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"slung" poems
Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night? Shadowed by the spreading mango, Nodding o'er the rippling stream, Tell me, dear plant of my childhood, Do you of the exile dream? Do you see me by the brook's side Catching crayfish 'neath the stone, As you did the day you whispered: Leave the harmless dears alone? Do you see me in the meadow Coming from the woodland spring With a bamboo on my shoulder And a pail slung from a string? Do you see me all expectant Lying in an orange grove, While the swee-swees sing above me, Waiting for my elf-eyed love? Lovely dainty Spanish needle, Source to me of sweet delight, In your far-off sunny southland Do you dream of me to-night?
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18.7k
The Spanish Needle
i see the words floating on message boards or perched upon the lips of jocular hypocrites double-standards that demand sensual chastity and virginal sexuality in endless iterations of irony the concussive monosyllabic words slung like stones cast like arrows **** ***** ***** all labels for women possessed of the courage to pursue their own passion once upon a time a Nazarene insisted a ********** had more integrity than a rich statesman throwing self-serving parties so tell me why so many Christian politicians propagate patriarchal notions of depravity in blanket attempts to regulate the bodies of women if being anti-choice was really about preventing abortions why do rich right-wing conservative Republicans spend all their time and money picketing free clinics when the solution lies in comprehensive ****** education universal healthcare complimentary birth control and comprehensive child support don't dare use the reprehensible rhetoric of pro-life unless you're at once anti-war and anti-death penalty riddle me this what pray tell is the difference between a jealous religious misogynist and a secular sexist it's rather simple actually while the former bases his slut-shaming on the edicts of a two thousand year old letter to the Corinthians inconspicuously sandwiched between a celebration of love and a section on speaking in tongues the latter’s learned behavior is birthed by a hyper-masculine culture grounded in dominance either way we await the day when wild women raze these ideologies with torches before rising like phoenixes from the ashes of decimated passages dismissed by intellectuals as archaic and outmoded deaf blind and dumb to the vestiges of modernity that sap unscientific philosophies of their potency and render them utterly obsolete in their wake these proud women erase the hate from words like **** ***** ***** and reclaim equality with a far more comprehensive term feminist
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Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 11:50 PM UTC
phoenix
i see the words floating on message boards or perched upon the lips of jocular hypocrites double-standards that demand sensual chastity and virginal sexuality in endless iterations of irony the concussive monosyllabic words slung like stones cast like arrows **** ***** ***** all labels for women possessed of the courage to pursue their own passion once upon a time a Nazarene insisted a ********** had more integrity than a rich statesman throwing self-serving parties so tell me why so many Christian politicians propagate patriarchal notions of depravity in blanket attempts to regulate the bodies of women if being anti-choice was really about preventing abortions why do rich right-wing conservative Republicans spend all their time and money picketing free clinics when the solution lies in comprehensive ****** education universal healthcare complimentary birth control and comprehensive child support don't dare use the reprehensible rhetoric of pro-life unless you're at once anti-war and anti-death penalty riddle me this what pray tell is the difference between a jealous religious misogynist and a secular sexist it's rather simple actually while the former bases his slut-shaming on the edicts of a two thousand year old letter to the Corinthians inconspicuously sandwiched between a celebration of love and a section on speaking in tongues the latter’s learned behavior is birthed by a hyper-masculine culture grounded in dominance either way we await the day when wild women raze these ideologies with torches before rising like phoenixes from the ashes of decimated passages dismissed by intellectuals as archaic and outmoded deaf blind and dumb to the vestiges of modernity that sap unscientific philosophies of their potency and render them utterly obsolete in their wake these proud women erase the hate from words like **** ***** ***** and reclaim equality with a far more comprehensive term feminist
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79
#STICK’EM UP with LIQUID NAILS DANGER ! EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE         See Other Caution on Back Panel: I’m hot for you Cowgirl – you’re so flammable my glue-gun starts to melt; my screwdriver starts twisting when you loosen that low-slung belt. You make me feel like laying re-bar in a freshly-poured foundation. Shoot me up with that caulk gun baby – I need you like salvation. Ten and one-half fluid ounces – pull off your top, pop a love-cap in me. Fingerin’ your trigger while the job is gettin’ bigger so take me for a ride to the hardware store, honey, cause I’m seeing red and feeling white on your golden background’s sheer delight.  Hammer me a heart-full, spike me on a cross of blonde, I’m hanging ten, surfing the tube of your magic wand. I’ve been in love ever since I first waterproofed my seamy undersides with you… stand over me in those red, red boots, you Liquid Nails Girl – and from your pure white Stetson let righteousness unfurl. You won the shoot-out long before you even drew, my dear. Lost hope of the Wild West, Final Frontal Feminine Frontier – there’s only one side of you…  your GOOD side.  Just one look and your fearless gaze silences the foes, my blooming prairie rose. YEE – HAW !  Be my angel, be my dream, my valentine rodeo queen, be my bodyguard, my therapist, long & tall & hard & wet – be my Liquid Nails Girl forever and I’ll ride right into your sunset…
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Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:28 PM UTC
Owed to a Caulk Gun
THEY all want to play Hamlet. They have not exactly seen their fathers killed Nor their mothers in a frame-up to **** Nor an Ophelia dying with a dust gagging the heart, Not exactly the spinning circles of singing golden spiders, Not exactly this have they got at nor the meaning of flowers-O flowers, flowers slung by a dancing girl-in the saddest play the inkfish, Shakespeare, ever wrote; Yet they all want to play Hamlet because it is sad like all actors are sad and to stand by an open grave with a joker's skull in the hand and then to say over slow and say over slow wise, keen, beautiful words masking a heart that's breaking, breaking, This is something that calls and calls to their blood. They are acting when they talk about it and they know it is acting to be particular about it and yet: They all want to play Hamlet.
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7.4k
They All Want to Play Hamlet
I watched the fox, rat held firmly in its jaw, Trot across the street, lithely avoiding the cars, Ears pricked up. It slithered under a fence and weaved through the undergrowth, Not once acknowledging my presence. Disappearing in the night, it yelped out its echoes in the wood Licking out worms. The shadowed moon slung down its light Like weak silver bristles from the back of a carved out hedgehog Covered with newly deposited fox saliva. It had screamed as it was consumed-unable to die! The crow stabbed at a newly dead rock pigeon As the stalking cat pounced...... Death mingled! Joe, who lived near me, waved: I waved back, wondering why he saw nothing.
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Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 7:32 PM UTC
RAT CAUGHT BY FOX
I am a copper wire slung in the air, Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow. Night and day I keep singing--humming and thrumming: It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the tears, the work and want, Death and laughter of men and women passing through me, carrier of your speech, In the rain and the wet dripping, in the dawn and the shine drying, A copper wire.
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6.4k
Under A Telephone Pole
The new day still saw the man Whose livelihood was rubber. He had worked really hard; earning his darkened tan, He was the plantation's tapper. The evening sun had long set Leaving the plantation in a shroud of darkness. Relying on what little light the moon would let. He treaded carefully; sidestepping potholes and jutting buttress. His sack slung over one shoulder, He found his way to his trusty ride. Nightly routine he would execute over and over Mounted his bicycle and rode off with the moon as guide. All day long, he had been thinking of the night before. He had then learnt that he was the target of a ghostly trick. As he cycled, he got worked up, more and more... He cursed the spirit who had made him the fool so quick! As he looked ahead, straining his eyes to discern the sandy track. His eyes caught something that came within sight. Standing by the side against a background of black. There she was again...all garbed in white...
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Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
Following Night (IV)
Lily Kesha Gump Sittin' on the curb of Bronx and Main Street How I wish I could wrap my arms around you Sweet little lady, lookin’ grown with a picture of her mama’s stare frozen on her face Wrists slung through the spaces of her thighs, waiting for a daydream And she sees me as I’m twirling by in my ruby reds and thigh high leather grace There you go darlin, She says to me   Scoring on my indigo smile She bites men to sleep With the crevices of her curves As her voice weakens wicked she pulls me out of my gloom There you go darlin, She says to me With a time bomb ticking On my pain pain pain And the pen is in my hand Before she even leaves my sight I love this city I love these women I love their shoes I love their smiles Cheeky little laughs   Someone once recommended When I was dancing under the shades of a neon lamp   From Homeless to Harvard by a woman named Liz or Marie Or maybe I read the title off of a screen when I walking with Maryanne on north Peachtree street And I remember Lily Kesha Gump How I wish I could wrap my arms around you And give you the life some white woman who doesn’t even know you Thinks you desire.
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Dec 17, 2020
Dec 17, 2020 at 12:15 PM UTC
Sympathy
Venezia, its musical key of brick and shade And the canals in rejoining polyphony Sweeten the dour Church-ear.   From the impasto knife and loose brushwork, A thumb-smear of waves and gently-bristled strife Rise to assumption of the cloud-submerged bay, Mural of cristallo, only-light without landscape, Made too from the winds of Murano, Its clayed blowpipe of waterways molding The lagoon of blown glass and bouquet of colored sea-shadows. The Tiber lies on its side, like the lion and fox, Licking its paws at empire’s dust, A drifting gaze of water that already foresees The swift-run northward to Romagna, Where the veined fur of the roe will succumb… A ripple twitches like one dark claw of the Borgia… The watercolors of the Arno are a fresco On the wet plaster of the lips of Firenze, Tuscan fire-dream. Or like the warring leg in curve of counterpoise, Sprung foot-forward to the daring world And arm slung down in stone-victory From this valley, too much like Elah, With taunting eyes turned from the Medici toward Rome.
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May 13, 2019
May 13, 2019 at 10:06 AM UTC
Waters of Rebirth
man who wears a hat sits still near the back unmoved by the world or the exposed breast of a statue (brain waves do not discharge through a fedora) tag attached: bald is sanitary oranges have more delicacy raw smelly and afterward singing allons enfants de patrie ding dang **** like that, all frog-ese so we don’t understand chanteused stiff basso profundo to excite to let us see with the clarity of a dream curled with hate set firm, firmer in the arms of a sleeveless girl then slung to sea level white as a leopard’s eye remember its peroxide bathed, bleached inclined on the pillow just at the angle of expectancy without a hat sideward glance and the crippled heels of angels sparking down the hall bulletin: young man willing to wear false beard to ease the pain for all or trumpet blues broken played horizontal touched by seaweed hands in the light of boats (unfurled) slowly and the memory dies slowly half-forgotten, half-remembered halved again slowly only to begin again grim molecules of love
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4.9k
man in the hat
1. Sunlight There was a sunlit absence. The helmeted pump in the yard heated its iron, water honeyed in the slung bucket and the sun stood like a griddle cooling against the wall of each long afternoon. So, her hands scuffled over the bakeboard, the reddening stove sent its plaque of heat against her where she stood in a floury apron by the window. Now she dusts the board with a goose's wing, now sits, broad-lapped, with whitened nails and measling shins: here is a space again, the scone rising to the tick of two clocks. And here is love like a tinsmith's scoop sunk past its gleam in the meal-bin. 2. The Seed Cutters They seem hundreds of years away. Brueghel, You'll know them if I can get them true. They kneel under the hedge in a half-circle Behind a windbreak wind is breaking through. They are the seed cutters. The tuck and frill Of leaf-sprout is on the seed potates Buried under that straw. With time to **** They are taking their time. Each sharp knife goes Lazily halving each root that falls apart In the palm of the hand: a milky gleam, And, at the centre, a dark watermark. Oh, calendar customs! Under the broom Yellowing over them, compose the frieze With all of us there, our anonymities.
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4.9k
Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication
The ivory poacher stalks his prey each day he walks the silent plains a gun slung high upon his arm no warmth within his gaze Elephants nor rhinos sought but two or one extensions of an ivory tower painted red a bullseye meaning meant for dead The ivory poacher sights his barrel warily delivers narrow slivers of a weathered corpse thundering down to the earth an ivory tower in his hand or two if it's an elephant a clean pristine white he holds high and on his soul a red bullseye
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Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 9:59 PM UTC
The Ivory Poacher
Donald Trump's presidency Is one of the greatest achievements in art I have ever experienced And Trump is a true artist He takes words from the page Like corruption, disenfranchisement, xenophobia And brings them to life Highlighting fear and paranoia so clearly Contrasting the blacks and whites Emphasizing anger While reminding us we're mere infants In the digital age And warning us of our seniority And capitalism's We all like to think life has meaning Until we hit an animal with our car Then that's just the way things are And I'm staring at an absurdist painting Of a child driving a car Through a herd of sheep As I watch a heist film Where the robbers turn their guns over To the mentally unstable guy in the group Trump is a national artist Placing riots on the map And drawing infernos on the Internet His art forces an opinion Everybody has something to say about him And it's all true Even the pages he ripped from his own cabinet Tried to villainize him in their script But he was already an anti-hero The humor is that the mud slung onto him Is dirt kicked up from his own tires I guess if you surround yourself with hateful people You're surrounding yourself with people who probably hate you Trump's art is deeply conflicting He reminds me of the people who want me to live in shame Yet he embodies the individuality that separates me from that shame His insecurities remind me of myself High school is the White House in the eyes of a kid And I had secrets I wanted to share But felt I couldn't I learned things That changed my entire perspective And didn't think people would understand Afraid of being assaulted for my indiscretions I hid behind a boisterous personality And a nonchalant attitude Trump's art evokes sympathy and hatred that feels so strong When he holds a mirror defining our worst qualities To a man viscerally opposed to his own reflection The confliction of emotions Is the hallmark of great art We are all artists The lines we write or the strokes we brush Are in our actions And Trump's canvas displays A life filled with accomplishment Inspiring me to live my own life But I still wake up in cold sweats From the American dream That anybody can be president
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Sep 29, 2017
Sep 29, 2017 at 6:39 AM UTC
Conflicting
Donald Trump's presidency Is one of the greatest achievements in art I have ever experienced And Trump is a true artist He takes words from the page Like corruption, disenfranchisement, xenophobia And brings them to life Highlighting fear and paranoia so clearly Contrasting the blacks and whites Emphasizing anger While reminding us we're mere infants In the digital age And warning us of our seniority And capitalism's We all like to think life has meaning Until we hit an animal with our car Then that's just the way things are And I'm staring at an absurdist painting Of a child driving a car Through a herd of sheep As I watch a heist film Where the robbers turn their guns over To the mentally unstable guy in the group Trump is a national artist Placing riots on the map And drawing infernos on the Internet His art forces an opinion Everybody has something to say about him And it's all true Even the pages he ripped from his own cabinet Tried to villainize him in their script But he was already an anti-hero The humor is that the mud slung onto him Is dirt kicked up from his own tires I guess if you surround yourself with hateful people You're surrounding yourself with people who probably hate you Trump's art is deeply conflicting He reminds me of the people who want me to live in shame Yet he embodies the individuality that separates me from that shame His insecurities remind me of myself High school is the White House in the eyes of a kid And I had secrets I wanted to share But felt I couldn't I learned things That changed my entire perspective And didn't think people would understand Afraid of being assaulted for my indiscretions I hid behind a boisterous personality And a nonchalant attitude Trump's art evokes sympathy and hatred that feels so strong When he holds a mirror defining our worst qualities To a man viscerally opposed to his own reflection The confliction of emotions Is the hallmark of great art We are all artists The lines we write or the strokes we brush Are in our actions And Trump's canvas displays A life filled with accomplishment Inspiring me to live my own life But I still wake up in cold sweats From the American dream That anybody can be president
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62
*Dust on the ledge, before me, magnified Smell of gun oil in my nostrils and cramp in the calves The boredom of the wait intensifies, Stale air in my loft is full of must With the failing light I’m grateful it is almost time to stand down. Through the cross hair sprints a target An ordinary, everyday, running target, I know not who this target is, I know not why it runs across my sights, But because it is, where it is, It becomes my enemy. In a microcosm of time the loud bang alters things forever. The buck of the rifle’s recoil, The immediate sour stench of the shot washes back across my face. The intoxication felt, in being the one who caresses the trigger. The satisfaction earned in deservedly making the **** My target spirals in mid stride, Contorts in agony And collapses to the rough tarmac To lie dishevelled, an insignificant, dishevelled item. Checking the **** through the telescopic sight I see the rough stubble of the chin, The nicotine stain on the fingers, I see the colour of the eyes are pale blue. …I know well, it will breathe no more. With descending twilight I trudge from my tower perch With the long ****** rifle slung across my weary shoulders The  crones in the street glare as I walk by There is a loathing in their aged eyes, It is a tangible thing. I know they have no knowledge of the target, But they know, however, that there has been a killing made for the cause. A cold beer would be nice. God! how I hate these young punks with purple hair.* Marshalg Gaza, Palestine/Mogadishu, Somalia/Kabul, Afghanistan/Tehran, Iran/Cairo, Egypt/Islamabad, Pakistan/Soweto, South Africa/Dier El Zour Province, Syria/Beirut, Lebanon/Baghdad, Iraq/Tripoli, Libya/Pristina, Kosovo/Grozny,Chechen Republic/Veracruz, Mexico/Guatemala City, Guatemala/Sao Paulo, Brazil/Moscow, Russia. 27 November 2012
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Nov 28, 2012
Nov 28, 2012 at 8:17 PM UTC
I, ******
*Dust on the ledge, before me, magnified Smell of gun oil in my nostrils and cramp in the calves The boredom of the wait intensifies, Stale air in my loft is full of must With the failing light I’m grateful it is almost time to stand down. Through the cross hair sprints a target An ordinary, everyday, running target, I know not who this target is, I know not why it runs across my sights, But because it is, where it is, It becomes my enemy. In a microcosm of time the loud bang alters things forever. The buck of the rifle’s recoil, The immediate sour stench of the shot washes back across my face. The intoxication felt, in being the one who caresses the trigger. The satisfaction earned in deservedly making the **** My target spirals in mid stride, Contorts in agony And collapses to the rough tarmac To lie dishevelled, an insignificant, dishevelled item. Checking the **** through the telescopic sight I see the rough stubble of the chin, The nicotine stain on the fingers, I see the colour of the eyes are pale blue. …I know well, it will breathe no more. With descending twilight I trudge from my tower perch With the long ****** rifle slung across my weary shoulders The  crones in the street glare as I walk by There is a loathing in their aged eyes, It is a tangible thing. I know they have no knowledge of the target, But they know, however, that there has been a killing made for the cause. A cold beer would be nice. God! how I hate these young punks with purple hair.* Marshalg Gaza, Palestine/Mogadishu, Somalia/Kabul, Afghanistan/Tehran, Iran/Cairo, Egypt/Islamabad, Pakistan/Soweto, South Africa/Dier El Zour Province, Syria/Beirut, Lebanon/Baghdad, Iraq/Tripoli, Libya/Pristina, Kosovo/Grozny,Chechen Republic/Veracruz, Mexico/Guatemala City, Guatemala/Sao Paulo, Brazil/Moscow, Russia. 27 November 2012
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38
All the flowers slung low to the frosted ground, But one that shone above the others, That vibrant flower trying so hard to impress, But the cold frosted flowers paid no mind to it, The vibrant flower soon discouraged, Covered it'd petals with dirt, And soon began to blend in, Why must we all be the same? When we are all born unique, They don't appreciate their own uniqueness, So they shoot down yours, This vicious cycle repeating, When will it end?
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Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 10:11 PM UTC
Unique
Fibonacci Series their bodies, more suggestion than shape, stretch then swell, trailing slime on sidewalks, an eternity of space to cross from grass to grass. one, then another and another undefine themselves, wet antennae testing air and sun, shells slung on backs. calcium calculations curling ever inward.
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Nov 28, 2011
Nov 28, 2011 at 6:03 PM UTC
Fibonacci Series
I was six when I first saw kittens drown. Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits', Into a bucket; a frail metal sound, Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny din Was soon ****** They were slung on the snout Of the pump and the water pumped in. 'Sure, isn't it better for them now?' Dan said. Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced Them out on the dunghill, glossy and dead. Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hung Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung Until I forgot them. But the fear came back When Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks. Still, living displaces false sentiments And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'. It makes sense: 'Prevention of cruelty' talk cuts ice in town Where they consider death unnatural But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down.
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3.6k
The Early Purges
In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went with Aunt Consuelo to keep her dentist's appointment and sat and waited for her in the dentist's waiting room. It was winter. It got dark early. The waiting room was full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats, lamps and magazines. My aunt was inside what seemed like a long time and while I waited and read the National Geographic (I could read) and carefully studied the photographs: the inside of a volcano, black, and full of ashes; then it was spilling over in rivulets of fire. Osa and Martin Johnson dressed in riding breeches, laced boots, and pith helmets. A dead man slung on a pole "Long Pig," the caption said. Babies with pointed heads wound round and round with string; black, naked women with necks wound round and round with wire like the necks of light bulbs. Their ******* were horrifying. I read it right straight through. I was too shy to stop. And then I looked at the cover: the yellow margins, the date. Suddenly, from inside, came an oh! of pain --Aunt Consuelo's voice-- not very loud or long. I wasn't at all surprised; even then I knew she was a foolish, timid woman. I might have been embarrassed, but wasn't. What took me completely by surprise was that it was me: my voice, in my mouth. Without thinking at all I was my foolish aunt, I--we--were falling, falling, our eyes glued to the cover of the National Geographic, February, 1918. I said to myself: three days and you'll be seven years old. I was saying it to stop the sensation of falling off the round, turning world. into cold, blue-black space. But I felt: you are an I, you are an Elizabeth, you are one of them. Why should you be one, too? I scarcely dared to look to see what it was I was. I gave a sidelong glance --I couldn't look any higher-- at shadowy gray knees, trousers and skirts and boots and different pairs of hands lying under the lamps. I knew that nothing stranger had ever happened, that nothing stranger could ever happen. Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities boots, hands, the family voice I felt in my throat, or even the National Geographic and those awful hanging ******* held us all together or made us all just one? How I didn't know any word for it how "unlikely". . . How had I come to be here, like them, and overhear a cry of pain that could have got loud and worse but hadn't? The waiting room was bright and too hot. It was sliding beneath a big black wave, another, and another. Then I was back in it. The War was on. Outside, in Worcester, Massachusetts, were night and slush and cold, and it was still the fifth of February, 1918.
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3.5k
In The Waiting Room
In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went with Aunt Consuelo to keep her dentist's appointment and sat and waited for her in the dentist's waiting room. It was winter. It got dark early. The waiting room was full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats, lamps and magazines. My aunt was inside what seemed like a long time and while I waited and read the National Geographic (I could read) and carefully studied the photographs: the inside of a volcano, black, and full of ashes; then it was spilling over in rivulets of fire. Osa and Martin Johnson dressed in riding breeches, laced boots, and pith helmets. A dead man slung on a pole "Long Pig," the caption said. Babies with pointed heads wound round and round with string; black, naked women with necks wound round and round with wire like the necks of light bulbs. Their ******* were horrifying. I read it right straight through. I was too shy to stop. And then I looked at the cover: the yellow margins, the date. Suddenly, from inside, came an oh! of pain --Aunt Consuelo's voice-- not very loud or long. I wasn't at all surprised; even then I knew she was a foolish, timid woman. I might have been embarrassed, but wasn't. What took me completely by surprise was that it was me: my voice, in my mouth. Without thinking at all I was my foolish aunt, I--we--were falling, falling, our eyes glued to the cover of the National Geographic, February, 1918. I said to myself: three days and you'll be seven years old. I was saying it to stop the sensation of falling off the round, turning world. into cold, blue-black space. But I felt: you are an I, you are an Elizabeth, you are one of them. Why should you be one, too? I scarcely dared to look to see what it was I was. I gave a sidelong glance --I couldn't look any higher-- at shadowy gray knees, trousers and skirts and boots and different pairs of hands lying under the lamps. I knew that nothing stranger had ever happened, that nothing stranger could ever happen. Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities boots, hands, the family voice I felt in my throat, or even the National Geographic and those awful hanging ******* held us all together or made us all just one? How I didn't know any word for it how "unlikely". . . How had I come to be here, like them, and overhear a cry of pain that could have got loud and worse but hadn't? The waiting room was bright and too hot. It was sliding beneath a big black wave, another, and another. Then I was back in it. The War was on. Outside, in Worcester, Massachusetts, were night and slush and cold, and it was still the fifth of February, 1918.
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99
The first pair of shoes you wore were black, velcro straps sat atop your pair of dollies to make it easier to put them on for the park. They were meant to be smart, but you laughed as you wore them against the ground so free as dad slung the swings, smiling at his child. Our mum told me I was a creative child: I didn't like to wear anything black. Red suited me in how I stood in puddles, free in indifference to how brown my wellies became. If I was asked why, I'd shout, “I'm pretending we're all at the seaside.” From there we made our way to beaches, where the wind was crisp and the children we could see around us acclaimed screams of emphatic joy at how the sea was so blue and big. We had to wear pairs of sandals when we went, but being barefoot felt free. All that time we had at being young and free soon went with the summer ending in school, the arrival of my freshly polished black boots was identical to almost every other child's- a lather of paint dripping over in mud yellows proved who I was with a mother's groan, and this wasn't the only time she wailed. As we grew older and wanted to be free, my sister started to experiment with pink highlights in her hair as I visited clubs with fake ID. We were adults with childish personalities in how I wore my Docs like a religion for feet, my sibling in high heels that you could hear in Sunday morning claps. The arguments broke out: she wanted a child, mother saying was too young, needed to free herself from lazy culture and find a workplace. I'd never seen both their faces so gushed red, just like the red richness of those wellies I had worn in the park. I pipe up and say, “The best freedom is our time as children.”
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Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 3:09 PM UTC
Childhood Sestina
The first pair of shoes you wore were black, velcro straps sat atop your pair of dollies to make it easier to put them on for the park. They were meant to be smart, but you laughed as you wore them against the ground so free as dad slung the swings, smiling at his child. Our mum told me I was a creative child: I didn't like to wear anything black. Red suited me in how I stood in puddles, free in indifference to how brown my wellies became. If I was asked why, I'd shout, “I'm pretending we're all at the seaside.” From there we made our way to beaches, where the wind was crisp and the children we could see around us acclaimed screams of emphatic joy at how the sea was so blue and big. We had to wear pairs of sandals when we went, but being barefoot felt free. All that time we had at being young and free soon went with the summer ending in school, the arrival of my freshly polished black boots was identical to almost every other child's- a lather of paint dripping over in mud yellows proved who I was with a mother's groan, and this wasn't the only time she wailed. As we grew older and wanted to be free, my sister started to experiment with pink highlights in her hair as I visited clubs with fake ID. We were adults with childish personalities in how I wore my Docs like a religion for feet, my sibling in high heels that you could hear in Sunday morning claps. The arguments broke out: she wanted a child, mother saying was too young, needed to free herself from lazy culture and find a workplace. I'd never seen both their faces so gushed red, just like the red richness of those wellies I had worn in the park. I pipe up and say, “The best freedom is our time as children.”
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39
A baggage of cabbage slung over my back It's starting to smell, but don't open the sack. Cause for all I know it could be much more, perhaps it will **** me, dead, onto the floor. But as I grow weary, and my eyes get teary, the sack seems to reek with despair. Oh what the hell, I'll take a look. To see what is really there. As I come to find out, it was indeed what I thought This "baggage of cabbage" has finally been caught.
0
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 12:23 PM UTC
Baggage of Cabbage
Trivial they may seem one worded acknowledgments provide the greatest of hopes sing into my seashell slung around my neck it tremors with my heartbeat lay vertically on my pillow and let the coolness influence your words
0
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 7:50 AM UTC
acknowledgements.
Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst Are you gonna drop the bomb or not? Let us die young or let us live forever We don't have the power, but we never say never Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip The music's for the sad man Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever? Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever? So we livin' life like a video where the sun is always out And you never get old and the champagne's always cold And the music's always good And the pretty girls just happen to stop by in the hood And they hop their pretty *** up on the hood of that pretty *** car Without a wrinkle in today 'cause there's no tomorr' Just a picture perfect day that lasts a whole lifetime And it never ends 'cause all we have to do is hit rewind So let's just stay in the moment, smoke some **** drink some wine Reminisce, talk some **** forever young is in your mind Leave a mark that can't erase neither space nor time So when the director yells "cut," I'll be fine, I'm forever young Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever? Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever? Fear not when, fear not why, fear not much while we're alive Life is for living, not living uptight, see ya somewhere up in the sky Fear not die, I'll be alive for a million years Bye-byes are not for legends, I'm forever young, my name shall survive Through the darkest blocks, over kitchen stoves, over Pyrex pots My name shall be passed down to generations While debating up in barber shops Young Slung hung here, Shorty, the ***** from here With a little ambition, just what we can become here And as the father passed his story down to his son's ears Younger kid, younger every year, yeah So if you love me, baby, this is how you let me know Don't ever let me go, that's how you let me know, baby Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever? Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever? Slamming Bentley doors, hopping out of Porsches Popping up on Forbes lists, gorgeous Hold up, ****** thought I lost it, they be talking ******** I be talking more **** they nauseous Hold up, I'll be here forever you know I'm on my fall **** And I ain't waiting for closure, I will never forfeit less than four bars Guru bring the chorus in, did you get the picture yet? I'm painting you a portrait of young Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever? Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever young?
0
Jan 20, 2013
Jan 20, 2013 at 11:43 PM UTC
Young Forever
Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst Are you gonna drop the bomb or not? Let us die young or let us live forever We don't have the power, but we never say never Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip The music's for the sad man Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever? Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever? So we livin' life like a video where the sun is always out And you never get old and the champagne's always cold And the music's always good And the pretty girls just happen to stop by in the hood And they hop their pretty *** up on the hood of that pretty *** car Without a wrinkle in today 'cause there's no tomorr' Just a picture perfect day that lasts a whole lifetime And it never ends 'cause all we have to do is hit rewind So let's just stay in the moment, smoke some **** drink some wine Reminisce, talk some **** forever young is in your mind Leave a mark that can't erase neither space nor time So when the director yells "cut," I'll be fine, I'm forever young Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever? Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever? Fear not when, fear not why, fear not much while we're alive Life is for living, not living uptight, see ya somewhere up in the sky Fear not die, I'll be alive for a million years Bye-byes are not for legends, I'm forever young, my name shall survive Through the darkest blocks, over kitchen stoves, over Pyrex pots My name shall be passed down to generations While debating up in barber shops Young Slung hung here, Shorty, the ***** from here With a little ambition, just what we can become here And as the father passed his story down to his son's ears Younger kid, younger every year, yeah So if you love me, baby, this is how you let me know Don't ever let me go, that's how you let me know, baby Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever? Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever? Slamming Bentley doors, hopping out of Porsches Popping up on Forbes lists, gorgeous Hold up, ****** thought I lost it, they be talking ******** I be talking more **** they nauseous Hold up, I'll be here forever you know I'm on my fall **** And I ain't waiting for closure, I will never forfeit less than four bars Guru bring the chorus in, did you get the picture yet? I'm painting you a portrait of young Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever? Forever young, I wanna be forever young Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever young?
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57
When ranchers decide to do a thing, Sometimes they just go through it. What follows is a little fling A neighbor did...don't do it. The clearing of the land requires a little fortitude Some ingenuity, and luck, and not a little courage. So A.D. Volbrecht's story, though a little crude, Is only strange to those who eat milk toast and porridge. Rather than tear an old house down to clear a farming space, A.D. enlisted help from his oldest son to haul the thing away. Together then, the two grown men took on a moving race To see if they could jack the house and move it in one day. The morning saw a Donahue, low slung and meant to haul, Waiting as the house was raised, (unsteady on new legs) Then slowly lowered down again. T'would make a feller bawl To see the old home place prepare to pack its bags. Son Zane began a steady pull to move the old house home, And A.D. took his place in front, flashers and flags to warn. Slow going was their pace, and traffic stopped up some; The actual move was tougher than the plan they'd formed. So seven miles became a half a day, and challenges arose How ever would they move the thing through town? The power lines and traffic cops were obstacles; who knows What kinds of tickets they'd be writing down? Up ahead the airport gleamed, the tarmac shimmered black. "Aha!" old A.D. cried, "I've found the way around!" Hard left he turned on a county road, and cut the fence in back And guided Zane and the old home shack to airport ground. Western Airways flight was due sometime that afternoon; Old AD rattled on up Runway One, old pickup running fast, To find a gate to let the old house through, (and none too soon); The tractor and its load sputtered through the parking lot at last. In June a few years back, a farmer and his son pulled off a heist. Stole some runway time and cut their journey short... No harm done, though they'd never do it twice Without winding up defenseless in the county court.
0
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 7:56 AM UTC
Runway Surprises
When ranchers decide to do a thing, Sometimes they just go through it. What follows is a little fling A neighbor did...don't do it. The clearing of the land requires a little fortitude Some ingenuity, and luck, and not a little courage. So A.D. Volbrecht's story, though a little crude, Is only strange to those who eat milk toast and porridge. Rather than tear an old house down to clear a farming space, A.D. enlisted help from his oldest son to haul the thing away. Together then, the two grown men took on a moving race To see if they could jack the house and move it in one day. The morning saw a Donahue, low slung and meant to haul, Waiting as the house was raised, (unsteady on new legs) Then slowly lowered down again. T'would make a feller bawl To see the old home place prepare to pack its bags. Son Zane began a steady pull to move the old house home, And A.D. took his place in front, flashers and flags to warn. Slow going was their pace, and traffic stopped up some; The actual move was tougher than the plan they'd formed. So seven miles became a half a day, and challenges arose How ever would they move the thing through town? The power lines and traffic cops were obstacles; who knows What kinds of tickets they'd be writing down? Up ahead the airport gleamed, the tarmac shimmered black. "Aha!" old A.D. cried, "I've found the way around!" Hard left he turned on a county road, and cut the fence in back And guided Zane and the old home shack to airport ground. Western Airways flight was due sometime that afternoon; Old AD rattled on up Runway One, old pickup running fast, To find a gate to let the old house through, (and none too soon); The tractor and its load sputtered through the parking lot at last. In June a few years back, a farmer and his son pulled off a heist. Stole some runway time and cut their journey short... No harm done, though they'd never do it twice Without winding up defenseless in the county court.
Continue reading...
36
Fibonacci Sequence      (after a photograph of snails) their bodies, more suggestion than shape, stretch then swell, trailing slime on sidewalks, an eternity of space to cross from grass to grass. one, then another and another undefine themselves, wet antennae testing air and sun, shells slung on backs. calcium calculations curling ever inward.
0
Apr 28, 2010
Apr 28, 2010 at 5:17 PM UTC
Fibonacci Sequence
# shackled to a notion rubbing through wrists in rusted remains of beautifully easy it's a slow bleed through insults slung in fear the unmaliciois only noticed in hindsight calling the innocent a ***** doesn't breed hate from love the duke-yeilding cowardly lion flings back like a monkey ## breaststroking a marathon in tears wading through pain I never caused pelted with double-barrelled denial THIS IS NOT WEAKNESS there is no waver on my solid ground torn flesh and compound fractures cannot break harder than history still, gavel strikes in sucker punched cracked ribs that look like a past that ain't mine ### keep hacking off pieces maybe I'll fit into those pretty boxes your liars left as gifts nasty reminders that trust has sharp teeth maybe that's just you biting back any hand that gets too close pandering in placating platitudes ain't my bag flattery fails to flounce from unfettered friends #### can't be beat into submission with unspoken broken rules can't run from a truth in plain view this is what it looks like to believe what you know over what you've lived I'm not running I'm not biting back I'm not going anywhere then again, why would I I'm not the one afraid to love you https://soundcloud.com/user-166761247/a-fourth-in-time-to-cracked-selections-of-music
0
Dec 25, 2018
Dec 25, 2018 at 8:04 AM UTC
a fourth in 3/4 time to cracked selections of music