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blue mercury Oct 2016
i was drowning in your galaxies of blue.
blue so pale- like your    e   y   e  s
when i swore i could feel them on me but
you weren't there.
i was drowning in your galaxies
in which the stars would shine
shine bright / bright light / bright white light / pale bright white light-
not like printer paper in the sun
more like the pigment of your skin
in the moonlight.

i didn't mind. drowning didn't seem
so bad.
because even though i felt awful and sad, i
also felt loved,
and that was so very pretty to me
as a poet. as a lonely star amidst
constellations.

you almost said the "l" word
a total of (probably) seven times in the five
long-short months that
we were almost lovers.
i actually said the "l" word
a total of five times.
twice as a half joke, hoping you'd pick up
where i slacked in clarity but never
in sincerity
and three times (thrice) in my goodbye
in which i beheld these self-evident truths:

that the almost (always almost) meant
that we could never be lovers
and i thought that i'd prefer us to be nothing to each
other but maybe friends.

(maybe, maybe, maybes make me want to wish on stars
but not the ones in your eyes)

and although time flies
i'm still somehow drowning in your galaxies
of blue.

and i wonder if its killing me
slowly
as your stars blink
and i'm gone
when they open their eyes.
*almost.
oh man. that was long but my heart needed it to be written. might be spoken word if someday i can read it aloud without bursting into tears.
Orion Schwalm Dec 2011
I talk to you to talk through a medium to myself. When you silently sit there, and soak up my words, all around me becomes a panorama of open ideas that can no longer hide.
Each Primary Motive in my center is displayed on a picture rack.
It’s sometimes the closest I can get to really meeting myself.
It’s a clean break.

I talk to you because you’ve always had this one motif to work with. It should really be mine. It’s about me. It’s for me. It’s my own well being as a provider of life, and the ongoing journey of a nomad’s soul.
Some say the nomads have no homes. That wandering is in their hearts and they shan’t ever settle for one place.     I say the nomad only has a harder home to reach.
Some of them never reach it. Perhaps because they only exist as far as we know now, in a physical world. There is more to home than where we buy a house.    

It’s a thing that is built, over stress and pain and love for the creation.                                  The stronger the will the stronger the walls, and NOT the facades this time, the walls that are constructed with the sole purpose of being able to welcome others through the gates of them.
Some build them from what seems like so much emptiness and nothingness that we should all deserve a religion of worship for the adverse feat of triumph. Perhaps we can believe, or hope,  that not everyone's destiny is achievable, on and of this earth.

Pretty soon I'll go back to a place full of holes and crazed dreams, then press on, not knowing what else to do.
But let's sit here as we are in this clearing of sorts. Every forest must have it's clearings to rest in.
without that rest, even a soul on fire could be lost amongst the foliage.   Let's sit here, and I'll talk...and you'll listen. Or seem to listen. Or I'll listen to you listening to me. That way, I can project it, and hear it myself. Instead of muddled through all the dreamed visages, and confusing chains of events.
All of the most and least convolution happens when I sleep through times I won't suffer. My ultimate escape is to equally give myself as much clarity as I take away, in each desperate step for the next ledge of meaning.

So I talk to you about my plans, to have a legacy, so that people will look up to me, and when all is said and done in the end I'll finally feel like my life was meant to be.
All the while this, picture panorama of forgotten imagery circles me, and you sit there in the middle...listening?
If you're listening, you're doing more than I ever could for myself.      I talk to you to talk through you to myself.  Because when you talk to people about what exists...you learn that nobody knows what they think exists and what doesn't.    And when I talk to you...you see me and I exist. And that is all. Your through-line pierces my heart, and soul, and has anchored it's rigging all over my body. It's slacked but whenever I get just a little too far out in the cold, and I've forgotten which way is up or down,

You can drag me back(under).
And give me another chance to drown.
Who knows, maybe some day, I'll realize that I'm not cut out for the swim team.  And that, I don't talk to you because you listen...I talk to you because you're there.


And you always will be.


Just like...
He sought to break

What he could not shake in its fury

He sought to beat

What he could not fight at its strongest

He slacked when time slept

In its weakest moment

He forgot to fix the cracks on his happiness,

To ruin the battle of his sorrow,

To beat the taunting teeth of hardship

He watched as champions

   Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2014
aar505n Feb 2015
In my nightmare, I was standing in the dark.
The wind bellowing around me, like somone screaming.
I was told to lift the mountain with my bare hands and not leave until I did so.
My insides lit up like a little sun was there, threatening to burn me up.
Sour claws of nausea rip my innards, as if they were teeth gnawing on my raw flesh, being burnt by the sun within.
Ignore it.
It will pass if I focus on the task.
That was my first mistake.
Still, dug my fingers in the ground and began to lift.
Hands began to burn and scream, sweat turned to smoke and muscle strained.
Teeth gritted, I pushed passed the pain, focused on the mountain and I.
Smoke mixed with the wind and the darkness and the screaming, bellowing through the nightmare.
The Sun burns hotter.
Mustered up every ounce of strength I could.
And I lifted.
Heaved the heavy mountain up to the Heavens.
The pain shook through my body until.
Finally the mountain and earth separated and the void between is quickly filled with air.
The weight pass from my hands to my shoulder.
I had done it.
At last almost Atlas-like.
Standing there, mountain remaining on shoulder.
But now what?
The sun still burned, hotter than ever, that blasted furnace.
And in the moment, my attention did lapsed and my body slacked, prelude to the collapse.
What was I thinking?
The wind screamed around me and I began to shake in the dark.
A fake Atlas, with the weight on his shoulder unbearable.
The pressure was too much, too heavy, and too late to do anything.
And the sun burns on.
I want to run to the nearest pier and jump, to disappear beneath the waves.
Stop the burning, end the atrophy of my muscles.
I’ve done unhappy deeds and now I want the most human of needs.
The end to my pain.  
That’s the truth.
I yearn for it.
The sun burns still
I let go of the weight and allow gravity to do its job.
Flattened as the mountain was reunited with the earth.
Thought I could carry the world on my shoulder, but I am no Atlas.
I can't even carry a mountain.
I tried and look where I am now.
I am shattered.
Brittle bones becomes broken and turn to dust.
I have given all I got, thrown in the lot.
Soon my skin will rust and rot away.
Soon there will be nothing left to sustain such a fire but the sole desire for rest.
The sun within continues to burn me.
Until I am nothing but smoke, bellowing in the wind.
This is the combination of three poems that I had that i notice were dealing with the same theme and i thought they went well together.
Star Girl Dec 2013
It's been a while,
since I've thought about killing myself.
Almost a year probably...
Today though,
I was awoken to my mother yelling at me for taking off a ring,
and leaving it at my grandmothers.
This ring may or may not be lost now.
And now I am sure I have lost another ring for the exact same reason.
Because of the shower and a dislike for wearing jewelry in the shower.
I also don't like cleaning my room.
It's a pain.
It's my space.
Let it be a wreck.
I did do the few things in college I said I would never do.
I slacked off. I goofed off. I messed up.
So my mother took her anger and just spewed everything she thought of me.
I'm not saying she's not a fit mother.
But,
It changes things when you know how people see you.
Selfish.
Slob.
Narcissistic.
Most everything else, implied.
Those words, are quotes.

Though at the end, I woke up searching for lost items.
Realizing found attributes, that I would have never put together.
My messy room is a direct relationship to my own self worth.
"Slobbish" attributes mean that you think low of yourself, and are selfish.
So all you teenage boys, sorry to think you're self worth is low as well.
Forgetting a ring and not rushing to get it because you just felt it would be safe.
Selfish.
Selfish.
That one I still don't understand.
She kept asking, why I took it off.
And I always take it off when I get ready.
So if you ever take off an important ring for any reason, and leave it somewhere,
thinking it will be safe.
Selfish.

And because I'm a dramatic one,
once my mother left for the day.
I thought
If I'm so selfish, I'll just **** myself
If I'm so selfish, I can just die.
Because at the end of the day, suicided is the most selfish act you can commit.

I'm not saying I'm going to do it.
I'm to lazy.
That takes effort.
It would mean I cared about what was said.

But...
Obviously I can't.
Right?
Selfish,
Self Centered,
No Self Worth,
Slob,
Ignorant.

So yes,
It's been a while since I thought about suicide.
But since I'm selfish...
Should I think of it more?
Since it's been a while...
Tarryn Jul 2014
Tell me your secrets old man in this life
Did you bleed your dreams till they broke you free from struggle and strife
Did you roam the earth with winged feathers on your back
In the lilac rushes steal those gold chestnut crushes you've been keeping tight until they slacked
Who gave you those laughing lines etched into your weathered face
And that glint and hint of mischief in those ice blue eyes of late
Are your bear claw mittens softer than they look
Did they trace the laughing lines with soft caresses and butterfly kisses around a cheeky nook
You've been wandering the paths around the tracks  for far too long
So old man have you seen enough to scream your song
Into the distant skies
To flee your cares into wandering flights of fancy
To sing on until the crescent moon goes elsewhere with all it's own romancing
Your soul was lifted by the wings today
Hearing the master of the violin:
You praised him, praised the great Sabastian too
Who made that fine Chaconne; but did you think
Of old Antonio Stradivari? -him
Who a good century and a half ago
Put his true work in that brown instrument
And by the nice adjustment of its frame
Gave it responsive life, continuous
With the master's finger-tips and perfected
Like them by delicate rectitude of use.
That plain white-aproned man, who stood at work
Patient and accurate full fourscore years,
Cherished his sight and touch by temperance,
And since keen sense is love of perfectness
Made perfect violins, the needed paths
For inspiration and high mastery.

No simpler man than he; he never cried,
"why was I born to this monotonous task
Of making violins?" or flung them down
To suit with hurling act well-hurled curse
At labor on such perishable stuff.
Hence neighbors in Cremona held him dull,
Called him a slave, a mill-horse, a machine.

Naldo, a painter of eclectic school,
Knowing all tricks of style at thirty-one,
And weary of them, while Antonio
At sixty-nine wrought placidly his best,
Making the violin you heard today -
Naldo would tease him oft to tell his aims.
"Perhaps thou hast some pleasant vice to feed -
the love of louis d'ors in heaps of four,
Each violin a heap - I've naught to blame;
My vices waste such heaps. But then, why work
With painful nicety?"

Antonio then:
"I like the gold - well, yes - but not for meals.
And as my stomach, so my eye and hand,
And inward sense that works along with both,
Have hunger that can never feed on coin.
Who draws a line and satisfies his soul,
Making it crooked where it should be straight?
Antonio Stradivari has an eye
That winces at false work and loves the true."
Then Naldo: "'Tis a petty kind of fame
At best, that comes of making violins;
And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go
To purgatory none the less."

But he:
"'Twere purgatory here to make them ill;
And for my fame - when any master holds
'Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine,
He will be glad that Stradivari lived,
Made violins, and made them of the best.
The masters only know whose work is good:
They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill
I give them instruments to play upon,
God choosing me to help him.

"What! Were God
at fault for violins, thou absent?"

"Yes;
He were at fault for Stradivari's work."

"Why, many hold Giuseppe's violins
As good as thine."

"May be: they are different.
His quality declines: he spoils his hand
With over-drinking. But were his the best,
He could not work for two. My work is mine,
And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked
I should rob God - since his is fullest good -
Leaving a blank instead of violins.
I say, not God himself can make man's best
Without best men to help him.

'Tis God gives skill,
But not without men's hands: he could not make
Antonio Stradivari's violins
Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel."
wind
blows,
curtians
fluttered,
flapped.

truth,
fiction
muttered,

the breeze
slacked.

rain
falls,
panes
close.

Soft
rhythmic
in
art
iculate
riddles,

droplets
stream,

tapped
memory
flows.

Con
den
sa
tion

dampens
sill,

time
drifts,

I
remain
still.

grey
grey
gazing,

hyp
not
ical.


rain
rain,

go­
away

come
again

some
other
day.
Ryan Riviere May 2019
Boy
my pocket   has     one nickel    &      Mason's has     a dime;
    a   transient,   red rubber ball ping-ponging  deep  faith with    & for  
        carnival             trash   is what    falls from the
raccoon's mouth    past three;      the      midnight   tour, troupe, &
    egret     have plucked    my eyes out     before    petit dejeuner    
         &    have all booked     residence    with   lush   vagabonds from
   some oasis    on the     curb of Suburbia,   the ottoman wet       where
        lore      slumps the backs of the        fairest;   where,  
  beyond     equanimity   there  boons & beckons  
            tightropes,   slacked tension;     and where     folklore  swells
     arteries       like   King Cake;    the  swamplands  have my    pocket
            picked;   pock-marked    truants    (BOY)    fiddling in fours
  during    school hours,   cakey     margarine  spread all
       over      their    legs         as they      eat grilled cheese and
become,      ****,
           in the    ambrosian   daylight fogged out with    figgy shade
   by thick,   carpet-fondling    curtains, sagging with secondhand soot.
Bobby Ray Bagley Aug 2015
TinMan down
Frowned
On the ground
What happened
Didn't happen
But the brown
Turned to BLACK
Slacked into lack.

Feelings reeling
Heart burst
Like glass
Splintered into ash
Nomad crawling
Sprawling
Couldn't feel the grass.

Can't count minutes
Thru hours
Stretched to DAYS
The silence of no contact
Howling in the wind
Stillness so BLACK
Cutting like a knife.

Nomad finally mounting
Getting to his knees
13 DAYS no contact
To black to see the sun
A crack of light
Screaming
Beaming
Like music
Mona Lisa breathing
Chuckling
Teasing
Nomad to his feet
Hearing a heart beat
Seeing the moon's silvery glow
It all begin to flow
13 days of Black
Absolutely no contact
Worse than dead
Nomadic shook his head
Mona Lisa said
Honey, come to bed.
C B Heath Jun 2013
What are the lessons of today?
Are they informed by vague
hungry phantoms, jaw-slacked, who burr
on the tongue, that singular
nothingness before an itch
shows? The truths which form beneath
your skin are those which would
find more knowledge in some other
knowing mouth, ready for
digestion. Have you travelled
far today, pilgrim? Have your
feet insisted anything
of worth upon the forest floor,
or drawn up the simple
truths already buried there?
Did you subject yourself to rain
for miles of wandering
only to come out again
as the clouds hurried to
hide their shame behind the
hills? Have you been
troubled by the whims of
the broken twig, the taxation
of the wind's shanty breath?
Take off your blindfold and watch
as I give you a wave
from a shadow you nearly
tripped over. Give over your heart
to me and my land.
What have you learnt today, pilgrim?
Nandish Malhotra Jan 2018
As he stepped into the ring,
Everyone his name did sing.
They wanted him to win
The title, for the commoners.
The title in his last fight.

He was out of practice,
His reflexes had slacked.
Gloves, boxers, guard, did him justice
There was something which he lacked.
Lacked in his last fight.

Before he could hear his favorite song,
Followed by the nerve-racking gong.
He had a look around
To catch a familiar sight,
Have a look at her before his last fight.

He checked the stands,
Then glanced around the ropes
And before he had given all hopes
He heard a familiar sound
Right before the first round.
Go hubby go! Punch him left and right!
She screamed with all her might.
Putting a smile on his face,
And then he boxed like an ace.
Winning the title, just for her.
The title in his last fight.
In this poem I have tried to capture the role of a boxer's wife to lift his spirits before the boxing match.
David Messmer May 2013
Sorry
It feels like my life is falling apart
And nobody knows it but me.
Like life’s tied a noose,
And hung me from a tree.
Sorry for letting you down.
I know it really is my fault
And I have my reasons,
Though I’m sure you’d rather not hear
About how I’m near [broken.]
It must seem like I slacked off this last week but I tried to try,
For the past week, it’s taken my best effort just not to cry.
I have a lot going on and I won’t pretend that I’m the only one,
But these feelings I’ve kept hidden sometimes seep through and stun [me.]
I’m sorry I wasn’t there but I wanted you to know,
I tried to try.
Samantha Dec 2014
Girl
I was brought into this world
Covered in my own mother’s blood.
Soaked and glistening
Under the florescent lights.
Red dripping onto the linoleum floor.
Metallic scent intermingling with antiseptic.
My vocal cords were the first things to come in.
My screams battled my mother’s.
My screams shattered the doctor’s ear drums.
Years passed and I learned how to be quiet.
Years passed and I stretched.
I was a bulb planted in a field.
I was tended to the same way the girl next to me was,
But I didn’t grow quite right.

Fire
I swallow hot coals
Like some swallow gum.
They stick to my insides for 7 years.
For years I was convinced I was water.
Fluid and easy.
Fluctuating between a trickle and a storm.
But now I realize
I am fire.
Flames like tongues enter my slacked jaw.
There is no easy way to handle me.

Myth
When I was a child
My father would read the Book of Revelation to me.
While most little girls got
Goodnight moon, goodnight stars.
I got the ***** of Babylon.
I was built by stories.
Armored with words dripping from
Ancient people’s lips.
By the time I was nine I could
Recount the abduction of Persephone
In less than twelve seconds.
Because of Persephone
I will not eat pomegranate seeds.

Skin*
Do not be fooled by the softness of my skin
Or the white of my pigment.
I am not a diamond, I am not a ruby.
I am flesh, I am human.
I am wrapped in a body that loves me
And I will love it back.
Terry O'Leary Feb 2014
THE MEETING

Alone one night neath lantern light, I trudged a weary mile.
Forlorn, I went with shoulders bent (the storms around me howled)
until I met a Silhouette behind a sultry smile –
She gazed with eyes that mesmerize (Her body caped and cowled)
and stayed my way with question fey, ‘Why don’t you while awhile?’

Though timorous (with slow address and gestures pantomimed)
Her voice was gracing echoes chasing waves in evening’s tide.
The churchyard groaned, an ***** moaned, the bells of midnight chimed
while wanton winds awoke and dinned, and mistrals multiplied.
The Persian moon, like stray balloon, arose and blithely climbed.

The Silhouette (a pale brunette) arched eyebrows meant to please,
and down the lanes, on windowpanes, the shadows danced and sighed.
A meadowlark within the dark, somewhere behind the breeze,
ennobled Her with wisps of myrrh while deigning to confide
to nightingales veiled whispered tales of human vanities.

She doffed her cloak before She spoke with sighs of sorrow sung
(like mandolins, as night begins, when mourning day’s demise)
and spun Her tale of grim travail and tears She'd shed when young.
As jagged volts of thunderbolts lit up the dismal skies,
a velvet fog embraced a bog in coils of curling tongues.

Through summer vales and winter gales Her secret thoughts were voiced.
Midst storms so cruel (neath lightning’s jewel that glistered on the ridge)
She reminisced, She touched... we kissed... Her lips were wet and moist...
A lighthouse dimmed, while moonbeams skimmed across a distant bridge
to avenues where residues of shallow shades rejoiced.

                        HER TRAGIC TALE

“Midst sweet perfume of youthful bloom, the lonely spirit braves
and often cries and sometimes dies in quest of her amour.”

While starry-eyed, a ship I spied, a’ sail upon the waves –
the galleon docked, the gannets flocked, the Captain swept ashore
where, debonair with gypsy flair, he led his salty knaves.

In passing by, he caught my eye - I tried to hide a blush,
but ambiance of innocence left fervour’s flames revealed.
His gaze (defined by eyes that shined) beheld my cheek a’ flush.
I bowed my head while caution fled, I felt my fate was sealed
- a bird in spring with fledgling wing - he’d snared a  falling thrush.

He said ‘Hello’ - I answered ‘No’ and yet before he’d gone
said I, ‘I’ll wait at Heaven’s Gate not far beyond the Pale’.
At dusk he came neath moon aflame, and left before the dawn
just humming tunes between the dunes that lined the sandy trail
beside a pond where morning yawned, where swam an ebon swan.

We met again, and once again, and once again, again
entangled in a love called sin, in whirls of make-believe.
While in my arms, with voice that charms, said he ‘I must explain -
the tide awaits in distant straits and I must take my leave’.
Then tempests stormed as passions swarmed through ardor’s hurricane.

‘Forsake your home and we may roam’ he smiled as if to tease
and still naive, said I ‘I’ll leave, in silver buckled shoes’.
He took the helm in search of realms, and quickly quit the quays -
with tearful eyes, I bade goodbyes to fare-thee-well adieus
and sailed above a wave of love across the seven seas.

We swept one morn around Cape Thorne while bound for Bullion Bay.
With naught to reck, I strolled on deck, a baby at my breast,
while flurries blew and seagulls flew within the ocean’s spray.
Our ship soon moored, we went ashore and off to Fortune’s Quest -
with gold doubloons which shone like moons, he gambled through the day.

‘The deuce is wild’ he thinly smiled; another card was drawn -
he’d staked and raised with eyes half glazed, was dealt a dismal three.
With betting tight throughout the night, the final ace long gone,
meant all was lost, at what a cost; alas, the prize was me.
To my dismay he slunk away and left me doomed at dawn.

A buccaneer with ring in ear sneered ‘now, my dear, you’re mine’.
He held my wrists to thwart my fists and then... my honor stained.
On sullied swash, the sky awash with bitter tears of brine,
I broke his clutch with nothing much of me that still remained:
a residue when he was through, left clinging to a vine.

In morning dew, the good folk knew, and spurned me in my plight.
The preacher man pronounced a ban and wouldn’t condescend,
ignored my pleas on bended knees and prayers by candlelight.
While cast aside, my baby died... my world was at an end.
Until this day, I’ve made my way beneath the shades of night.


                        AT HEAVEN’S GATES

To set Her free from destiny was far from my design,
but, though unplanned, I touched Her hand to give Her peace of mind.
She told me then, and then again, that providence Divine
had cast a curse, and even worse: despised by all mankind,
She walked alone, unseen, unknown, Her soul incarnadine.

To break this spell of living hell, of loneliness enshrined,
and end Her days within the haze, a sole redeeming deed
would give reprieve and maybe leave our destinies entwined -
Her final quest be put to rest if only I agreed,
but no surcease nor perfect peace nor hope if I declined.

The shadows, shawled in silence, crawled, the night Her fate was sealed
as vespers tolled across the wold beneath the muted fog.
The heavens cracked and sorrow slacked as chimes of children pealed
while in the hills (where midnight chills) there wailed a daemon dog -
with no delay I lead the way, the path to Potter’s Field.

Her weathered face was lined with Grace, Her eyes shone emerald green.
With me as guide She stepped inside to grieve and mourn Her loss,
and thereupon, though pale and wan, the night took on a sheen.
With weary eyes as Her disguise, She placed a wooden cross
upon a mound (unhallowed ground) and whispered ‘Sibylline...’.

A falling star flared in the far and burst, a bolide flame -
beneath the light, the Final Rite no longer hid undone.
And kneeling there in silent prayer, we seemed to share the shame
but could atone if left alone, forevermore as one.
Before we both could breathe an oath, I asked Her once Her name.

Through lips, pale red, She simply said ‘Some called me Abigail’,
and neath a birch where white doves perch, I took Her for my bride,
beheld Her smile a little while, but all to no avail...
Her cloak and cape, and shrivelled shape lie empty at my side...
for now She waits at Heaven’s Gates, not far beyond the Pale.
Samantha Oct 2014
My heart has deflated.
My heart has turned to a black and limp
Pebble in the belly of my palm.
My heart leaks juices
That remind me of meat.
I'm a vegetarian now.

The valves on my heart don't work anymore.
This much I am certain.
My heart sits in the makeshift oven
My ribs act as.
No longer a cage, no longer bone.
Just an oven chalk full of gas.
Will you brave the heat?

My heart was once a peach.
My heart is now a rotting plum.
Mold colonies take refuge.
I have named each spore.
Narcissus is my favorite.
He is green while the others are gray.
Its almost ironic.

They want to pickle my heart in a jar.
They want to inject me
Full of formaldehyde.
They want chemicals trickling out
Of my ears and open mouth.
My jaw slacked just for this.

I am lying on a surgery table.
My heart is about to be taken out.
I say goodbye to
My dearest, oldest friend.
I hope I can see it fossilized
And put in a great display case in a great history museum.
Everyone can marvel
At the heart so black, so flat, so burnt, so dead
It nearly exploded in a girl's chest.

I do not remember the steady pulsing.
The steady pumps.
The punctuations to each second.
I do not remember the flutter.
The skips.
But most importantly
I do not remember
The rotting.
Paul Celano Jun 2010
There is one time when the body pauses
The dazzling placid late night

Inside a concealed crisp castle
There is a slacked thrown of pose
One trivial light flickers softly
Beside a firm restful coffin

Now I lay me down to sleep
A phrase heard through life
Happens in the reality of this moment

Stripping cloth from the frosted vision
Once again becoming true natural
The chilled air surrounds the body
Seeping in the lowered soul
Laying ever so still on a lush plank
A quicksand of memories as the body sinks

The light now slender
Nothing but the somber knights
They cover a chattered body
Leaving a sense of protection and warmth

Are the eyes open or closed?
A thought lucidly pounding in the brain

The sense of smell is the true friend
At this sudden listless time
Only supple crystals shift the nose
Tingling the starved fragile hairs

Face cannot be wiped
The body is made of oppressed stone
The arms weighted to a pull
Tied down by tickled silk shackles
The legs a block of endless heavy
The body is no more a vital vessel
But an anchored hard shell

Although the fleshy mind stays alert
Thoughts, dreams, emotions
Marinating in a skulled ***
Fusing together to make a dream
An intense deep sleep
In the world of non reality
©2010 Paul Celano
shosho Rea Dec 2014
Round 1:
MIND " You can't be doing this to me again. Falling for another person, a person who's not worth it. You may think the heart has healed but I swear every inch of this Body Hasn't, I'm tired of these tears of the cries really its ******* me over, I don't have the strength to numb your heart once you decide to do this again, for once follow me, please"

THE HEART
" No matter what happens if you follow the mind you'll be hurting knowing they aren't yours and they could never be"

Round 2:
Mind: "Allow me to remind you of what last happened. At night you cried yourself to sleep or drugged yourself. You woke up and your surroundings were dark. You slacked off your studies and resorted to drink your **** away. Remember when mummy first caught you? Remember the look of pain and fear that she gave you? You became what haunted her most nights."

Heart: "I'm sorry. I'm hurting you but what can I do? If I push these emotions away then I'm just hurting you more. I don't know what you want me to do"

Round 3
Mind: "I'm done fighting. What the heart wants is what it gets. I'm tired and still in shock from the last event. What makes you so sure we'll survive the next one?"

Heart: " Life consists of pain. Can we just enjoy the sweet moment before they turn sour?"

Conclusion:...
Remember Wyoming?
Those two days find their way to me, and it always seems so vibrant.
How it hurt to breathe with the constant cigarette smoke in our mouths,
and how hard it was to light one in the windy cough of the night.
I remember us and the others drinking some tea,
and seeing myself in its ingredients.
I remember looking in the splintered mirror for half an hour,
exploring the wonderful fluke of my face.
I remember feeling every ***** of you in the prickly light of night.
The desert howled at us and we howled back, not caring if our sounds would slap the others in the face.

When we stumbled back in afterwards, the space was silent.
Someone took something and they heard their own voice,
but they didn’t like that echoing clatter.
Their hands were over their ears; they writhed on the floor like their skin was a size too small.
It was then I realized that our cabin had no windows or doors, but just gaping indigo gashes,
and I felt so defenseless against the angry emptiness of those American wastes.

Eventually his body slacked, indicating that he was stuck in himself once again.
We stayed inside for the rest of the night, keeping our eyes away from the spaces in the walls.
We huddled together, me and you, on the concrete floor, and tried to keep the fire going.
I remember someone through in that Aldous Huxley novel, and I thought it was a waste.
I, for one, always liked the ending, with the feet rotating like Columbia Mall’s carousel.
But I’m sure you’d beg to differ. 

The next morning we and the others shook ourselves awake, and shambled our way into the Dodge.
I sat in the flatbed, and as we hollered down the highway,
I watched a single cloud slip across the sky at the same rate we were driving,
and lied on my side for those 8 hours; the cloud looked like a tired blur.
But when we arrived outside Omaha, and everyone and you jumped out to ****,
I realized that the cloud I thought was still must’ve flew about seven hundred miles.
It could’ve fooled me.
And then you kissed me on the cheek and took a Camel out of my pocket,
skipping into the soda shop like a child, two days younger.
© David Clifford Turner, 2010

For more scrawls, head to: www.ramblingbastard.blogspot.com
Mitchell Sep 2012
Well I'm all alone once again
My lady rests as my mind tests
The sweet taste of these keys caress

I'm trying to make sense of this place
But the focus just ain't right
I don't know enough about that
And this hat, well, it just don't fit

But don't think that I'm aiming to quit
For the pick of the pine is sharp

I hear those drinking downstairs toss
Their darts as the dark engulfs
Every single last one of them
Praying for the lost line of their kin

No war on tonight
Only what they'll show us
Were too lazy to drive, you hear?
Someone else
Is going to go and do it for us
Perhaps even
Force it

Now
If I knew how to write about love
I would do it
But every time I do
The words just come out all wrong

I know not where the
Heart or the soul rests
For when I try
I foresee an image that
Has nothing to do
With any kind of truthful feeling
For truth has nothing to do with it
Every feeling is true
Even if it is Faked
By the seer or the feeler

Glasses of grey turns
Her head away from the storm
Shuffling bed spread, I hear
The wind of forgotten love affairs
Mixed now with tears of
Love that has come around finally
And again

Form takes my hand
I pull it away

Regrets ocean washes
Over my bare naked white feet

I attempt to regain
My hand in shaking pain

But her lifeline has slacked
Her eyes glazed as the sun's
Haze quotes itself again n' again

Day in, day out
The farmer's on crippled
Horizons, their backs bending as
They stack pile after pile
Of golden heated hay

Where here I ponder my own
Fortune
Future
Fortitude
Likeliness to
Survive the storm

And though I show
Not alone

There is the bite of the solitude winter
That brings each body to a state of a beginner
Chained to this we are slaves to that

I nod my head as the birds above me swirl
Hearing the tranquil quill stab its blackness
Into parchment that whimpers back unforgiving
Yet in my chest the heart continues to go on beating
No matter how much I thrash this body with each beating
The rock never wavers, the stone inside never retreating
Only below is where we see the dead defeating

But when I leave
With my chests final seethes

Touch not my soul nor
Chase to where it goes
For the morning for all
Is bright and should not be taken
With ill imagined fright
Jen Rem Aug 2013
The things you say are so funny, if I had more
I'd tell you honey. It's you I love and want to see, yet all
you do is doubt me. It is trust that you lack
another "man" has slacked. It is he not me that you doubt.

Its here you dwell and dream of somewhere swell.
I wish I could run from what you call hell.
I sit in my cell hoping all turns well
I smooth my dress and wait for the cold spell.

Now you rant and you rave, hurting me so
ruining everything we worked so hard to grow.
You march off on down the road
to your hiding place I know you will go..

Each time I watch my man march off
I shut down more and wait for the war.
Why do you say you hear what I say?
But the very next time I watch in dismay
SWB Aug 2011
I'm shakin' hands with the trees,
High-fiving their leaves,
leaving both of us silly and genuinely pleased.
and by 'both' I mean ten.
We were wrestling zen-
Buddha pinned, nearly sinned
till he slacked, touched my back, bought a drink for my friend-
I'm remembering now what I couldn't then.
614

In falling Timbers buried—
There breathed a Man—
Outside—the spades—were plying—
The Lungs—within—

Could He—know—they sought Him—
Could They—know—He breathed—
Horrid Sand Partition—
Neither—could be heard—

Never slacked the Diggers—
But when Spades had done—
Oh, Reward of Anguish,
It was dying—Then—

Many Things—are fruitless—
’Tis a Baffling Earth—
But there is no Gratitude
Like the Grace—of Death—
MoonChild Aug 2013
In loose terms
in slacked mouth lies
in stretching truths
spider web fine
unfit for consumption
lines and grievances
I write with tongue in cheek
firmly held away from teeth
bared in a grimace
oh we have begun.
Pauline Morris Jan 2016
All alone
The seed was sewn
The **** has grown
Close to the bone
I've been dethroned
Turned to sandstone

Watch me crumble
Everything I bumble
So very humble
Everything I fumble
I just mumble
My thoughts are jumbled

My mind is cracked
There's no coming back
I'm afraid I slacked
So much I lack
A joker not a jack
A punch in the back

No wings, can't fly
Only look at the sky
Soulless eyes
Slowly dies
No tears to cry
Into the pan to fry
THE ANGRY WATERS
that recoiled and threatened a tsunami
lie placid now, bacalmed and still
as shiny as a glass topped dining table

THE HOWLING WINDS
that longed to be a hurricane
have settled into zephyrs and soft breezes
that barely riff the petals of the autumn roses

THE RAGING THUNDER
that tried so hard to break the windows
has rolled on and is nothing but a distant echo
that recedes as fast as memories of childbirth pain

THE VICIOUS RAIN
that threatened to go flooding
has slacked off into a gentle winter mist
that wraps the dawning sun in silken haloes

THE VOLCANIC FLAMES
that lept across the sky as lightning
have danced across the hills to other valleys
leaving only ozone to mark where they have been

AND I AM SPARED AND WHOLE
Unwounded and unscarred
Undamaged by their passing
Unscathed in places that should bleed
And safe in who I plan to be
At last the God of Hope
Has noticed me
And offered me
His hand to take
And walk into
Tomorrow.
          ljm
Sometimes there is a little bit of gold at the end of a stormy rainbow.
Chris Voss Jul 2014
When he entered the room, she was naked. She sat stripped of her mythology and the bare curves of her hips made his hands shake. He hid them in his pockets like seizures in winter and told himself it was just the morning coffee.

"Jesus Christ..." His jaw slacked and tightened and he waited for a response; something witty like, odd time to pray or not quite, but maybe his cousin or oh, honey, he moved out years ago, but we still get his mail.
But soon waiting gave way to waiting, as waiting is wont to, and things became uncomfortable. Her deadbolt eyes. She blinked in slow motion, no lash out of place, and he felt foolish.

See, he never expected her to be a woman, and he almost said as much, had the look on her face not shut him up beautifully. Besides, at this point he was pretty certain that cities definitely don't speak--not English anyway--and even then, his concrete dialect was, at best, as atrocious as cracked pavement. He lisped with too much wind and not enough asphalt.

He looked around for somewhere to sit but the only chair wasn't even really a chair, it was a stool with a questionable third leg that sat over-turned and tucked in the far corner and he found himself at an impasse. Retrieving it would not only involve taking his hands from their linen hideaways, but she hadn't even offered him a seat and he didn't want to be rude; he being a man of manners with the cotillion lessons to prove it. On the other hand, there was a more-than-decent chance that his knees would buckle at any moment. He cleared his throat.

"May I?" he motioned and crept around her with a weird, dainty tip-toe. He would later reflect on and regret this odd step choice because it was undeniably ladylike, unlike this lady whose face seemed carved from marble and gave nothing away; she just cast her eyes slightly downward. He uprighted the chair that wasn't really a chair and checked the sturdiness of the questionable leg and shrugged in questionable approval and dragged it back to where he was and returned his hands to where they were and felt, aside from the girly walk, that went surprisingly well.

So it was in silence that he was left to sit. Sit and think. Think about small things, trivial ****. He thought about the small stain on his pants and hoped to God it was toothpaste. He thought about the itch in the dead center of his back where he can never scratch without looking like he has a severe case of cerebral palsy. He thought about his pockets, full of trembling leaves that fluttered with spare change winds and hung delicately from his autumn tree arms. He thought about bigger things too, like how if two people on exact opposite ends of the earth simultaneously each dropped a piece of bread, for a brief moment the whole world was just a really big sandwich. But mostly he thought about the difference between hard and mean.

Hard is the bottomless tumblers of American dream fathers, breathing scotch like fire and promises that were only ever half-way held true. But mean... Mean is a different kind of machine entirely. Mean, he realized, is one solid kick in the nuts past hard. Hard is when your ice cream drops mid-lick and falls in the cinematic drama of a-hundred-and-twenty frames per second to the unforgiving pavement, and even though there is a split seconds chance to reach out and catch it, you don't because, let's face it, sticky hands are gross. But mean is the little junior sonofabitch dog that comes a-waddling on in, laps up your deliciously sweet sidewalk treat and stares you right in the face while he does it. Mean makes you realize the sticky fingers would have been worth it. And before he could decide which category this Angel City would fit in, she stood, with a slight smile curling at the corner of her mouth and one hand behind her back. She slinked over to him with snake ankles and reached out and ran her fingers along his jawline and hooked his chin upward and kissed him.

It wasn't the delicate, thin-lipped kiss of embarrassed virgins and ex-stripper-turned-born-again-Christians. It also wasn't the Californication kiss filled with carnal tongue that he might have expected had the idea that she was going to do anything but intimidate the utter **** out of him even crossed his mind. It was somewhere between the two. Between shelter and apocalypse.  Viperous with a tinge of motherly protection (which, actually, gave him some confusing feelings). When she pulled away he felt the slight clink of metal against his teeth.

A bullet. Round and smooth, he rolled it between his thumb and forefinger and watched his fingerprint peel off and mark the lead skin with little, oily mazes. He looked up to her, unsure of what to say or what to make of whatever the hell just went down. She stared silently because, you know, that's her thing and he felt he had to say something because, you know, manners.

"I thought we said no gifts." He laughed. She didn't. He felt like an idiot immediately. Then, like the other half heart of a best friend necklace, she drew from her back a snub-nosed revolver. Her thumb flicked with outlaw elegance and the empty chamber rolled open.

"Let's play a game."
It was all she said. He didn't pay attention to whether she spoke in impeccable English or if the words were lit in the electric neon of Sunset Boulevard. It didn't matter and he didn't care. He didn't even notice when he took the gun and slid the round in until after he spun the chamber and slung it shut. When she lifted his arm without touching him and he felt like he was her marionette. When the snub nose found it's way to his mouth, he was certain of it. The feeling of the metal barrel against his bare teeth made his skin crawl and his stomach turn, yet even still he grinned.

He grinned because he saw his hand and his hand grinned because it wasn't shaking, not anymore.

He grinned and cocked the hammer back.
©2014

— The End —