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Robin Carretti Aug 2018
Earth
Worth
Darth
*  777* Goth
Whats worse both
Even Steven Universe
Will I ever find

  *Peace
/ Curse

Coming to terms with
Cancer doesn't care
Did Heaven
become
A disease ending up
Absolutely nowhere

Lotto like death
Poison mushroom
Exit button mushroom
Alarm
Claustrophobic
Thanks for space

Comic.com race
Demonic
Shrooming
Baby mushroom
cooing
Fantasy Island of
Alice in Wonderland
mushrooms to chew
Rabbit hole stew
What a mush
washy of lush
Being taken
Stroke of a brush
All our money-losing
Clouds white and brown
chairs
One mans poison Pubs is
cute baby cubs pleasure
Moving Buffy slayer City
Jungle  Jane single
Poison *** in the city

Pollution give me

My London Fog
Poisoning mushroom
The Prince the princess
being kissed by a frog
What! the magic mushroom?
for migraines
Herbal cure
medicinal
remedy taking planes

LSD healing drive
Mushroom for the brain
The Godly tribe


Trees are being
chopped down
Everything from
generation
Handed down
Laughing stock of
Computer clowns
I am not feeling the vibe

Shitake what does it take
Like a fungus

Tasting someone's poison
Mushroom soup he is
wearing his graduate cap
What a mushroom head

Ladies of Venus group
Coastal storm in my
wedding bed

Riders of the storm
Stan the evil door or
Jimmy Morrison
Nicole with her Kidman
Are you kidding me
I am assuming
The good earth
Is being devoured
Every hour I feel
like writing
Who is buying mushrooms
Slivered like a snake
Making room for Go Daddy
Poisonous suits of Grooms

Healing hand is
Godly skywriting
The silence of
the Lamb
Moms Lambchops
Steamed fresh mushrooms
Stranded with most
expensive lipstick
Money withdrawal
My Drugs like a
good book fictional

Only in my dreams
Did I ever see poison
mushrooms
Something is being
planted in my showroom

Artwork Arsenic and lace
Whole place faces of mushrooms
Homemade Butternut squash
Nose of a button mushroom
  Near the vegetable
Stand his hand
lands he started
Eating my mushroom's
Marsala mushroom
sauce
Grilled Chicken and
bacon salad overload
of mushrooms
I never promised you
a rose garden
In our College Dorm
Pool games no drugs
of mushroom

Trees and Snow White
poison apple she is cute
as a button
Throwing apples compared
To oranges who would
be glad they got stuck
with poison
mushroom
Good earth what is possible

Poison brain watching
Cable whats accountable
Midterms all nasty germs
The world is poisoning
our mind brainwashed
I left one nasty mushroom
behind I won't bite
Poison is everywhere if you let it come your way it is in our plants it is the way a person galavants how the time flew. I don't even have money to buy the most expensive shoe. I see a lot of mushroom gravy  Mom make homemade gravy every Sunday Its an Italian thing. We rarely have mushrooms  He always dresses like little boy blue this is not a fairytale we feel poisoned by so many things even watch out poison mushrooms better not be in your meal
the money is like a drug but got poisoned
Despair Feb 8
Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The mire, borne
from past reflections,
that snap from my memory
like broken ribbons.
Pastures of azure
amidst agony, frozen
within a monster’s jaws.
Its frostbite fades into my
veins.
Again, within these beryl
everglades cannot move.
I cannot see you.
Where have you gone?
This air, it blisters
Into my lungs and
benumbs me.
And still, I run.
Accept my feelings,
here and now.
And in parting, let me vow
that in a night
or in a day
if you vanish
or if you stay
in my death
when my flesh is gray
you will see me in your everglades.
I run
in search of you.
within the moor
and its creek of dreams.
lucent crystal cannot hold
my shivering bodies
it breaks beneath me.
bubbles. . . water. . .
flooding
flooding
flooding
into my body.
again?

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The mire, borne
from past reflections,
that snap from my memory
like broken ribbons.
Pastures of azure
amidst agony, frozen
within a monster’s jaws.
Its frostbite fades into my
veins.
Again, within these beryl
everglades?I can never move.
not truly.
I can never see you.
You are always gone.
This air, it blisters
Into my lungs and
benumbs me.
colder… colder
growing colder.
And still, I run
And still. I run?
Through the swamp
Through the trees
Through this forest
Of shattered dreams.
Why… do I run?
It’s not for father.
It’s not for mother.
It’s not for the god?Who never bothered.
bones splinter into my feet
tattered teeth from
children’s skulls,
and broken cartilage from?ah. I see.
this body isn’t just one of
mine,
It’s one of many.
hair, as fine as a violin’s
bow.
Feelings – left behind.
Somewhere.
Keen frost sinks in
its unforgiving fangs.
I succumb to the cold.
This Great Mire
consumes me.
again. again. again. again.

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The mire, borne
from past reflections,
that snap from my memory
like broken ribbons.
Pastures of azure
amidst agony, frozen
within a monster’s jaws.
Its frostbite fades into my
veins.
Again, within these beryl everglades
Enough.
Enough..
Enough!
Please.
I beg of you.
Enough is enough!

High above,
The harvest moon shines.
And I see it reflected,
within your scarlet eyes.
A face I cannot see,
Another mind, presented.
Like a dream within a
dream.
Residual thoughts tremor
Through lost woods
Of muddled blue.
You offer me a tome,
Bound in black stardust.
Its words its whispers
Like a serpent’s soft sigh.

“For each word that you
read,
You will yearn,
your blood will burn.
For my knowledge
Of perception.
Hand over your heart,
If you truly wish to learn.
It matters not how you
plead,
If you oblige by this
serpent’s creed.
Your only form of
payment is to bleed.”
Fooled by your black sugar
That covers my eyes
You tricked me.
For the tome that I opened,
its pages,
Much like my own soul,
Are vacant.
And the water floods into
My lungs
Again.
Empty words dissipating
Upon the surface of the
mire.

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The mire, borne
from past reflections,
that snap from my memory
like broken ribbons.
A child’s ribbon, torn from
her hair.
Ah.
I knew I had left these
thoughts,
Somewhere.
A book without words.
A mind without answers.
My tears hit the
parchment,
And text froths to the
surface.
A story.
I see a story here.
Its words reflecting
within shadows of blue-green.
And now,
Only now.
Do I see what you mean.
If I must repeat
This elegy.
If my pen cannot
Produce ink
Without agony is this vice worth taking?
And are these feelings
worth understanding?

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Morning dew tides
into my slivered lungs.
The skies are borne
from past reflections,
I can no longer remember
who the reflection is.
I have found myself,
Alas,
My soul remains,
Frozen within
This Elegy of the Glades.
My tears,
Turned to crystals
Within the mire.

Addled sapphire
blends with skies of
severed cerulean.
Skies that I reside within
Now, and forever
Based on a reoccurring dream.
King Panda Sep 2015
bat-tastic lung
collapse
fragrant raspberry
leaves
gas exchange gone
wrong
little sailor
slivered ocean
reverse gravitational
sinking into
blackened angler doom
new age
humanitarian
loves others
loves discovering
new
truths
loves
plummeting through spaded
blinds
insanely unappreciative
red
the new harvest
the magician blinking
the the sky
imagination finally
makes
sense
Tyler C Nelson Nov 2019
as if one summer night would
   stop to kiss the cheek of winter
        winter
   my sandaled feet chill,
       awash in starlight
   the waves, like a slivered memory
       pure and silver,
       carry the faint heartbeat
      of many things come and gone
summered waters blow through
   their courses of hair
   in soft syllables to the ear
   they touch stones of fire
   alive in the eyes of the mind
how many hearts or ripples
   of moonlight have walked here?
   here, where new clouds breach
       ancient skies and stones
       of rivers of many things
           come and gone
   smooth and silver are the drops
       of time, which wash
       slivered memories
           of summer
   by the light of a cool moon
Left Foot Poet Mar 2018
cellphone to heart, mobile to immobile, electric dead to living

you know that sleep and I are but passing acquaintances,
when it drops in, to heavy my lids, it is through a cracked window slivered, just enough for a Pan boy to grab me and away me to Almost Neverland

when the alarms sound that it’s sleepy time,
(quite like that quiet verse)
no time to delist the “those pre-shluffy to do things,”
cell drop upon my chest, like an open mic,
then the raging observatory tapestry begins!

the cell lies directly above my ventricular chamber,
and communication is live, the brain cutoff switch, well, cutoff

all manner of imps, devils, rejected poems, angels and
Greek gods and some Indian as well, stand in line for to make
free calls via a beating human message call center, utilizing my friends and family verizon plan to register complaints,
close out unfinished biz, or just contact, friends, family or other
mischievous imps or even you, in other time zone worlds

though my brain may not interfere, like the CIA, it records all
conversations and give me a list of new poem titles, notions, stories glories and wrenching heartbreaking heartbreak,
requiring “fleshing out” when I awake from my three fingers
of scotch, glass eye tears drops made me drunk,

damning this transmigration chorus of voices that offer up a treasure of divine humankind’s hopes and travails,
and the occasional call on the divine’s 1-800 confession line,
hear it all, my chewing out by one particular god of mine who does not suffer my criticisms well of his ungodly actions, nope not sweetly and

when else would he dare contact me, except when no edgewise
words of mine can appear to contradict his mealy mouth excuses

did you musty misty mistake  my poems  as the product of
the miracle water wages of my imaginary inspiration,
no, not, from the replaying of your desperate exclamations,
the cancerous shrieks of loss and prickly investiture of the aesthetics of soft whispers and solitary foot treads,
that is where my insanity is bred, and tumbling s-words, sworn

don’t consider it eavesdropping as there is no signed rental agreement, consider this unfair warning, if you should secret use my cellular line, your everything is now ******,
your genetic material is materialistic mine and my poems yours,
this bittersweet sentiment is a measure of our bloods commingling,
your tears and impish silliness, are shiny hidden within mine

somehow I feel compelled to state this unique statistic:

I love you

4:47pm on 3/11

who writes poems like this?
silly old boys with gray hair, standing on one left leg.  but you knew that, right?
I W Jun 2013
I may not do things traditionally
But I'll get them done eventually
If they're the things that are right for me
I'll be okay and set myself free.


In this life of turbulent strife
pitted and ripe with rotten tripe
a sunlight bright pains my sight
but your soothing ice cools my vice


The aid you paid is not ready made
it gives me hope I'm not just a dope
your love is more than a pity rope,
slivered and raw it gives me splinters


But luckily i'm in for a treat
more than a friend sent to mend
oh yes, you're more, my candy store
settle my sweet tooth you randy *****

unwrap the rainbow you insane *****
ride the rhythm of my *** prism
a rod shaped crystal built like a missile
cocked locked and loaded it cant miss-ya.

explodin' and remoldin' the fabric of time
an infinite blanket wraps us entwined
in a frantic romantic purely satanic
ritual of reality, the utmost sensuality.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2017
for Harlon Rivers

the river potion,
the river portent,
the river potent

it is all of these and not one

he is bank sided,
observing the false idols,
the image mirrored
in the glass of the river

transfigured molecularly
he becomes something ferried frothily, forcefully

as if a twig
or a small thing of human manufacture,
an object tossed up airborne-repeatedly

his poetry:
the clash of particles at the many junctions
of objects and water, eddies and the currents,
ceaselessly circumnavigating,  
searching revisionary pathways

directed,
but randomized,
prisoner of the flows,
servant to the wind's directives and the
earths magnetic indivisible undulating waves

thinking,
this life,
its unsteady gait, 
the irreverent wavering of drunkenness
resultant from potent potions,
portents of inopportune position

in him,
my own histories, 
my poetic recordings
also become
water borne,
watermarked,
replayed back for me,
for erasure, censure, closure
and rededication

this River
is a tapestry,
a torn map,
drawn on broken shards
of slivered water,
living with all the others

but we,
are the untitled,
we,
are the un-entitled,
and he is the
Rivers

<•>
Oct. 20, 2016

harlon is one of the best poets here
if you are new to his writing, be sure to tell him honestly what you think...

his work can be found under
https://hellopoetry.com/harlon-rivers/  
Uncover him, and discover yourself within

2013
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/444023/dear-mr-harlon-rivers/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1020738/winter-whispers/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1913140/in-the-river-of-good-company/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1855694/the-slow-death-of-a-poet/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1995383/traces-of-youa-fathers-tribute/

2014
Harlon Rivers:
http://hellopoetry.com/-harlon-rivers/
my personal call sign, Poseidon
Poseidon was very fitting with Harlon River,
due to the symbolic nature of the water in their names.
I have only read few of this gentleman's work,
But I can assure you his work is very much a gift to the audience,
And like Poseidon that gift is fire to humanity.
Dawn of  Lighten

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1833151/a-walk-with-tonya-maria/

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1924604/ode-to-a-brimful-poetwith-a-twist/
and of course<
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1954256/drinkin-mr-coffee-and-cheap-*****/
each time her bare front
is full with illumination
she is defined by the mystery
of infinite black behind her

and at her most enlightened
is dappled with caters and scars
ensconced in darkness
lined by an aphotic slivered edge

shadow speaks
most deeply

of the ways
in which
she moves
Yusof Asnan Jun 2016
For she too believes in happy ever after,
But after what she's been through,
Those deceits and broken trusts,
Its not wrong for her to build her walls higher.

-HIY
Auntie Hosebag Nov 2010
Stage Design/American Drama


Down front on America’s stage—
awash in a universe
of light arranged by
the ultimate technician.
Come closer.  Anticipate
spectacle.

First sun-splash
on these shores fashions
fool’s gold of surf that heaves against
foam-smoothed, lobster black,
slick rock beaches of northern Maine/
bubbles about black rubber boots of men in boats—
another day, another dime,
shivered away in ancient rime—
adrift in fog on the black
                                          glass
                                                   harbor
                                                               surface.

Grand Canyon sunrise
          EXPLODES
               copper and white/
                    orange and green/
                          blood red/
over many thousand pounds
of brash brown
        dirt—
in every direction/especially down.
       Soldierly shadows armed with swords
       of slivered sunlight hack through scrub
       like so much meat, to each day’s final
       battle at the canyon’s rim/
while a mile below the torment
called the Colorado
turns silver and gold,
black, blue, and
thundering
mud.

Louisiana bayous trickle chlorophyll caramel over twisted hickory sentinels, monumental elms and sycamores—even the alligators.  More mystery here than far-flung nebulae—and everything fighting back ***** green kudzu.

The Badlands of South Dakota, striped like the surface of a ***** peppermint planet—sizzling in the sun, bone cold in the shade—knobby tan canyons wrapped in ribbons of rust that dribble sounds one can neither recall nor reproduce.

Same phenomenon frames dawn over spongy folds of tall green cilia ocean called simply The Plains.
Kansas, Nebraska, horizons so far away thunderstorms creep along like dark, threatening slugs.
Distant night fireworks laden with punishing hail hide tornadoes and winged farmhouses in the horizontal gloom.  In the morning—those sounds again.  Critters?  Wind.  Ghosts, maybe.

Spectral mists of the Great Northwest cloak clear-cut sores on Nature’s sacred,
fragrant, deep green shores, falling steep to the creamy Pacific.
Light's a plaything here.  Big Sur
renders color to gem, sparkles
down the coast
to rusty Golden Gate and grimy LA,
where the sun goes down brown
and the rain shines
like gun metal.

Georgia soil—
homicidal redheaded cousin running loose, looking for trouble—
grows swampy hardwood groves/
leaves hung limp from humidity/
masking antebellum secrets/
offering sanctuary to voodoo practitioners and moonshiners alike.
Magic, danger, ******, and ghosts
of slaughtered slaves wander tight-packed old-growth forests.
Some say the soil is red from ancient conflict,
unanswered pleas for mercy drowned
in the drenching rains
of hurricanes
strayed north from the Gulf of Mexico.
Others claim tears of countless mothers will never leave
Civil War blood completely dry.

Northern New England foliage--
master maples drunk on fresh cider/
psychedelic finger-paint exhibitionists high on
the year’s last harvest,
intoxicated by Nature’s largess/
symphonies of scarlet, tangerine, lemon, even purple--
regal birds migrate over lakes so blue
you could chip your teeth on them,
and a diehard hemlock conducts its final green opus to a sea of primary colors.

Iowa is quiet and corn, obscuring whole towns and the lives held captive therein.  All the green on Earth is planted here; all the sun, all the sapphire sky feeding knee-high-by-July crops, bleaching spare white churches, white picket fences, white-on-white generations and all their vanilla dreams.

Linger beneath Montana’s cobalt crystal canopy to know why it’s called Big Sky.
Stark, Crazy Mountains chase stuttering clouds above treeless, tumbleweed towns,
bathed in the same blues as Wyoming, blown through a wild man’s horn.

A wink of sunlight
mirrored in unseen peaks
perhaps hundreds of miles away—
snow so white/Rocky Mountains so hard and gray—
behind a universe of wheat flatness beckoning the eye to infinity, slowly,
slowly, the Continental Divide rises
from the horizon like a monster parade balloon filling with gas on another continent.
The Flat Irons--majestic stone slabs lounging against Boulder's nearby foothills--
were cursed by ancient observers.
One peek at their precarious slopes compels you to return.
Been back three times and I’m still not sure I believe it.

Southwestern deserts’ blaze,
haze, and halo—spotlights hot,
focused on towering sandstone totems.
Deep gashes of flowering canyon, adrift in the flat and barren,
rage water, mud, and death during summer storms.
Scrub and sand, dust and desolation, land unfit for demons.
Get thee behind me, Arizona.

Endless, straight, lonely two-lanes
carve the lunar landscape of west Texas
into parcels of wasteland, miles marked by
bleached carcasses of ranch animals
and their predators, some hung
on fences as a warning
that people really do
live there.

Cities have their place,
                    their places,
                    their placement--
but my heart can’t pound to the beat of traffic
like it does to waterfall spray.

Turn your back to the fire in sufficient twilight and a mountain range sharpens into a line—
coyotes prowling, howling on the perimeter.
To spy on a wild animal lost in thought.
The sight--and sound--as swans alight or leave a hidden pond.
Northern lights and swamp gas,
everywhere the stench
of Earth.

This
is what matters—
all around us—
this alone.

Not politics,
not religion,
not countries.

Just this—
stage.
This is about the fifteenth iteration of this piece.  It keeps shifting from prose to poem and back again--or worse.  I lost control of it long ago.  Please help me rein this ***** in.  Workshop?
Lucy Tonic Jul 2012
Ate the slivered pancake
Drank the plastic wine
What did I expect
No one gives their body that freely
The horses have serpentine tails
While Neptune drinks his lemonade
And all the mermaids are being washed ashore
Pluto floats on like a speckled egg
And she has Solomon’s house on her head
While all the birds read our minds amidst sunbeam glass
Mercury still gets a tan
While Venus dances in her shell
Here we debate about heaven and hell
Jupiter weeps but we don’t know why
Saturn is a spaceship of time
And Mars used to be blue
While Uranus hides its bottom half
Ate the slivered pancake
Drank the plastic wine
What did I expect
No one gives their body that freely
Tom McCone Jul 2014
...and i woke up, and
my motion persists, my
trailing light- split to trail-
lines, to curl out and line
up with your perfect
skin. imperfect smile, love,
it is invisible to all eyes:
shaking and glistening, i'd
give it all, for one simple quivering
moment spent with you. just
one photograph with palms
aligned. eyes alight. alas, for all
this is but nothing. all a ploy, you're
finding affection in patterns in
static, monumental, clawing eagerly
through the dark; here, it's high
noon. and i'm stone sober, and
missing you like malfunctioning
lungs. i haul breath to roll your
syllables over my tastebuds, again
more broken
glass down the back of my
skull just to steal a thought away
from inscrutable you. oh, honey,
the things i'd do...
Slow creeping castles in mind intertwine
With memories bled deeply with pain
Chaotic structures, foundations of fear
And lives of a dark crimson stain
Slivered intentions ****** deeply within
Black fingers which clutch death like gold
Breeding disfigured delusions of life
In a worm-ridden heart love can't hold
Distorted figures of flesh and of shadow
Vehemently spawning delusion
Embedded far within failure-worn skin
With morbid intent the intrusion
Tragedies breeding disease and a hunger
Consuming a weak self-control
Raging insanity, loss of humanity
Ravenous Thiever of Souls

   **

Dust of a shadowed and well hidden ignorance
Envelopes discarded hope
Enhancing the feelings of failure and worthlessness
Of the lost soul who can't cope
More of the lessoning of love for life
Less of a reason for living
Imprisoned inside a one-sided world
Oppressor of self, unforgiving
So few the caring, supporting, and loving
Too many workers of pain
Within his mind, now void of forgiveness
Only one option remains
So few would mourn, so many rejoice
One bullet could cure this disease
Misguided hand holding cold false deliverance
Moves toward disaster with ease

Trembling fingers now pushing destruction
Begin to draw false freedom nigh
Conscience is screaming, imprisoned by hopelessness
Drown out by suicide's lie
The kiss of cold steel, and death gives a whisper
As barrel is pressed against skin
The moment forgotten as soul-piercing words
Explode far more near than within
"Such a loss you endure.  Such sorrow and pain.
Such a fool to think death sets you free."
Now a figure before, a shadow with substance
Dark whisper upon bended knee
Somewhat from fear, somewhat from awe,
Somewhat from thought hypnotized
The gun falls away, along with intentions
In company of undead eyes

Darkness leans closer, distorting a smile
Veiling intent with concern
Stretching it's hand toward the vacant young man
Saying, "Come.  There are things you should learn."
Contact is made, and light is betrayed,
As both fall down into the gloom
The young man awakens to heartless abandon
To learn of revenge in his tomb
"Your pain can end by ending the source,
And multiple sources there are.
Each individual judging your life
Leaves on your soul a new scar.
Erase every scar, and restore who you are
By sending their souls here to me.
Ask not what I do, and my promise to you
Is revenge will soon set you free."

Of all of the thoughts now inside his head
The victor is "ending the pain"
Tired of being the subject of scorn
Tired of going insane
"**** them all.  Yes.  And, why not?" he concludes
"They've been killing me for years.
An end to the torment, an end to the pain,
An end to all of the tears."
Gaze fixed on eyes alive with death
Eager for cold recompense
The young man sells his soul with, "I will."
Darkness smiles.  "Let us commence."
A savage young man, now barely a man
Arises to set himself free
Not knowing he's fashioning his personal cell
With Darkness now holding the key

Cover of night and a murderous silence
Welcome the newborn disease
Un-natural sight on this victory night
Grants the new killer great ease
Now there is flight, cut loose from earth's ties
To soar into vengeance untold
And a hunger for more than was bargained for
As morbid desires unfold
All taken in with more pleasure than fear
More weapons with which to wage war
First there was only the goal to take life
Now there is drunkenly more
"They will endure much more physical pain
Than that which they carved on my soul."
And madness begins as delusion abounds
In the Slave to the Thiever of Souls

To the first window, the first scar of pain
Laid out on a bed of fine white
The falsified *****, who pretends to adore him
While taking new lovers each night
A trick of the fist, and a flick of the wrist
And teeth burrow into the flow
The life that once thrived on the tainting of lives
Now lost in irony's throw
As the well runneth dry, the Slave gives a cry
As the torture intended is lost
Yet the hunger now maddeningly cries from inside
To be silenced whatever the cost
Turning away as emptiness grows
More wicked than torture's regret
Vowing the next will experience pain
Before their life's blood has been let

The next pair of scars, so distinct under stars
Together, as in his despair
The father and mother of what he once was
For him they had never been there
"Break them apart in each other's view,
Then hang them with their own entrails."
But ravenous hunger devours the thought
As self-treachery is unveiled
Before realization of torture now lost
Has time to fully set in
The two have been drained, their life now contained
In the ravenous nothing within
The Slave is consumed by rage beyond end
As the hunger continues to grow
Revenge now a second to the matter at hand
A trip to the Darkness below

"What have you done to me, you sick ****?"
A smile.  "Does it not satisfy?
An end to the pain that you felt was the deal.
In return are the souls you supply."
"The pain of my scars is drown out by far
By this hunger consuming my need.
I need to torment each one before death,
You *******!  Why do I only feed?"
"By feeding, my Slave, you harvest the souls
You promised me in our deal.
Never was torture a part of the bargain.
Go forth.  There are more souls to steal."
"And once I have taken these souls you request,
Is that when you set me free?"
"As long as you live, someone will cause you pain.
You will always be Slave unto me."

Blazing insanity blooms in a rage
As hatred begins to stain
"The soul of anyone, then, can be taken
If they are causing me pain?"
A smile, formed of misunderstanding
Now spreads across the dark face
"That is the deal, my Slave.  Just as long
As you bring the soul back to this place."
"But what of your soul, you ignorant ****?"
The smile now beginning to fade.
"I bet devouring your soul voids it all…
This ****** deal I have made."
A pause, "Yes Slave, my soul ends it all.
But freedom, you see, has its price.
You may be free of the deal we have made,
But you will never escape the device."

Locked in a gaze of thought and intent
The Slave and Thiever of Souls
Understanding, and the lack thereof
Threaten the grip of control
"To be a slave and be forced to feed,
Or feed after I've had my fun.
If those are the only two choices I have,
It's sure as hell not the first one."
The Thiever of Souls and the Slave then collide
With weapon of claw and of tooth
The Thiever now still, so quickly brought down
And the Slave, realizing the truth
As the soul of the Thiever and all those therein
Merge with the scars on his own
The voices now present inside his dark mind
Bring darker truths to be shown

"Slave, you have played the game out as we hoped,"
Sang the morbid chorus of loss.
"Each one of us were the victim before,
And won, to find losing the cost.
Would have been better to pull the ****** trigger
Than take up the offer, you see.
No longer the Slave, but the Thiever of Souls.
Prisoner, you've set us all free.
Enjoy your new hell, and suffer for us,
As we will suffer no more.
But, just as promised, at least this new pain
Will drown out the scars of before.
Your life is now eternal death,
And eternally you will feed.
This is the price you're condemned to pay
For your selfish, vengeful greed."

         **

Slow creeping castles in mind intertwine
With memories bled deeply with pain
Chaotic structures, foundations of fear
And lives of a dark crimson stain
Slivered intentions ****** deeply within
Black fingers which clutch death like gold
Breeding disfigured delusions of life
In a worm-ridden heart love can't hold
Distorted figures of flesh and of shadow
Vehemently spawning delusion
Embedded far within failure-worn skin
With morbid intent the intrusion
Tragedies breeding disease and a hunger
Consuming a weak self-control
Raging insanity, loss of humanity
Ravenous Thiever of Souls
I wrote this several years ago while trying (failing) to write a horror novel. The poet in me had other plans with the idea.
gwen Sep 2014


the buzzing in your limbs when you lie on them for too long

is the buzzing in my head

the static in my mind that makes

the world

s           p

n           i

in deadly motion;

as rivers run from my eyes

tear-soaked tissues clenched in my smothering grasp

lungs

c
      o
           l
               l
                   a
                        p
                            s
                               i
                                    n
                                         g
inwards

while the world spins around me

threatening to spin me into infinite inexistence by breaking me

into an infinite number of slivered

p
                      i
               e
c
                                  e
             s --

for i am too smothered by the world

and it is not the first time today

i couldn't breathe.

Apoorv Bhardwaj Mar 2018
Nirbhaya

I might cry, I might weep, I might grieve,
But today you have to perceive,
A truth for my relieve.
I know you know, I won't deceive.

She called me Nirbhaya, my mother,
Fearless and brave I ought to be.
Something she knew about this world,
So harsh it is meant to be.

It was a usual night,
all strangers but no fright.
I took the same road to home,
the road which guarded for years in lone.

I walked the lonely road,
I do not fear, my name held my hope.
All I fear is that it do not end,
as hope is no less than a rope.

It varies in length,
It varies in strength,
It's nothing to cloy,
But it's not a forever joy.

The roads were getting longer,
My heart wore a dismal veil.
It all seemed so tedious to reach,
with fright it started a peculiar gale.

I must not stop, I must go on,
I held my hope and I went on.
Why do I fear if nothing good appear,
In the name of my god I can cheer.

Far at the horizon some shapes appeared,
I held my breath, the breeze were wierd.
I held my faith and like a knight I went,
No horse, no shield, what on earth did I meant.

In my bravery I was lost,
Thence the men appeared.
What a fool I was for what will it cost,
The dreary eyes with a dreary beard.

Side by side they shoved,
The men not more than two.
All my breaths were choked,
What did they meant to do.

I scrambled at once,
Nor besides nor abaft I looked.
The footsteps broke the silence,
The silent night was spooked.

Out of the blue my hand was seized,
All at once I turned.
The dreadful two met my eyes,
Out my heart it burned.

“Unhand me! let me go!”,
To break loose I tried.
Tears did rolled down my cheeks,
I screamed and yelled and cried.

No good men did heard me,
No one did follow.
What pleasures would they earn,
hearing me weep and wallow.

All my yells were ceased,
tried to flee through my eyes.
Top to bottom I was teased,
till every yell turned to sighs.

Eftsoon my eyes wore a veil,
fear spread its wings.
None to follow the trail,
A dark melody it sings.

I resisted their temptation,
Down the road I was shuffled.
I totterd while learning to walk,
But no one ever hustled.

In a while the groping concluded,
And out my heart I sobbed.
Henceforth a while I stood untouched,
But still the painful heartbeats throbbed.

I faltered, and horrified I stood,
Darkness  engulped my eyes.
Every hope did swept,
Soaked into the veil that ties.

But not for too long I enjoyed,
this harrowing freedom of mine.
A palm explored the wonders,
that groping reckless swine.

He mauled as the time passed by,
He laughed as I cried.
I was and feeble,
the more I weeped the more he tried.

One by one they parted,
Piece by piece he ripped my skin.
Victim of the vigorous haste,
slivered top and slivered jeans off the shin.

Soon he swayed all my flesh,
With all his fingers he plied.
Groped my skin with all his filth,
I weeped and sobbed and cried.

Trying to hide the genitals,
There I stood naked.
What else  men can do,
It was anticipated.

Disobliging did annoy ,
Forthwith the veil was swept.
I was a plaything for their joy,
All my grieve I wept.

From one to another I was tossed ,
each leaving a scar.
Feasting their wildest lust,
all the planets and I their star.

A few more added,
added to the raging set.
Brawling for my flesh,
Like their dreams they met.

Off they took their covers ,
Little by little they shed.
A few times they snick,
All my faith I bled.

All my hopes I lost,
Their scrubbing skin did scraped.
It’s facile to die a thousand times,
Then for once being *****.

So inhumanly it pierced,
Out my heart it ripped.
Tears did impelled down my cheeks ,
The cheeks made to be felt or kissed.

Draining smoke and widdle and ***,
Turn by turn they shagged.
Offering an eternal torment,
All my grace they blagged.

Seconds felt like hours,
hours like days .
No wonder mere humans were they,
The devil hath their ways.

Like a setting sun they frazzled,
a sun of endless grieve.
I the wonky that they dazzled,
Or what did they perceive.

I should not walk the roads,
Nor I should talk to thee.
For I will turn to a harlot,
Who knows what else you might see.

Soon I was abandoned ,
withered by some ghoul.
I wasn’t the pioneer,
The devil needed a new soul.

The dark night overwhelmed,
Leaving me unconsumed, uneaten,untouched.
My snivel sealed through the silence,
Bethinking how they groped or clutched.

Like every other night this one too,
Passed in grieves that can’t be undone.
Day and night, night and day,
Who can seize the cycles of the sun.

Countless nights have passed ,
My heart still miss some beats .
Beseech the will to pretermit ,
The memory has it on its sheets.

I saw no good men that day,
No god did appear.
I could never raise my head and stay,
This memory will never disappear.

What a fool I was ,
I should have run.
But had I any choice,
to flee or to shun.

If not here then there,
Round in the world somewhere,
They will come for it, the bust,
to feed the endless lust.

I saw no good men that day,
No god did appear .
Just a few men to say,
I bought a disgrace, I should disappear.

Why was i a shame ?,
All my esteem they drown.
Those lecherous souls do gladly glide,
bearing a princely crown.

I was the culprit,
They were young and proud.
I was looted of my treasure,
Not all they took but left a shroud.

The beasts in there were grim,
The nobles out here no less.
To them my yells were hymm,
To them I lost my nobelesse.
Why is it that women do not feel safe in between men ...have we lost the meaning of manlihood ?
KnudsonK Oct 2013
Crucified

My  spirit cries         
     in grief              
and in  dismay.    
 The   reality  of  
what  you purpousfully have done  to   me.
I  reflect upon
the intentional hurt and hate    
from you   to me
That's when I see...
Where you've gone out of your way
to make sure things were extra hard for me.
When your the one who is supposed to
Show me love Unconditionally .
I see where you
       shattered          
the  remains            
of   an already          
fractured heart . 
There is agony in every  salty tear,
That fills the open wounds
as they streams down from in sorrow.
                          The  shards of  malice         ­                for years            
piercing deep          
into my very soul      
and embeding          
their sharp.            
slivered tips            
just like the nails that          
penetrated the hands and feet of the "Son".
As you spew like lava the words
roll off your forked tongue.
Only after their  burden I carry the weight  'across'   a
rough and rugged path as they grows heavier  and bigger
I make my way to where finally, stripped of any last
shred of dignity, left hanging there up high upon your
wicked, evil, vengeful lies.
Am I....
I am THAT Iam
Patience Neru Aug 2013
Alas, this miniscule moment of separation,
Igniting infernos of cardiac anguish,
Coursing silver slivered lightning to the cerebellum,

Shall not, sever the connection of our entanglement.
Entangled like microscopic electrons,
Bound by more than optical illusion,

Our hearts have joined for eternity,
No matter the distance in time or space,
Your heart skips a beat and I lose my breath.
C S Cizek Apr 2015
I found the class fish wrapped in single-ply
tissue and pencil sharpener refuse,
her poinsettia-sunset scales picked clean,
gathered in a Styrofoam cup. Her coral
fins crumbled, leaving rough edges like split
chalk or hopscotch gravel. Her last ocean
was the cover of a Nat Geo from
1995. Easing my fingers
beneath the matchstick spine, I deftly walked
to my desk, and laid her on construction
paper. I casted her slivered ribcage
in glue before I poured the scales, hoping
she'd triumphantly flick some harmless fire
when she woke, but she just laid there, shining.
TheWitheredSoul Oct 2021
Somehow I knew you were gonna break me, bad!!
yet my heart never had the heart to choose otherwise.
Katherine Jun 2015
Like the plates of the earth
the world beneath my feet is solid and withstanding.
seemingly resolute,
it has held together with manageable
cracks and tears;
a steady foundation.

Like the plates of the earth,
my world begins to shift;
the cracks and tears grow suddenly
without warning I am thrown
into a tumult of confusion and discord.
Shifting becomes breaking;
slowly, piece by piece,
my plates split apart,
creating not a giant hole,
but a small and slivered crevice that
appears to swallow all of my breaking pieces.

Discomfort
unease
fully aware of each falling part
this turbulence continues;
days go by and more pieces
are breaking
and falling
and disappearing
before I can catch them
and hold them close
until my ground quits shaking.

For I have hit an earthquake
and I close my eyes
and grasp the few roots
left in this mess
and wait.

Now the shift is over
while the earth has finished its quaking,
my world is still trembling in recovery.
The balance has yet to be regained;
I am still assessing the damage,
waiting for the sun to shine again
to show me what is left to mend.

The bridge from discomfort to normalcy
quivers with every step,
but I find solace
on the rising sun’s horizon.
A small voice whispers,
“it is good.”

Today it is March
what a beautiful march it will be.
March 1st, 2015
POSSIBLE Apr 2021
Fall into the melody...
Fall away from the felony...


M̵̧̞̦̪̦͈̖̭̣̃̋͗̈̓́͆̓̈́͌̃̈́ͅḿ̵̢͖̟̩̱̯̦̮̜̘̮̰͎͈͊̿̒̔͐͛̔́̊͋͜ͅ­̠h̵̛͚̦̙̻̙͕̲͈̻̹̃̑͌̊͂͊̇̎̂̐͗̔̕̕̕͠h̵̡̳̹̼̯̙͔̞̯͕̽͑̈́͐͗̈́̀͗̀͒͐̓̚͘̕ͅm̶̟͗̀͐͝­͚͎̲͎̳̳̰̳̤̮ͅͅh̷̨͉̙͚̱͖͔͈͖̼̠̮̟͆̂͗͛͐̽̓̿͊̊̚̚͠͝ę̸̛̘̮̘͔̳̰̟̐͊̑̌̀̓̌̓̽̎̒͘̚­̨͎̯͎̭͎̝h̷̨̪̖͍͚̩̣̼͍̲̲̜̻͒͛̈͐ ̸̨̨̛͙͈̝̦͙̺̪̹̘̫͇͕̩̫͋̐̋̚͠m̵̨̛͔̰̹̬̯̦̥͇̰̺̖͔͆͛̐̆̋̈́͒̈̍̎͗͜h̸̡͇͍̫͈̔͆͗̇͛͜͝­h̵̢̥͇̼̟͙̗̪̺̹̖̞̾͑̈͑̓̍͛̂̍̋̌̚͜h̴̛͖͎̦̳̪͔̮͍̫̯̯̜̱̹̐͑̄̃̉̽̂͒̏͗͝ḩ̷̲̭͈̜͜͝ͅ­̮͖͜h̷̭̥̜̜̙́́̈͛̎̏̃͘͠ȕ̴̙̰͔̞̄ú̴̡̹̮̦̠̐̈́͆͂̀͌̚͜ͅŭ̴͓͙̗̍̑̿̀̽̇̊͑̅͘͘̚͝͠ͅ­̝͔ͅͅu̵̖̰̱̗̬̳͊̇̈́̀̂̿̃͒͛͐̇͐̓͠h̶̡̛̜͉͉̥̻͈͓̱͉̣̀̿̀̊̇̐̈̀̽̈́͗̕̚:̴̛̎̇̂̎́͆̐͐­̢͇̤͕́̅͒͠


Following fine lines
But still, find myself

Lost in the trees
Following these

Rivers of difference
Babbel between

Deliberate peaks
Slivered and scattered ships
  
Littered literates spread
through splattered ṣ̵͗t̴̩͛r̷̲̓ị̵̋p̶͔̑ṡ̶͈

Saying goes:

Man Move Mountains
  Man move ounces
(Tilled forests raise foundries)

Alex Taught to push :
  Immortal as Icarus
Legend so rigorous
Now we all Sisyphus, ****.

(̴͖͝Ď̵̫è̴͉a̵̝͑d̵̝̄ ̶͙͗n̵̞͋ẹ̴̌v̶̡͋ę̵̈́r̸̩̀ ̵̗͝d̸̮͝e̷̳͂a̷̙͊d̶̰̉ ̵̢͝ț̵̿h̶̹̑ê̴̥ ̷̨̿l̷̲̍e̵̘̓g̸͉͑e̴͚̊n̵̜̕ḏ̸͌ ̸͖̿å̶̞c̷̬͐c̷̹̈́o̵̹͐ú̵̩n̶͇͠ṭ̴͋ ̶̹̇f̵̫͋o̴̙͛r̴̮̾ ̴̲͠t̵̫̊h̸͓̾i̷͓͒ś̸͙ ̶̛̣)̶̛̯

Still find people weird...

Times where clowns
Seem see-through.

Where seams of seas
and deeds for these

Grow Seeds from Scenes
My Gurus breathe through.

Winds sweep up
as the Moment pounces

Bullet quick
through Money pouches

Still indigo here too remind that :

We
Is stronger than I

****
is stronger than high

When hearts are aligned
Lead song from the mind

Never seem to last forever
Got em all  waiting for a blast of clever

Listen close :
Hard  to dine and dash in error

Oh god of media ×
just trying to cash in terror

Oh god please raise me up ×
The stairs from Saint to Sinner...

Or was it Sinner to Saint?
Call it trial and error ×

With Mystical p̴̩̀a̶̺̓ḯ̴̦n̸͚͒t̸̪͝
Expert alchemical bearer

I'll be the standard I bear up
Of owning all my moments
This sin that I tear up

Putting my palms feet,
(My hands, words, my deeds)
Towards all souls atoning

Raising grace like the moments laced
God on my tongue, Just
Keeping pace with the aftertaste

I'm a blinded Ace with a savage case
So the doc says hydrate
till the drips replaced

Better stay braced
cause we laying waste ( **** )
Spiky v̵̥̆ḭ̸͆r̵̰̂u̵̙͋š̸̟ covid space (fuuuuck)

Now:

I may pace in place considering vagrant states  
Dey don raised a case to obliterate mental waste

But we ****** up with them Crowley ways to play
Blood, ******, Mag̵͈̕ḯ̸͓k̵̳͠, *** for  days

Corrupted plays....
So far from grace

Figured Paradise Lost
So we prayed through sprays

Blinded by Lazer Raves
While (we) Distract for daze

When The chemical stays
But I called myself a hero,
A chemical Brave...

More like brazen youth
Surrendered
my mind eye and tooth

Question, am I denying truth?
Jesus was I denying you?
Why it takes the loss of a youth
And you saving him for me buy in to ...
The weight of a soul, that's the buy-in foo.

So we:

Mostly Replaced grass with gratitude
Replaced *** with attitude
Replaced mind with knowing you

Looking outside for help
ain't betraying true
We can't know it all
that's just the lay man's


t̸̢̗̞̣̟͕̣̹̭̟̻̬̒̍̒̐͐͛̆̈́̎̅̔̾r̵̺̯̞̩͕̳̘̗̗̗̝͖̯̝̾̒̀͒͆͗͘u̵͔͂̈́̽̐͗̎͐́̉̑̓́̕­̢̢͖͔͍̤t̷̨̛͇̻̙̻̖͔͕̪͍̣̟̜̰̙̉̉̏͗̎̊̀̒͆̊́͋h̷̛̗̙̟̟̠̫̳̦̽̈̀̃̊͋͌͆̀̚͝.̶͍͕̩̘͑­͎
Divine Grime Meditation
Sienna Luna Jan 2016
Going to sleep
is the best thing
a person can do.
After a long day of work
just slip under the covers
clean, wrinkled, soft and daring
the night a comfortable pillow
in which to rest sleepy tired eyes
while finishing a dystopian sci-fi movie
taking place in the desert.
Furiosa takes the night
across her shoulders
black engine grease smeared
across her forehead as Mad Max
rides shotgun
before the heat consumes them.
Enjoying every sand crusted
machine cranked thrusted
water tank bomb shell.
She is the best kind of heroine
taking complete control
of the current situation.
But sometimes there’s a break
when the dusk becomes depth
merging into the white halo of moon
slivered like a cut thumbnail
just hanging there, lifeless.
And this is when
the truth becomes
completely apparent.
Resting one’s body
after a tough week
of physical and emotional sickness
becomes first priority
where relaxation nods its weary head
to slumber under a pile of blankets.
each tempered by slivered moments:
slovenly on the floor lay tethered,
both, separate,
honest light.

when it is time that you do not
see anymore, the shadow of my passing,

when the twilight gives rise,
a felled star in the world,

when damp kisses are beleaguered
by the driest of lips,

out of merely, a wide-eyed vainglory,
there will be nothing that all my songs
send a dancing, tiptoeing light
careful to arrive at one day

when you face is held with utmost care
and my hands not its owner,
but a handful of names.

when it comes that we are two fish
struggling in a current's dream —
not a single twitch is born. you will slip
past the interstice of love's net
and i cannot see you anymore in the
depthless blue.

the intelligence of stone tells me
nothing but silence, hemmed in
to a great monolith of daylight.

i exaggerate, the sinking of ships
and amble blindly with the whole of
my motion, like flotsam weary of its
  preordainment. portraits sow themselves
battles, cleaving them minutely against
  the simmer of quiet. when it is time
to let you go, i will watch you leap forth
  into the ripe air like a child seeking
home, reiterates in flight a height
  i cannot reach for.

when it is time all of this,
    mote it be, clenches in thinned streaks
of turpentine, all of my walls will be clear
  and not a sign of your colour
   will scream pain like a tortured vandal.
Melissa Hardie Feb 2011
My eyes envision a blackened wood
Where my heart longs to roam.
A shudder wracks my supple frame
And I long for it, my home.
Paws flex slowly on slivered glass
As I follow this trail to the end.
The howls of my pack dance on the rain
And my spirit begins to mend.
Blood soaks the night, I slip sinew and bone
While shedding this frail human skin.
I scream to the moon, my Mother above
And signal the hunt to begin.
Brandon Barnett Dec 2013
what they call a heart, my every anchor chained
what the pages make my story, every loss explained
like words in letters, as if they retain it, like they make it better
as if the knowing of it loosed or broke these fetters
eight ways the shapes of my only alphabet spells s-u-r-v-i-v-o-r
infinitely too short a word and leaving me to wander again if I'm alive in her
they think it breeds strength to outlive the beatings
they think it makes a great chase never retreating in the pursuit of what's fleeting
just once couldn't I rest and feel safe like it could all get clearer?
in the haze of aging when I'm sure it isn't my real smile in any mirror
in the crowded, faceless streets of having to stand on my own two feet alone
with all the hurtful, hateful, squalls this living condones
everyone thinking they know me because they know my name
know the face that's a mask over what's hollowed out by the aches I don't explain
and someone asks me to come near, to be dear, to love again
and they give like gifts and they mend the rifts and they care and then
the cycle of costs begins again, the loss of the friends again breathes
and makes every swallowed wine taste less like escape and reminds that it never relieves
and every candle on a cake burns another year I waited to start over
and every green field yields beauty unnoticed in my frantic search for a lucky clover
the pages pile with words wasted on hoping for better
and my few days waste away with so much time lost in trying to understand "forever"
so if you think that you know what made me then you haven't been listening to the words I didn't say
and if you've ask me for love then you've never felt what I already gave away

so put the times you've felt greatness on one side and see if they outweigh the hurt
or if the scales tip in favor of the ways you've failed and it still hurts
and trudge the horrible roads to the edges of the maps and see if you outrun the hurt
and see if any hand held or risk taken or affection given dispels the way you hurt

all the slivered glass pieces of my heart just cut me to blood as I try to pick them up
and all that my view of what could have been does, is lend tears as I watch those doors shut
and all another line will explain
is how it will never be the last line if I'm trying to write out the pains

I can never explain the hurt
Dag J May 2013
my inspiration
      and worldly alligation

      seems gone
like a vivid eluscation

       writings in thin air
                as mindful retardation

slivered like a broken mirror
     of lost fantastication

my mind feels empty
    my mind feels blank
        like bound for a fall

        my body feels drained
           like sunk in a tank
             of nothing at all
Where have all the flowers gone ...

© MMXIII by Day J
Monica Rose Dec 2011
The exquisite taste of iron
Lingering enclosed
A sanguineous river
The bequest of mine adversary
A purple mottled blossom
Burgeoning forth
Flowerbed of
Battered frame
Extinguished flame
The corporeal battlefield
Ravaged

Iniquitous intentions
And dominating force
Unabated terror
Reigning forth

As with every new bloom
It claims new ground
A daring boldness
Possessed of strategy
With motives unsound

A brink battled raged
Body consumed
Lost shattered frayed

Within and closer
A planted cerebral seed
Rising forth malady

Nevermore unchanged
Though the body heals
The mind retains
Lasting casualties
Slivered charred remains
Sarah Aug 2015
I don't care
if you
remember
years from now

how the lacy
kitchen
curtains beat
against the
slivered
sills

or how the oven
spilled its
heavy air
into the house
each
August night

          It's only here
        
                only now

only in this moment
where I'm washing
my dry hands
of cooking
picnic and
rose park
things to
  chew
   with
    our
     w
      o
       r
        d
          s

I'm so effected by
the way the oven
heats me
the way this summer
heats me
the way I can't explain my love, you
heat me

and the thought of
a rose park
engulfs me
in flames.
No Name Oct 2012
And the worst thing is,
    I muttered to my right thumb’s torn cuticle,

The Absolute Very Worst Thing In the History of the Universe is
    My tongue flounders to find
    what I want to say.
    So I say,
I’m talking to myself.
    I bite the cuticle,
    and it stings in that way
    that somehow makes me want to do it again.

The Absolute Very Worst Thing in the History of the Universe is
   that I don’t know.
   I don’t know what I want,
   I mean.

The Absolute Very Worst Thing in the History of the Universe is
    to have a frozen skeleton,
    I sample, though I’m not quite sure
     what I mean to mean.
    
    To have these metal fish-hooks
      snagged in my skin,
      one pulling north, the other dragging south.
      You see?

   To keep digging holes and sowing seeds
      that I have no idea what they’ll grow to be
      (pumpkins or daisies
      or something awful.  Like beets.)

but I’m blistered and there’s sweat that stings my slivered palms (not in the good way) but I keep digging and digging and I can’t stop because someone says I have to move forward, forward, forward, but really I’m just moving in circles,  and I’m not doing anything but something, and what is the point, in that, really?

But the worst thing is,
    that knowing that to be happy,
    and not even like a kid,
    beaming, triumphantly holding his lost tooth up in the air,
                (I’ve given up on that)
    but in the,
                I suppose I can sleep at night
                way,
                (these days, I apparently talk to myself instead,)  

The worst thing is
      knowing that to feel warm,
      to feel things,
      Something drags me forward,
               in my stupid shoes that make me hobble instead of walk,


I must keep moving forward
in spite of
the shade of a ghost,

     that kisses the hollow of my neck
     traces his fingers down my spine
     and whispers,

you’re getting tired.
     Come lie down with me.
Sawyer Apr 2013
Nights like this
Are the nights that will **** me.

Nights when translucent ghosts
Drape their long arms

Around my waist and take me
Waltzing across you bedroom ceiling;

Nights when sad songs pour
Out of the cracked walls

And fill my heart
With their bittersweet nostalgia;

Nights when my body freezes
In its despairing loneliness,

Cold stone wrapped in stiff sheets
And sopping pillows.

Nights like this,
I lie awake, aware of

The tangible emptiness,
The stale smell of grief.

Nights like this,
I **** myself the way I killed you,

I break the way you did:
Delicately, like the slivered backs

Of infant birds
Left the nest too soon;

Like thunder collapsing,
Shaking cupboards and windows

In time with our trembling shoulders.
You told me, you told me

"I can't just forget this like you can."
But I don't forget.

Like a soldier cut open
By the knife she obliged herself,

I bleed.
I hold my insides

Inside, cram you back
Deep into my chest,

Wrap memories around my spine
A spiral  staircase of sorrow and

Sweet intentions, where no one will see
The trail of blood

Save for me.

I,
I do not escape this.

I cannot cast aside
Ashen remains, box up burning coals.

I can only carry them with me,
A red thread around my finger

Burning your name in my skin.
I carry my sorrow like a crow on my shoulder;

It pecks on my neck sharp reminders
And gorges on my acute isolation.

You say I forget,
But nights like this,

I remember everything
And regret nothing,

Even on nights like this
When all of me screams

But nothing hurts.
SamBee Dec 2013
And I finally understand “purple mountain majesties,”
as I sit here on my perch.

And behind me: that woman with the white hair,
like sails of the boats in the bay, or wings of the swans in my mind,
red pocketbook;
red lips dripping with hope.

I think someone forgot her.

Or maybe she is content.
Maybe she sees the world’s majesties, too….

But her swiveling head tells me otherwise.

I ask if she has a pen to lend me.
Her eyes become glass
as her third eye scrunches into an asterisk:

“No, dear, I’m so sorry. I don’t….”

My teeth and tongue lick the air with sympathy:
“No worries, ma’am. Thank you.”

I slide back to my rock and ask the slivered moon for her company.
I feel regret that everybody leaves with the sun,
as if the show is over.
But with skies still blue,
and moon always dancing,
it has only just begun.

I sniff the cold in.
Vicinity barren;
If I were to fall, nobody would know.
I would slip beyond this world
and find an orchestra of
silence in the sea.

I sit here wondering where the birds go.

Turning my head right
vertigo lops me upside the head.
The waves have rocked my mind to the point where I feel
I might
actually
fall.

Somehow,
that would be alright.
Somehow,
I would be okay.

Because maybe then
I won’t have to see
the vivid pained look in people’s eyes.
Like that beautiful abandoned woman
with the wing-white hair
and her hopeful red pocketbook.
Frieda P Oct 2013
You flipped my switch
    took me for a ride
words were a nectar'd bite
     in the same sigh
wrote me a love song
    slipped into me
set my wistful desires ablaze
  fiery words lit with rapture
        tickled my inner thigh
foreplay of sweet nothings
  titillated my spirit's senses  
write on my skin and set me free

Sign your name in ecstasy's reverie
my body shudders *******,
when you lay my soul a'fire
deeply etched utterances
   slivered from your mighty sword
Nat Lipstadt May 2014
The Realized thinks:

flesh and the blood demands
you spew your stuff in me,
deny me nothing
even as I am sleep full,
thy cravings grow fuller, not fewer
craven not I,
to demand my satisfaction in the
rendering of yours

for you are of my flesh eaten
for you are of my blood tasted
tho the universe placed a spatial divide,
an atmosphere tween our celestial bodies,
t'is a temporary condition,
you are but moon slivered,
man half if not just quartered,
less than whole,
when disjointed and not inside
the incontestable undivided me of us

the Other Seductress
easy teases with adagios and pinprick words,
offering lifelong immortality  -
words like fish in nets,
loaves of bread,
that will
fill souls with insight long after
the physic man's grave site location forgotten

your muse, she bemuses:

I can make
you come and
make you
go
multiples of multiples nightly,
ripping your word seeds from your body
the pleasure insane, your mind enflamed
even now in the air above this planet your earth,
I am your mile high and river deep,
you belong to me and spill the verbal deeds,
your art is mastery more than
any physical sweating
of blood and sweat or tears


the other laughs and counterclaims
that all that is promised is but a mere secondary
derivative of who you are when you
whisper excitedly I love you
and this belongs
to me and no other!
where is your immortality better scribed
when your issue is woven in the tissue
of two, for you are only one when realized
your self conception nightly reborn in me

it is I that feeds your eyes,
your vision delights in me and thereby
you give birth to the art that makes
Who You Are
who you are,
for all clear all unconfused when
your soul stiffens and a single truth
are your emboldened by, and that
truth is real and is my temple
where carnal is incarnate
and you reincarnated in every way

the long haired and ever young muse
in ire arises and finger pointing a j'accuse,
says I am your eternity, the self same
that you existence demands be satisfied

only I, only I,
can provide the living will
that will exclude the black and the worm of ignominy,
place your time shopped physicality
in a state of perfect preserved beauty,
I am the mother of thy art,
the if of thy futured existence proofed,
I, thy future and the
***** that makes you beg
more, more and gives the birthing to all
your multiplicities,
never questioning, receiving all,
the good, the bad, the psalm, the ditty, the prayer,
loving best the most
ordinary


*whom did he choose
whom does he choose,
whom will he choose,
the tenses answer all
and in all, lies the answer
On the descent into LaGuardia
I have tried to find a way to pull this world from the way it clings to you
to somehow cure it from all the color of your eyes.
But you are the deep blue of midnight
in which the stars swim and light the rippling dark.
You are the music fading in the halls
like every dryad footstep fall.
You live, for better or for worse
in the slivered silver glints of rain.

In all my attempts to rip you out
I simply find you there again.
Silent are the rocks;
Silent the alleys and stone walls,
Cracked foundations and fountains.
No voices speak now, except through the wind
Twisting and turning, on its way through the gorges.
The weather has beaten out every surface,
Stamped it's stalagmite of time upon the faces.
The last rags of clothing hung out to dry
Are a sifting, unrecognizable ash of piled up molecules,
Indiscernible from the storm-strewn cadavers
Of wood, straw and leaves,
Leaves which can laugh at the ferocity of sudden gales
And chatter annoying, behind lifting fingers of twig,
Themselves tumbled shamelessly, into ancient doorways
That once were closed against all intruders.

The cipher of their blood has marked, defined this place,
Pressed it down, with the missing weight of forgotten culture,
Though their language is still indistinguishable from others,
But that their slivered bones have stopped up the pilfering,
The plundering of tombs by wild running waters,
Trickling down to the lowest graveled catacombs
Of a once vibrant village;
It is all running spaces of tomb now,
And the few visitors that happen to wander in
Find themselves holding their breath,
Wary of their modern dissonance
Disturbing the invisible residents of past days.
mikarae Oct 2022
Because when I drain my coffee and see my face reflecting in the dark glossy bottom of the mug, my eyes are holding something that I can't blink away.

No matter how hard I try, it sits along my lashline, glazed over my pupil, reddening the corners and doubling my vision.

I set my mug down. I've dripped coffee on my t-shirt. My eyes are gripping tight to a sensation that is so painfully familiar that it almost feels welcome. Like I wouldn’t know what to do if it ever left.

It’s a scary comfort, curling up in that feeling. I know it so well. Sometimes I want to reach out and cradle it against my chest where it purrs like a childhood cat. It’s beautiful and black, sleek, with paws so big they weigh down on my chest. Makes it hard to breathe but I don't dare move.

My hands find reprised solace along the ridges of its back, petting patterns down its silky fur. When I look down all I see is its big yellow eyes, drowning my sight and filling every corner with that numbing company.

It's a dangerous cat, whose dark slivered pupils I see in my own. In the bottom of a mug, a storefront reflection, a dark screen. It's so comfortable that I sometimes forget to miss the feeling of being alone.

My legs are pins and needles where it sits in my lap. Makes it hard to believe I'll ever stand again. It's a blessing to have a quiet mind.

The cat purrs and purrs and purrs.
Sa Sa Ra Oct 2012
Fire fire away
fire me today

did you expect
to quench your thirst

with the drench
of dragons breath

whom shall
wither

whom shall
slither slivered

what is silver
gold to alchemy

the river
washing
a way
Timothy Mooney Feb 2011
I stepped outside for a moment, simply to catch a breath on my porch,
and I saw that slivered Moon scooting behind those shivery clouds.
In a brief half-second I felt Her eons,
Her aged gravitational tumble,
Her pained and painted-on pagan sins of yore,
Her holy rejoinder of light against the darkness,
Her catechism of magic,
and the cold
empty doctrine
of Her orbital destiny.

I closed my eyes for a moment, to shut out Her history...
to try and catch that breath...
But She would not relent.
She was insistent, pulling my eyes open and up
and She offered me her memories
and begged in Her dry eternal voice
to allow me Her touch.

     I accepted.  Felt Her fear as our rockets bruised Her dusty flesh
     upon their uninvited landings
     and scarred her with their burning departures.

     When I had taken it all in, She disappeared behind one of those
     shivery clouds
     and I was able to
     catch that breath
     I had almost forgotten
     I had meant to take.

I watch for Her nightly now.
Even when She is obscured by clouds
or maybe just on the other side of this earth-she-cannot-touch,
Her eternal dance partner.
I open my eyes and gaze up.
With awe and wonder and respect
to let Her know that in my small gravitational way
that there is at least
One son here who thinks of her
and who understands and appreciates her tidal Motherhood

who smiles  beneath Her transient reflection,
holding that light dear,
and who, in turn,
reflects some of that light
back to Her,
with promised eye.

— The End —