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Jesse stillwater Jul 2018
there are the ones
that feel it climb up
the shadow towards the light,
hesitation on every rung,
each wave of the arising
      overwhelms  unabated ―
and woe betides those
who are on the run
from a storm's deluge


A rousing ocean breeze
stirs inside the memory
of an unframed seashell
lying on the hearth mantel;
heightened sensitivity
lapping soundlessly,
spindrift plashing
the shoreline
of another world's
feigned peace


Perhaps the muted voice
of guilty pleasures,
hushed by their own
hidden truths
Feeling the unfelt textures
of every stifled vibration
left unbreathed


The naked truth befallen
so cold and lonely
Running in circles,
volatile as all those
     unspoken excitations raging ―
and the whispers of those
who hear not
the voices in the wind


An emotionally enslaved  heart
tarries,  marooned high and dry
in a memory on a distant sand bar
     lain fallow for so long ―
stagnant darkness
of an unsated soul
gathered on the back
of a parched tongue
sullied wordless


Rising up through
a dusty hieroglyph corridor
through an unlocked
labyrinth gate;  vestige echoes
from somewhere left behind
in an incomprehensible
abandoned wake


It's getting harder and harder
   for an insatiable soul to breathe ...
   climbing up a tree trunk―
up within the silence
of the listening tree


  Toes dug into
the rough bark furrows ―
fingers reaching upwards
beyond their deepest known grasp


A shadow stranded
out on a hangin' bough
hearkening without ears that hear:
“perhaps they’ll listen now“  
the wingless bird sings
in psalms that fly away
on tattered feathers
over untamed waters roil


Back to nature’s waning youth,
the bough bends unbroken
to taste the freedom
of the wild absolving seas



Jesse Stillwater
June     2018
Notes:                                                                                                          
a friend sent  a link to a deeply thought provoking modern classic 70's song about Vincent Van Gogh and the complexities of imperfection some of us relate .... i'd listened to the words prior but never heard before now.

  Title is last final lyric line from:  "Vincent" (Starry, Starry night) 1971
Writer(s): DON MCLEAN, ENRICO NASCIMBENI,
ROBERTO VECCHIONI
Ah, doth swayeth the grass around the heavily-watered grounds, and even lilies are even busy in their pondering thoughts. Dim poetry is lighting up my insides, but still-canst not I, proceed on to my poetic writings, for I am committed to my dear dissertation-shamefully! Cannot even I enjoy watery sweets in front of my decent romantic candlelight-o, how destructible this serious nexus is!

Ah, and the temperatures' slender fits are but a new sensation to this melancholy surroundings. How my souls desire to be liberated-from this arduous work, and be staggered into the bifurcating melodies of the winds. O, but again-these final words are somehow required, how blatantly ungenerous! What a fine doomed environment the greenery out there hath duly changed into. White-dark stretches of tremor loom over every bald bush's horizon. O-what a dreadful, dreadful pic of sovereign menace! Not at all lyrical; much less gorgeous! Even the ultimate touches of serendipity have been broomed out of their localised regions. Broomed forcibly; that their weight and multitudes of collars whitened-and their innocent stomachs pulled systematically out. Ah, how dire-dire-dire; how perseveringly unbearable! A dawn at dusk, then-is a normal occurence and thus needeth t' be solitarily accepted. No more grains of sensitivity are left bare. Not even one-oh, no more! A tumultous slumber hinders everything, with a sense of original perplexity t'at haunts, and harms any of it t'at dares to pass by. O, what a disgrace t'at is secretly housed by t'is febrile nature! And o, t'is what happeneth when poets are left onto t'eir unstable hills of talents, with such a wild lagoon of inspirations about! Roam, roam as we doth-along the parked cars, all unread-and dolefully left untouched, like a moonlit baby straightening his face on top of the earth's liar *****. Ah, I knoweth t'is misery. A misery t'at is not only textual, but also virginal; but what I comprehendeth not is the unfairness of the preceding remark itself-if all miseries were crudely virginal, then wouldst it be unworthy of perceiving some others as personal? O, how t'is new confusion puzzles me, and vexes me all too badly! Beads of sweat are beginning to form on my humorous palms, with lines unabashed-and pictorial aggressions too unforgiving too resist. Ah, quiver doth I-as I am, now! O, thee-oh, mindful joyfulness and delight, descend once more onto me-and maketh my work once again thine-ah, and thy only, own vengeful blossom! And breathe onto my minds thy very own terrific seizure; maketh all the luring bright days no more an impediment and a cure; to every lavish thought clear-but hungrily unsure! Ah, as I knoweth it wouldst work-for thy seizure on my hand is gentle, ratifying, and safely classical. How I loveth thy little grasps-and shall always do! Like a moonlight, which had been carried along the stars' compulsive backs-until it truly screamed, while the bountiful morning retreated, and mounted its back. Mounted its back so that it could not see. Invasive are the stars-as thou knoweth, adorned with elaborations t'at humanity, and even the sincerest of gravities shall turn out. Ah, so 'tis how the moon's poor sailing soul is-like a chirping bird-trembled along the snowy night, but knocked back onto abysmal conclusions, soon as sunshine startled him and brought him back anew, to the pale hordes of mischievous, shadowy roses. Ah, all these routines are similar-but unsure, like thoughts circling-within a paper so impure. And when tragic love is bound, like the one I am having with 'im; everything shall crawl-and seem dearer than they seem; for nothing canst bind a heart which falls in love, until it darkeneth the rosiness of its own cheeks, and destroys its own kiss. Like how he hath impaired my heart; but I shall be a stone once more; abysses of my deliciously destroyed sapphire shall revive within the glades of my hand; and my massive tremors shall ever be concluded. O, love, o notion that I may not hate; bestow on my thy aberrant power-and free my tormented soul-o, my poor tormented soul, from the possible eternal slumber without tasting such a joy of thine once more! I am now trapped within a triangle I hated; I am no more of my precious self-my sublimity hath gone; hath attempted at disentangling himself so piercingly from me. I am no more terrific; I smell not like my own virginity-and much less, an ideal lady-t'at everyone shall so hysterically shout at, and pray for, ah, I hath been disinherited by the world.

Ah, shall I be a matter to your tasty thoughts, my love? For to thee I might hath been tentative, and not at all compulsory; I hath been disowned even, by my own poetry; my varied fate hath ignored and strayed me about. Ah, love, which danger shall I hate-and avoid? But should I, should I diverge from t'is homogeneous edge I so dreamily preached about? And canst thou but lecture me once more-on the distinctness between love and hate-in the foregoing-and the sometimes illusory truth of our inimical future? And for the love of this foreignness didst I revert to my first dreaded poetry-for the sake of t'is first sweetly-honeyed world. For the time being, it is perhaps unrighteous to think of thee; thou who firstly wert so sweet; thou who wert but too persuasive-and too magnanimous for every maiden's heart to bear. Thou who shone on me like an eternal fire-ah, sweet, but doth thou remember not-t'at thou art thyself immortal? Thou art but a disaster to any living creature-who has flesh and breath; for they diverge from life when time comes, and be defiled like a rusty old parish over one fretful stormy night. Ah, and here I present another confusion; should I reject my own faith therefrom? Ah, like the reader hath perhaps recognised, I am not an interactive poet; for I am egotistic and self-isolating. Ah, yet-I demand, sometimes, their possibly harshest criticism; to be fit into my undeniable authenticity and my other private authorial conventions. I admireth myself in my writing as much as I resolutely admireth thee; but shall we come, ever, into terms? Ah, thee, whose eyes are too crucial for my consciousness to look at. Ah, and yet-thou hath caused me simply far-too-adequate mounds of distress; their power tower over me, standing as a cold barrier between me and my own immaculate reality of discourse. Too much distress is, as the reader canst see, in my verse right now-and none is sufficiently consoling-all are unsweet, like a taste of scalding water and a tree of curses. Yes, that thou ought to believe just yet-t'at trees are bound to curses. Yester' I sheltered myself, under some bits of splitting clouds-and t'eir due mourning sways of rain, beneath a solid tree. With leaves giggling and roots unbecoming underneath-ah, t'eir shrieks were too selfish; ah, all terrible, and contained no positive merit at all-t'at they all became too vague and failed at t'eir venerable task of disorganising, and at the same time-stunning me. Ah, but t'eir yelling and gasping and choking were simply too ferociously disoriented, what a shame! Their art was too brutal, odd, and too thoroughly equanimious-and wouldst I have stood not t'ere for the entire three minutes or so-had such perks of abrupt thoughts of thee streamed onto my mind, and lightened up all the burdening whirls of mockery about me in just one second. O, so-but again, the sound melodies of rain were of a radical comfort to my ears-and t'at was the actual moment, when I realised t'at I truly loved him-and until today, the real horror in my heart saith t'at it is still him t'at I purely love-and shall always do. Though I may be no more of a pretty glimpse at the heart of his mirror, 'tis still his imagery I keepeth running into; and his vital reality. Ah, how with light steps I ran to him yester' morning; and caught him about his vigorous steps! All seemed ethereal, but the truthful width of the sun was still t'ere-and so was the lake's sparkling water; so benevolently encompassing us as we walked together onto our separated realms. And passing the cars, as we did, all t'at I absorbed and felt so neatly within my heart was the intuitive course; and the unavoidable beauty of falling in love. Ah, miracles, miracles, shalt thou ever cease to exist? Ah, bring but my Immortal back to me-as if I am still like I was back then, and of hating him before I am not guilty; make him mine now-even for just one night; make him hold my hands, and I shall free him from all his present melancholy and insipid trepidations. Ah, miracles; I doth love my Immortal more t'an I am permitted to do; and so if thou doth not-please doth trouble me once more; and grant, grant him to me-and clarify t'is tale of unbreathed love prettily, like never before.

As I have related above I may not be sufficient; I may not be fair-from a dark world doth I come, full not of royalty-but ambiguity, severed esteem, and gales-and gales, of unholy confidentiality. And 'tis He only, in His divine throne-t'at is worthy of every phrased gratitude, and thankful laughter; so t'is piece is just-though not artificial, a genuine reflection of what I feelest inside, about my yet unblessed love, and my doubtful pious feelings right now-and about which I am rather confused. Still, I am to be generous, and not to be by any chance, too brimming or hopeful; but I shall not be bashful about confessing t'is proposition of love-t'at I should hath realised from a good long time ago. Ah, I was but too arrogant within my pride-and even in my confessions of humility; I was too charmed by myself to revert to my extraordinary feelings. Ah, but again-thou art immortal, my love; so I should be afraid not-of ceasing to love thee; and as every brand-new day breathes life into its wheels-and is stirred to the living-once more, I know t'at the swells of nature; including all the crystallised shapes of th' universe-and the' faithful gardens of heaven, as well as all the aurochs, angels, and divinity above-and the skies' and oceans' satirical-but precious nymphs, are watching us, and shall forgive and purify us; I know t'at this is the sake of eternity we are fighting for. And for the first time in my life-I shall like to confess this bravely, selfishly, and publicly; so that wherever thou art-and I shall be, thou wilt know-and in the utmost certainty thou canst but shyly obtain, know with thy most honest sincerity; t'at I hath always loved thee, and shall forever love thee like this, Immortal.
Mark Nelson Sep 2010
Willow herb floating

on silent certainty

ashes of sighs


not fleeting,

unvapoured on the

blossom of the rain,

I am too light to

pull or push

the swing of delight

through this land.




The rain left me for a

while

sun unshielding

-a thousand widows

more unyielding than the depths . .

Once shadowed whisperers

of delight,gossamer

sparkling , descending

their chains

of necromantic hope.





Lilith is no night owl

she is mother, eve

and my becoming:

sweet earth spun

at once ,

exhaling her .





The see saw

bumped gently

on my chin

it is a most gentle

form of awakening.




The silence bore no whispers

till sinking through the quicksand

-or was it quicksilver?

-in any case I could smell little

in my amniotic amnesia.

I made ten thousand friends,till their soap

made this place clean.



Is this a seed or a dying

hopefulness

-is my sallow sowing

beyond all shores of

reproduction;

a reflection of the child

they dared not bear?



Is my last breath like this

a forgotton yielding

will they catch me

as I fall ?

-(sweet earth)-



This moth of my ending,

a shallow recantation,

my fears-

their memories, mere

testubes of

stylish hope .





I breathe the elegant stare

you have forgotten .

Once more free

from such

rememberance






I need not ,

remained not ,

your imploded ,

wakefulness .





A thousand pardons

exhaled like silk

entwining

an unfinished race

spider of a thousand eyes .



One may say

I was

stared

to death

but surrogate air

mocks childish pity.



Taut refelexions

bear salt echoes

in silk convulsions

fresh water

a veneered hope .



Easier in death than life

is a child's sorrowed

partings ,

the illusion of

bouyancy

rippled tides

unfelt.



The oceans have not enough salt

for such shrunken sorrow.

if we could but once

have shared

unbreathed aspersion .



The room has come and gone

the pillow quite undry

unforgotten

unremembered.

A web untouched
2003. Tribute to Christina Lothian english teacher ,ended her life in the river Ayr ,in the embrace of another woman .They jumped together.I found out 30 years too late.
Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines!
  In the soft light of these serenest skies;
From the broad highland region, black with pines,
  Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise,
Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold
In rosy flushes on the ****** gold.

There, rooted to the aerial shelves that wear
  The glory of a brighter world, might spring
Sweet flowers of heaven to scent the unbreathed air,
  And heaven's fleet messengers might rest the wing,
To view the fair earth in its summer sleep,
Silent, and cradled by the glimmering deep.

Below you lie men's sepulchres, the old
  Etrurian tombs, the graves of yesterday;
The herd's white bones lie mixed with human mould--
  Yet up the radiant steeps that I survey
Death never climbed, nor life's soft breath, with pain,
Was yielded to the elements again.

Ages of war have filled these plains with fear;
  How oft the hind has started at the clash
Of spears, and yell of meeting, armies here,
  Or seen the lightning of the battle flash
From clouds, that rising with the thunder's sound,
Hung like an earth-born tempest o'er the ground!

Ah me! what armed nations--Asian horde,
  And Libyan host--the Scythian and the Gaul,
Have swept your base and through your passes poured,
  Like ocean-tides uprising at the call
Of tyrant winds--against your rocky side
The ****** billows dashed, and howled, and died.

How crashed the towers before beleaguering foes,
  Sacked cities smoked and realms were rent in twain;
And commonwealths against their rivals rose,
  Trode out their lives and earned the curse of Cain!
While in the noiseless air and light that flowed
Round your far brows, eternal Peace abode.

Here pealed the impious hymn, and altar flames
  Rose to false gods, a dream-begotten throng,
Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names;
  While, as the unheeding ages passed along,
Ye, from your station in the middle skies,
Proclaimed the essential Goodness, strong and wise.

In you the heart that sighs for freedom seeks
  Her image; there the winds no barrier know,
Clouds come and rest and leave your fairy peaks;
  While even the immaterial Mind, below,
And thought, her winged offspring, chained by power,
Pine silently for the redeeming hour.
There’s not a nook within this solemn Pass,
  But were an apt confessional for one
  Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone,
That Life is but a tale of morning grass
Wither’d at eve. From scenes of art which chase
  That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes
  Feed it ’mid Nature’s old felicities,
Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass
Untouch’d, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest,
  If from a golden perch of aspen spray
  (October’s workmanship to rival May)
The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast
  That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay,
Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2023
step right in
where commodity and fiction
are deliberately blurred,

electrostatic dust collector,
after-shower body air-driers,
a spatially disconnected
from the world roll-on wife
complete with a dining table
that sinks into the floor;
don't tell her she's an android;
just don't.

she is captured
and ever ready,
she was a stenographer
but quite unsteady,
her mouth a spark of vowels
when her far off places
are aroused.

repeat this soothing motto — space, place, memory.

outside is scenographic sensation:
lightology. unbreathed air. porcelain skin.

she's the soft electric assurance
of a better life — the life which rests on device alone — a strong, sweet poison which infects the blood.

she is "the light of any home"...
Broody Badger Feb 2017
The skyline is a range of mountains that surround us on all sides they reach about the same height all the way across and resemble a wall.
I am at the bottom of a fish bowl.
Just above that dark structure the sky is a hazy green which transitions into hazy blue as it ascends vertically. Overcrowding the first two layers: long and lazy clouds, they turn from black to grey, to purple then to a bright salmon orange as your eyes follow them sideways— closer to the sun. Above that the sky is blue, lighter, still all clean and unbreathed. Above that pink clouds, stretch their limbs like sleepy housecats, fur splashed purple like bruises and wine stains. The neon mass conceals the rest of the sky until the blue steadies-out, turning nighttime, resting like the ocean from afar.
The moon is a curved grin on the bottom, a perfect crooked smirk from my position here above the murky pool, resting on the fake rock mass— Orange like expired oxygen.
Inside the house Jim tells Wendy to clean the pool. The Cheshire Cat is laughing at me as I look up.
There is one star directly above the moon, their distance apart from each other is the precise length of my forefinger if I hold it up to my eye and close the other. I don't know if it's the North Star, but it's so far the only one bright enough to shine-out through this thick veil of SOCAL fumes and advertisements.
By the time I finish writing this the clouds have turned a sickly brown, then all a smoky grey. The skyline still shines; greener more toxic and honest, like the body of water below me.
The colors all die down, one shade at a time.
Like whoever is editing this picture simply dragged a decisive finger on the brightness setting backward to reveal the darkness. The curtain is now lowered not raised: the contrast cranked to full. Full-dressed I light a cigarette and step off. The water takes me in with open arms and wet kisses.
Tammy Boehm Oct 2014
Somewhere in the cacophony of moments
That flash of imagination lost to white noise
The slow bleed of nights and days stains pristine dreams
The rush of brilliance grays
Surrendered to the litany of decay

Songs unsung caught in the back of my throat
Strangled words
Toxic on my tongue
Hand over mouth and shackle my mind
Truth in the mirror that renders me blind

Little thoughts they scurry
Furtive in the failing light of hope against all hope
Reality reigns dragging chains
She etches her name on my scarred heart
Until death parts us...
I am the eulogy of dreams

I've never done this kind of thing before
Desecrate this grave
We can save her....
Resurrect the desperation
Dismiss this ignorance as bliss
The fatalist in me screams
Some things are better left buried
Dreams and lullabies lie skeletized
Revived as nightmares
Will **** the marrow from a broken soul

Already I scatter
Ash and shadows
Requiem for life unbreathed
And you wait for me
To break the ground
And exhume the muse
Again....
TL Boehm  
04/30/12
Can't you see I'm hurt inside,
Hope that fell, love that died.
Words unspoken, left unsaid,
And as you know that's how it ends.

Unbreathed air left hanging there,
With love like this it seems unfair.
The truth is shattered ,
The silence sealed.
My candle burned out my tears.

My head held high, but no one looked,
I held my ground, and there I stood.
One look my way that's all it took,
To finish the page of my own book.

Do not look back for it's the past,
Just look on straight for there's your path....
Caroline Shank Apr 2023
The triad of writer, lover and
the loved, she in the night of
raptors.

Gone the ability for thought,
the skin for touch, the heart
like unpainted bisque.

Her clammy hands, the drip
rivers ****** lacerations
born in the saunalike cataract
before, it seemed time
became the stranglehold
of Now.

Decades even later, years
uncover the silt of pain.

Together was not possible.

The rant began.

The cataract consumed her.
She unbreathed

goodbye.

Sphinx still
riddled.

She sat for me
clothed in sand

and waited

saecula saecularem

Amen,

Gentleman.

Last call.

Time gentleman.


Caroline Shank
Devon Brock Nov 2019
Sing forth the treasons,
the seasons have been sung
long before revolting - D minored
the winter, G majored the spring...
Bah, the seasons never heard
these grovelling breaths,
but ****** them deaf up.

Give lung to the unbreathed
rumors squat below the bridge,
that the tumors unskinned,
revealed pulsing on our red,
white - blue tunneled drums -
these cancers defiling the myth of us.

The fall does not applaud
the clapping of leaves, but
strips us to bone, and the
blown away come to us cardboard,
cornered in the cold sun, unsung,
mocking the radio comforts of disdain.

Our own unmaking, unmasked
and riven with lies - lies and all lies
reinforced with steel and striped beams,
stiff on a pole, snapping as whips
on a cotton bent back - crowed
as every patriot hymn
fades in a grumble.

Such joyful music this treason,
this treason not treason,
this discomfiting strained ensemble
sparing neither breath nor ear
the true screech of anthems -
beat, immobile chords,
chained and ghetto thirds,
cast-off tritones, contrapuntal,
scraped on gut and strung up,
and over the laminate woods of us.

— The End —