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Just the thought of them makes your jawbone ache:
those turkey dinners, those holidays with
the air around the woodstove baked to a stupor,
and Aunt Lil's tablecloth stained by her girlhood's gravy.
A doggy wordless wisdom whimpers from
your uncles' collected eyes; their very jokes
creak with genetic sorrow, a strain
of common heritage that hurts the gut.

Sheer boredom and fascination! A spidering
of chromosomes webs even the infants in
and holds us fast around the spread
of rotting food, of too-sweet pie.
The cousins buzz, the nephews crawl;
to love one's self is to love them all.
Farah Hizoune Jul 2013
A quiet, broken smile graced her lips
And to the everyday it looked quite convincing
But it was deceiving because
At the moment she was
Indeed shattering, putting herself back
And shattering more
If her innards were out
You could see the spidering veins around her piteous heart
Of continual cracking
And if you looked close, without doubt
You could see, the original point of impact
And you'd know
There was nothing we could do for her
She passed on site, and time of death had been called
So had her former lover.
Although his response, 'I'm sorry, who?' was particularly painful.
But in his defense I will say that he was being the most honest of all of us.
I felt that I should've written something significant and profound for this morose little girl
But all that came was unworthy.
Instead I took the dear child to the place where I found most comfort.
There we lain in a decrepit old graveyard trying to relate to the dead.
Marble mausoleums mimicking my nightly resting place.
I happened upon a black witch moth which had gracened us with his company.
I sat there enraptured watching his nonsensical trail.
As he began his decent I had a most unsettling feeling nothing to do with countless bodies under head.
Upon a glistening tomb he made beautiful land.
I suddenly found myself creeping onward, praying reprieve.
The mariposa de la muerte fluttered not but an inch.
As I realized his demise, I gazed back to my bride
Only to find a black hooded shape disappear as I focused with a painfully sharp tone of finality.
Mayah Seals Dec 2022
Small pebbles crash through ashen skies,
So intricate and divine.
They pitter patter the pane.
Window pane;
Inner pain.
Cracked and spidering;
The sensation remains the same.

Snapping crisp twigs like heartstrings.
Plucking the chords on this beating violin,
A somber sound barrels around  cathedral ceilings,
Dripping melodies in pools at the edges of cold lips.

Victorian grace with hippie peace.
What a hollow sound without the clash of chaos you bring.
Oil and water, emulsified.
Fire and ice, married.
Beautiful chaos, skyward bound.
Earth to ash, burried.
To Sue: much more than Grammy; my teacher, monk, guru, my DaVinci. I will treasure the gift of simply being known by you
Terry Collett Sep 2014
Lovely Tours
Miriam
says to me
maybe we
can look round
you and me

sure
I say

and so when
the coach stops
we get out
and wander
keeping close
to others
from our coach

the hippie
couple there
out in front
he bearded
with a band
round his head
and his girl
with long hair
hanging loose
both smoking

Miriam
takes my hand
her own hand
small and warm
pulse going
her red hair
all tight curls
her bright eyes
over me

isn't it
exciting?

I don't do
exciting
I just look
and take in
and enjoy
I tell her

we walk on
through the streets
look in shops
look at stuff

she holds things
in her hands
handles them
values them

like last night
in the coach
in Paris

lying down
in our seats
us kissing
her fingers
exploring
my hot crotch

my fingers
spidering
up her thigh
as music
on the coach
radio
eases out
Beethoven’s
piano piece
concerto
number 5
or such like

and she's there
holding me

my fingers
spidering
to her nest

lights dim low
music flows
down the rows
of coach seats

some sleeping
some talking
some of us
making out
best we can
in dim light
in Paris
over night.
A BOY AND GIRL IN TOURS IN FRANCE IN 1970
Kara Rose Trojan May 2012
We encountered a white-tiled wall whose
            purity lingered behind earthly browns,
           salmon, grass, lavender acrylic paint. And this frozen scene chilled like hot breath on winter
            glass, soil-mixed dividing stories of young, smiley-touched
            girls whose hair was flaxen hills in
            the country and whose
            eyes were opalescent azures whose opalescence
            was truly the only sign of thought beyond a
            glassy grin.

Porcelain doll made of giggles and bubbles.

She fanned her fingers in a glorious sky and leaf peacock-feathered exuberance and pawed at the dry, gritty scene of a sailboat floundering towards a sunset.

She sees this world feelingly – one touch, two touch
Her smile is prayer-folded hands extending across her own little world
A prayer for this textured caricature of a little girl,
            a happy puppet stuck until dark,
            like the form the woman she’ll soon become
            with her child-like fingers spidering across the stories she hopes to [but never will] tell.

Her dusty hands against the comforting tinge of a watermelon’s epicenter.
            So pink, so raw, so vulnerable with the valor of another brush’s turn.
Love-evans Apr 2015
Seeds Of light spilled out when they wished to torment the clouds;
Your farewell sooth's me, like a smooth stone leaving its prayer on my fingertips.
Memories whispered somewhere behind the shadows of the moon;
Covered in satin cloths, Bare bones, cold, lying on the floor of an abandoned house.
Falling pointless falling.
I was the house.
Left neglected and unneeded,
Bathtubs, and cigarettes.
Endless misery.
My soul spidering up a thread dampened in the rain; someday.
Once, twice, three times, gone.
Towards emptiness is where I drifted, where what seemed real dissolved in time.
Where we abandoned fake smiles and white walls, for I'm fine and therapy;
Traded warm walls and late night phone calls for Hospital beds, and Medication.
You get used to it, Tubes down you esophagus.
Misery.
That’s all we know; they say I’m crazy.
But when white walls and hospital beds is all that you know, you begin to believe it.
Endless Misery, That’s where you lead me.
Held my hand and turned Rose pedal and kisses into fits of anxiety and bruises.
My knees are bruised now,
And when you've fallen all things hurt.
Then suddenly nothing.
The world doesn’t stop spinning just because you need a break.
Fake smiles, when you've forgotten what happiness feels like, that is all you allow people to see.
But to no avail misery is all that you feel, and all the world will ever allow you to know.
Blank spaces and hallways leading nowhere, someday.
But it seems as though I've forgotten what comfort feels like.
When the world gives you someone that makes you feel special and that is taken away,
It’s like saying "Oops this gift is for someone else".
I cling to what is given to me, because I know to love no other way.
Something about tomorrow seems to torment my soul;
Yet the idea of waking up to someone there makes it okay to hate myself.
I've fallen for a gift that was never mine to hold onto.
Towards emptiness is where I followed you;
Where it seemed okay to be empty because I find comfort in what I know.
Suddenly I've fallen, and have managed to let every piece of me break.
Shattered like fine china.
My knees are bruised now; and I tell myself that being hurt is okay because...
Because...
Because...
NO.
It's not okay but it has become something I've learned to accept.
Falling, Sinking, Drowning beneath all the sorrow I attempt to contain.
That is all I seem to do.
Because: A word used to introduce a phrase or clause expressing and explanation or reason.
You left me with not a single “because”. Now I am shattered glass.
Unfixable, But I manage to pretend.
Walking around with a smile when in reality I want to burst into a puddle.
Yet no one seems to understand,
Because I am only seventeen and it is somehow unfathomable to see that I could have been in love.
"Because" is all I asked for
"Accept that I won’t tell you" is all that you left me.
Amanda Sep 2014
I'll like to think that we are all glass figures, people, whatever.
We are fragile, delicate, malleable when heated, at times we can be coolly transparent.
But the undeniable truth that we always come back to is that we can all
break.
Under pressure- the sort that splinters pieces of wide-eyed innocence and hope, the kind of disappointment so pale, you can see it in their skin- it results into little fissures of weaknesses spidering out into ugly cross-roads. Which I think we will inevitably walk on.
And suddenly, with those gaping cracks,
we are no longer quite so impervious to
the bad or the good.
Frankly, as sickeningly cliche this may sound, it is universally accepted that it is the very inside that will start to bleed into those crossroads.
So, yeah, it is the inside that counts.
And I wish I could have learnt that without cutting my hands
red and raw
on these broken shards of glass.
Hey you, isn't your soul looking gorgeous today?
How have y'all been doing? :')
The above is the beginning of my short narrative for my English assessment. It is by far one of my more gritty and raw stories.
Definitely more challenging and emotionally draining sort of writing.
Typed to: Poison & Wine- The Civil Wars
P.S My heart crumbles into little piece when I hear the beginning.
Take care, okay?
x
jackonary Jun 2013
I wasn't raised as a lady
with three brothers and a father to tie me down
and beat sense into my girlish mind.
But early illuminations
brought dark realizations-
as it seems a fool is favored.

Feathered eyelids and buttered cheeks
of these I knew nothing.
Clumsy drugstore purchases
to paint a face too young into beauty.
The type they want to look at.

Braces be gone!
Glasses, so long!
Sear these curls with an iron!
So there, cursed mirror of murmurs!  
The type they want to look at!

Nay!
He says that's not enough.
And who am I to stop his hand
spidering up my skirt.
This is it.
The type they want to touch.

Wash your face off
and all the scents and spots
of whoever he was.
Some are too deep,
it seems they have seeped.
The type they want to ****.

You'll ruin your sheets
if you cry like that-
motherless infant.
You cannot always need,
you'll be the type they want to leave.
Nameless Oct 2013
Walking across a frozen pond
When it begins to crack.

Knowing what will happen,
You fight to run back.

But the foundation you stand on
Is spidering faster than you your feet can carry you

And the ice you seek to flee from
Was not made to be escaped,

But you refuse to succumb to it's commands
Getting back up each time it's slippery surface
Grabs your feet and brings you down
to meet it's cold heartless complexion

And the cold grows more paralyzing with each fall
Making it more difficult to get back to your feet

All the while, in the back of your mind is
The knowledge of the imminent break
That will send you falling into the
Inescapable icy black depths of  numbness

Yet, for a reason unknown to you,
Despite the unavoidable doom you are fated with,
You deny to give up.

And you're not sure whether to call it strength,
Or tragic naïveté.
Nameless Feb 2014
we are the dampened muddy leaves
Littering Forrest floors in that
Time that's not quite yet winter
But not quite still fall

We are the pebbles at the bottom
Of an ancient river
Being eaten away at with each
Passing current

We are the spidering cracks
in the ice coating the ground
Inviting some unfortunate stranger
To come lose traction on our surface

We are the veins inside the
Flower stem
Begging for recognition past the
Garish petals who get all the notice

We are nothing
And we are everything
Erin Jul 2013
I wish I had the courage
to pull a knife across my skin,
I wish I had a way
to keep the hurt from seeping in.

I wish I could wash the sink
and watch water turn red
covered up with band-aids
as to not stain sheets on bed.

I wish I could look at the scars
spidering up my arm,
I wish I could be brave enough
to do myself real harm.

But then I think about my friends
and it seems a sin
to try to hurt myself at all
it's really giving in.
Thanks to jeffrey robin for addressing a confusion in two contradictory poems.

July 30, 2013 /itsjusterin
a spidering across my face,  that mooned mirrored moment.



raising from sleep dreamed , dashed my hand to move it,



sadly this morning  find the remains stain, detritus with remorse.





radio news says the evacuation from aleppo is delayed.



history repeats itself.



spider.



sbm.
Jack Jenkins May 2019
There is a fear resting on this brain
Fear of obsolescence too young
Use used up too early
Spidering across my mind's eye
It is
Unsettling
To be old at a young age
In body & mind
The mirror shows your youth but
Cannot discover the years within
Everyone says "You're so young you have your whole life ahead of you!"
(It's such an oxymoron, your whole life is only ever behind you... If people cared to think they would learn this)

Young
young
y o u n g
Is it just a number?
Do I have to bury friends and family before I'm considered old?
Where is the invisible threshold that I must have passed when I was a child? Or a teen?
I haven't pocketed my third decade but my
HEART
                    is
HEAVY

I long to die but I'm scared to die so I just want to die so I stop thinking about death all the time. People will get over me.
If I'm (un)lucky my words won't be remembered
Most words are memories we want to forget
Yet we write them down
To the deep parts of our souls
Etch them in our marble foundations
Hoping out dreams will show them some nights
But I want to forget it all

I'm old ******
If you don't believe me ask my friends
If you don't believe them ask the dead
If you don't believe them stop reading
Because you were never listening in the first place
Just waiting for your turn to talk
To say I'm nonsensical
To eNcOuRaGe mE to lOoK fOrWaRd
When forward doesn't exist yet
By the time it does it's just more minutes
Stacked on my back
Days stacked on my back
Months stacked
Years stacked
Until you call me old
and I tell you I've been here the whole time

(You just chose not to believe)
//On life//
Tired of people and life.
Life and people are tired.
Aleeza Nov 2017
there are ribbons of light threaded in your hair
and the clock ticks are synchronized with your touch
I don’t know about the things you used to whisper to me
for now, all I know is how your hellos used to feel
and maybe it’s 3am and it’s too early for you to go
so I’ll ask you to stay until we can get lost again

it’s late to say goodbye now for I left without a word
don’t ask me to stay if you already know that I won’t
I don’t want to get lost again cause I’m trying to find myself
been broken by the consequences I had when I was with you

cold coffee and troubled stares
trying to find the life I lost in our cracked walls
the song we used to yell while cruising in cars
lost in the quiet sadness of the rain
our knees bump against each other and we don’t pull them away
and I keep saying sorry but you don’t hear anything I say

memories keep flashing
I’m trying to shake them off
I know that it’s best when we’re both apart
we keep on hurting each other with words we don’t mean
a sorry won’t fix what’s already been done
when I left I know you’ll be okay
we’ll both be free of what’s been keeping us chained
I loved you for a long time but I know it’s time to let you go
I know you’re already unhappy
you’re just afraid to be alone

but maybe alone is not what I fear
maybe I can’t stand the idea of you being removed from my words
all those years of sunshine so I knew I needed your rain
and maybe your storms were not enough
to chase away the emptiness of the light

I know that you’re a strong independent woman
but what you can’t let go was the fun memories we had
you cling to the words and you dwell in your thoughts
you know you’re so much more than that
but you refuse to take hold of that
we both knew that you don’t need me
but you don’t want to believe that
it’s better this way
we could be on our own, fixing ourselves on our separate ways
why would you run back to the person who broke you?
we both know that the circumstances won’t be better if ever I come back

broken is all I’ve known
cracks spidering across paint-splattered porcelain
and I didn’t mind that I crumbled in your hands
you used to look at me like you knew what I once was
and in all my dreams you drowned me
but I couldn’t take any other hand but yours
insane hatter Nov 2014
Burnt
Severing pain on my shoulders
Thighs
Arms
And face
Giving me warmth but also making me cold
Spidering along my skin
Is what it feels like
Heat waves in certain places
Think when you swim outside
Onoma Jan 2017
Bleeding buffers,
pressed against
a world that pictures...
ramifying colors--
spidering glass that crackles.
What a beautiful
headdress.
Stasis of newness,
plus and minus the
headiness of years.
+Happy New Year-
storm siren Aug 2017
Storm clouds.
Grey.
Black.
Flashing lightning.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5--
Rumbling thunder.
It chills your bones.
Shouting.
Yelling.
A man's voice.
A child's soft, muffled cry.
Cold skin.
Chills
Spidering up and down my spine
Over and over and over.
A woman sobbing softly.
Flashing lightning.
1. 2. 3--
Rumbling thunder.
Cold wind.
Rain.
It falls in sheets.
Feels like little blades of ice
Piercing my skin.
Screaming.
Slamming doors.
Cars driving away.
Gravel.
A child wailing.
It fades into a soft, distant whimper.
There aren't enough tissues for all their tears.
The wind picks up.
It howls.
Trees bend to its' will.
Some threaten to fall.
The rain comes down harder,
Faster.
Like sheets of bullets.
They're so cold,
I almost don't feel them.
I almost feel nothing.
And nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing

And then: You.

And then there was you.

Sunlight,
Straining through Autumn clouds.
Yellow and red and orange leaves.
Birds building nests,
Chirping back and forth.
Squirrels foraging for food for the coming Winter,
Scurrying up and down trees.
Warm spiced apple cider.
Silence,
Except for the soft, colder breeze.
Except for the purring of a cat,
The slight kneading of their drowsy paws.
Except for the soft snoring of a dog,
His occasional half-asleep woof.
Except for pages turning,
A pen gliding its' ink across thick parchment.
Typewriter keys clacking.
Silence.
Except for your footsteps coming through the front door
And down the hall.

Nothing.

And then there was you.

There never was anyone else.
Brandon Conway Aug 2018
I watched as your webbed nest grew
In the branch of the front yard tree
A plague of squirming brood
Not that a web of a spidering

Yours was much too thick
As I braved a finger, fear quelled
Skipped on using a stick
Strong and sturdy she held

“Are these caterpillars?”
You asked, I replied
“I think they are.”

You asked for the destruction of civilization
“You need to cut these down.”

“I can’t, I been watching them grow,
Watching this web slowly take over.
Now I see on every tree
When I’m out driving
Their villages
Where they live
Feeding off the leaves
If these are so common
Why are butterflies so rare?”

You responded with no care
“They are ugly, I don’t like them.”
  
I watched the rest of that tree
Be consumed
I hope that plague
Becomes beautiful soon
Alan McClure May 2017
Primary to pastel
to lights, darks

to static and noise
to nothing.

The old man ice-axes
memory mountain.

Some echo, some glimpse
of all he's lost

is all he seeks.
But all there is

in unpictured void,
scuttling, spidering

denying the light -
a parasite alphabet

barring windows
spinning webs -

the words for which
he once was famous

******* the juice from
all they ever meant.

While lesser spectres
span the spectrum

dreams and photons
undrowned in ink.
martin challis Jan 2015
The loving stretch of your cloudy fingers,
your welcoming cob-web eyes.

How they haunt,
shake salt from the limb,
sweep up leaves in courtyards, and
carry their eclipse to the brink of me.

Tree’s circumcised by gardener time
poke forks at you ,
scrape your soft full plate
with the chafe of spidering knuckles.

Everything the flavour of sun-set is a plea.

What can I do when the wing of you
has nothing to say
but fall in reverse,

have you no pity,
you do nothing but sleep, yawn
and blink back your triumph.

Where are the places
I might squeeze you
into submission:
windows only take in so much.

Just once I’d have you secede at my feet,
break bread with the best of me;
release this enthralled impatience.

I starve for some light conversation
but you practise your zen enchantment,
practise it right in front of me
day after day after day.

Show mercy.
Crush me,
     do something.

I want you to fall.


MChallis © 2015
Nameless Jun 2014
If only words could bring the dead back to life.

If only that mother could tell her baby girl she was so sorry that she only now understood that you didn't have to have a reason to feel hopelessly broken and that she was sorry that she never believed that not knowing how to fix those broken pieces, because you didn't know why they were broken, could ever be listed as a cause of death. And if only that woman weeping, laying naked clutching a picture of a smiling girl preserved in her youth forever, could say something that would give her one more chance to get to see her baby light up the room with the sunbeams that always shone out through the spidering cracks in the black glass shell of a perpetual hurt that covered her so completely that the space around her became listed as the only place on earth where no trace of heat or oxygen ever existed.
If only words could bring the dead back to life.

And if only this poem was actually about my mother and I. If only this poem wasn't really about how my chest cavity feels like it's filled with water because I'm afraid I will never find the words to bring you back to me.
Please take me back.
A small pebble of grief lodges into my skin
Splintering it, not yet cracked
A waft of sadness floats upon the splinter
Cracking my being
Working it's way from my chest, up to my neck, my face, my head
Down my stomach, my legs, my feet
My arms, my hands
Spidering it's way over my body
As though I am a marble statue hit with the mason's hammer
From this I shatter into pieces
Unrecognizable
I spew into the air
My sobs carry myself with the four winds
I shall never be whole again
Grief,  such a shattering thing...
VV Lettish Sep 2019
god made your head balloon with recognition
pouring these shots of friday we've been sipping on
and i, a needy god of my respectful own
have yet to make an effort to improve upon
a clever poem
or an able song
a yes-please-thank-you point of view
with no-please-thank-you dolours
relating red to wounds and rowan trees
relating sapphire to the social structures
of the all-embracing web
and camouflaging with disruptive sets of colours

the weekend's not so far away, routinely
spidering past, each season at a matching pace
and i, a needy god in my imperfect place
have yet to make an effort to avoid distress
no rationale, just
in whichever case
all you will have to do is wish
yourself upon this mountain
relating pink to acts of human aid
relating green to all the times you, grinning
johnny-cashed your green in - then
married the gold, married the endless shouting
Ayesha Jan 2022
you are moonlight kissed, and—
yes, moonlight kissed
and I, in winds, solidly see

beads of my beloved grief strung
in stranger fingers
spidering around reckless on strings—
and waves waves tiding, in ecstasy woven
by violins I dare not learn, by flutes seeping, and sitars
calling home a bird astray

Vivaldi: a dry Storm sob that will not blossom,
not, not, will not— twig fingers curl to taut fists as— Winter
dribbles down on the ragged red throat and
night like silk
silk silk— silks on silks opaque! Ah—

the troughs and oily hills zigzagging
through the air

and violins turn to pinpricked limbs
and strums strums skipping
tugging cruel and tearing—
plucking tendons, plucking desperate and fast

-

you are moonlight kissed as
the silver blush is teased
by sea-creatures’ scaled splashes—
a thousand good griefs tossed to air;
but I am body only
two woody legs folded in a branching of arms
next to the trunk that timidly breathes, next
to the fist-sized squirrel—

my roots like cold fat moles curled up
symphonies rush by giggling
and I do not tremble
21/01/2022

I have never met a sea, but I often wonder how it would go
vera Nov 2018
Bashed in the pavement
Between the spidering cracks
Are the steps of millions.

Millions of sweet lovers
Soft whistles floating in the air.

Millions of ******* brothers
Crackling with little care.

Poor folk and rick alike,
Shoes a bit worse for wear
Heels on some.
While others go with feet bare.
Anna Apr 2021
veins underneath your skin
dark purple life spidering out to the edges
soft green borders that meet perfectly
to form a teardrop
pink and yellow blooms across your face

hello friend
ghost Feb 2021
chills tremble inside my skin

covered by despondent stone

metal edges carve vicious truths

inside my skull, on a canvas of bone.


I bury pain and terror deep, but

quiet cracks are spidering out

rivers of ice run down my cheeks

and still, I crumble without sound.
today is just one of those days
Lawrence Hall Sep 11
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


            Tropes, Dopes, Middle-Earth, and Culture Worriers

          I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of
          Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware
          none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or
          any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are
          enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I
          regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

      -Tolkien, from a letter rebuking a German publisher, 1938


One does not imagine Tolkien schlubbing about
In a garish cartoon tee and baggy shorts
A Glock strapped to his 50-inch waist
Shopping the dollar store in a Trumpy cap

One does not imagine Lewis following QAnon
Encouraging Peter to take an AR to Latin class
Or quartering the Cross of good Saint George
With a *******’s spidering wheel of shame

Not all evil comes from outside the Shire –
Sometimes evil is our own internal desire



On the time J.R.R. Tolkien refused to work with ****-leaning publishers. ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)

Why does Lord of the Rings appeal to the radical right? – The Irish Times

Behind the Catholic Right’s Celebrity-Conversion Industrial Complex | Vanity Fair
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2019
Classic intelligence,
built on complexity

Layer upon layer,
a spidering web

For us to get caught in,
for us to be trapped

Its capture most fatal
—not living or dead

(Dreamsleep: September, 2019)

— The End —