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howard brace Oct 2012
Stood rigidly to attention either side of the hearth, the two bronze fire-dogs had been struggling to maintain that British stiff upper lipidness, which up until earlier that evening had best befitted their station in life... indeed, for the last half hour at least had become brothers in arms to the dying embers filtering through the bars of the cast-iron grate, passing from the present here and now, having lost every thermal attribute necessary to sustain any further vestige of life... to the shortly forthcoming and being at oneness with the Universe... only to fall foul of the overflowing ash-pan below.  This premature cashing in of the coal fire's chips could only be attributed to the recent and prolonged thrashing from the Baronial poker... and a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the family retainer, whom it appeared, required spurring along in a like manner... and while unseen mechanisms were heard to be engaging, then resonating deep within the Hall... that unless summoned... and quickly, the housekeeper had little intention of making an appearance of her own choosing and re-stoke the Study fire while the BBC Home Service were airing 'Your 100 Best Tunes' on the wireless, leaving the heavily tarnished pendulum to continue measuring the hour.

     An indistinct mutter and snap of a closing door latch sounded in the immediate distance as the unhurried shuffle of domestic footsteps... not too dissimilar from those of Jacob Marley's spectral visitation to Scrooge... echoed ever closer along the ancient, oak panelled hallway without.  Their sudden cessation, allowing the housekeeper ingress to  the book lined Study, was by way of sporadic groans from unoiled hinges, door furniture that voiced the same overwhelming lack of attention as that of the fire-grate set in the wall opposite and presumably, from the same overwhelming lack of domestic servitude.
                                        
     "Had his Lordship rang...?" the Housekeeper wailed dolefully, giving her employer what might casually pass for a courteous bob... and in lieu no doubt, of Marley's rattling chains, padlocks and dusty ledgers... "and would there be anything further his Lordship required..." before she took her leave for the evening.  The notion of a sticky mint humbug warming the cockles of his ancient, aristocratic heart gave her pause for thought as she rummaged through her pinafore pockets, then thought better of it, after all, confectionary didn't grow on trees...  In bobbing a second time she noticed the malnourished, yet strangely twinkling coal-scuttle lounging over by the hearth, whose insubstantial contents had taken on an ethereal quality earlier that evening and had now transferred its undivided attention to the recently summoned Housekeeper, who was quite prepared to offer up a candle in supplication come next Evensong were she mistaken, but the coal-scuttle's twinkle bore every intimation of giving what appeared to be a very suggestive 'come-on' in return... and had been doing so since she first entered the room... 'and did she have any plans of her own that particular evening', the coal-scuttle twinkled suavely, 'perchance a leisurely stroll down by the old coal cellar steps...'  Now perhaps it was the lateness of the hour which had caused the Housekeeper's confusion that evening, or perhaps an over stretched imagination, brought on through domestic inactivity, but it wouldn't take a great deal to hazard that a lingering fondness for Gin and tonic played no small part towards her next curtsey, which she did, albeit unwittingly, in the unerring direction of the winking coal-scuttle.

     With the household keys as her badge-of-office, jangling defiantly from the chain around her waist, the housekeeper began inching back the same way she came, back towards the study door and freedom... and back into the welcoming arms of her 1/4 lb. bag of peppermint humbugs and the pint of best London Gin she'd had to relinquish prior to 'Songs of Praise...' and which was now to be found... should you happen to be an inquisitive fly on a particular piece of floral wallpaper... half-cut, locked arm in arm with the bottle of Indian tonic water and in the final, intoxicating throws of William Blake's, 'Jerusalem...' hic.

     "Ha-arrumph..." the elderly gentleman cleared his throat... "ah Gabby" he said, lowering his book and placing it face down upon the occasional table set beside him.  The flatulent groan of tired leather upholstery made itself heard above the steady monotony of the mantle-piece clock as he stood and chaffed his hands in the direction of the bereft fire, "Oh! I'm sorry your Lordship, then there was something...?" as she maintained her steady but relentless backwards retreat unabated, the double-barrelled bunch of keys taking up a strong rear-guard action and away from the well disposed coal scuttle... "and was his Lordship quite certain that he required the fire stoking at such a late hour..." she dared, "perhaps a nice warming glass of port and brandy instead" gesturing towards the salver, long since tarnished by the half hearted attentions of a proprietary metal polish... "and would he care for..." then thought better of offering to plump the chair cushions herself, having discovered Mort, the household mouser in the final stages of claiming them as his own, deftly rearranging the Victorian Plush with far more than any noble airs or graces.

     "Poor Mrs Alabaster, you will recall Sir, I'm sure..." a pained expression crossed the Housekeepers face as she collided with a corner of the Georgian writing bureau and bringing her to an abrupt halt... "her late Ladyships lady" she continued, indiscreetly rubbing her derriere, "whose services your Lordship dispensed with at the onset of last Winter, shortly after the funeral, God rest her late Ladyship... when you made her redundant... and how she's been unable to find a new situation ever since on account of her lumbago flaring up again, seeing as how it's been the coldest January in living memory", which in all likelihood meant since records began... "and SHE didn't have any coal either... or a roof over her head for all anyone cared... begging yer' pardon, yer' Lordship", letting her tongue slip as she attempted yet one more curtsey... "and it's wicked-cruel outside this time of year Sir, you wouldn't turn a dog out in it..." and how ordering the coal used to be Mrs Alabaster's responsibility...

     "Oh no, Sir", as she unsuccessfully stifled a hiccup...she would be only too delighted to rouse the Cook, especially after that dodgy piece of scrag-end they'd all had to suffer during Epiphany, but it was only last week that the Doctor had confined Cookie to bed with the croup... "as I'm sure your Lordship will recall..." as she attempted a double curtsey for effect, the despondent coal-scuttle now all but forgotten, "that below-stairs had been dining on pottage since a week Friday gone... and it tends to get a little moribund after almost a fortnight your Honour... and that Mrs Cotswold's rheumatism was still showing no signs of improvement either by the looks of things... and was having to visit the Chiropodist every fortnight for her bunions scraping... and how she's been advised to keep taking the embrocation as required".

     As a young woman, any disposition her grandmother may have had towards sobriety or moral virtue had quickly been prevailed upon by the former Master's son taking intimacy to the next level with the saucy Parlour Maid's good nature.   Shortly thereafter, having been obliged to marry the first available Gardener that came along, she was often heard to say "a bun in the oven's worth two in the bush" for it was with stories 'of such goings-on'  that made it abundantly clear to the Housekeeper, that it was far more than old age creeping up... and that if she didn't keep her wits wrapped tightly about her, as she threw a sideways glance at the winking philanderer... then who would.

     As for the Gardener, "well... he couldn't possibly manage the cellar steps at this late hour, yer' Lordship, wot' with the weather being the way it is right now Sir, seasonal... and him with his broken caliper... and bronchitis playing him up at every turn, even though his own ailing missus swore by a freshly grown rhubarb poultice first thing each morning", but oddly enough, "how it always seemed to work better if the young barmaid down in the village rubbed it on, especially around opening time..." even his brother, Mr Potts Senior, ever since their Dad passed away... "God rest his eternal soul", as she whirled, twice in as many seconds, a mystical finger in the air... had said how surprised he'd been to discover that it could be used as a ground mulch for seed-cucumbers... it was truly amazing how The Good Lord provided for the righteous... and even as she spoke, was working in mysterious ways, His Wonders to Behold... "Praised-Be-The-Lord".

     And how the entire household, with the possible exception of Mrs Alabaster, her late Ladyships lady, who doggedly refused to be evicted from her 'Grace n' Favour cottage...' the one with pretty red roses growing around the door, that despite a string of eviction notices from the apoplectic Estate manager... had noticed what a fine upstanding Gentleman his Lordship had steadfastly remained since her late Ladyships sudden demise... "God-rest-her-immortal-soul..." and may she allow herself to say, "how refreshing it was to have such a progressively minded and discerning employer such as his Lordship at the helm, one filled with patient understanding and commitment towards the entire household..." much like herself...

     Fearing an uncontrollable attack of the ague, which invariably took the form of a selfless and unstinting dereliction to duty and always flared up at the slightest suggestion of having to roll her sleeves up and do something... which incidentally, was the first mutual attraction by common consent to which her parents, some forty years earlier had discovered they both held in tandem... and "would his Lordship take exception..." feigning a sudden relapse as she gestured towards the nearest chair, were she to take the weight off her feet... she plonked herself solidly upon the Chippendale before his Lordship could decline... "perhaps a recuperative drop of brandy" she volunteered, "just for medicinal purposes", she swept her feet onto the footstool, then crossed them with a flourish that would have caused Cyrano de Bergerac to hang up his sword... "the good stuff, if his Lordship would be so kind, in the lead-crystal decanter... over in the corner by the potted plant", she caught sight of the adjacent cigarette box, also tarnished... "just to keep body and soul together, may it please 'Him upon High'..." and just long enough to brave the coal cellar steps and refill the amorous scuttle... "if only it were a little less chilly", she gave an affected cough... on account of her diphtheria acting up again, she felt sure that his Lordship understood...  Moving over to one of the book lined alcoves, the elderly Gentleman lifted several tomes from the shelves... 'My Life in Anthracite', an illustrated compendium' "to begin with, I think... followed by... hmm!" 'The History of Fossil-Fuels, a comprehensive study in twelve breath taking volumes' "and we'll take it from there" as he threw the first on the barely smouldering embers...

                                                      ­     ...   ...   ...**

a work in progress.                                                        ­                                                         1859
Arjun Tyagi Nov 2013
This upholstery
my heart,
Padding my sleeves,
on display for you to see.

One look
over here,
You could have furnished,
before it was tarnished.

I worked
beyond notice,
mending and stitching,
hands never flinching.

The lines
and the patterns,
I deigned them such,
they waited for your touch.

The upholstery
now remains,
locked in the attic,
beyond you, fashion fanatic.
Compelled by calamity's magnet
They loiter and stare as if the house
Burnt-out were theirs, or as if they thought
Some scandal might any minute ooze
From a smoke-choked closet into light;
No deaths, no prodigious injuries
Glut these hunters after an old meat,
Blood-spoor of the austere tragedies.

Mother Medea in a green smock
Moves humbly as any housewife through
Her ruined apartments, taking stock
Of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery:
Cheated of the pyre and the rack,
The crowd ***** her last tear and turns away.
She slides over
the hot upholstery
of her mother's car,
this schoolgirl of fifteen
who loves humming & swaying
with the radio.
Her entry into womanhood
will be like all the other girls'—
a cigarette and a joke,
as she strides up with the rest
to a brick factory
where she'll sew rag rugs
from textile strips of kelly green,
bright red, aqua.

When she enters,
and the millgate closes,
final as a slap,
there'll be silence.
She'll see fifteen high windows
cemented over to cut out light.
Inside, a constant, deafening noise
and warm air smelling of oil,
the shifts continuing on ...
All day she'll guide cloth along a line
of whirring needles, her arms & shoulders
rocking back & forth
with the machines—
200 porch size rugs behind her
before she can stop
to reach up, like her mother,
and pick the lint
out of her hair.
Beth Taylor Nov 2014
it should be noted that girls don't always come from venus, that some boys might be a little deader than they were before they claimed you took their breath away.
some girls have barbed wire around their hearts, and others have white flags. some boys have touched more cigarettes than thighs, more blades in the bathroom sink than the ones in her shoulders. the city might whisper the name of one boy and tremble at the thought of another; a girl might  have a hit list with only one name on it — her own. some boys will **** just to say they lost their virginity and some boys will spend the rest of their lives making love as though they could gain it back; some girls have lost their tears and sweat in the upholstery of the same car that might belong to one of these boys — and some of those same boys are sweaty handprints on the backseat windows while others are fingerprints on your throat, but no matter how you look at it, he will always leave his mark, won't he?
it should be noted that some girls will miss you like hiroshima playgrounds miss the laughter of young children, but others will miss you like an 11:30 flight at 11:31, and i bet you never knew that some boys will never tell you that they miss their father just as much as some girls calling everyone else 'daddy' except for the one they truly need; you'd never believe me if i said that some girls look at the night sky where they used to see their reelection in the stars, but now only see another broken mirror.
it should be noted, that not all boys are from mars.
Trash can, wastebasket;
the place we throw it all away.
Used tissues--soggy mascara, dried *****,
or the babies that would never be,
and the heaps of food waste, human waste.

Wasted human.

Why do we take ourselves and the people we used to love,
toss people and our person deep within a hole of shame,
darkness, misery, guilt, worry, frustration, fear?

If someone only said to you, or to me, when we dig deep
into the ground and find the place no one will find us
or them, the people we are burying--
if they only said,
"You are not trash."

Our emotions refuse to become refuse, the remains of
being unwanted, as we perceive ourselves to be.

But we is just me, and even though I can't hear the voice
I long to hear above my own, the sounds reverberate in my chest,
next to my heart, where I heard them last.

The last time we spoke your fingers did not reach for mine.
Your jeans did not rip in the same one spot.
The dog that I picked that you picked after you went back,
his tail wagging all the way on the ride back to his new home,
did not kiss my face and my eyes and ears like he loves to do.
Even though you didn't still love me, you did before,
now thrown hastily, yet decidedly in the trash can outside your door.

I dropped off the last remnant of your physical being,
an old rabbit-eared antennae.
I didn't, couldn't look in your trash can,
or stand in the driveway longer than was needed to drop and run
the hell away from crumbling gravel, a window newly aluminum foiled, and the motorcycle kept under surveillance at all times.

I hope he looked on his camera screen and saw walking,
talking, feeling, breathing human trash gliding
down the sidewalk, feet pattering into a jog.
The grass licked my feet and tangled in my toes on the way
to the one place my sighs could sink lower than my feet,
deep into the warm upholstery of my car seat, the grandma car,
the dented, imperfect, but mostly reliable car

away, far away, to a place where someone would look curiously,
pick up the trash, my trash, me, and say,
"It's beautiful."
Somebody is shooting at something in our town --
A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street.
Jealousy can open the blood,
It can make black roses.
Who are the shooting at?

It is you the knives are out for
At Waterloo, Waterloo, Napoleon,
The **** of Elba on your short back,
And the snow, marshaling its brilliant cutlery
Mass after mass, saying Shh!

Shh! These are chess people you play with,
Still figures of ivory.
The mud squirms with throats,
Stepping stones for French bootsoles.
The gilt and pink domes of Russia melt and float off

In the furnace of greed. Clouds, clouds.
So the swarm ***** and deserts
Seventy feet up, in a black pine tree.
It must be shot down. Pom! Pom!
So dumb it thinks bullets are thunder.

It thinks they are the voice of God
Condoning the beak, the claw, the grin of the dog
Yellow-haunched, a pack-dog,
Grinning over its bone of ivory
Like the pack, the pack, like everybody.

The bees have got so far. Seventy feet high!
Russia, Poland and Germany!
The mild hills, the same old magenta
Fields shrunk to a penny
Spun into a river, the river crossed.

The bees argue, in their black ball,
A flying hedgehog, all prickles.
The man with gray hands stands under the honeycomb
Of their dream, the hived station
Where trains, faithful to their steel arcs,

Leave and arrive, and there is no end to the country.
Pom! Pom! They fall
Dismembered, to a tod of ivy.
So much for the charioteers, the outriders, the Grand Army!
A red tatter, Napoleon!

The last badge of victory.
The swarm is knocked into a cocked straw hat.
Elba, Elba, bleb on the sea!
The white busts of marshals, admirals, generals
Worming themselves into niches.

How instructive this is!
The dumb, banded bodies
Walking the plank draped with Mother France's upholstery
Into a new mausoleum,
An ivory palace, a crotch pine.

The man with gray hands smiles --
The smile of a man of business, intensely practical.
They are not hands at all
But asbestos receptacles.
Pom! Pom! 'They would have killed me.'

Stings big as drawing pins!
It seems bees have a notion of honor,
A black intractable mind.
Napoleon is pleased, he is pleased with everything.
O Europe! O ton of honey!
b e mccomb Jul 2016
Gold glitter
Only stays on the ceiling
When the upholstery is gray.

Church gyms are suddenly
Piggy banks to play
Basketball upon.

I will draw a city on
The bulletin board
And owl pushpins will inhabit it.

My mind is no longer in a
Casing of gray rick-rack
And suppositions I do not feel.

It is a precarious thing to
Play a solar piano
Under the midday sky.

Have you ever heard
A pumpkin-flavored
Volkswagen van?

It happened suddenly
That everything I could possibly
See became a photography contest.
Copyright 5/10/15 by B. E. McComb
Àŧùl Jun 2013
There they threaten the theologians,
Broadly breaking buoyant blueprints,
Here how humorously humongous,
Under upmarket upholstery undone,
Scaring supermarket's shopkeepers,
Zealously zooming zestfully zapping,
Its importantly impossible irreligious,
Around aroused automatic aromatic,
Giving goodness getaway goosebumps,
Cheekily chronologically caring cans,
Ergonomically exacting expenditure,
Madness making missionary mission,
Naughtily naked nonsense newspapers,
Xylophone's xylophonetic xylems' xyla,
Young-young youthful Yankees yankin,
Gladiators gladly going Godless givers,
Windows woefully wishing weddings,
Peacefully palpitating peeping people,
Fruitfully fitting fabulous framework,
Doubtlessly doubt doubtfully dubious,
Jacking Jillian's jackets jammy jokers,
Kids' kidneys kleptomaniacly kindling,
Ergonomically economically earliest,
Institutionalized Indian instinctively,
Jacking Jill's jolly junkies javelinas,
Victorious Victorians visiting visas,
Loveliest lonely lovebirds lost lives,
Obnoxiously overrule omnipotence.
Just a product of my idle brainstorming.
My HP Poem #321
©Atul Kaushal
Juhlhaus Aug 2019
Maybe you find your center
On a couch beside a divided highway,
Where asphalt ribbons melt together
In the beautiful mess of the day's last fire,
Where light falls on upholstery
In a manufactured Southwest pattern,
Best suited to drier air but somehow
At home on a Wisconsin shoulder,
Watching the world go by
In metallic paint and autoglass reflections,
Moving too fast to catch all the names
Of almost-forgotten rivers crossed:
Rib River,
Rat River,
Jump River,
And any number of State Name Rivers.
Or maybe you find your center
On the other side of a plume of red granite dust,
Where the asphalt ends and the rivers
Are more than almost-forgotten signs
Beside a divided highway.
Inspired by an actual couch beside a divided highway.
At one end of the couch
you sit, mute as a pillow
tossed onto the upholstery.

I watch you sometimes
when you don't know I'm watching
and I see you. Who you are.

You are a self made man.
Hard suffering. You are grey
stone and damp earth.
A long scar on a pale sky.

The television is tuned to CNN.
The world's tragedies flicker
across your face like some
foreign film.

You are expressionless.
Your usual gestures ground to salt.

How do you explain yourself
to people that do not know you?
How do you explain to them,
this is me; that is not me.

However many words you choose
in whatever context with
whichever adjectives you use
could not compare.

Even you describing you
would not be you.
Not totally.

Your hands are folded
together, resting in your lap.
I study those hands until
every groove becomes familiar.

Like a favorite hat,
you wear your silence
comfortably.

I sometimes can not help
but wonder what we will
talk about if we ever
run out of things to say.

You are the curve
I burrow into. The strength
I borrow. You are the red sun
rising over the mountain.
You are the mountain.
BR May 2018
Did you know that if you leave your car in your driveway,
With the keys in the ignition,
And someone sits down in the front seat like they own it, and drives away,
You are the one who is liable for theft?
They can drive that sucker to the coast.
They can burn the upholstery with their cigarettes. They can bring their friends into the back seat, and fill the compartments with their refuse, and ****, and they can leave it ruined in front of your house, or crushed into the median on the highway, or left in disconnected pieces under an overpass.
It will be called, “unauthorized use of a vehicle.”
It will be called a “misdemeanor.”
But you left the car running.
Weren't you kind of asking for it to happen?

They said,
This,
(Gesturing to the skirt which fell to two inches
above my kneecap),
Is like that.

If I walk outside of my house in jeans and a t-shirt, or a long dress with thin straps,
Or with my chin tilted out,
Or with long eyelashes,
Or with full lips,
Or with my hips swaying when I walk,

It's like I left the car running.

It's like I invited them to force their bodies into the front seat.
In their minds, or with their hands, or with their lips to anyone who would listen to them.

Little girls in leotards become like unlocked car doors;
Where men can burn their cigarettes into their skin,
Or stick their fingers in
In plain view of their parents,
And told to let it happen,
Quietly.
It isn't theft,
It's “a medical examination.”

What did they expect?
It isn't a theft.
She was just as guilty of negligence.
It isn't really a felony.
It's not THAT BAD. (Stop being so dramatic.)
It's the unauthorized use of your body, for a time, or one night,
or every time you close your eyes for the rest of your life,

Sure-

But you left the car running.
Keith W Fletcher Jan 2016
All the blood was gone
As I had stood here ..knees locked
For no telling how long..
... About 40 years since  I had walked
Through the blanket on the doorway hung
That turned out to be a time machine portal
And here I thought it was just to help hold in heat
Silly me . RECOGNIZE . GOD  just touched a mortal
Just before entering here I was asking myself why
Why why why to a question I knew I hadn't a clue
AND NEVER WOULD! . So..why did I keep asking .?
I even knew That I knew
As I rushed down the hall and up the stairs
Across the landing and down the long cold hall
The redundancy of "WHY DID YOU DO THAT..WHY?"
All the way to that blanket and then into the warmth
As I stepped in and all the way back ....40 years.

I wasn't aware until suddenly I was standing there
Knowing I just got back but unaware that I had been gone
And in surrealistic repose was my half closed flip phone
Draped over my open left palm like a sea sick sailor
On unsteady legs asleep below the knees
I managed the  two steps distance -to my easy chair
Where I found the right levers to slowly ease
My cold, stiff and diminished mortal core
Down to where I might be able to gather myself
That was scattered all about
But first I had to close the flip phone
       That I had opened back in early September 1974

The television was playing right in front of me
But I never heard nor did I see
The fireplace was waining ----it's heat replaced by cold
I dragged a blanket over myself which I didn't even unfold
The day that existed outside the window
Scurried off
Stealing away with the light
As if it were checking to see if I'd even notice
How quickly the hands of the clock
Had painted in the night
I never even noticed --really .. I wasn't even there

I was sitting in my car in the grocery store parking lot
Watching strangers roll by as they cruised the strip
In a small town where I now lived for maybe two weeks
I was 17 a  longhaired city boy but if I was on anyones radar
     So far.... I hadn't made a single blip
One night as I sat  there
  A faded camaro
That had to be the ugliest green I ever seen
Rolled in to park behind my car
Quickly flanked by two more -
One at each door
I could see them in the mirror
I could hear the raucous laughter
This was what I had been sitting here for
What was missing that I was after
But .... I was as shy as I could be back then
Not the kind who could get out and just push right in
And then ......serendipity walked in
A cop car rolled past on the strip
And the wildhaired guy in the camaro just let it rip
Beep beep BEEEEEEEEEEP BEBEBEBEBEEEEP
WENT his horn and the cop whirled to turn in
Lost in the shadow of the grocery store he parked
As he emerged from the shadows I saw 5 ft 8 250 lbs.
And believe me now as  I give you my word
He demanded to know who was honking
Standing there 15 ft away
"I was piggy " yelled the guy in the camaro
I could not believe what I just heard ........or what I heard next
" Well cut it out Don" and into the shadow he disappeared
Then the camaro said "Beep!"
O. M. G   this guys going to jail.
The cop and him argued
The other guys split
I got out to watch from the trunk where I decided to sit
Before he went to the cop car
Cigarette in his lips
Encased in the most amazing grin he asked me
"Hey man ...you got a match?"
I didn't and said I was sorry and they disappeared in shadow
Oh well I thought as I sat watching them get in the car
Illumination of dashlights allowed a set of silhouettes
And I could tell --what the hell-
He was actually lighting up with the dash lighter
Then  he replaced it and in straightening back up
He dragged his fingers across every switch he could manage
And the shadows came alive
With flashing lights, bells and whistles
The cop went spastic shutting it down --2 minutes went by
Then the door opened and out stepped the guy
The car drove away as the wildhaired maniac
Walked over to me fiollowing the lit cigarette and that crazy grin
"That was pretty funny wasn't it dude?"  I probably agreed
That grin was infectious as we talked a bit  
I'm keith _ I'm Don
Then he said "Hey !  You got a joint"
"No I don't "I had to reluctantly admit" And the grin sorta drooped
"But I think I know where we can get one"
From that point on and forever no matter how far apart we were
This guy Don became my best and  truly thick and thin friend
In that 4 month span
I met another person in that town who changed my life
His name was Tom and he was 82 yr old and totally blind
In fact he had gotten his eyes kicked out by a mule at 17
He wore no dark glasses just open holes in his head  
But he was so cool that I just didn't mind
He would drop into the upholstery shop owned by my older brother
And tell whopping tales of one kind or another
About hunting alone and bringing back game
Roofing his house at night because it was cooler
Able to tell color by just a touch but I didn't ever mind
I came to love the spirit that dwelled in that old man
My brother built him a loom in the back to Tom specifications
And he wove shawls on it from skeins of different colored yarn
Then other towns people dropping in would see old Tom
And tell the same stories he told and it wasn't long
For my sister -in- law, my brother and especially me
TO REALIZE
That any doubts we had about him
were absolutely wrong
THEN
He walked in and ran his hand over a large red velvet couch
Saying oh ain't that a pretty red I stayed silent my brother said
" Now Tom . you've heard us talking about this couch color"
Not mad but in a weary kinda way Tom said " No! I can tell"
So I had to know ...had to . I got two velvet scraps 1gold 1aqua
Here what color as he took the gold -quick feel "thats yeller
   What the......!
Before handing him the aqua I detemined I would lie whatever
He took the piece ..felt for a few seconds and hesitantly said blue
"Nope" I said but !....then Tom felt some more and more and said
"    weeeeeeel its green " his hesitancy and 2 color choices had me freaked
But I said "nope"  and that old man
Right then ....changed my life
From that second to now he effects every fiber of my being
He threw his open holed  black orbless socket to within an inch
  An inch of mine--- square on -- so quick I was stunned
..........An absolute quote here.........
  " WELL its blue green then durn it"  for me this was an epiphony
Don't doubt people so quick  Don't let anything stop you from believing  it can be possible  Always accept that it can be amazing And try to pass this hope on
So I've always tried
    The crazy guy in the ugly green camaro became my friend
We became collaborators with his amazing ear and guitar skills
Over the years he had many vehicles almost always ugly green
So That morning of December 23rd  2012
A bitter wind blowing from the north at about 25 mph and 10 ° f
I Went from the little room I was hibernating in
The only heated room in the old house
It was upstairs facing the dirt road
I had hung a string of Christmas lights inside that north facing view
In hopes of cheering me up after a REALLY bad year of loss
Divorce, bitter battle and more trouble and pain than I like to recall
So when I got up and went out that blanket hung to keep in heat
Took the dogs down the long cold hall down the cold stairwell
And all the way to the mud room wishing I had gotten dressed
I was in flimsy pajamas and floppy houseshoes
At least grabbed a jacket especially once I opened the door
I started out before I felt that wind so I let the dogs have it
I would wait inside the door and as I stood there I saw a bag
A white garbage bag with a bit of green wreath sticking out
I had had it for years never hung it
Probably saw it every time I  entered
So thats where the unanswerable question started
I do not know why
I dug up a hammer a few nails went out the door
I don't know why
Walked a hundred feet out to a field
Got my freezing ice - coated aluminium extension ladder
And carried it back to the house
I DONT KNOW WHY
I don't know why I didn't give up when it took so long
To get the dam thing to separate
Or when ...
I smashed my frozen fingers in the process
But I climbed 14 feet in the air on that north wall
I drove a nail above the window
And I hung that
Red holly berry  adorned
Green plastic wreath
Climbed down and took the ladder back  (really)
And then me and the dogs headed up to the warmth
With me asking maybe even out loud " why why why why"
All the way into the room  
And as I passed through the curtain
At 10:00 That Sunday morning  I saw the flip phone flashing
I had missed a call from Don  gonna wish me an early
Merry Christmas
So I'm sure I was smiling as I hit redial
It was his girlfriend Tammy
Hey Tammy how are you
She said "Don just died in the hospital 5 minutes ago"

The room was cold as the late shadows of a winter day
Were muting the view through the window
As I closed up the flip phone on 1974
And managed to sit down  

Late that night as I still sat there
I had a fire going now
I had managed to eat
And I was thinking of past times
The time he drove down to Texas to get married
He came back and I asked  How you like Texas
And he replied "it ****** man . I can't drive down there"
Why ?
"Cause man they got stop lights running sideways
- not up and down so I couldn't tell what to do.

Then I knew without a single doubt
WHY ?
And I did get an answer to the question after all
And just like the old man Tom and the red and green
Because any doubt I've ever had Ever Ever Ever had
About God and heaven or any version of something more...?
Evaporated forever
Don drove ugly green cars because he was colorblind
He couldn't see red and green in the "normal"sense
And that green he said was the PRETTIEST RED HE EVER SEEN"
So on his way by he stopped in with that stupid infectuos grin
And shielded me from the wind
While that sum b made me hang that dang wreath
And changed my life one more time.
      
       I love you dude and you too Tom  (Hey Tom .   is this what you imagined I looked like?)
Georgia Owen May 2013
What does one gain
from completing the mundane tasks of daily living?

Laundry
Folding
Cleaning
Food prep

Vacuum
Dusting
Windows
Drain

Choose a color scheme for your home
A point of inspiration
"The History of Interior Design"
Choose your Lifestyle
Color your Path

What's the point?
Cable television
The Nuclear Family
Entertaining
The dodging of Lonelihood

Wouldn't you rather be a dolphin?
Dancing by day
And sexing by night

My furniture is coral
My upholstery is seaweed
Feng Shui by Poseidon's Design

Pulp Fiction.
Compelled by calamity's magnet
They loiter and stare as if the house
Burnt-out were theirs, or as if they thought
Some scandal might any minute ooze
From a smoke-choked closet into light;
No deaths, no prodigious injuries
Glut these hunters after an old meat,
Blood-spoor of the austere tragedies.

Mother Medea in a green smock
Moves humbly as any housewife through
Her ruined apartments, taking stock
Of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery:
Cheated of the pyre and the rack,
The crowd ***** her last tear and turns away.
bb Jan 2014
It should be noted that girls don't always come from Venus, that some boys might be a little deader than they were before they claimed you took their breath away. Some girls have barbed wire around their hearts, and others have white flags. Some boys have touched more cigarettes than thighs, more blades in the bathroom sink than the ones in her shoulders. The city might whisper the name of one boy and tremble at the thought of another; a girl have a hit list with only one name on it — her own. Some boys will **** just to say they lost their virginity and some boys will spend the rest of their lives making love as though they could gain it back; some girls have lost their tears and sweat in the upholstery of the same car that might belong to one of these boys — and some of those same boys are sweaty handprints on the backseat windows while others are fingerprints on your throat (no matter how you look at it, he will always leave his mark, won't he?)
  It should be noted that some girls will miss you like Hiroshima playgrounds miss the laughter of young children, but others will miss you like an 11:30 flight at 11:31, and I bet you never knew that some boys will never tell you that they miss their father just as much as some girls calling everyone else Daddy except for the one they truly need; you'd never believe me if I said that some girls look at the night sky where they used to see their reelection in the stars, but now only see another broken mirror.
  It should be noted, that not all boys are from Mars.
Chloe Jun 2014
It’s 11:49 p.m.
and we’re still driving.
That’s all we’ve done.
The needle hovers
lifting and landing
upon the E for empty.

We’re content with
the smoky upholstery
that buoys our curvature.
The mechanical shelter
that trundles beneath us.

He’s rubbing his chin
where his shadow grows.
His ruby eyes on the road.
Knees pulled to my throat
I breathe and savor constellations
wondering how they might feel.

Stubble and midnight starlight
is how the next day begins.
tomsout001 Mar 2013
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tabitha Nov 2015
i am reminded again of why i hate hospitals,
                                        especially when there alone.

maybe it's the scuffed floor or ugly upholstery of the chairs,
             or the doctors half-attention,
             or the way everybody stares,
             or the way i try not to....
             or  the way that one guy just needs to ask me what book i'm reading.
"it's... well, it's a book about these writers who are deceived into isolation
    and they write all  these stories of life and desperation"                              
              (he doesn't actually care)
              i hide in my hair.
              at least we tried to have a conversation....
              and then we just sit there,
              until she calls the next patient.
              i hope i'm next.

i am reminded again of why i hate hospitals,
                                       especially when there alone.

maybe it's the stale air up against the smell of warm blankets,
             or being fully clothed but feeling totally naked,
             or being wheeled around to some other location,
             or that being wheeled around kind of feels like
             a ****** up vacation....
             (you just get to lay there)
             ((and be numb))
but i think it's the way she rubbed that gel **** all over my tummy
                                                                     and that when i say tummy,
                                                                     i don't feel like a woman i feel like
                                                                     a baby
             and the way those plasticky tools let her see right through me
             and the way men just do not know what to do when
             women are bleeding
the nurse named jeff asks me, "oooh, which palahniuk?"
  "it's... well, it's the one about twelve writers who fall into the clutches of
      this crazy guy who locks them all up! this story's about guts n stuff,"
              "nice," he weirdly smirks,
and thankfully gets back to work.
jeff touches my arm a little too much,
and i didn't really want him to have my blood,
and maybe that's just vain stuff
but the conversation was... good enough...

and i am reminded again of why i hate hospitals,
                                            especially­ when there alone.

only got mister palahniuk*
trapped in a purple book,
this paper-bound blood work,
to keep me company.
i lay back with the iv drip next to my bed
as i sweetly surrender to his gory head....
this book, it's called haunted.


*i wish i had chuck's guts ~ literally and figuratively,
he has no ****** and incredible creative bravery.
i was going to call this poem "stuck in a hospital (yuck) with Palahniuk" but then realized that it sounded like a poem about Dr. Suess having to share hospital rooms with Chuck Palahniuk, which is hilarious and something i will save for an entirely different, much more eccentric piece.
This is a place on the way after the distances
     can no longer be kept straight here in this dark corner
of the barn a mound of wheels has convened along
     raveling courses to stop in a single moment
and lie down as still as the chariots of the Pharaohs
     some in pairs that rolled as one over the same roads
to the end and never touched each other until they
     arrived here some that broke by themselves and were left
until they could be repaired some that went only
     to occasions before my time and some that have spun
across other countries through uncounted summers
     now they go all the way back together the tall
cobweb-hung models of galaxies in their rings
     of rust leaning against the stone hail from Rene's
manure cart the year he wanted to store them here
     because there was nobody left who could make them like that
in case he should need them and there are the carriage wheels
     that Merot said would be worth a lot some day
and the rim of the spare from bald Bleret's green Samson
     that rose like Borobudur out of the high grass
behind the old house by the river where he stuffed
     mattresses in the morning sunlight and the hens
scavenged around his shoes in the days when the black
     top-hat sedan still towered outside Sandeau's cow barn
with velvet upholstery and sconces for flowers and room
     for two calves instead of the back seat when their time came
Without the souls of Trouvere, will he aspire to spheres from where he can replicate himself in the ductile state of the ceremonious Energeia...? The naive action is univocal as the first practice modulated in inclinations and lexical motricities, where they die within their fears, failing to hope and convalesce their desecrated wounds congruent in concepts of Energeia, as an arbitrary neologism to move what in itself is not self- scrollable. Vernarth after witnessing Stratonice's intermission decides to run barefoot for those who banish needs on the parental scale of his range. Succeeded by the need of Energeia towards the impudent sense of being enraptured in possibilities, and supernatural substantialities that transported him in the Epistle even to his desiring hands, but in natural causes, and kinetic emotionality in the destiny of the principles of a movement that dialogues by a spinning spin; alembicated in particles of displacement time eccentricity, towards itself in the synonymous statics, providing intrinsic angles to be associated with the rotation of time and Epistolary demands so that the quantum light can relate the energetic spiritual emotionality, with the own dissociated relationship in the spaces of appearance; where it is to be believed that there is a moment of bias provided in the emotional-movement rooted in linear memories of the temporality of the Hellenic mental axis. Everything is proper in the coordinates of the speculating, which is adduced and duplicated in Poielípsis or unveiled generation of relativistic emotions. For this reason, Vernarth naughty importunates this metaphysical precognition, alluding to particles that generate dissimilar inclinations in lapses until reaching the threshold from when Stratonice partially divided its material and spiritual origin into stationary diversity, in meditated phases that will not take place nuclear, but in the polymathy of its exteriorized threshold, and of the emotional mass of its free and passionate matter that concerns its strident and impalpable Macedonian origin.

From this moment on, the intuition corresponds to the angular reinforcement of "Poielípsis", in this way the coordinate of the Souls of Trouvere becomes present, as pseudo images of the Diadochi, involving magnetized radial movements that will lie in the spheres of physical value., in the garb of the Gerakis and Petrobus, who strived in the sense of the energeia of the Epsilon neologism, not to restrict themselves as Aristotle affirms, investigating the being towards a mono-sense in this causal, of such alpha that it says the paradoxical, demonstrating the diversity of optics. Faced with this diatribe Vernarth from the naturalness decides to empower Souls that are part of both topics according to Vernarth, it is to alleviate the potentialities of the acts that apprehend the light of genius that coexists with both. What the entity justified us in unfolding will be delivered by divine intelligence, so as not to reduce the free power of the Epsilon that was extracted in the welcoming presence of Stratonice still withdrawn in the atmosphere of the Voielípsis (substitute scale of relativistic emotions of Vernarth). There are few seconds that can be extended more from a selective argument of trends in the specifications, which could be attributed to dimensions of the Trouvere period of souls, lacking stillness in simulated biological environments, as if they deliberate the naturalness of an expression of who It does not philosophize if something has to detach itself or grab hold of creation to privilege the natural, re-arguing affection when professing, if there is time to express it, so it is intuited what the virtue of muttering simultaneously in the laborious, and in what does not progress. The dynamics of this Poielípsis is to dress the Voielípsis, as an analogous addition of quantum causality and of temporal and timeless Christianity, since it supports a conjugate mix deified by Saint Thomas Aquinas, heading towards the prop in the mega absorption of Christian Aristotelian ideals. The souls of Trouvere will be residents of the indeterminate spiritual mechanics, to deposit effects of the incredulous versatility in themselves, in the sub-aquatic depths that coexist with the geological structure of the cavern of San Juan Apóstol, but in subterranean concomitance, under the same axial coordinate that is sustained sub-geological. Namely; They will coexist as long as the Mandragoron of the Duoverso and its Voielípsis are established, but three hundred and eight meters from its antipode in the underwater base of the Profitis Ilias.

The antithetical line is the verifiable germinability of those vertical events of the plinth settled by the Souls of Trouvere, containing the germinable starch of the growth of the ergonometric stirrup of the Zefian Bolt, which from zero elevation to 308 meters above the Aegean level will form a mega extra parapsychological bilocation, which will be gestated in its uniform vertical chronological numbering, with the pre-Christian Pythagorean and post-Christian representation in the coronation of Carlo Magno, mentioned in royal visions by the Apostle Santiago, in the versant apology of Pythagoras as an entity supra divine, envisioning the scenographic depository, and fragmentability of these three components of this start of the Hellenic Magna in the hydrographic, sub-terrestrial geological and residential basin of the Souls of Trouvere.
The upholstery of the Pythia of Herófila attacks the subtended of the flying buttress that supported the volcanic cavities of the Sub-Patmos, indicating its agreement with the Souls of Trouvere by its disoriented cognitive dissonance, generating paradigms that traced stones that formulated Aquarian sounds, in a dominant tonality by the minuscule machine of light, more distant from the incommensurability that escaped eclipsed in the resplendent major note that becomes monarchical by the hypotenuse of a rectangle in three subdominant angles. This brings about the thaumaturgy of Pythiais, the mother of Pythagoras who, together with Vernarth's Poielípsis, forge retentive songs given the scarce natural light that was only born from some of Trouvere's souls called Poielípsis, in stories of the oracular Delphians. The Poielípsis remains encapsulated from the thaumaturgy of the banal anti-desires that would make it mortal, for a hypotenuse that makes the gift of poetic prayer tangible, prompting the Bio axiom, by fertilizing scaled suspicions of repeated mortality in the banner of risk. Stratonice well points it out:

“The signal field has been prophesied today for the Apollo tripod. Having to reencause itself in three parts of the support of the oracles, and in clairvoyance in the pre and post Christian insemination of the gift of the word that redeems man from sin, sub-tenant of the flying buttress, from the interface of the supra trinity of sin as a blood element, and difficult to evade or avoid. Here the Hegemonic energy of Alexander the Great has been condensed in the arch of ideas, pointing out that the diseased body of Antiochus; my father…, is supplanted by that of the to happen all the trances and difficulties that are assumed after the hazardous departure in Babylon. Therefore he has to bring all the corollary prophesied in the death of my grandfather Seleucus in the hands of Ptolemy Ceraunos. Wanting to dress up the irrevocable interference that occurred in Judah by his Diadocos gangs, opting for the effect of his offspring, therefore on his spiritual stretch of energetic residual and static mass, ad libitum that will end when unleashed in his son. All will already be consumed in the pathogenic body of Antiochus, and of the love for my mother where she was abducted, and possessed she sees by retaliation from Alexander the Great for proven insubordinate ethical demands. "

Stratonice walks with the sendal that should be translucent by Santiago of Compostela. As an intra-everlasting geometric raconto, subduing fears that slide through the sendal of the dogma of the architrave, where no philosophy can look higher if it is not allowed, typical of vegetarianism or freedoms that turn green in fears that do not illuminate life. eternal, perhaps from the same Matematikoi who doubts a basis for Adfinitas, to understand limitless limits, taking Pythagoras to the soil of Crotona. Always, someone who is ignored of the linguistic power, he plans to rewind spheres that still weave crossed angles, placing himself in scores to consider as an irreplaceable past. The soul of Poielípsis adopted a Pythagorean conception, in the halters of the livid legions of Orpheus, as if it were his consecrated hypogeum where the high position was, to stir to the embankment where it will merge with the Zefian arrow. This liquefaction should purify all storage of cognitive and circumscribes of those ancestral, becoming reincarnable pre-Christians, who transmigrate in the need of osmosis of universal unity. Atonal music will transmigrate molecules to great sidereal distances, being the same replica of the other eurythmic, in multi-trigonometric periods, vivifying the fractional number residues as souls of the same numeral that finally perish of Pythagorean digits, perhaps at the angles of the Phalanxes of Vernarth or in the oblique crucial moment that slumbers in an elegy, flourishing in those beings that do not Live...! Already under-treated, they will only be souls tired of keeping themselves alive and deprived of their morbidity, in a dissociated cause of immortality that will distance itself from the forbidden abstinences, in liberating exercises of any count that ponders in the coming etymology of the Vita Pythagorae, on the divan of the joys of serving his doctrine, which saves himself, and which will save the Messiah, for those who in the soul have no sacrifice of a lamb that grazes..., nor on the pedestal that goes ahead in the centuries..., pasturing what nobody was capable of ?. The second triad of the oracle of Apollo of the Souls of Trouvere reveal Charles the Great, favored by the Apostle Santiago for the protectorate of Compostela and its spiritual regency, invited Charlemagne from Aachen, in 33 consecutive years of dispute with swords, stating that the Saxons never complied with the treaties and signed surrenders. Charlemagne placed himself at the head of his army on several occasions to fight with his sword against the Saxon danger, also entrusting the troops to the counts when other matters required his presence.

In the second segment of the concave wasteland of the straight ascendant of Trouvere, he crowned Charlemagne emperor of Rome and the Franks, predicted by the Apostle James, in defensive papal struggles and in defense of Christianity. In this paradigm it appears how they are transmitted from the dead ungraspable world, they unite here in the axon of Poielípsis for the sake of the times that occur due to the anonymity of a silence that augured to link, and to know within what the endless intrinsically organic movement is, as well as the biological cosmos in the discovery of the Jacobean route. In what better region than the Dodecanese, he will be fused by twelve apostles, and now the brother of the son of Zebedee; Santiago brother of Saint John the Apostle. Dating back to 778 AD, spreading to Hispania. In the ****** and constant fight against the Saxons, Carlo Magno, entered Hispania crossing the Pyrenees, as a preview of the aforementioned Jacobean Route, everything raged witnessing their overwhelmed squares in the fueros of the Trouveres, who were Pythagorean elite soldiers, who had been bilocated in this post was Christian, preceded by the perfidious Basque in the forests, subsisting separated right here from the progenitors of the Trouvers, who claimed to be the strongest to continue them to Pamplona with Charlemagne. All escaped from Islam, and not a few Christians resented this affront, the dynamics will be reflected in the Songs of the French Gesta, to enter the Jacobean Route on the way to Santiago de Compostela, when the Calixtino Codex, in its book IV o Historia Turpini, the apparition of the Apostle Santiago to Charlemagne is told in dreams, pointing to the Milky Way as a way to find his tomb, which must free them from the Saracens to be able to venerate their relics with the enamels and medallions that they issued in the Apostle's crypt in Compostela. The souls of Trouvere, are beings that enjoyed a short life in the Pyrenees, they enjoyed the fortune of originating a liberator of post-Christian inheritances, mechanized by the exquisite citation of Pythagorean antiquity, behind indigo faded in red blood cells, to dress the sendal of the figure of Faith, freed behind those who should have dressed her as a Codex Calixtinus.

Five sections rose along the straight line of the Trouvere pyramidal axon, the base of the liturgical appendix that honors the multidimensional space, with antiphons for the cult of Carlo Magno on the underlying Patmos. Santiago was lacerated in the Holy Land far from his Brother Apostle Saint John, but he came to meet with the Trouveres who came from the rugged Pyrenees. Santiago passed the Strait of Gibraltar and reached Padrón, which is about 20 kilometers west of Santiago de Compostela; there some angels took him to the place where he actively rests. In a boat he arrived..., and always by the Mediterranean he will now reach Patmos, still acquiring the iconography that attempts to find Charlemagne, and a codex that would unite pre-Christians like Pythagoras and Aristotle united in the relic of the taxpayers transformed into three maritime rivers, concerned with a predicted belligerent episode, to say that all roads lead to Patmos, like Locus Sanctus, of all the shepherds who heal their sheep in which they are not of others that are populated with souls white, for the good of others. Thus the souls of Trouvere from the Pyrenees revealed themselves as predecessors of the raiding of the shells 308 meters below the Profitis Ilias, in agreement with Stratonice who would be arriving in Macedonia, where the passing of the centuries would tell him about the Jacobean Route instructed in confronts, and concordances with the airones of the Trouvere, protected by a rectangle in three subdominant Pythagorean angles in the dissipated darkness of the golden indigo of Theoskepasti, in the meridian of Kímolos.
Poielipsis Souls of Trouvere
Akemi Aug 2018
out of arms
out of lungs
out of head
it’s an effort to be dragged
catch beneath the lock
where i tore my lid three years ago
each descent returning
spit from the cavernous body of marx

an empire of glass
the wretched of centre city
mop the open wound of 24/7 affairs
*** and grease stained upholstery
apologising for everyone else's mess

it’s blasé-faire
it’s pro-choice
corporate megaphone through the airwaves
distilled into the perfect idiot subject
enjoy life
enjoy life
enjoy life
enjoy life
enjoy life :)
the happiness industry would have you believe that all the ills of the world will be solved through positive thinking :))
One more shot,
I thought.
It won’t make a difference,
just one more drink.
I stumbled to the table containing a small assortment of poisons.
Not much to chose from, but so many possibilities lie at the bottom of each bottle;
snakes in the grass
(which one will bite tonight?)
A little liquid courage here,
a shot of lust there,
and a floor full of regret and humiliation the next day.
The latter, I know, is guaranteed.
Although from the sound of the debate between
my lunch and my vice that
seems to be reaching a crescendo, that is, all the way up
my throat,
it seems “the next day”
had decided to come early.
Running to the bathroom,
party-goers splitting before me like the Red Sea for Moses
as they saw the look on my face;
(I almost made it this time, too.)
With shame all over my shirt
I reached for the toilet,
(arms outstretched like salvation was possible,)
stumbled,
and hit my head on the pristine porcelain plateau before me.
A killer ache ran through my head,
starting at the initial wound and seeping into the rest of my mind,
clearing my fuzzy brain if only for a second.
As I rest my head on my bitter-sweet friend,
rooted to the pipes below the ground
with no choice but to bear my burden,
I stared into the eyes of the
creature in the mirror.

(It knew that I knew that it knew that I was nothing.)

I closed my eyes,
if only to see something other than this being that demanded to be called Me,
undeserving of the title once bestowed upon a
charming,
god-fearing,
loving
little girl
with strong convictions.

A girl with
aspirations and hope,
not this abomination in the mirror,
(never meant to be this.)

I closed my eyes harder,
feeling the strain on my pupils,
wishing the nausea away and calling forth colours.
Bright blues,
radiant reds,
and opulent oranges.
Tunnels twisting and turning into each other,
hues and shades I had only dreamt before.

Sure it hurts your eyes, but it’s worth it.
I could never reach the end of the
recurring green tunnel,
though,
not since I was a little girl
at the meetings shutting my eyes real tight at prayer time.
Letting the colours wash over my vision,
my own words to god
at an age where words are few and insignificant,
visuals ruling over all.
If it’s beautiful and eye-catching it must be good, I had reasoned.
(I didn't grow out of that mind frame in time.)

Crash.

The sound should have brought me back to the present, but instead I dove head first into that frustrating, never-ending dull green.

When I opened my eyes, I was 8 again, -

-alone in the dark.
With the absence of the cheerful sound of the Flinstones
that emanated from my television 5 minutes ago,
everything seems so loud.


The silence closes around me,
a dark cloak of anxiety and childish fears,
digging icy fangs deeper into my subconscious,
turning shadows into evil spirits
and running ghostly fingers down my spine.


I get up to see what made the noise before,
the one that shattered.
Each step is torture,
with every one I am more certain
that I will feel a tight grip on my ankle,
as the ghoulish monsters bring me
under the bed
to devour me
slowly,
asking me
if I’d like to know how
I taste
in their voices that drip
with slime.


But no monsters claw at me tonight from under my bed,
for they are already waiting,
snoring,
on the couch.
I approach him cautiously,
a man stripped down to barely nothing,
splayed out on a cheap upholstery island surrounded by shards of glass.
I do not know this man,
only the body he parades around in.
He makes deep, scary noises, far beyond regular snoring.
Something has possessed my father.


I try desperately to shake it out of him,
yelling “please, please wake up!”
But he won't.
Instead he responds by throwing his teeth out at me
and wetting the only piece of clothing
that he bothers to keep on.
I was lucky he wore anything at all this time.


Crying I run to the bathroom,
run the hot water and let it run over my hands.
Blistering hot.
My tiny hands are turning a lobster red,
but the fear seems to rush out of my every pore
and into the rushing water,
and I feel some peace return to my chaotic state.
I feel clean.


“Where does my money even go?”
he yells,
right before he shows me
what the ******* represents,
“Look at you, you’re so *****.”
This is when the monster that hides
within his bottles begins to come out,
after it makes him
throw things
and before
it put him to sleep.


I sit on the floor and cry, pressing my eyes so as to distract myself from the fear that keeps clawing its way up my throat.

Footsteps.

My heart forgets its size and tries to evacuate through my mouth, and I realize there is someone coming to the door and god don’t let it be the monster, please god. I open my eyes-

And there's the monster,
staring back at me,
in the mirror where I’d left it.
Copyright Krystelle Bissonnette
Eslam Dabank Dec 2021
The morning star defied the godly beam of divinity:
     The star feeding the vines of evil embracing bodies,
Saying “no” since the grand affliction, to the trinity,
      It is Morningstar; the devil - Courage he embodies.
        
Nameless angels envied the free one of the chain,
      Light and of light they were, yet the opposite beats -
Beats in their hearts - jealousy and wrath remain,
      In the servants with no will in their celestial meats.

An upholstery of fragile sins to test the son was.
      He stood for the fire, and O! Flames hurled upon,
Banished and loner, the voice of every lost cause,
      In the streets, skins and days that cease to go on.

How shall we and he defend not the selves created,
     With a consciousness ideal and stark, by the almighty?
The almighty himself, who selfishness in us dictated,  
     We, makers of evil, goodness and charming Aphrodite?

He fell, greeting the stars, wavering a throne above,
    And shedding a ****** tear for a sin in the creation.
A sin with no faulty one committing - the sin of love,
    Self love, the “sin” Morningstar fought for its liberation.
Ross J Porter Nov 2012
Two screws in a week have turned loose.
Upholstery? It's needin' a boost.
So off to the carpenter's place,
A quick calming break from the rat-race.

The best looking go daily, you know.
Always ready for their final show
Though weekly's required
to keep ruddy and clear,
Pity those going but twice a year.

Seems like he can fix in a jiff
A heart that has hardened too stiff;
And when soul's window pane
Has grown cloudy again,
He'll wash it and call it a gift!
Whose the Carpenter in your life?
Where is his place?
Harry Bratton Dec 2018
Staring into the distance called to a halt lowly by a ceiling
With beams of clouds I have my essay planned, do the
Right thing when the morning comes, start early and lap lap
Lap it up… I missed a day will I be able to write it okay?
It’s only a draft, final assessment in the genesis of a new
Year as apocalyptic as it gets draped in gray by God’s
Gesturing arm lamp shading… why should I do it? To
Quickly bang it out before the deadline just to get it out
The way… daydream precocious bipedal insect monsters
Before the real thing moons God and his gang of whiskey
Parlour batchelors leaning on leather elbow pads admiring
The craftsmanship of the upholstery… the real thing is more
Absorbing always cutting off as I’m getting somewhere, start
In daytime and realize there’s nowhere to get, that’s the thing
Yelling stop think again, or fill every nook cranny and interstice
With feet free to walk in peace… they are antonyms I could
Never fit in, gaps that long ago gave up

Deserted wide areas of something, opportunity, you must
Agree are not expenses anymore by any imaginative feat
Dancing to deep scar/jungle depravity light reflections…
I can’t remember and don’t want to check over in case I
Get cut off -

Forget that’s true… (Something I literally cannot do)… I was
Enthralling, reading, writing, the {authorised} daydreaming -
Breakfast for dinner - dinner for breakfast - closer to the sun -
My legs have gone weak - I want to numb the static pain Spit-
Ting strangling cosmic debris from the satellite to the T.V…
It’s not that I’m not moving, I am careering just fine to turquoise
Blue sky, the bottom of a valley draped in a green screen sheet
Searching on my homepage for something more than my
Forest floor in the circular sky print of psychedelic white smud-

Ging print in the canopy tickling my mind’s eye giggles awake…
It’s that I’m not being methodical revolutions around a state I aim
To occupy, to occupy less derivatively… It’s not that… what is
This space? Living harmoniously, smiling on the front page of the
Daily Reality, not a youtube metamemetextraction everyone has
Different power to construe as well as they consume.. which, well…

Headlines to all cheer in support immaculately agreeing rather than
Memetic smearing in a forest snearing, no singing, no branches,
Hollow UVescence flood… hot sun burns ignorant eyes that power-
Point-slide nothing retinal light soggy cardboard calippo awkwardly
Bending, quivering like an Einsteinian physician’s space-time ******
You can’t see, squinting hard open town open mouth open source
Open eyes it is morning time morning square morning everyone everywhere
Square skulky shoulders and a brittle skunk twig head, not always there after
Shipping in a rectangular organisation of beds for fallen fruit everyone
Walks by, what is healthy? in society, what is homely what is dull housing
Ex-ice lolly sweet sticky strawb-red syrup marooning, baking to brown
Down backstage curtains poised in windy drapery drapery drapery…
Window hardware still there not to see any of the people, have you
Gone forever? The sun drapes savannah grapes out of place fire-soaked
Memories, temporary tent, arms and legs and back and Earth and one-
They’ve been the same thing begging to be vacuumed to a better outlook
Well away from towns bookmarking forests of knowledge seeming never
Ending turn to plywood, you can’t be in a vacuum better anywhere,
And hope strives away shooting through the replacement plastic funnel
Into a dropping everything…

Cornered - shopped - bussed - stopped - ticketed - one-wayed - one-way-
Systemed - ticketed - inspected - mauled - in the shops - for food -
For clothes - carred and parked in a roundabout way - merged in a
Motorway, by a dense grey matter, a concrete intelligence, one certified
Body of the indefiniteness of everyone's words, their words… our words…
That which is said… what people say… what we think… make a pretend wolf
Beg for a ready salted crisp at the the bar in the pub I leave the sound of
Those who hear everything better, I couldn’t hear a thing over the hoover…

A wild din falls on developing streets, silent and wide, stocky and broken,
Choking on ******* butterflies in my throat and stomach screaming… hold
Tears back while the sad song plays, that burst out of the interlude’s segue
To the beat picking up exactly what you wanted it to… wake up the pride!
I am trapped in a cage! Wake up the tribe! Is it on your webpage?

Where has it gone?
rolanda Jan 2014
translation from russian by rolanda


                                                   E.К
I write you from ex-colonia
grounded twenty centuries ago
by romans-sounds like a symphony
for hyperborean ear, hundred time
increased distance till addressee.
Looks like Agrippa knew what she did
the sister, worth by her madness of her brother.
Further cinematograph-**** body
bent and etc..accordingly screenplay
maid lapping in marble bathtube
horns leads triumphal aria
with a long sound. On the backstage
usual complaining on the fate,
tangent glance to the east,
muscle of cease  walk
the female wolf her concrete ******,
snapping, moving back to the building of arsenale
lost fatten twins.
I recollect what you didnt finish to say me
closing second door on the bolt,
on same spot there is a snow, cover up Prachechnij bridge
panorama of river, filled up by ice,
something with tear through two thousand miles
or old age with saged belly.
In our age, verticals are
soaring unreachable, slipping to result
of life, just right to dress on sandals
but hardly happens to slip into toga.
Invariable law of falling drops
down, no matter- fontain, rain, ******.
Harbour of postscript...rats storm the ship.
Funeral office offers moire
from spring collection for upholstery of
coffins, grief on the faces of personals,
just in time served coffee with cream
soften disaster of final account.
I write you, for what? - after victory
of foreign football team
from the closeness of prosperous summer,
connected Alps and Andes
by wave of psychose from tv,
inflicted by joy of superiority
above..(not clear what of), and their poses
of victors is sign of ugliness
from point of view of observer-
old neurasthenic and misantrope.
Contemplating fly of pterodactyl
by eye of stamped cyclop,
gilded **** on short spike of chirch
scream by voice of Luter:
"Be blessed folks cars!",
and  morning flow down by sunrise on wood

by Dmitrij Poparev
Ethan Taylor Apr 2011
We used to sit
in your bedroom
and climb onto the roof
after midnight, creating stories
for the constellations
that we sometimes drew—

The day we met—
you brought me cake
with the word “Happy”
in green icing;
how it filled the following years—

The drawings we made together,
hung on your walls;
Lego rocket ships
and video games
played until we
would watch the sunrise
from your rooftop—

Picking blueberries
with your mother,
our stained fingers,
the bag that burst
in the car;
the upholstery, soaked,
smelled of them for weeks—

That summer
we built a treehouse—
you fell off,
broke your arm,
and I wrote
of your Icarian shot at flight—

The camping trips—
the time we saw an eagle
land not three yards before us,
and the picture you drew
from memory that night—

The day you moved
to New Orleans—
we sat on your roof
the night before,
trading treasures:
my notebook of our stories;
your box of our drawings—

The letter you wrote,
eight months before
you left this world,
says you love the art
but hate the artists;
you once told me
“life is art,”
and sometimes I think
I know what you meant—

Now I wonder
if our constellations
befriended you,
and if you watch
with them and draw
pictures of me,
as I still write
stories of you.
drumhound Mar 2014
On Saturday
any Saturday
every Saturday

multi-themed pedestrian parades
pour down commercial corridors
celebrating a holiday known as

WEEKEND.

Middle school queens throw
exaggerated waves
from backseat upholstery tops

in imaginary convertibles marking
the current flow route between
Foot Locker and Game Stop.

Marching throngs display
personal banners on
plastic handled brand bags

drawing peer clusters,
human petaled floats,
vying for ribbons

passing devoutly interested
sideline spectators
now feeling a bit empty

without score cards.

Hippos, thin men, package jugglers
stroll along the branching avenues
labeled in chest advertisements

including everything from
Magnetic Health to Jesus.
No mega-city floatilian

compares to the mall regalia
in a midsize hometown
duck-n-spend.

Though it may be
a little short on free candy
it is still sponsored in part

by Macy's.

Interlocked peddler palaces
reign as shopping centers,
though shopping is the least

of the reasons to be here;
not unlike people going to
a hockey match

are not going to watch hockey,
or partakers in Nascar
don't actually go for racing.

Truth is,
we are all hoping
to see a collision,

Haves with Have Nots,
Lovers with Haters,
Colored Hairs with High & Tights

Refined with Undefined
Talkers with Solitaries
Personal Loathing with Itself.

Unanimously, they all come
for the curiosity of encounter
incalculable, anxious, wanted

or unwanted.

In secret,
dreamers hold royal hopes
praying to Aeropostale gods

pleading favor with credit cards
and a bump in popularity
that if so anointed

the purest of this parade's followers
would be next week's
Grand Marshall.
Cole Maxwell Mar 2019
The other day I had the very same thought,
Just as I did the other times, however many;
A romantic-comedy kind of retrospect, if you will. We were selling out concert tickets to upholstery as the best, or at least most confident,
Karaoke duo to ever cross paths with a dashboard.
“When I'm gone just carry on, don't mourn, rejoice.”
Opera singers every other day...
Does the music still manifest within your nervous system?
Can you feel the sorrow pulse from the V - i resolution chord?
It's still screaming if you can't hear it.
...had I known then what I know now, well,
Perhaps  this memory wouldn't hurt so ******* much.

It's hard to listen to music in the car anymore,
Well, nearly impossible most of the time.
It awakens sleeping demons that need not be bothered,
Their tails cut like a severed bond between two people who conquered tribulations far beyond the reach of the greatest evil imaginable,
Yet still lost control of ourselves from time to time.

The tires slid across the asphalt during that calm storm a few years back
“What’s in your head, zombie?”
Timothy Clarke Feb 2012
“Tell me about your dreams”
These words are comonly spoken
As the miles fly under the wheels of our family van.
As children shift constrained and belted
Anticipation focuses attention when one of us says
“Oh yeah… I had a great one last night”

Cars fly past windows unnoticed as crazy stories unfold
Bizzar and often histerical recollections recreated
Pulling smiles from faces that had been grimmed by
A sister or brother sitting
much…
too…
close.
We all share and in turn we spin our tales
Keeping thoughts inside and miles unnoticed.

In rare, fortunate times only one sits beside me
As we hurtle past thousands of dashed lines.
We talk about dreams of the future.
About possible lives.
And of where we are going, in the larger sense.
And sometimes dreams of love.

Were this another time, these would be fire side stories
Or told in a quiet cabin piled deep with snow.
On these fleeting days the chamber that traps this family togeather
Is of steel and upholstery and lost toys,
empty water bottles and forgotten french fries.
Time limited only by the seasons of these children and the miles of the trip.

“Tell me about your dreams”
Most of all, mine is that someday
They too share long car rides with their loved ones
And capture many extra miles of their children’s journeys,
As often as they can.
Ruby Harrison Jan 2010
Each cold wave was starting to slap
me in the face and the grayness of morning
wasn’t lifting as the sun rose.  Goosebumps

had made my legs slim sharks, heavy and rough,
so I swam to shore spitting out icy water.  
I was thinking about coffee,

maybe crawling into my sleeping bag
and listening to loons’ far-off howls
until breakfast, and I reached the splintery dock

when I choked –
tried to struggle backward, without any splash
which might wash her in with me.  

Dock spiders swim.  Did you know?  
They fasten long ropes of silk and dive
for their prey, something big since no horsefly

sustains a spider the size of a mouse.  
This one was monstrous, motionless,
spiky black legs jointed white at her knees,

face-level to my wet bobbing head.  She gripped
an egg sac, papery and white, marble-sized.  
It held hundreds of tiny hers.  It looked heavy.  

I had come to her panting but now the water
or inertia maybe pushed my face close
to that enormous silent mother so I fought harder

to stay away, though if the lake had been still
I might have treaded at a distance, stared hard,
dared her to scuttle and disappear in the cracks

in the plywood-patched dock with its rotting ladder
and a dozen more spiders, probably,
white sacs strapped firmly to their bellies.  

I flopped like I’d hooked a lip, gasping, desperate
for rough open water where depth
would deter any diving hairy creature.  

Somehow I struggled to remoter shoreline
where I slid over boulders’ upholstery of algae,
shivering, legs frog-splayed, stringent and numb.  

I never felt it when I scratched my legs crashing
through buckthorn, the way to the cabin, though I saw
the lines later when I put on soft clothing

in a warm inside corner where spiders are smaller
and at least have the kindness
to keep out of sight.
Graham Nolan Mar 2012
There there my dear, it's only a scratch, another one for the collection.
Antiseptic wipe; Dettol 99.9% by the way.

Indignancy felt but ushered into a comfortable seat with nice back support and leather upholstery.
Tomato Ketchup.

"This is just wrong, this will not stand!!"  A deafening barely audible roar.
Look there is a fly banging its head against a glass window.  He repeats the action over and over.

A spark flies and it blinds.  Sweet immersion.  Embrace. Warmth. Comfort.
A bubble. Suspension.  The gaze into a lover's eyes....post ****** of course!

Cinema ticket stubs, bloated belly, extra butter.  The cold walk home.
Sorry, I have none on me or I left mine inside or look away.

Discrepency and some     thing dis    jointed.  Lack of understanding.  Inward spirals.
HellNoweWontgO, away they went in disgruntled silence.  Not a stain nor a mark on the beautiful tree lined streets.
the horse rummages on the track
and the victory is owned by the ****.
soon sleep will engulf my body
like the oblivious quietude of Aokigahara-jukai.
things and their semblance of utmost care.
light begins to burst
and there is little left to see,
wide-eyed, crunched by the efficacy of aches.
taking all to the very heart of hurt
as gamblers wager,
and coming back with the sound of completeness:
a man is a man in his chronology of defeat -
left torn by madness,
a cornered beast pressed against the woods.

the moon plays its lyre, white-washed,
sound wading in the very source of quiet,
hauled out of the Sun, its mother.
this hound stalks the world
with woebegone legs, a reflection of the entire world fractured
by a singular shot at the end.
i hear the guttural snarl of engine
unwavering in its limitations. say, at first light, all exists to paint darkness quicker
than any obfuscated conclusion -- hiding in
itself, its mood for squalors.
the mud dug deep for bones
pared from the slaughter of midnight,
hiding them to mask my defeat:
everything around me sparkles with
the vigor of frailty, all the same.

the nights are too long, scarce as froth
from an opened mouth left flat,
a dry gin bottle.
i imagine sad armies dissolving in pale moonlight, and crosses thumbed down to the snaking hiss of its nondescript prayer.
gears gnash like teeth in anger
of you in your young clothes, the pace of cars
hurrying back to homes.
i remember the splintered wood burning
the last in the round kiln of the Red Lion.
the upholstery of night is the twilight's
catharsis. the coast of dread widens like
the vernal metamorphosis of a young ******* in Gibraltar,
come in, come in with undecided ******.
you can hear the fall coalesce with the levitation of ember, landing like feet blunt
on the asphalt beside desolate bicycles
    in seedy parks.

the surreal tabulation of analogue repetitions:
death's myriad, in all corners screaming
the countenance rebel, against the floored masses.

— The End —