think we ought to go to Half Moon Bay, and while the chill is in the air, and it's just you and me my love, we can dance in the surf and kick the water at each other. Because the continental plates will always be moving, the water will move to grow and surge and swell and turn to clouds and back to raindrops and precipitate life and govern this planet, but I will always be governed by our amatory interconnectedness and how perfervidly passionate and over the top I am and always will be about you. I will give the world to you, so long as I can love you for as long as I live.
Jonathan Witte Oct 2018
Evening docks
like a desolate ship,
indigo and monolithic,

its umbral sails
swelling above
the distant hips of
a titanic continent.

Sleep tastes like a mossy anchor;
it lurches, shifts, and slips into gear—
the sound of stars grinding on stars.

I sail across an ocean of teeth.

I acquiesce. I drown

in the velvet
whirlpool of
your absence.
white walls,
solid empty,
begging to be a canvas.
silent,
ominous,
echoing and reverberating
with the slowly dropping pins of my mind.

lights out,
i call and everything shifts to overdrive.
my pulse is through the roof,
the beating has moved to my ears
as if to drown out the silence.

i'm wondering when the panic stops.

i'm searching for any thing
that bears resemblance to that which is dreamt.
dreams so often confused,
misconstrued,
bent at will to provide us with the most pleasing ideas.
time will only pass,
its up to me,
to us,
to usher them
and

it

is

still

so



EMPTY

— The End —