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Onoma Feb 2015
...Brightly broken...
lumine-go round,
~Always~
wound one
wend away...
the
Spotlit Circle.
DJ Thomas Apr 2010
The play is written to be staged in a pub or a large cave like yurt in Cardiff.  Its action and dialogue provides characterisation, with sound and lighting being used to establish context.  The setting a darkened pub corner that is  modelled on The Bunch of Grapes in Pontypridd.   There are only 6 characters, five speak in haiku-ed verse with the exception of the Drunk who acts as my 'Greek Chorus'.

- Hand-in-hand she enters to **** her thumb in a corner

- Chocolate ice cream soda demanded from Daddy

- Joking banter ceased slowly as the regulars all begin to quaff their brown pints

“Balll uut eass swept -
Chimrrrrr, Chiirriica,
war is never won”

- Church quiet, the village pub listened lips clamped tears swelling

“ ***** cut swapped with eyes -
Chimerica, Chimerica,
war is never won”

- The cornered hero of two Afghanistan tours is seen regressing into childhood*

The set darkens slowly then after 30 seconds a spotlit conversation in lines and stanzas begins.

Haiku and tanka that inspired the coming play include:

******* -
thoughts sought, taught and wrought,
testosterones
Fighting aggressive games,
Afghanistan camouflage


Globalism and War -
cloned greedy conspiracy,
that third tower
Titled selfish-self-grandiose,
deliver warring terror


Springs cut Irises -
dripping vital red not purple,
far from my window*

.
copyright©DJThomas@inbox.com 2010
Audrey Apr 2014
crimson Poison Apples drop off Burning
Bridges into Murky Waters
red with rust swirling swirling
she cries as her father's fists curling
beat Seeds of Suspicion into
her Reckless heart
bleeding bruises art art
runs and hides but stands alone
pleading begging moan moan
her shoes are jimmy choo
she whispers secrets to herself
"I Just Wanted to be Me"
but the King of Hearts is Out for
Blood
scarlet laughter piercing darkness
growling stomach fight fight
tears flow and flood the night
and she is Shrinking away
Coming Out to the show
blinding bright in the glow glow
spotlit on a blackened stage
forced to perform Circus Acts
remembering when she was-was what?-nothing
Prom Queen twirling twirling
"Look" -hearts in a sea of ****** silk-
but the only one looking is
The Collector
hoarding up stories of rosy misery
Mean Colors dancing in cruel red eyes
sneer and cry and lie lie
their Psychic Powers forcing isolation into her veins
like a Blood Borne killer
she is just fading away until the Song in Her
Heart is just a hum of amazing grace
life thought gone forever
lives
on
as
the
tears
of
friends
remake
her
memories
she is buried in a glass casket under
grey skies The Red Dress she wears
without a care care
flashy crimson
sunset
ruby
apple
scarlet
blood
pain
love
life
soul
RED
v­ibrant in dead fields
life thought gone forever
lives
on
Michael W Noland Sep 2012
Twiddled knifes upon glass eyes, cry the insight of reprise, amongst a galvanized pride, in flight from spotlit skeletons, denied of sunlight, without a fight of adrenaline and puking on the side of missed roads.

An abode, of foreboding wealth within a duffel bag, drags the corroding moral codes of trolls controlled by ignorant over lords over the coals, before another log is tossed in the fire.

Before the fog of the fading embers, dislodge the common splendor, from the lives of nine to fivers, tending to the totals of the dead versus survivors, in vocal onslaught of the names of the slaughtered daughters of liberty that faltered in the after glow of nevermore.

Anymore,  i only wish to dream.
dream of better things that sing in the blood, and shrug the smugness from drug-less fiends, in consumption of peeling seams, and paint-chips.
Cancerous fractions entrap us.
Just ask the plaintiff.

Sustain it ...

In stillness.

Mastery over illnesses.

Embrace the contaminants of my inanimate imagination, swallowed in the shallows of a nation lost to bacon and broken beautiful.

Tokened suitable with corporate suitors to the masses. Blinded in the flashes of dismal diobolitry ,upon uprooting the touting in the jealous shouting of the shenanigry of driven villains, knowing of the chronology of the buried devilry, toiling in the ecology of a dying star.

My gods aren't too far from yours.

My stars aren't too bogged for more.

My more, your cut off point.

Disjoint the facts, let the words womb themselves and slither in the delivery, of malicious adhering to the tongue, in the atrocious abominations of falsified accumulations of the letters manifestations of fruitful creations abiding to immaculate consummation of lost thoughts that prevailed in one long exhale of a run on sentence.

No penmanship in breathlessness, as i faint in my confessions of restless lessons learned in burned futures overturned in grief.
Burned in the disbelief of fractured animals, cannibalising the chastised cultures of the mechanical signals planted in our cores.

Arms forward and moaning for more.

Always more.

I claim victory in my plastic citizenry of pity and tragedy, where i too can proclaim my self godliness and engage in bliss with the rich.

Im an emo ***** with blood on his knife and a list of names read aloud from the braille niche upon glass eyes, where to see is to realise, the severed root of the bloodline, in slow chromatic decline over time, until the with, is without, and the made mark is gone and the new birth is spawn to embark upon, brawn over brain the simple rule shall remain, conned in the game of numbers, slumbering from under the wonder of man vs machine. Again ranting in my rhyming declining into boredom.
Seldom to abandon the foreboding doom i cant shake.
Stephen king meets Dr seuss for a lovely kick of the chair and a hug of the noose.
Never to lose when smiling.
startle cracks
and curtain calls
my eyelids back

diaphanous dropped
and veils up
dewy bloom spotlit

monkeysuit chauffeur
denigrated daily
scratch behind his ears
you're doing OK
just mistook
vehicle for passenger

relax in seat back
let clear and present ever
steer biospheric lit

allow etheric hum
up the bony ladder
to outlook attic
bindi blinds lift

pretty *******'
46-bit binoculars
these holy puppet
hands have got
Joe Donovan Sep 2012
I wanted to write about

The first

Time I saw a spotlight

And knew what it meant

It was in a theater

And

Smoke machines blew

The light into existence a light

I had never seen before the spotlights

They circled cut paths I couldn’t

Follow

Define

Shining through the smoke

Light made color made smoke made real

It wasn’t the light I saw it was the smoke spotlit but it was

Only the light I knew

Saw

Could see

Until I thought of driving

Home

Late one night in the front seat and falling asleep

As our headlights cut through the fog

And knowing if I could just

Crawl through the window and

Sit on the hood of the

Car and reach out my foot and stand

on the fog-beam I would

Be carried somewhere more comfortable than the

One crick-necked nook

I had found that would

Let me fall asleep dreaming of

Crawling through windows. I wanted

To write about that first time,

When I watched the spotlights draw symbols

A cuneiform language only the smoke could read and how the

Smoke danced and I realized

The only way to shine is to be

So

Small

That you cannot cast a shadow,

That everything casts a shadow that

To shine you must block something else from shining

Because we are not suns

We are not

We are small and

Lonely

moons.

But what if we were so small we didn’t have to be?

We could be dust and smoke and

The light could dance through us

Together

And we would dance through it

And bring it to life

Write in a language only

We can read as we swim through ourselves

Ourselves the light we’re swimming through

Light is only light until it hits the dust

The dust makes the beam

Be small with me and build beams of light in a small theater

Hall where the dust has

Collected where

We have collected

Ourselves.

That is what I wanted to write

About but as I watched the

Beams moving

And learned the smoke of a

Dusty theater-room

And how it dances

Even after the light leaves it,

It must, even though

I

Cannot see

It, because it is

Always ready always

Dancing when the light arrives

The dust is a beam of light

Waiting

To be built, a boat

Waiting

To breathe an ocean into

Existence and float

Through it and

Be rocked

By it and

Be

It, is

What I wanted to write about but

As I watched the beams

Moving one

Met my eye

And

The smoke vanished

And

The beam vanished

And

There was nothing

But the light

Staring at me

Ripping my shadow

Out of me and

Hurling it behind me only

For a second

An angry and

Vengeful second who are you to

Tell me that I need the dust?

You are not a sun

You are barely a moon you are

So small

So

small

And still you cast a shadow you

Take from me

Use me

Know yourself

Build your world

By me with me through me

And you sit

In this dusty theater hall

So small

And want to write

That it is dust that makes the beam?

No smoke machine could

Blow the light into

Existence what would you call

Smoke if there was no light to

Pass through it to

Light it breathe it into

Existence now

Sit

Lonely and selfish

moon

And watch the show.
Audrey Apr 2014
crimson Poison Apples drop off Burning
Bridges into Murky Waters
red with rust swirling swirling
she cries as her father's fists curling
beat Seeds of Suspicion into
her Reckless heart
bleeding bruises art art
runs and hides but stands alone
pleading begging moan moan
her shoes are jimmy choo
she whispers secrets to herself
"I Just Wanted to be Me"
but the King of Hearts is Out for
Blood
scarlet laughter piercing darkness
growling stomach fight fight
tears flow and flood the night
and she is Shrinking away
Coming Out to the show
blinding bright in the glow glow
spotlit on a blackened stage
forced to perform Circus Acts
remembering when she was-was what?-nothing
Prom Queen twirling twirling
"Look" -hearts in a sea of ****** silk-
but the only one looking is
The Collector
hoarding up stories of rosy misery
Mean Colors dancing in cruel red eyes
sneer and cry and lie lie
their Psychic Powers forcing isolation into her veins
like a Blood Borne killer
she is just fading away until the Song in Her
Heart is just a hum of amazing grace
life thought gone forever
lives
on
as
the
tears
of
friends
remake
her
memories
she is buried in a glass casket under
grey skies The Red Dress she wears
without a care care
flashy crimson
sunset
ruby
apple
scarlet
blood
pain
love
life
soul
RED
v­ibrant in dead fields
life thought gone forever
lives
on
Lee Jul 2012
It feels better
than space-cakes
You're spotlit
in my sight
When we
are 'we'
we're so fine

It's not
special
you're not
special
we were
never special
It just felt
that way
for a time

Now I
close one eye
find you
diminished, dry
Then
the other- you're
special, mine

The inside
of my head
is winking
And I still
can't see you
in 3D

              Misaligned
Row upon row, I saw them, instantly, ‘I did’,  
shuffled bodies bulged past me, they ‘did not’.
Fingers, lived to touch, light dim in part,
not here, spotlit, it said “Do not touch”,

how can I know?  Disobedient held
up in my palm, angling my hand
this way, that way. It happened then,
our grey blue pupils, like full stops, clung,

I did not know it would be a memory pocket.
A sentence in time snatched my happy face,
fear bought me. Under my skin, groping pins
pricking the base of my neck pushed into my skull.

Spun, bumping bodies smelling of beached waves,
hard gulps, sweat caught in between my fingers.
It was time to tie up loose thoughts, forget
I pushed away with speed, in a strange place,

street, shop,  where was I? Where are you?!  
By your side in safe sofas, I hand swung
down the banister, released the bolt,
safety catch hanging...and gone....
Duane Kline Oct 2023
You possess a crystal heart,
One I have admired
Many times,
It sits just out of reach  
Inviting my gaze.

Like a boy at a store window
With iced frosting,
Blowing steamy breath
And rubbing it free of the grime
I have deposited on it,
I gaze at the prize,
A treasure to be had,
Like key fobs or
Combs;
You are the magi
Who carries the gift.

The window is dark
Except for the spotlit
Center,
The object of my desire
And hope,
The pearl of great price
I will give all to possess.
Onoma Feb 2016
...At this evening nigh-tide, reptilian
brain bites back instinctively.
I am forgiven in all Houses...all postulations
bloat these blue veins.
Daguerreotype pictures cake their ashen
backdrop, that assures the comely smile
of cosmic forbearance.
As if these lips would dematerialize in search
of utterance.
Not for the entrained speakeasy of spotlit
here and now...but the energetic pulse tugged
at both ends of tongue.
The final straw struck back, to ingratiate the
greatest of pilgrimages.
Shelley Jul 2014
Drying grasses climb the hillsides,
dotted with fall’s hues: saffron, lavender, rust.
Below lies an orchard--trees holding York Imperials,
ripe for the picking.

Branches meander, intertwine, and cross.
Some bow low to extend their offerings;
others strain to hide a Golden Delicious
overhead, out of reach.

The trees’ leaves darken, harden, and curl.
Feet fall upon those that have
drifted to the ground; the crunch
mimics the apple’s crisp bite.

The Rome Beauties are dimpled and pock-marked,
their surfaces spotlit by the sun.
Fist-sized with sloping sides
and bobbing heads--dangling, waiting.

Aside from the worm-claimed and the decayed,
the pick is yours.
Onoma Feb 2019
i entered into

a sensuality, like

a spotlit seagull

pushed thru a sky-sake's

blue.

flapping over

a landscape of abandoned

bodies.
Taut
Tight
wired and light,
tonight I'm going to take the car
tonight I may or not get far but
I have to go,
have to blow these cobwebs from my head,
quick or dead but under par
tonight
I'm going to take the car but first,
burst the bubble that I'm in,
begin to slake my thirst for all things that will end and in the end,
begin to start
begin to break apart the chain that tightens up
around my brain,
start the car,
taut and tight,not wired right but tonight's the night.
In the finding of unwinding I am wound up tighter than before,
the night becomes a bolted door
and I the rabbit in the spotlight where lurchers hound me,
spooling free
I'm in the car
not very far from where I start and find my heart just isn't in it
spotlit as I am,
still the rabbit
not the man.
Onoma Nov 2013
Non erasable, maligned
"sin"...light ****** by
the darkened contours
of a face.
Providence spotlit on
sight...sun...daily bread
rising.
Lewis Hyden Dec 2018
Sun
Here, the sun
oversteps Her
boundaries, and cries
out over the valleys.

She reaches over the hills,
grasping at the smog, rising up
Into the layers of smoke and fog
Swirling above the selfish, spotlit town.

It bleeds through Her fingers and ascends to the
Clouds, rich with rivers of black tar, asbestos, rise!
Swirling, brooding in the atmosphere, coughing, choking
To the end.

"Why does it rain so much these days?"
A poem about the weather.
#1 in the Bonus collection of Distant Dystopia.
Adam Hebda May 2020
Brokenhearted and distraught
your eyes like rifles
loaded and cocked
enraged and disgusted
with their whites blood shot

You aim your gaze
when the lever engaged
and depart from the room
like the white waters rush

All your rage hung around the house
it lingers like soot clung
to a burnt out fire pit

Soon I'll be begging for
your return if
not by midnight when the candle burns out

You're back-and-forth always pacing
scattered like the wind blown rain,
but your image is quickly beginning to fade
with storm shadows racing
across moonlit drapes
sliding as darkness frayed from the shade

Nightmares adjust to the crest of day
plunging over the steepening cusp
of a burnt orange skyline slipping
from the horizon into tomorrow's dusk

Air inhaled as oxygen
has failed your breath now poisonous
The iron in your blood
corrodes metallic
flaking fragments settled in rust

Smoke lingers on the wall
clinging like a frameless picture
cockeyed and covered in dust,
with loosened staples brushed to the floor,
blackened as pieces briskly
burn into a crust

Sunlight reaches through a slit in the curtain
reflecting off of floating debris
spotlit against this grey smokescreen

Fire bellows between
load bearing walls,
bathing in kerosene cider and bourbon

Stay engaged despite an
eyeful of rage
staring down the barrel of a rifle's gaze,
assuredly fueling this fire to the
brightest and bluest of flames
Burn blue if you're gonna burn at all.
e fields Jan 2020
All the trees were dead on Mulberry Street
No one cared
No one noticed
No one recognized the difference
Fingers of wood frozen pointing panicked skywards like knives hung suspended-motion upside down from the ceilings of remote caves.

I give up - her breath was frozen in the midnight air spotlit with white, it turned a different color instantly irradiated as the bombs fell. No one cared. I give up.
And if I could do it all again I would.

She doesn’t want to hear the wheedling carry-on, how I can cover with excuses and false promises the plain absence of love.

She gave up when I did
She gave in when I did
Oh, how she did.

Now I know how it felt
On that bridge in the Ukraine
The night the flakes fell
When it wasn’t scheduled to snow.
Now I know how it felt
When the star landed
In Hiroshima
With its endless heat
And all that glow,
Baby,
Glow.

Stark relief.
Stark relief.
The chance to start again.

Drop the bombs,
Love is dead,
Drop the bombs,
Bombs away.
Onoma Mar 2023
snow shares a captive

field.

rubbing the belly of

water breaking.

as waterlog swells

the bravest crystal.

there is only expectance,

when again is there.

a spring holding timeout

picnics.

a spotlit clearing on

the greyest day.

flying monkeys knowing

where to  land.
Samara May 7
strands of imperfect love
stretched long to reveal array of colors.
buds bloom through amongst their dead,
remains of a rainbow just out of reach
grand evolution playing the part
passing through time for the art
that outlives us.

the water that surrounds us and becomes
fills our lungs with its weight
even so, air escapes as we exhale
and lifts protected in itself rising
as proof another world exists beyond.

frictionless yet not a vacuum
we become what we consume
but in a water-filled room
what else can we assume
but to fear the unknown
hoping answers reveal after long we've grown?

shine the light of awareness
spotlit with intention upon darkness that shrouds us.
justice is the seed that grows
so too are we who reap and become what we sow.
the might of the machine is matched by light green
that serves not to deprive but to live and be free.

helical thread traversing on the back of time
spiraling through matter to create indifference
satiating the thirst of balance
that will be all ours in due course.

please set me free from the shackles
of this pig-headed society.
free will comes at a cost
to look in the face of what can be lost,
disregarding through life times
surely coming home
to the eternal sunshine.

— The End —