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Test Ting Won To Tree
By
Charles Fleischer







Rifleman decal water is to Tiny basket liners as Strained yo-yo string is to?
Dark wool glowing is to Oldest lost oddity as First genetic engine is to?
Black quail taint is to Nut curdled paint as Hemp biscuit dominoes are to?
Steam traced paper is to Lemon ash vapor as Digital ****** wig is to?
Eccentric brine mimes are to Electric silk slacks as Spark formed lava is to?
Sunchoked black hornets are to as Rescued orphan doves as Retold cat jokes are to?
Hand traced videos are to Braided rubber spines as Opal rain dancers are to?
Halogen anchor gong is to Annoying bread portraits as Soft bracelet lockers are to?
Old troll bios are to Select cherub echoes as Broken matchstick parasols are to?
Dome nine chariots are to Frayed lunar remnants as Fuming honey flasks are to?
Bluing assault operas is to Beading fluted flowers as Magnetic lawn tweezers are to?
Converted flea sponges are to Floating dog murals as Frozen Archie comics are to?
Molded road pads are to Crusty gumdrop thread as Straw ribbed pelicans are to?
Inflatable diamond vowel is to Single gender raffle as Groovy desert coffee is to?
Temporary solution radiation is to Idiotic witness mumble as Motorized marshmallow kit is to?
Panoramic utopian paranoia is to Aggravated **** silhouettes as Unhinged gun sellers are to?
Homesick ghost pajamas is to Virtuous fly fungus as Royal sandpaper gloves are to?
Gangster hayride tickets are to Deer milk Oreos as Turnip fairy maps are to?
Glue gun **** is to Nocturnal cabin mice as Cab fare corn is to?
Speckled fish nickels are to Under water bric-a-brac as Epic snakeskin paisley is to?
******* bungalow pranks are to Drowsy vapid oafs as Quantized cavern fish are to?
Raunchy snail kimono is to Coiled time dice as Smeared equator malt is to?
Metallic centaur franchise is to Transparent cheese chess as Spotted glacial remnants is to?
Sky fused pong is to Rustic mothers brattle as Granulated canister ointment is to?
Overgrown maze mule is to Mated smugglers hugging as Floating thesaurus exam is to?
Sliding coed sprinkler is to Soapy whitefish rebate as Precious lamb diaper is to?
Mushy acorn luster is to Lilac protein rings as Slapstick wrestler dialect is to?
Freaky plankton bells is to Rolling horse divorce as Morphing morphine lips are to?
Sticky razor sparkle is to Emerald muscle spasm as Glaring cat cipher is to?
Peppy unisex mustache is to Pelican fighter syndrome as Clumping night grumble is to?
Scanning paired pearls are to Ruby rubbed roaches as Satanic sailor flotsam  are to?
Glowing asteroid solder is to Ideal shark data as Failed frail doilies are to?
Numb nuts boredom is to Fantastic icy phantoms as Sporadic silk creations is to?
Crooks crow chow is to Loading spackled bonder as Gargled snowdrop blasters are to?
Outdid myself today is to Outside myself again as Outlived myself controls is to?
Venting shuttlecock upset is to Texting badminton kitten as Settler tested motels are to?
Prepare paired vents is to Prefer paid events as Pretender predicts fiction is to
Crunchy mental fender is to Catching mentor menace as Poorly seasoned lettuce is to?
Outside sidewalk inside is to Seaside outcast input as Sideways landslide victory is to?  
Compile fake password is to Compost world poo as Compose village anthem is to?
Crooked crotch blunder is to Loud crowd thunder as Divine vine finder is to?
Chucks’ wooden truck is to Bucks good luck as Sticky ducks tucked is to?  
Overhaul underway overseas is to Overturned downsized pickup as Underground onramp overloaded is to?
I’ll bite there is to Aisle byte their as Isle bight there is to?
Gnat gnawed wrist is to ***** show beans as See through putty is to?
Flapping floppy guppies are to Buzzing zipped dozers as Muddy ****** strippers are to?
Dark diagonal dialogue is to Diabolical dihedral die as Interesting circadian exposition is to?
Experimental flossing expectations are to Waxed dental traps as Permanent impermanence resolution is to?  
Outran ringside intrigue is to Sidetracked onboard boatload as Loaded firearm topside is to?
Phony ****** phone is to Chewy ego honey as Yogi Mama’s dada is to?
Nimble teardrop squiggle is to Humble cage curtains as Loyal truckstop morals are to?
Torching curled elastic is to Sonic neighbor clamor as Golden droplet integers are to?
Duplex pupil scanners are to Nacreous cloud clocks as Shrouded flute shops are to?
Lawn rocket tendrils are to Finding surreal borders as Sheep monarchs children is to?
Gloating ungloved squires are to Busting double doubters as Pushing woeful doctors are to?
Tricking snowbelt firedogs is to Panmixing blackened haywires as Unclothed shameful leaders are to?
Malicious ranch ritual is to Internal puppet bubble as Ornate underworld masquerade is to?
Rustic debonair Eskimos are to Mindless sassy elves as Gorgeous somber acrobats are to?
Learned earthy pimps are to Fearless sneaky Queens as Somber gentle vagrants are to?
Shocking horse wear is to Glossy sled fluid as Damaged chipmunk tongue is to?
Traditional agony chart is to Damp voodoo motel as Backwoods museum quote is to?
Magical cat cabin is to Dapper porpoise humor as Malicious graveyard foam is to?
Therapeutic gazelle cushion is to Stored alibi equipment as Stunning tempo light is to?
Fantastic rascal art is to Wasted prune dust as Jupiter’s ****** law is to?
Little nut razor is to Gigantic hyena shield as Hourglass pillow fever is to?
Coiled rain clouds are to Dizzy tycoon clowns as Lime eating cowards are to?
Possessive epicurean demonstrators are to Faded eavesdropping giants as Determined swanky drunks are to?
Aquatic preview pocket is to Soggy judicial topiary as Finicky hamster fabric is to?
Enlarged fruit cuff is to Obedient mumbling orchestra as Dark tenant tariff is to?
Recycled flash thermometer is to Botched temptation probe as Pet glider grid is to?
Seriously shy idols are to Costly driving perfumes as Ferryboat chapel wine is to?
Winged jalopy details are to Faithful spectral fathers as Sprinkled mint rainbows are to?
Spelling unneeded words is to Sprouting donut ***** as Blaming mellow mallrats are to?
Eroding loom keepsake is to Magnificent accordion canoe as ***** bongo fumes are to?
Souring violet ink is to Juvenile insult park as Periodic ferret envy is to?
Obedient boyfriend aroma is to Sanitized fat lozenges as Dramatic jailer garb is to?
Mysterious patrol group is to Dynamic maiden discharge as Captured hurricane ratio is to?
Lackadaisical bigot bingo is to Oblong care merchant as Expensive swamp shampoo is to?
Petite orifice worship is to Atomic barge pet as Plucked hair exhibit is to?
Elite officer wallop is to Automatic yard rake as Healing ****** glitter is to?
Needless swan costume is to Giant jungle goat as Organic picnic napkin is to?
Leaky jet steam is to Innovative fascist whistle as Enchanting idol evidence is to?
Plastic mascara seduction is to Greasy thermal ointment as Attractive muskrat crease is to?
Lucky camel pills are to White coral Torah as Eternal stage clutter is to?
Roasted oat **** is to Sloppy *** glue as Nylon table debt is to?
Steep nook catastrophe is to Empty dome damage as Pulsing breeze powder is to?
Empty sack power is to Hitched buck stroke as Red claw warning is to?
Ultra brief slogan is to Yummy lab mutant as Pathetic ball armor is to?
Nauseating fish splatter is to Obstinate ****** twitch as Strained ***** coffee is to?
Mezzanine intermission fossil is to Proven **** apathy as Golden duck shroud is to?
Civil tutors torment is to Thor’s posted theory as Yellow melon rain is to?
Immense olive raft is to Exploding kangaroo buffet as Ethereal witness index is to?  
Marching dark speeders are to Searing scribble fighters as **** tripping sinners are to?
Seeping viral angst is to Aged hermit tea as Murky bowl nibble is to?
Condensed blister guzzle is to Pink dorsal pie as Lavish speckled runt is to?
Needy insult poet is to Sedated acorn trader as Dry honey zoo is to?
Veiled trust flicker is to Deranged poser fashion as Flat sizzle tangent is to?
Purified diet spray is to Nebulous wishing target as Thrilling screen dope is to?
Majestic ribbon astronomy is to Bizarre formation sector as Rebel bell gimmick is to?
Sealed dart whisper is to Green silk draft as Cold vacuum varnish is to?
Clumsy raven power is to Insect island circus as Minted mink drapes are to?
Curved map ruler is to Tiny lethal radio as Blue fused metal is to?
Inverted laser invasion is to Damp sheep dump as Puffy gown smoke is to?
Saucy Channel blazer is to Leather goat filament as Starched locomotive hat is to?
Broken jumper leads are to Disgraced mini exorcists as Designer shamrock caulk is to?
Tweaked poachers smokes are to Assorted sulfur pathways as Collected bedlamp trickle is to?
******* bungalow pranks are to Drowsy vapid oafs as Quantized cavern fish are to?
Crawling battle worms are to Vibrating metal pedals as Mentholated matrix wax is to?
Missing meshed rafts are to Liquid rock pipes as Crinkled bean bikinis are to?
Tithing **** joggers are to Perforated buck fronds as Leather zither picks are to?
Fearing truthful cowards is to Rambling preachers mumble as Gazebo ambulance gasoline is to?
Shelving elder’s whiskers is to Poaching goalies pesto as Radical tricycle angst is to?
Mucky gunboat polymer is to Primeval maypole flameout as Cathedral greenhouse intercom is to?
Diaphanous safety prize is to Unleashed saucer lion as Dorky blonde ropewalker is to?
Tapered spring meter is to Silver silo mythology as Misguided judges medallions are to?
Alligator x-ray money is to Cherry unicorn water as Coyote cactus toy is to?
Cowardly dorm scrooge is to Atomized pewter script as Flattened spore smoothies are to?
Trash can yodel is to Flashing wired spam as Exploding chocolate pudding is to?
Sonar blasted bushings are to Threading ruined wheels as Forty shifting boxes are to?
Tiny balloon rebellion is to Softened square cleanser as Iconic soul sucker is to?
Harmony night light is to Spanish nitrogen desire as Squirrel cavern iodine is to?

Lazy winter secret is to Slow airport widget as Silly mustard binder is to?
Elephants raising raisins are to Microscopic lamb planet as Purple hay puppets are to?
Caribou venom vaccine is to Electronic lemonade choir as Demonic princess massage is to?
Beet coated bridge is to Fattened needle point as Mylar monkey spine is to?
Ashy ink dust is to Youngest rabbi planet as Orange cartoon geometry is to?
Cold green chalk is to Cobalt ladder farce as ***** river filters are to?
Sublime sheep master is to Sleeping past rapture as Subliminal bliss jelly is to?
Ocean crust slippers are to Twigged germ radar as Popping sharpie scope is to?
Zen wrapped beep is to Oak foamed code as Wicked flashing sizzle is to?
Dew eyed sleigh is to Say I do as Act as me is to?
Humpback on hammock is to Ham hocking hummer as Hunchback with knapsack is to?
Corned flag jelly is to Draped wing chewers as Tripping swan acid is to?
Futuristic Rembrandt chant is to Almond likened meadows as Asian timber blue is to?
Nap in sack is to Flap on Jack as Ducks dig crack is to?
Flowing flavored lava is to Gleaming optic layers as Enhanced goose gibberish is to?      
Flag tied pajamas are to Saline checker choir as Speed reading quotas is to?
Whipped spam spasms are to Misted shaman scripture as Testing pitched bells is to?
Cave aged eggs are to Crowded tiger cages as ****** wagon pegs are to?
Pigeon towed car is to a Man toad art as Wolf whisker wish is to?
Second hand clothes are to Minute hand gestures as Final hour prayer is to?
Slick wicked shavers are to Tricky watch boxes as Sprouting pine tattoos are to?
Waxed stick ravens are to Match stick foxes as Narrowed thermal towers are to?
Ice cave rice is to Laced face lice as Gourmet pet **** is to?
Diamond lane anniversary is to Space age appropriate as Time travel agency is to?
Lime bark violin is to Lemon twig guitar as Lunar sky waffles are to?
Fake rat **** is to Smart cake batter as Rugged fur tax is to?
Tarred raft fluff is to Flaked rafter dust as Lined liquor flask is to?
Flakes will fall is to Take Bills call as Broken maze compass is to?
First faked voter is to Entombed cartoon honey as Smallest aching smurf is to?
Fancy bared ******* are to Flaky fairy treats as Kings amp filter is to?
Bone window folio is to Whittled fake pillow as Little fitted jackets are to?
Nine nuts brittle is to Ate pear pie as Six packed poppers are to?
Incandescent playground pencil is to Elastic hand worm as Perfumed piano ink is to?
Opal shifting anode is to a Windup lion decoy as Pale paisley trolley is to?
Stacked black boxes are to Old packed tracks as a Throwing micron hammers is to?
Apricot bark furnace is to Merry Orchid Choir as an Ivory rinsing funnel is to?  
Narcotic honey nuts are to Slick flag toffees as Silk fig sugar is to?
Orange coin raisins are to Low note candies as Smelling balled roses is to?
Pocket packed monotints are to Tragic ladder hayracks as Ravishing speed traders are to?
Crayon spider resin is to Coral squirrel forceps as Wolf tumbled loaf is to?  
Silver wheat flies are to Width shifting wheels as Golden blister blankets are to?
Really tiny hippopotamus is to Masked fat podiatrist as a Sad sack psychiatrist is to?
Miniature Mesopotamian monuments are to Apple minted elephants as Raising wise ravens is to?
Lathered nymph nacre is to Sonic ion constellations as Concealed iron craft is to?  
Epic gene toy is to Ladies bubble sled as Jagged data bowl is to?
Bugged dagger bag is to Pop sliced meld as Atom bending moonlight to?  
Rural madam’s deed is to Dyed dew dipper as Eight sprayed dukes are to?
Jiffy grand puffer is to Floating altar myth as Vintage dark mirth is to?
Undercover overnight underwear is to Overpaid undertaker overdosing as Overheard understudy freebasing is to?

Black grape crackle is to Red cactus ruffle as Installing padded pets are to?
Snide snobs sniffing are to Sneaky snails snoring as Snared snipes sneezing are to?
Exploring explosive exits is to Explaining expansive exports as Expecting expert exchange is to?
Shrewd logic ledger is to Puppets dropping cupcakes as Placated topaz octopi are to?
Door roof tools are to Cool wool boots as Wood cooked root is to?
Bright fight light is to Night flight fright as Mites bite site is to?
Floor flood fluid is to Wooden door Druid as Nasty **** broom is to?
Accurate police photography is to Intelligent microbe geography as Condensed aerosol biography is to?
Cowardly cowboy grime is to Corpulent corporate crime as Bosnian dwarf necromancer is to?
Jell-O clearing shaker is to Brillo cleaning shiner as Cheerios bowling shields are to?
Mumbled mindless hokey is to Fumbled found money as Humming kinder bunny is to?
Daisy’s clock setter is to Lilly’s boxer toxin as Poodles rose paddle is to?
Watch Bozo Copernicus is to Hire Clarabelle Newton as Find ***-wee Einstein is to?
Amethyst thistle whistles is to Lapis pistol whip as Diamond bomb scar is to?
Dandelion seahorse rescue is to Crabapple dogwood farm as Faux foxglove lover is to?    
Optical poppy stopper is to Polar halo lens as Day-Glo rainbow sticker is to?
Savanna leopard spotted is to Eskimo lassos kisses as Alligator lemonade standard is to?
Bill of Rights is to Will of left as Thrill of night is to?
Baptize floozies quickly is to Useless outsized nozzles as Puzzled wizard wanders is to?        
Chaps wearing chaps are to Chaps contesting contests as Consoling concealed consoles is to?
Quiet squirming squirrels are to Aeon beauty queens as Queasy greasy luaus is to?
Knew new gnu is to Sense scents cents as We’ll wheal wheel is to?
Blazing zingers ringing are to Wheezing singers flinging as Freezing finger number are to?
Lamb tomb jogger is to Dumb numb **** as Thumbed crumb bug is to?

Blue accordion casket is to Jaded scholar ***** as German mushroom circus is to?
President George Flintstone is to Funny Fred Washington as Abraham Jetson’s dog is to?
Google Desmond Tutu is to Kalamazoo Zoo Park as Zodiac actors Guru is to?
Swamp cradled whisperer is to Cherished drawbridge cello as Bludgeoned prankster outlaws are to?
Dukes pink mittens are to Smeared nest carava
The desert was flat you could never tell
that below where you stood
was a military bunker and missile silo
from a time years passed
built here on this lonely barron latitude
that had a bad attitude!

An everlasting reminder of mans ingenuity
negative approach to peace
of times that have gone but do still exist
creation of terror and destruction
yet for many this factor has disappeared
to die is no longer feared!

Thinking foolishly that all conflicts will end
is only in dreamers minds
always there simmering the spark of war
lay in wait in human culture
where somebody is ready to light the flame
so conflicts in history doth remain!

The Silo is but one symbol of the ****** past
forever on humans the shadow cast!

The Foureyed Poet.
indi Aug 2022
No one we knew had climbed the old grain silo in our town.
Hands clinging to rusty metal, I rose
Up and up with my cousin
The cold air biting our skin
Watching the ground below us get farther and farther away
of grass and packed dirt.
We would slip up once or twice,
my cousin’s leg kicking out from its hold
My clammy hand losing grip.
We climbed up and up,
feeling hundreds of feet tall.
hearts beating fast against the ladder.
She got up first, hoisting herself onto the platform
I followed, carefully manoeuvring onto the
creaky metal. We had done it.

It was right in front of us- the sprawling grass fields
peppered with barns and houses and the occasional tractor
spreading like a flood into the forest.

My cousin nudged me, pointing at the house
whose property the silo sat on.
A tiny man opened the door, walking all the way
until he was right below us.

We laid, bellies flush against the metal
Barely daring to breathe.
I tried to remember who’s idea it was to climb this thing,
who wanted it first.
It was me.

Squeezing my eyes shut,
I heard his steps retreat.
We waited for what seemed like hours to get down
And silently promised to never go back.

Now, the silo sits there, fully abandoned,
Inhabited by a barn owl,
Cooing echoing through it-
What was once a dare has become a home.
Waverly Nov 2011
"Have you talked to dad,
since you've been at school?"

"Nope."

"Are you coming home
for thanksgiving?"

"I don't know."

Josephina
breathes in a crackle
over the phone.

New York,
a cacophony
in the background.

A background of cold,
and
people talking
while walking
while hailing a yellowcab with a left
and slow-rolling heads locked
onto the phones in their right.

These people enter taxis,
not knowing if they're ever
going to reach home,
or the airport,
or union square,
just going
on the promise
that they won't become
road-****.

I can't feel it in my yellow apartment.

If anything,
my yellowcab
idles.

Through the receiver

A squad car
rings nervously,
then
after a lungful
of garbage-smelling air,
it becomes a full blare.

A pause
of
noise
always ensues,
just for a second,
the entire corner
becomes a silent silo
of human beings.

"How's new york?"

"you know,
dad called me
and asked about
how to get on a diet,
can you believe that?"

Yes,
I can
dad is a fat ****,
a pink, white belly
of a man. And a few
sandbags for chins.

"That's good."

"So I'm not going to see you?"

"Probably not."

"Well, you should call dad,
talk to him,
he loves
you."

Some conversations,
acheive nothing.

The same
tired, dead things
get run over.

Road-****.

Josephina believes she is the spatula
that will bring back
pancake squirrels
and
pancake relationships.

As much as you don't know
about me and dad's relationship,
I can give you a kodak moment.

A snapshot,

of a hovering man,
pointing at his son's neck,
searching for the misplaced vertebrae,
the lack
of fear for the world
--"the right kind of fear,
the fear a man
should have
of himself"--
and a son,
hunched,
small hands in fists,
a heavy haul of muscles
pulled into a dark brow
right over black eyes.

This picture
will suffice.
there's too much to this poem. Sorry if it loses you in places.
Dustin Holbrook Aug 2012
++every now and then i’ll look again
out an opposite window to see
the same things, in the same light
i asked for peace
and to fill my head with perspective
i’d look you in the eyes
but this recurring scenery
sets me back face down
where my eyes pierce the air
to the gouged and grave ground
the colorful bracelet i wear
doesn’t mean as much as i wish
you would
i’ll hang you so high
i’ll hang you from a street light
if it meant you’d be there
but we don’t have many of those around here
i guess the silo
would fit your ego
and the tractor will knock it down
to be collected and fed to the world
...
if i ever got the chance
to make my way to the moon
the only place
where you haven’t been found
i’d write your name in the dust
like atop the mountain
where we made love
but the wind was hot that day
and the woods blocked the sound
of the fault giving way
to our blanket and our bodies
so we dove deep down
where i’ve stayed until today
i’ve lived and breathed
all the air beneath the seas
in an open field where i cut my knees
the grass breaks to wheat
i was either born again or realized home was dead
and the high school i attended
tried to coat the walls in my tongue too
put a pump jack to my lips
tried to surface the words i said
but i’ll say it again, i’m mine until i’m dead
don’t make me say it again, i’m mine until i’m dead

++in italy, where all the roads are made of dirt
the pebbles make a sound
and whisper the rest of what we know
to the gouged and gravel ground
your fingers touch the stones
where your mind seems to seep
down into the earth
and back up through your teeth
your hair is cut so short
compared to what it was
your arm is torn to tethers
that keep your body bound
leather like the face of love
so beaten like the wooden screen
...
through and through, and threw
your scarf
into the wind
into the snow
bright beaming colors wrap around your lips
and into the drain
around the brick
i’d wish for the patterns i sleep with
to be everything they could
in the sense that light won’t ever slow
so pace yourself against the wind
the gears will turn as you type them in
the hammers have been built
and the hand shakes have been firm
coordination isn’t key
but opens the door to the fighting alone
but i’ll say it again, i can make it on my own
don’t make me say it again, i can make it on my own

++i want a movie inside my mind
like the arms of her dress
burying books in the sand
on a black, flat stage
on every morbid wednesday
(the beach blonde scars
on every bleach blonde head)
your face looks squished
from the weight of your brain
juggles ignorance
i’ve done things i regret
but wouldn’t take back
that’s called sorry
it’s all called something sorry
...
like blue synthesis capsules
full floating, flying
lick the side to make sure tiles flow
automatic black glass
opaque lights
glowing blue lines keep the glue on tight
hospital bracelets keep your archetypes
fatherly fatherly fatherly hugs
inside the apartment
kicking the front steps
porches absent on our heads
your green t-shirt
taken off quickly
and faded blue jeans
with no belt to lock them
ready and not waiting for no one to jump in
off the dock in new jersey
at the palisades cliffs
i felt the back of your neck just before your lips
the scars from your dad melted away
they morphed into something pretty
and i remember you gripped
on the wood where we sat
and all my dead cells begged to be brought back
as we both looked into the other
a blue blanket and a pillow too white to be confused
with anything other than something owned by you
apart so quickly, laid content and prepared
to wake up and die
like any sane person would do
(for us the tiny grains of sand meet the hanging paper lamps
lines next to curves next to lines
is a way to write what we said)
but i’ll say it again, i’ll never give in
don’t make me say it again, i’ll never give in

++clear plastic ridges
painted a lovesick sky
(cut the sun with the branches
your eyes, your eyes, your eyes)
timidly timidly timidly
you said look at the moon
but i’d rather see you
your face looks better sideways
like the way you walk
outside when the moons orbit the halo
you never folded up
or tried to conceal inside
like the treaty you signed
around the insulation
that dampers your thought process
that dictates your walking steps
(love and LSD
blood and rusted trees)
on top of the world
falling through the streets
the scents are the same
and remind me of safety
that i applied to the dimension of the squared and faulty
lines
buy i’ll say it again, i hate that you’ve absorbed others’ dreams
don’t make me say it again, i hate that you’ve absorbed others’ dreams

++(i would like to smell a pool)
i think we lost it all
but it happened while we lost ourselves
or we’re knitted together perfectly
so we’ll never understand the whole scheme of things
i wish you’d tell me everything
you’ve become a mold that all your friends will fit into
the opposite of trees
we will **** it down through our feet
(not through our teeth)
I will wear my bandana once again
blue stained gold
even your hair has lost most of the effect
that it had on my soul
colorado was a place to remember
where i remember you most
even though we never went there alone
should i be glad i no longer feel the pain
or sad it’s not there?
because what that entails is me  not caring
and forgetting that you even forgot
you’re forgetting how it felt
you remind me of my dad
how every thing’s connected
and you stay away from the earth
and touching the ground
and we know i’m intuitive
so it means something when i say things
it means i’m right on some phase
or some plane of things
don’t tell me you’re not falling because i’ve seen it too many times
to mistake it for anything other
than what the passed over people do
it’s hard to look forward
and tougher to take a step
part of finding what you want is saying it’s there
but catch up into the trailer
fibres into the helium we wear
the generations have not been remembered
...
(the murals on the walls fade to intersectional colors)
...
primary walks into a green room
and says we’ve never made a thing
to make our lives better
and he talks about what’s underground
he talks about the padding on the seats
how that’s where we should’ve stopped
we’ve been backwards since the beginning
we’ve been backwards from the start
but i’ll say it again, i’m alive, i’m falling apart
don’t make me say it again, i’m alive and i’m falling parts
JL Oct 2011
But one day when futures are bright
And school children dress in Sunday best
Great Machines will rise above the smoke
Great Buildings will rise above the smog
Great Minds will remain buried deep in humming labs
Scientist and machines
Gears and cogs
Rusting in the fluorescent
Glow
Of progress

Boys will
Girls will
Fight the good fight
Of human being
The Kissing on each other
The Drugging with each other
Afternoons and jumped fences
Just to feel each others secrets


Boys will
Girls will
Be just as wrong
And just as bad
And will grow to say
Good boys and Good Girls Never do those things
Ma Cherie Oct 2016
Somewhere,
out in the middle of nowhere,
there is a space,
where bare bones performance's
are nightly taking place,
like theatre at its best,
thrilling energy
a chill in the air,
you are creating
unique worlds on a stage
& I hear it's all the rage
a modest audience,
captivating you are
so utterly charming and memorable,
I can get lost in your woods
in that beautifully familiar rural spot,
harvesting &
catching hay fever,
running through the barns
in empty old bays
of long vacant farms,
while the cattle graze placidly,
my usung heroes beckon,
along split rail fences,
haunting..
along the old railroad beds,
down unknown highways
& on little know by ways
& drifting in skyways
through the years & the tears
as the last of the Summer flowers,
bloom and bow their head,
in the rain & the pain,
and the words you gently hear
whispered softly in your ear,
spoke clearly to the sky
as they sadly say goodbye
& promised I wouldn't cry,
I listen to exactly what they said
as they are applauded for their stamina,
& bravery, as the chlorophyll,
chokes out the beauty
in everything else,
a way to take in the natural beauty,
**** a big breath in
& waiting to exhale,
I'm hiking home, ...
to my poetic theater,
with tables scattered  about,
& mushroom stools,
a wonderland of  creatures
around weaving arts,
threads spun in gold,
of my everyday life
again it  is told,
like in a romantic candlelit
dinner date,
we sit beneath an glowing
incandescent Moon,
we are a rare & lucid,
sighting, two stars
two colors merged
from a Gods crayon box,
or a well thought out picnic
with a very special friend
farm to table wonders
delicious in every way,
you close your eyes to dream,
& all you ever need,
is an element of trust,
a sense of adventure,
appreciating the sacrifices
the pleasure fills the air
I'm traveling past,
as is if without a care
swimming in the frigid clean
& cold waters,
rolling mountains protect me on every side
come along for the ride,
down grey gravel roads,
with the heaviest load,
where trees still have some color,
as the pines & ever-greens brag,  
& envious poison ivy,
climbs the silo
in burning fiery furnace red,
golden amber browns
& deep golden mustards
crunch beneath tires
as wood is drying out
& is readied for the fires,
beyond ****** meadows
& the bog where the Moose hide
that mysterious house,
perched pretty on the hill
weathered perfectly,
seasoned & mature,
looking wise & reminiscent,
of a different era,
and a show like this
would only cost 55 cents...
World War 2
in the Pacific just after it...
you moved to Vermont
and live like a hippie,
smoking our chimney
sitting silently
in classic melodious splendor,
a tune is playing
as wheat is swaying,
a fiddle, out in the middle
of my favorite fields
counting the bounty yield,
admiring the tractors parked
for the year
some think,
your just a farce
though I know the fear,
you're not a a travesty,
in shambles
your multi tone shingles
craving a dose of stain,
your old rocking chair
never earning the critical acclaim
you deserve & desire,
  so lovely in your period costume,
as you sit there,
with ease and comfort,
awaiting patrons,
with your zany characters,
with open doors & cracking windows,
a sadness radiating,
from a broken style,
looking out at everything
glad with a frozen smile,
waving at yesterday's poets,

Getting ready for another show
and time is now, for another snow,
your solid pane's,
cheering others on saying
"way to go"...
and if...

If you ever find this place,
you don't know exactly,
what all the fuss is about,

ignoring the change of weather
pulling out that old red sweater
coming to this wonderful,
magical time
a little homestead theater
generationally strong
and melodramatic
with perfect comic timing
a delight
in the night,
I'll happily play the housemaid
delivering a tray of tea
with honey and cream
answering the doorbell
inviting you in
have a seat
giving you something to eat
and this is my treat,
I'll gladly greet the guests
make them comfortable
at our beautiful little venue
our ***** little nest
as the curtains open and close
for the shows,
730 it comes and goes
in the center of my universe
caught in a time warp,
so much good fun and laughter
inspired moments in a perfect ensemble
cast by my ancestors,

I had no idea it would taste,
so amazing,
this bittersweetness,
and so very delicious
my feet ache...
worn,
tired, relieved at last
I am,
coming home to you,
at last I hear,
you say,
welcome back.

Cherie Nolan© 2016
Wow, idk inspired....
So beautiful love & life...could be... ; ):
Tiffany Case Apr 2011
Oizys, son
From behind the leaves, I saw you, trembling
In your presence, your power strengthening
In the empty, midnight parking lot
While the street lights hummed
And moths danced around your illuminated frame
You turned slowly, onyx eyes of shame
And dirtied bare feet, male hair long and white
The street lights flickered when you blinked and cried bitterly
And I saw, for my first time, the eyes of Misery

Achyls, daughter
You were in an empty field
No premonitions did you wield
An ancient silo in the distance
Leaning over a chasm black lamb
Dark skinned, dressed in black robes
With tribal painted face
Digging earthen fingers into its black lace
When you looked up, I saw your cloudy eyes
Churning of a storm, cataract yet wise
Your lamb had absent vapored eyeballs
The Mist of Death made my skin crawl

Hypnos, son
Secluded in a cave by the sea
A silent, empty place to be
While gray waves crash into jetties
The clouds gather in the distance
Poppies at the mouth changing time in an instance
I go in your palace and rub my cold skin
For pulsing blue glows from deeper within
You, a lanky youth, with thick brown hair and heavy eyes
Sit there with a paper mask
Illuminated by the penetrating glow
In the center, surrounded by whale bones
Humming a song I remember fondly
You trapped me in your Dreams, singing lullabies softly

Eris, daughter
Violates a bedroom with utmost hate
There are paintings of kings and statues of satyrs
Pillows of silk and animals on the walls
Usurping the gold clawed palace
Silent but kicking and throwing with malice
With black skin covered in a chalky white substance
I peek through the crack in the mansion’s door
Lips formed in a silent shout, you notice my presence
Naked and bruised and plagued with no voice
Suddenly stops and lays against a ****** wall
Through your electric black hair
And fiery red stare
I witness a Child of Spite
Woman of Strife

Nyx, mother
I am a crawling shadow of trees
And wicked heart of night
I am the wax on the cold leaves
And the glow of the moon’s light
Àŧùl Dec 2016
The beach should be so special,
I want to go to a beach with you.
I want us to go to a private beach,
And give you an Australian greeting.
My missile will touch your bombs,
And then make way to your silo,
The Australian greeting is ****.
HP Poem #1288
©Atul Kaushal
jimmy tee Mar 2014
foo
foo
step right this way
stripes
the curly haired whispers of long ago
dirt on the steppes of Maui
life and death
the boldness of breath
tea sets invented
natures idea of hooking
the falsehood of feelings
since you can sense the release of chemicals
into the gut from the gut
art is an effort
all roads are connected therefore lead nowhere
snowflakes
glaciers
the impossibility of a paper bag
well that’s why you got the people you do
blistered surfaces
invert
divert
subvert
magical marketing
lost time is all its good for
crawl
other beings
the past is as real as the now
the future not so much
look for answers under slimy rocks
headlights
mark the trail with crumbs
holiday pay eligibility
pig latin verse
loose lips sinks fish
headlines of tomorrow list all your deeds
originality pounds it out
a ground game if there ever was one
marginalized in a riotous way
burned
turned
spit shined shoes laced real tight
if you stayed this long you must get it real good
explanations spellchecked edited cast aside
meaning lost found lost and lost again
bury your words
measure the sun as a star
triangulate emotion in order to set free the main ingredient
the Bosporus the smallest gap imaginable
a wayward telephone number listed
a matchbook
adding depth to the photograph by controlling aperture
roulette craps poker slots Chinese checkers
numbers never end
gymnasium antics
mans best friend is a meateater
fall follows autumn in the southern hemisphere
three dimensions are all you need all you require
bomber
deny both the entity and the substance found ahead
synchronize your watch with mine
sand as a tonic baby oil pine
money buys packaged happiness
there was this guy named Shakespeare
opinion calls for differences version 2.0
you find the zoo to lead so very far
swing for the fences
jump rope skip sidewalk
ease
mow the concrete lawn from here to horizon
jump rope skip sidewalk
learn forget then act dumb
exit stage left
what is behind animal eyes big mystery
exponential units forge toward the final group session
king me
did the butler do it with the maid
how often is crying necessary
pound for pound the best boxer in the mid century bout of pneumonia
digital meanings end in analog discussions
legions of admirers blinded
where to turn when the lights are forever out
invest in mystery
disappoint those who will never know you
you know it
there is a dogma in need of a collar out there somewhere
temptation looms
the holy word of snowflakes delve into deep philosophy
but I always got along with everybody
why work
pituitary gland
announcing for the first time on record
prince spaghetti and salad extraordinaire
the alphabet ends in z
puddles form on distant planets that orbit toothless suns
men
loud music still comforts the savage beast
years like a tape measure stills the ragged poor children
never to be found never ever ever
solvent says eat thou peas
silo bag deliver us from the tall neighbor police
sidestep any issue involving toys
mounds of troubles can be climbed
Kansas wind also flows down the plain
think about it the sea is mostly under itself
plow
most things look better from behind
a major felony on your record
knowledge in the form of easy chew tablets
hounded by creditors bobby laid low
actors actresses chumps
results are mixed as the queen leaves daring long behind
punctuation fits into softly lit areas of the mind
stay loose
breakdown the door then apologize some more
I left home for this
mistakes are what we call experience
the smiles on bubblegum cards just as real
twenty dollars invested in nothing
pin air to itself
buy time sock it away watch it grow grow grow
cool is always enough for matty
god that guy could drink ant sanitation member into the ground
margins
leaves are raking themselves these days
so long in the past stood there with sled in hand
photographed by a grandfather clock
black envelopes glued by hand in an everlasting jump off point
poetry bound and gagged for fun and zero profit
movable type static feasts
in the groove piled high with the color that represents lament
fifty thousand big ones aint so big anymore
the river left town
cannon at the gate corded shot ingenious ways to destroy people
support the troops
he say one thing then did another wow does that hurt
memory votes early and often
nobody knows the troubled bean
it all hinges on my word being accepted
china feels so very close
the sea full of carp moistened in salt water ** boy o boy
Vermeer at the loom
the bronze age must have been heavy
time waits around the corner selling amphetamines
queer beings exit the saucer and head right for the local hobby shop
end game
paint as a medium large
pine scented maple trees win the prize
in my book the covers speak for themselves
close up to the camera waterfall
find the picture inside the cavity send help
amid ship is the place amid
of course some things are missing
ghost register to vote
went fishing came home with a tummy ache
spend your last dime see the world as it truly is
between avenue b and c there lies a small wombat
fend off the high climbing stairs that offer busy bees
mind the gaping hole that leads to oblivion ny
fog in my ear
steam punk can you believe it had to be invented
the f drive taketh away
sing a song about the street we used to chug a lug at
view my elbow rock
know thyself from the middle ages on toward the detail
love pander both you know
mom became tonnage displaced and torpedoed
you are very astute now quit it
this meeting is over like so many before it
collapse my finger into red colored dust
round up and whittle down the masthead
toothpick sized brains
its no bother at all fire away with logical pounds
page that squire knight the tree stand hunter in velvet horn
live as the yo yo
beat it now not later now before the sun sets far into the Japanese
planning a child check our bargain bins first then decide
overtime halts the easy chair
tiny
mounds clopping at the level of good mine
piles of good old fashioned nonsense
home grown
sunny side up way up
carry a friend everywhere you travel
knock
catch a rising star and keep it there
an alarming increase
happiness is a warm puppy
many are called but few are winners
put in your time split and repeat
wrinkles seem to be catching on
break the law go to *******
now is the time smack in the middle of touchy feely
mountain of jelly
pound of brown
highway exits in turning lane
polished sayings die in mid form
butterfly of course
bank on it twice
inform the theologian that grace is universal
one unit is enough to bounce the basket ball
larcenies are a regrettable offense for jumble minded
loud is the hammer of life by golly
inside
far away lies the land of nod no wait mod
never saw it coming
mud in your minds eye
clean up before the mess is tabled
throw away all hits
kong king
mondo longo pongo in delicate dancing
bear in mind that bares the soul to influence
set up the new roux
pint sized followers found via radio
fell asleep in wonder fat
knives sharpened better get a move on
loudly express a final punt
line one line two line three
when did farming become cold
newborn
disease jumps as the trampoline handles wind jammers
night can be fun but girls are more down there
love me back
mindful of the garter you can relax next year
backwards as a mean average statistical oops
venting hot gas adds to the thrill
is this thing on
swell
and and and and and and and
call the water department I am ready to fly
listen the goat will never know what hit him
long on flavor short on towels
company insists on a quaint meal of posies
behind a successful man is a chair of some kind
got milk
my friend can be talkative but never mind
rounded surfaces slip into nothingness a modern age affliction
we will escape scot free
badness baldness daily princess
puzzle in mind he left his denial on the riverbank
on the reindeer hoof we ride
specialty
how can it be hey baby that’s what we are here for right
the plays is not the thing
work your **** off then find the instruction manual
beep buzz bop
it appeared right there but is gone now
foo
Jeremyeckl Jul 2014
Johnny remembers the barn
He kissed his first cow in
It burned down two years ago

Johnny holds his head low
Pointing towards the floor
Pointing towards the door

He drinks homemade grape juice
And thinks about how odd
It is that we crush small things

And drink their blood

Johnny does not want to be crushed
He does not like the sinking feeling
He gets when he thinks about

The grey silo that still stands
By the dark patch of grass
That won't grow back again

He wishes the clock would stop
Talking at such a steady volume
Johnny has trouble sleeping

Ever since the barn burned down
You can't safely have a cigarette outside of the bus terminal
without a couple of folk asking for one.
You can't safely have a cigarette in general.
But, if five of them have to last you a night and a sunrise,
you don't really mind turning down a few nameless hands.
Some of the bus drivers like to talk about football, weather;
others complain about management or the patrons;
a few don't say much at all, avoiding sympathy.
They're probably the smart ones.
They don't want to learn the sad stories in between stops.
I usually like to just sit in the back and ride out the best bumps.
The handrails jiggle and crash with every pothole.
-
The men who work at the metal scrap yard
usually get on in front of Debbie's Diner on 22nd street.
Bundled up for warmth and firm of face, they only speak to each other.
Small talk about who almost missed the bus, broken crane joints,
and who moved the most barrels of copper piping fill the blocks.
They tend to pick on the guy who runs the aluminum can crusher;
big guy, they call him "Boose" and he couldn't be much older than I am.
His hands and lips are dry and cracked from exposure,
but his face still shows ember of teenage years, though jilted.
There is a bar that serves three-dollar chili across the street, spicy.
The workers go there when they miss the first bus, have a beer,
down a bowl of boiling chili, and catch the return bus in better moods.
-
The railroads on Brush College road tend to hold up traffic.
The ADM plant doesn't really mind if a few twenty-something mothers
are late to their practical nursing and phlebotomy classes,
but they voice their complaints out of a cracked window to the side
of a ten story soybean silo nonetheless; steaming ears and all.
I stare at the graffiti on the laggard train cars, each unique
in color, quality, style, and message; the industrial Louvre.
These waits sometimes last a half hour or more.
In the days before Pell grant rewards come in,
when students still feel like they're working toward tangible cash,
the seats are all packed with heavy breathers.
The air becomes thick with community college carbon coughs.
tlp
Trinity O Feb 2012
I never leave the West when it isn’t raining,*
My brother says to me through the phone.  
He is on his way back
over the Rockies and through Nebraska.
He’ll never make it intact—
hands fuse to the steering wheel
like nylons on a burn victim,
knees and elbows bolted in
precise angles keeping the car straight,
tires pulling everything forward.
One foot is the pedal, one becomes the floor mat.

Shoulder to armpit with a semi truck
hauling jet wings from Denver,
he notices the paths of rivets
like bread lines in Omaha.
Some of them are starving.

But where is the rest, the airplane body
without its wings? A hollow silo,
pilot in a cockpit
not going anywhere.  
I think airplanes molt this time of year.
It’s still raining or it will be,
the white-lined highways
will carry you here unscathed.
A L Davies Oct 2012
wednesday  ..
                      is faded black jeans/old white tank (too big) (hole from belt buckle centre front)

glass of water stuck into the rings left by past week's mugs of beer
sitting by the ashtray. and you are better than a nip of rye in the truck cab heading to work.
the dust in my lungs (wide open saskatchewan fields)
is not as important as watching the clouds stain purple with the sunrise
patting two gorgeous farm dogs who run over from behind a silo turned to bronze in the light
(there is an angel laying naked in the wheat grain)
to nip playfully at my calves while i unchain the derrick,
somewhere in my mind's recess it feels like i am loosing atlas from his *******
tho i do not register the thought until later upon waking from a nap.

saturday // 1:15:44 pm
i am in only briefs now working on a song/i clocked 4
                                                               ­                                       hrs greasing truck 1117 this morning and
hauling pallets.
daylene from dispatch brought in donuts.

i'll spend the afternoon listening to kanye and talking to women online.
—there are no girls in estevan. i have (kind of) looked.
                                                       sometimes i believe this to be pathetic but then i think further ahead
and it's not so bad.
you do really meet some nice girls. phone is replete with their numbers &
they keep me company on long rides to and from leases,
asking about work. hoping that i am well.
(once back home by christmas account will be deleted and i can
take them out at my leisure. you'll understand i hope that i am not
a desperate man. but one has to work with that which he has.
would you rather i go lonely? make my home in the mud to croon hank williams to crows?)
(temporality.)

15/10/2012
there are now three beer cans on the carpet & one on the washing machine by the
bathroom door which i will drink in the shower.
it was sort of a long day.
oil field poems though.
wordvango Jul 2015
his name, is gone his body was
found in a silo
the ******* missing.
A corn cob stuck up his ***.
It took a posse of Sherriffs
and three nuns and one priest
to locate him.
There was no reward , no bounty for his missing finger.
I guess they figured it was gone to hell.
His soul lingered around
that silo for weeks, though,
a smell like chicken **** fertilizer
they spread down here in bamalama
and remember
don't flip a cop off, either.
SWB Aug 2011
Consider the coffee cup in the bitter early morning
clutched by the weary, in the hands of the sleepwalker.
A Styrofoam chimney that warms bodies to the bones.
Like a silo of potential energy that awakens and inspires.

A companion of the cigarette soft pack, as long as both are full
When empty, a ruffian of a house abandoned
or a vacant playground, a soul void of vivacity.

Sleepy fingers trace the serpentine trail of steam
escaping via vent  in the lid; gateway to wakefulness
Perched in a nest of hands guarding the sanctuary for the alert
This storehouse of caffeine must be rationed.

It’s contents dark, rich, bold, spilling
scolding and fierce and alive.
Consider the coffee cup a comrade, a loyalist
Companion of the diligent, the learning, the weary.
ericka bonilla Nov 2013
Your brain is a silo filled with unsolved mysteries.
There is a universe beneath your skin,
coursing through your veins,
tangling in your sinew.
You are so much more alive than you think.
You have no control over your life.
So just live.
And live beautifully in that universe underneath your skin,
let joy course through your veins,
let love tangle in your sinew.
That silo in your brain full of unsolved mysteries will slowly be solved.
So just live.

-elissette
Stephen E Yocum Aug 2016
His name was Bing,
one eye grey the other blue
an Australian Cattle Dog
the best I ever knew.
Cows or Sheep he was the man.
Nipping at their heels, heading
them where you bid them go.
Smart as a whip, quick as a bullet,
Work all day for a pat on the head.

One early day no Bing appeared,
Strange 'cause he was always the first
into the truck bed, first in the pasture,
first to work, the last to quit.

We called out his name many times,
began a search, buildings to barns, silo
to shed. In the center of a cut hay field,
I saw him, hunkered down not moving.
The boss and me approached and called
to him, yet still, he did not seem to hear.

At twenty feet he stood up quick,
turned to face us with a ****,
his eyes burned with hell's fire,
his muzzle and jowls were awash in foam,
his deep-throated growl a caution warned.

Not much doubt he'd been skunk bit,
was beyond redemption touched in rabies fit.
I was sent on the run to fetch
the long gun from the truck.

We approached him careful like,
I was still panting from my run.
The boss cocked the lever,
chambering a round into the gun.

Bing's eyes looked to be pleading,
as if to ask that we end his pain.
In his crazed anguished state,
he could have reached us in a flash
spread the contagion to our flesh,
yet through instinct or love
old Bing held his ground,
awaiting his inevitable fate.

I tried to swallow but had no spit,
and then the rifle thundered
and stung my ears,
One shot through the head
took old Bing's pain away.

The Boss, a hard-edged man of fifty
began to silently weep like a child of five,
the loss of his dog too much to abide.
I must admit my tears weren't far behind.

We bore him from the field
like an honored fallen warrior.
Buried him in the yard by the house,
He deserved that respect and more.
Over fifty years later and I still think fondly
of old Bing. His actual name was Bingo, but
we all called him Bing, either way, he did not
seem to have a preference, even a shrill whistle
of summoning pitch, would do to bring him near.
Unlike most dogs, he did not crave human attention,
he lived for his work, that was about all he needed.
brooke Sep 2016
we the daughters of sliced sunbeams
and those who chase gales in between
the pasture gates and barbed fences behind
the silo--

who think there's nothing softer than the way
honey sounds drizzled on toast or daisy petals at the supermarket
the women of ferocious silences, standing before
dozens with trimmed smiles and deafening inner beauty

squeezing our fingers down barley stalks and sewing
the roots into our dresses, we've tried six ways to sunday
the rules, the book on being wanted, before realizing that anything
born out of self-indulgence wilts away
all the work we did to grow and plait our hair with vanilla,
dipped in sweet almond oil we had no idea
that pretending
could only get us
so


far.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016
Memory is a punctual ghost-. A silo of bitter and sweet harvest-threshing row upon row , separating chaff from kernel , **** from grain , a long days toil in seclusion , followed by persistent spirit , insomnia , and return to labor at dawn* ...
Copyright September 15 , 2015 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Nomkhumbulwa Jun 2020
These are hard times for everyone,
But I know my Biology;
Yet I do feel somewhat “odd”,
How can that be?

I have friends in Pimville,
Kliptown, Orlando too;
And although I can use a phone,
Sometimes I don't want to 🙁

Who am I becoming??
What is happening to me?
I have winter clothes now, and food,
And a large adopted family

Why do I now feel so strange?
I can't even explain how;
I kind of feel “less off a person”
Look down on myself….hide as well…

I feel like I've done something wrong,
Yet have no idea what that is;

I hope I haven't upset anyone,
Maybe I have…and just don't know who it is…

I feel like not moving,
Hiding here in this room;
Not because it feels safer,
But so that I can do no harm.

People are so kind and caring,
Then I look at myself;
What is wrong with me??
Why can I not trust myself ?

I feel this general “sadness”
A darkness of sorts in my mind;
But im afraid to blame the depression,
For i feel unworthy of my mind…

Its getting hard to get up,
Though every time I wake how im glad;
Disturbing nightmares all night long,
But I wake up then im tired

I get frustrated sometimes with people,
Those around me, its stupid I know;
I dont want to be a bad person,
But that is what it shows

I dont know what is wrong with me,
But I think I now know the cause;
A massive fear of the unknown,
Going back to Scotland…for the worse?

I will await Silo’s return to work,
He helps me with each phone call;
He has done so much to reassure me,
Yet I feel undeserving of it all.

I don't know whats wrong with me,
I hold my head in shame;
my mind telling me to cut,
That I deserve that pain…

I try to resist it now,
mainly for those around me;
When I do work im with children,
And I don't want them to see

Plus I have Silo to help me,
Assuring me Ive done nothing bad;
That im not a burden on this Country,
And that it is ok to feel “sad”

I know where it comes from,
I know I've repeated this too;
Im worried I don't know myself,
As this period of lockdown about to move…

None of us know whats going on,
We can only be guided by research;
scientists doing their best to provide,
Statistics, clinical trials, the genome sequences..

What is wrong with me?
It was getting better before;
Not before Corona….
Before this dark cloud came to my door.

I was doing everything I could,
Yet now I still feel its not enough;
I feel lazy, ashamed, a burden…
Why am I tired, with no work?!?!

I tell myself perhaps its the cold,
The change in season too;
But deep in my mind I know
The cause….I know its true…

Its Doctor Bryan Hart,
Yes he’s still here in my head,
Silo tries repeatedly to remove him,
And the words he implanted in my head.

He just wont go away,
He took everything from me;
My friends, family, dignity,
Even my sense of sanity.

I still doubt myself daily,
Wondering if any of its true;
I feel I HAVE to find out,
To be able to be free…

Im scared that when I go back
The whole thing will start again,
I will be a burden on society,
A waste of money, time, a nobody

The time is drawing closer,
Although I don't know for sure when;
things are slowly reopening,
Just as they should, this cant go on.

But im scared, I think thats it,
Scared that soon i’ll be back;
In the land where nobody wants me,
A land where nobody trusts me…

Of course I don't want to be selfish,
even thinking this way makes me feel bad;
Im just scared, just scared of the future,
…scared i’ll go back to the past…

I sometimes get darker thoughts too,
But im not wanting to share with you;
I’ll wait, see what Silo says,
I’ll see what he thinks I should do…

I found someone to trust,
Someone in the health sector (!),
I do trust him still….
I’ll await his return and give him a call….

I dont like me……I just don't like me…..
Nomkhumbulwa **
im new sorry
Ghosts and Spirits whirl like dervishes
Caught and crammed into a soft metal silo
Freed from time but tied to space by a coil
Clinging to dream, the lucky few
Vacate the hive for a moment
A short minute for remembrance
Denied a quick forgetting
Or consigned to lonely park benches
Behind seldom opened doors
Locked in basements, difficult to enter
Segregated from the swarm
Yet cursed in cherished imprisonment
They never grow old
They envy the ones ignored
Those who are being forgotten
Breaking their chains for good
Melting into the atmosphere
Where they belong
Parting the dead sea
They crawl without a leader
Too numb to appreciate this unexpected exodus
Caring less for those left behind
Knowing that they, for all their loneliness
Are the blessed ones
© 2010 by James Arthur Casey
Amanda Stoddard Apr 2015
When I was young, I hid behind tree branches and tall fields of grass
and everywhere was like a jungle to me.
I made crowns out of weeds and painted my innocence with a hinge of green.
I climbed trees away from my issues and nothing could stop me when I was hiding behind pine needles and evergreens.
I grew up back when the dented silo was still the dented silo and not the mockery of human consumption.
When my favorite restaurants all lined the correct side of Tylersville
and Fazoli’s was still ******* around.
Then I moved to where the trees were all I saw and the places beneath my toes became enriched with soil on a daily basis.
I was queen of my own jungle again and I loved every minute of it.
Now when I drive down the road I look to my right and see the streets lined with week old plastic bottles and bags-
you can’t go a mile without seeing trash and I start to wonder when the world will end, when all the pavement will become enriched with cracks and the ground will start poking through again.
Our tax dollars are going towards reparation of potholes, strip malls and new houses most middle class Americans can’t even afford.
I’m tired of watching what the world built for itself, become destroyed for what we try to build for ourselves.  
Everything is destruction and one day Mother Nature will come back with a vengeance and we will be the ones who pay the price.
Look around you, the fields you once dreamed about when you were young are now just economic land-mines and the places you work were once just an empty field.
Just remember, we live and we die and we are sometimes reborn again based on what you believe in.
But no matter your religion, Mother Nature will always be something I can believe in; when all else fails nature will always be the best therapy for me.
Barton D Smock Jun 2016
15% off all print books today on Lulu with coupon code of LULU15

some poems from some recent publications:

[untitled]

what seashell does for ocean
my pillow
will

for hunger.

oh dream,

insomnia’s
wiped out
city...

is this
a stone

or the mating
call
of grief?

~

[untitled]

the power
came back on
the boy
didn’t.

I had my chance
to believe
in god.

the beetle was on its back
and the woman
unable
to **** herself
ordered
online
a rowing
machine.

mother’s garden, father’s ladder.

a black cat
where nothing
grew.

~

[untitled]

church of intermission.  church of the rolled-away church my fever follows.  church of it ain’t a baby until it spits.  church of the lawnmower left running.  of the space you give the grieving horse.  church of you when you die in my sleep.  of musical suicides.  church of the disinfected high chair.  of the false bruise.  of how to become a balloon in the church of touch.
Having arrived at Patmos, on the southeastern ***** of Skalá, Wonthelimar observed that the Seleucid ships were there. Already knowing of the myth of Seleucus and of his Divinity, since her mother Laodice, according to Vernarth's parapsychology parallel account, and aligned with Wonthelimar, that she had presumed that her son Seleucus had been conceived by carnal union with Apollo. These oracular dreams separated them from Vernarth, for a certain Antigone of the imperial Seleucid with the anchor of the ring that Apollo had captivated from the gematological extract, now wading in the quantum of Chauvet, which had been identified from Gaul.

Wonthelimar says: “from such a thigh such as a Vas Auric you will be anchored at your anchor, in a proud fallacy if you have been engendered by Apollo if it is that your mother temporizes in a hallway idyll or Antigone, and not of someone wearing a ring that smells like broken neo-Hellenic dreams in one that anyone believed, born of one being or another like me from a mythological Iberian, but being carried from a very young age on the haunches of a Bucephalus. Here I believe where Laodice would be or would be caught by knowing that creatures like me, spawned in the darkness of a cave, should wear that ring, but in the seventh ring of the horns of my paternal Ibez with its antlers constantly growing, and in my forehead having one of them in the antlers of the female that fed me in the reign of darkness and in the heights of the mountains. Upon leaving Chauvet I embraced her suspended antlers, and when I separated from the sixth ring, my female nurse with her pale neck offered me the seventh so that I would do it with brown illusions to be like her in the maternal ***** of the Rhone that in altitudes Thousands leveled out over seven hundred meters, with each ring being the power of a reign of darkness filled with light and undeserved talent. In the autumn, my female mother would get involved when I timidly approached from my cavern full of aldehyde, eliminating it through my mouth and eyes, creating from them the brave fear of misunderstood symbols..., if you saw it, your Seleucus...? You would abandon your divinity with a single breeze of the elements when you would recover your anchor rings on the roads. On the other hand, I wake up in his ring because of the meager light that intimidates the converted mountain beings, who interpose me in their combats, if an antler was or is torn from one of my attempts of frustration, after not seeing what it is not noticed even in thousands of distant blushes, and not even in the emission of the eyes of a hypothetical Apollo "

Behind the philastic zoomorphic of the exalting from Seleuco's mouth, the bilocated Epidaurus on Patmos was lowered by the steps of an amphitheater, bossed around in the conclusive closing of his story behind bars or horns that splintered his revoked mention of aspiring to a ring, which is not and will be nothing more than a synonym of despair, more than an immortal that is now abbreviated from the stigma of co-founding itself in meaning as a temporary truth of Hellenism, deducing to qualify its origin as a plus part and ascendant servant, but not descendant in shirts that have to transvestite him on the Epidaurus proscenium. Seleucus began to doubt his converted eagerness to lash out the mythological divine lineage for a sanction, in which the lightning bolts of the stunning sky themselves demystified their annoying gales of submission, by dynasties of the proverbial Kleos for the purposes of fame, and politics that open the loaded winds with cots of gold to marry with diligent nebulosity in transliterated and linked tripods in cumulus universes, where the first two abuse the fulcrum of the obverse that falls by gravity on no man's land..., here is the myth of anchoring and not of to aspire to a ring or earring that will drag us to heights where the icy cold wind crowns you on legs of bronze and not of gold "

These coins were carefully observed by those who observed them from a gorge, capturing the humility and infallibility of a being that came from the entrails of Chauvet, interpreting courses that awaited Seleucus. The appendages were detached from the koilones and tiers that jumped over it, to press and narrow the diazomas or corridors that were already deployed like a laser in the cubations of the consciousness of Megarón and the Vas Auric of the Hexagonal Primogeniture, which already was made ubiquitous. It was released from an Alexandrian Greek fire on the jaws of the hecatomb of the ex-generals of Alexander the Great. Here in funeral periphrasis, few prostitutes rusted behind his inheritance, each with their bronze panoplies and banners in favor of Leonatus in the hands of the Satrap Antigonus, Ptolemy, and the most outstanding applicant of his divine inheritance, Seleucus. They all meet outside the Eurydice ship in Skalá to settle decisions and franchises of ancestry, for the purpose of divinizing the destinies of their tasks and interests, to sink them into the first stone under a base of faith, and of those who will come from the return of the Anastásis like Greek resurrection of bread and wine, Psomí kai krasí…; "The Mashiach for being of whoever and whatever"

Seleuco says: "Psomí kai krasí, Bread and Wine for all." We have revived our leader, who in good time should resurrect us all for his mentions of the new future of fallen leaders and heroes. We are not oblivious to your expiration and perhaps your negligence in Babylon, but the steps of a king require other Seleucid measures and their oriental legitimating, being oligarchies that should morally do what is known. Antigonus, Ptolemy, and I appear here with me, preserving periods that leave us of mediumistic notions of the grim, who does not allow us to close our eyes. We confer the denounced ambiguity of previous riches that do not fit in any silo that can contain it, nor what happens to the secondary after diving early in the morning mounted on your Bucephalus, full of its manes swollen with the posterity of a Roman emperor besieging it, without advancing by requirements or where he rides now in steel wastelands, and not through upholstered steppes of the cautious ensign on your guard and in the solemn light of life that the **** leaves behind in your symbolic sarcophagus! We want you to join us, and to be able to banish our distinctions from where Apollo has given his eternal sleeper in the sense of an ephemeral truth, which makes light of flesh colors in the fiery figure of your coat of arms.
We have stolen the traced areas of Judea and from there Maccabees have donated us inscriptions back to my threat to you and Antigonus,... to my enemy debtor, but even so, I come to repair unevenness and want to repair idylls more remote from the Euphrates to settle in the ranks of Ptolemy. We have all sinned to look for you in our slogans, gaining fleeting territory, but we have lost your lux, already well said in my sanctuary in Didyma, but in seconds that continue from the first, already raising flags and heralds that increase your vox, more than a David that defeats a colossus; that from his own death resurrects...! "

All perceptibly dismayed looked at Alexander the Great who was behind a canopy listening to everything with his ear attached to the canvas that separates him from a presumed truth. He draws the curtain and pounces before everyone with stealth and courtesy, incontinenti he speaks to them after inhuman efforts to move away from the stagnant sub-understanding of his former commander.

Alexander the Great says: “The aureoles of sanctity have dislocated my Beelzebub, and the brambles brush against the Scabious flowers like widows that sing in the cenotic lines of my hands from a purgative cathartic in its graceful subfamily that makes my eyes heterochromatic de facto, between the thistles that are spiced between the aromatherapy of the Scabiosa cretica. In their oblong shape with pincushion flowers, they make the basting their nailed pins waiting to be used so that my desolations are not lost even after being just reborn. After the annual Attic calendar in Elaphebolion where they walked on me to resist the deer of Artemis, in attempts to get up and ***** me in the sessile voices of Scabiosa dispelled by Vernarth that have raised me in the involved species, like a chalice of unstitched shreds in seven holes, leaning back to the Aquenio in his fruit tree that is stained with lavender-blue, and the Lepidoptera bringing Vernarth from Gethsemane and the anti-Sarnic clothing that makes him exalted. Now from here, I harangue you, like immaterial troops that do not move their courage, with enemies that are left open to the fear of my walk on them, on rams of the imminent danger of warbling victory with steely Falangists. What a nationalist Faskéloma attribute as obscene fuss and Pashkien that reorders the armies that invade its headless stadiums, in raised nightingales that chirped the sadness of seeing myself fallen on the nose of the common soldiers and full of scabies in Arbela. I have to fly with you my lost flocks ready of Apollo surrendering twilight fire, and of moon-sun between the legs of a colossus forged by greater fires, speaking to me of Macedonian triumph, under the yoke of the crackle of a people that lies taciturn with the satraps in Hercules's cunning conquering in the cheers only after three laps they made debits from my left, while I saw the light of Uriel coming towards me in the Lepidoptera with his sheathing, and entirely of a horse placed Beelzebub, to transmigrate him with me from Cinnabar chains and honor what serves the world also that dies with me in Thrace or Alexandria Bucephalus, after the south of Corinth, regardless of me, who already sensed that he was anti-diadoco..., being at that time a leader of the Sacred League of Delphic Amphibian, after feeling so much pain immediately from dying..., I still had life left in the Scabiosa flask and in bronze vessels that I removed from the swirling wind of the s Thermopylae, leaving me stranded with nothing but chimeras of winning the world, but losing a Life that had just begun "

Meanwhile, at the dawn of Vas Auric was projected at relative height, Syrmus's light and resounding fall were shown when he attacked the back of Macedonia -... here Alexander makes a gesture of modest resilient power... -, after he glimpsed to Saint John the Apostle how he moved with his staff the tricolor clouds transmitted by the troops of the Tribalios and that was crushed by the carnal battery of Macedonian cavalry that immolated them before their knowledge, and then after their three thousand victims..., which according to some outstanding Hypaspists also rushed them far beyond the Danube where they were engulfed in the confinement of the Getas in thousands, and in greater proportion but with leather rafts, the Hellenic troops crossed this same river and with a few thousand they conquered them filling their saddlebags..., not gold... !, but brandy that burned all the pastures where no Bucephalus crossed by fire.
Wonthelimar Dismissed Diadocos
Tom Shields Jun 2020
How many miles warp the landscape?
She sits in the nook by her window, wondering
etching a portrait of the bounty to come
the rows of stalks, now she is of age
that she will enter the grain silo
her soul is endeared, there is no fear
they begin the harvest before dawn tomorrow

There is peace like she has never felt before,
knowing her destiny is to give back to the earth
and she is ready to do this and more
but in the darkness, the dead of night
outside her bedroom a faint flash of light
the oldest brother comes, his face sullen and white
he's determined to take her away,
he won't let her have this day
in the darkness, the dead of night
she strikes him, he's jealous he wasn't chosen
he turns heel in flight
but there is no escape, father awaits
with mother, brothers, sisters, by his side
"It is time." His penetrating glare, silver eyed
"You will rid your sister of this husk."  Words that strip him naked of his pride

Father's false leg is silent against the floorboards
across the fields the dozens gather
they follow the ascendant light of the son, hushed, no words
the only spark of life is the cigar father puffs, faced with these silo fumes, he too would rather-
she bolts across the catwalk and disrobes in preparation
his torch extinguished, he dives to stop her embracing annihilation
and all is too dark to see, too quiet to hear, she falls for seconds towards the surface of the grain
he lays, face down, hand extended with her night dress clutched in his fist
she lays on her back, impacted on the crust and broken inside and out, every breath is a feverish pain
she needs to sink, if she doesn't she will have done this all only for the maize
long after he should have gone, he looks down at her and stays
her fingertips claw gently at the deepest crack, she's determined to get back

Her legs protruding outward
spine broken, ribs stabbing hard inward
her skull broken, blood leaking over
bowels pierced, organs exploded, it's all over
not one tear, no weakness enters here
she exhales with force, no fear
and pushes herself into the abyss
with her dying breath, into the clear
the others ascend, sensing the fatality
only then do they hear
she's engulfed in the grain, only then do they see
she's screaming in pain, still alive, as she blesses the corn
all the way down, her journey continues, they open the auger
drain her through, collect the limbs and flesh rended, one eye sunken into her head, one shot with unbridled rage and scorn
never had anyone survived, many musclebound mortals
many agile men had walked the grain
hundreds have made the sacrifice,
they carry what is left of her off into the night
father places his hand on his oldest son

Clouds in the distance, thunder and lightning
no rain upon them, father puts his cigar out in the son's face
burning the bridge of his nose until it looks as out of place
as the deep scars and rings under either eye
he snatches the dress from his fist, and declares this lie
"Two more of us have become who they were, you see he never sleeps now and why?
For he journeys through the underworld every night, with his fire alight to guide us through when we die.
My Nocturnal Son."

From a window the young sister watches
forgotten, connected to machines as years wither
she sees her brother take them to the silo
her face turned forever towards the window
she watches as even the stars lose their glow
and the dead join her in presence
as they have yesterday, will today and tomorrow.
write
please read and enjoy
JL Oct 2012
Death, the most brutal enemy I have known. It was never easy to speak to you but now the words flow out of me like the Flat Stone river during spring time. I keep writing. The pen moves although it does not feel like my doing. the words seem vacant and dull next to the vast space you left behind in my life. It is a lie to say a man does not cry but I fight letting the emotions grab me. I blow out the candle and lie alone on our bed. Sleep is a distant memory now. A lesser man would drown himself in liquor. A lesser man would turn to ***** but I am not a lesser man. Tears came to me last night for the first time since I was a boy. I was lying alone in the shadows when I turned my head towards your pillow. Your scent washed over me, my soul and body ached as one and each muscle tensed as if a vice held me. I sobbed like a child fighting it at first with all my strength until I gave in. I slipped into that place between dreams and life. I floated then out of our window, out into the pouring rain and moonlight my spirit spread across the forest I hunted as a boy. I ran my fingers down each rabbit trail searching for you among the bristles and the thorns. I stretched my legs feeling the bark of each oak as if it were my own flesh. Into the soil. My lungs filled with fog and my eyes became stones. My forehead like marble against the mountainside.  My hair tangled and became clouds at the peak. I was no more, yet I breathed and my thoughts echoed inside me as a shout in the canyon. Each word sounding out as a bird's whistle and the cry of a hound, as the wind rushing through the leaves. It was there that I found you. Your scent like fresh strawberries and cut pine boughs. You were each blade of grass and I was each blade of grass. You were the mountain stream and I the stone made flat by your current. I communed with you as an old buck with a silver patch of hair adorning my chest and you the timid red fox watching me from the fallen log.
I awoke my face wet with tears and my body hot like a fever.
I am alone in this old house and the walls creak and my bones creak in lament to use.
I took my old service pistol in my hand felling it's cold weight against my palm.
I stand as if by some other man's command and walk out into the pouring rain.
Out past the barn and the silo. Into the fields with the weight of the pistol in my pocket.
Each heartbeat is one too many as I stand in the fields only half-harvested.
I laugh in the rain. The fields are seem as surprised as I am at your loss.
The cold barrel pressed against my temple.
Frank Sterncrest Aug 2013
(a rondeau)*

when it was new, this farm shone
with the tractor’s polished chrome
the barn’s crisp trim
the silo’s glinting rim
and the field’s glowing loam

it became a place for weeds to comb
through rotting cars as if sown;
these rusting crops never creased his skin
when it was new

now, the gate creaks with his bones
the fence posts lean and groan
with his warped, hobbling limb
familiarity cannot sate him
he never felt as alone
when it was new
Don Bouchard Sep 2014
He had no idea if he would...
If he could actually do it...
When the time came,
When his sergeant gave the nod,
Let slip the dogs of war,
Unleash the copper bees,
Send missiles hurtling up or down
At targets moving now...
On men who may be wondering
If they could fire the same,
When the time came....

"Steady, men!"
"On my command."

He lay there,
On a roof,
In a ditch,
On an open field,
Crouched inside a turret,
Bellied down in a plexiglass ball,
Hurtled above a world mostly covered in cloud,
Standing far below the earth in silo'd steel,
Seeing still, through satellite eyes....

Peered into the mil dot scope,
Ignored the cross
To see through the center,
Found the circled aperture,
Punched coordinates into a seeing machine,
Saw green circles on the screen...
Aligned the circles....
Tried to breathe.

So that was how it was
For farm boys, Mowers of hay,
Grocers' sons, smashers of ants,
Carpenters, hammerers of nails,
And bakers' boys, cutters of bread,
Just in from shooting marbles and BB guns,
Transported into war,
Fed soldiers' ration:
meat and bread and beans,
Five cigarettes apiece in boxed MREs,
Sent off to **** and to be killed
With mothers' tears still fresh upon their cheeks,
With lovers' ache still glowing embered heat.

Training fresh,
Waiting command
To fire only when the order came...
To remain firing til the order came...
To hold the breath and squeeze...
To hold the sight just so...
To squeeze...
And to reload
Keeping head low,
Eyes on target...
To ignore all but the sergeant's yell,
To think of squeezing on new targets,
To wait awhile to process coming hell....

And when the time came,
He squeezed,
Felt the sudden life,
Heard little but the sound of
Clean ejection ...
Saw his bullet,
Saw his missile,
Saw his target meet,
And in the meeting,
Red,
And in the meeting ,
Fire and smoke,
And in the meeting
Knew  that he could do
What soldiers do.

This boy
Now cutting hay,
Now stomping ants,
Hammering nails,
Cutting loaves of cooling bread...
Caught in the maelstrom of war
With no moment left but now,
No possible tomorrow...
Only targets,
Only targeted
In ferocious winds
Of battle.
This is a work in progress. For some reason, I can't see a draft feature this morning on the iPad.... Is this an issue with IOS8 update?
Evan Stephens Dec 2018
There were
those thickets
of flat
graying trees
and a frozen
skin of lake
out by the
hunched rink
behind Georgian Woods
the terrace apartments
where Dad lived
after he left
the family.

Left to my
own devices
while Dad
delved in books
I slipped out
the sliding door
through
the frost-grass
and the
snow branch gap
into the
unfolding stillness
of the drowsing park.
Sometimes
my sister
was there
with me
in the woods,
our play
always some form
of running away.

In the early
years Dad
smoked a pipe
his thick
blue rug scented
with Captain Black
**** tobacco,
the white tin
with the rigged
ship logo.
The humming silo
of the air purifier
Dad's concession
to my convulsing
asthmatic chest,
close-gathered lung

like the branch bark
that scraped
my lip
as I ran in
the park wood,
blood slipping
across my face
and down
into the ache.
Sam Marlowe Feb 2013
What has remained where memory was lost or stolen?
Effacing years replaced what had been felt,
the child adept at stealth and isolation
becoming stranger than the life he left

behind in absence, which was both gone and forgotten.
An echo of a voice in an empty silo rings
because he heard it answer him with words
instead of bruises; the man and child grins.

Remembering selectively, the man
recalls the carcass of a red Case tractor
thigh high in grass; and Viet Nam,
a water buffalo dead in a paddy after

the Viet Cong, like willful parents, spanked
the area with small arms fire. Hell
was neither here nor there but something stank.
The mood rolled over as an odor will

disperse in time, a transient effect
of mind, but an abyss of remembrance haunts
wherever ghosts have congregated, cleft
from the wanton interval of thwarted wants.
SE Reimer Oct 2015
~

where’s the rain
to save the day?
the silo empty,
the barn no hay.
the only pouring
we have seen
is from the counter
down the street.
gin and beer and
old Jim Beam,
the bar is full,
but glass is empty.
our men are weeping,
children hungry!
these fields that yielded
harvest plenty
under sweat of
daddy's brow,
now they’ll try’n
take my home;
state moves in
to steal our peace,
won’t leave us ’lone,
till we’ve been fleeced.
send a draught to
quench our pain;
end this drought with
drenching rain!
this to you we pray...

“pour from heaven’s door,
indulge us with an inundation;
from the bounty of your store
deluge us with a liquidation”


oh, keeper of
these cloudless skies,
send sweet rain
to wet these eyes!
for the lost ones
in this town,
to save this family,
save this farm,
from heartless souls
who mean us harm.
i am just a poor boy
whose cup has all run dry
no where else to turn,
nothing left to try.
flow in torrents,
pour in sheets,
send libations,
bring relief;
send the rain to
flood the street.
oh master of
the ocean deep,
pour your liquid,
pour your gold,
a’fore our children
grow too old.
no more saving
for some rainy day,
this to you we pray...

“pour from heaven’s door,
indulge us with an inundation;
with bounty from your store
deluge us with a liquidation”


~

*post script

the Western US is experiencing a four-year drought of
epic proportions and with water in such short supply,
family farms are burning up in the heat
with grave consequences looming large
on the not-so-distant horizon.
we witnessed this arid devestation
first hand a week ago traveling through
North and Central California, and
felt in just the tiniest way the crush
of water shortages at all her state
campgrounds. beautiful Shasta Lake
was dry except for a small stream
running through the lake bed...
how very sad; she is not the California
i remember in our last visit.
casper Nov 2020
As potent as the drugs flowing from an IV drip,
I the prodigal son of this town,
the only one to infuse the blood of a much needed sacrifice into it's veins,
the one to carry the souls of those past,
those future,
those fleeting few at the end when the long standing foundation that has held up countless feet and dreams,
no longer stands and in it's place breadcrumbs fall,
thousands from the sky,
folly and few,
until embedded in the very ground it lands upon.

I, the one from the third house down the lane,
the all seeing all knowing all feeling touch,
climb the silo and above take in the view,
the little lives and scattered stories,
told once in still rooms with only the orange light of a desk lamps,
then carried away on drool into the storm drain,
with the leaves and street grit.

I, the babe,
once innocent and tender,
and still so within me exists,
carried through an entire lifetime on a sled,
down the sidewalk with only the sight of street-lamps as stimuli,
past every corner and home a dream implanted from my eyes to theirs,
yet mistranslation corrupts the many and what can I do but allow,
their own bibles to be written.

This town belongs to one king and one son on both sides of the mountain,
snow to teach them lessons,
rain to cleanse their wounds,
and to keep this monolith of a civilization alive,
all that is prophesied,
to run far, far away,
in place.
Dedicated to my home town.
The Chief of the General Staff awoke
To the ring of the telephone,
He’d tried to ****** a couple of hours
At his Hunting Lodge, in Scone,
But the red phone was insistent, it
Would ring ‘til he picked it up,
‘For God’s sake Carter, what’s it now?’
The answer was abrupt.

‘The Early Warning’s gone to red,
They need you down at Staff!
Hang on, I’m going to patch you through
We’re not sure if it’s naff.
It didn’t go through to orange as
It usually does at first,
But we can’t afford to take a chance…’
The General’s lips were pursed.

‘Scramble the FA-18’s
Are the carriers out, d’you know?’
‘There’s two in the Med and one caught dead
In the dock at Scapa Flow!
The Seventh Army’s at Aldershot
And the Fifth’s in the Middle East.’
‘Well, whether the troops are out or not
It’s Martial Law, at least.’

The Action Room in the basement of
A secret place in Poole,
Had interrupted a war game with
The Army Training School.
The radar screens were alight with scenes
Beamed in from the new AWAC’s,
With missiles coming from everywhere
‘We need to be hitting back!’

The submarines were alerted to
Prepare their missile racks,
The silo’s over in Kansas armed
And ready to attack,
Then suddenly in the Action Room
The radar screens were clear,
There wasn’t a single sign or trace
Of a missile coming near.

And down in a London Nursing Home
They were leading him away,
A nice old fellow with Parkinson’s
With a half-full breakfast tray,
They snapped the lid of his laptop
Told him, ‘George, you’re going to be canned!’
He said, ‘I just got the hang of it,
That game called ‘The High Command!’’

David Lewis Paget
Dyslexic God Jul 2014
Andrea Gibson

Introduction:  A couple years ago, I was told a story about a soldier who was set on fire and burned to death because he was gay. After that, I started reading similar stories about people in the GLBTQ community who were tortured or killed by being set on fire and burned. I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who had died that way and couldn’t stop wondering what they might say from where they are now.

The night I was torn from the pages of their Bible
and burned alive
my ashes came down like snow
and a girl who had never seen my face
saw me falling from the sky
and laid down on her back
to make an angel in the powder of my bones.

From heaven, I watched her,
‘though my eyes were still aflame,
and my ribs were still blue.
They didn’t win, I whispered, as her arms built my wings.
They didn’t win.
Look at that moon.
It is a pebble in my hand
Tonight, I could skip it across that fog-drunk sea
to the lashes accordion in the night
and all they know of hate
is that it couldn’t beat the love out of me…

that when they dropped me to the grave,
I fell like a bucket in to a well
and came up full;
carving my lover’s name
into the skin of a weeping willow
that had spent its entire life laughing at the rain.

Hold me like a lantern;
staircase my spine
When they bring the children to my funeral
to scream “******!” at my dust
tell them I was born in to their casket
but I wouldn’t pull the splinters from my heart
any more than Christ would’ve pulled the thorns
from his crimson head.

They can come a thousand times
with their burning matches and their gasoline,
with their hungry laws
and their empty mouths full of prayers to that god
who greeted me at his gates with his throat full of trumpets
and his tears full of shame
as his trembling palms collected the cinders
of his children’s crime.

I know what holy is
I know that the soul is shaped like a bowl;
I know the lies we try to fill it with
and we spill too often
the orchards inside.

But my lover’s shoes were tied with guitar strings
and when I walked beside
there was a silo in my chest,
there was a field full of sun.
there was a river full of gold that we left
to pick our sweet hearts from the trees
that kept uprooting tombstones
so the names of the dead would crumble in to poems.

Write me down like this:
Say my ashes never made the news.
Say the jury was full of shotguns.
Then say the snow that fell on the tip of your tongue
refused to melt away.
Say this to the kids hiding their heartbeats
from their father’s fists.

I planted the garden of my kiss.
I opened the night with my teeth.
I loved so hard that when they pressed their ear to the track
the train they hear coming will still be my chest,
a rumbling harpoon,
a sky they can not bury.

Look at that moon.
I am a pebble in her hand;
a harmonica held to the mouth of the river
where nothing ever burns.
Farm house windows have been boarded up , dilapidated outbuildings , abandoned water well , farm tractor , implements rusted over . Kudzu has blanketed the garden spot , farm bell lies on the ground , silo in need of paint , repairs ..Clover dominates a fertile pasture , once home for many abundant harvest ! Corn , soy bean and sorghum , sweet potato and collards .. Oak trees , well over a hundred years old with twenty years of unchecked leaf debris beneath them . Apple , pear and peach trees are barren .. A once sturdy white picket fence now unkempt  , frail with rusted barbed wire and nails .. The afternoon train still comes through each afternoon . I can imagine that very train taking the harvest produced by this old farm to market . Macon , Augusta or Albany ? A planter is taking a break beneath a Pecan tree with a bucket of cold well water and a ladle , plug of tobacco , and a daydream or two ! The afternoon train delivers the news of the world , a Farmers almanac , Sears and Roebuck catalogue , corn cake for the rabbit dogs , hog feed from a mill in Columbus , thread and quilt patches for Mother . Off it goes , cloud of steam rising above the mighty engine  , the whistle echoing across cotton fields for many a mile ! The link between city and farm , before electricity , telegraph or telephone . The old Georgia my great grandparents knew . Fruitful Summer harvest , painfully cold Winters laboring , scratching out a meager living and at times barely surviving ! I can still hear the crack of leather , braying of mule , firewood being stacked , horses , cattle and the rooster breaking the silence of night , sunrise announcing the new day to a hard working family plus every hamlet along the way ! .
Copyright October 17 , 2015 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Larry Feb 2010
RAIN FORREST'S WHERE HAVE YOU GONE

Paradise on earth where have you gone

Over the misted green mountains where you once grew

Standing like ancient cathedrals bowering to the stars above

Silo-wets dazzled in your crowded light

Bashful colours  of green fade to grey

Saviors of the human race

Where have you gone

Fossilized from where you had come

Has fire become your enemy, man your ruler

Dust to dust you return

Waiting for the perfect time to rise again

                                                                       LARRY A STUART 09

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