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Arcassin B May 2014
by Arcassin Burnham


Videotapes and casetes
i had a heart attack
i stepped in right at the end
it was out of whack
im ready to watch
now im ready to watch
hoping your alright
how is your mom
ya'll ok
im worried like the other side of the rivers way,
but im ready to watch
now im ready to watch
too many flaws,
to count,
how are you doing ,
have no doubt,
who are you presuing,
on the mission of your doing the horizon,
now im ready to watch.
http://arcassin.blogspot.com/2013/12/ready-to-watch-full-version.html
Coop Lee Feb 2016
she’s out there on the ice again.
holy night &
positioning the gas-tanks just right.

joseph is her father, and his father,
even if not by blood,
raised flame.

foot to throat, brother remains
in the city working.
he is building a rocketship
in the basement of his apartment
complex.

back to town and dying houses.
foreclosures and fences.
lake of fire.

lights: she lingers in lights.
something so true and alive about the revelatory
of color,
of the world when lit and hit by sun
or our artifice.

her lovers: one dead by heavy
lumber, the other rewinding videotapes
in chasms of the library.
she thinks on his lips.

her dog tracks wet prints
across the carpet and floors.

wish list:
        mittens
        huckleberry jam
        iphone solar charger
        explosives
previously published in Midwestern Gothic, Literary Journal
http://midwestgothic.com/2011/01/issue-18-summer-2015/
Michael McLean Apr 2014
I

I’m not playing here

this is real

like looking up and wondering a little

about nothing really

clipping thought coupons

into a phone

on the backs of Denny’s’ receipts

that’ll be worth while on sale

maybe a cradle

a rocking chair for an aching back

or a shovel

'cause that's all that really matters

II

but I cannot bring myself to

do what we (brothers) have done

videotapes donutting for unblinking eyes

blurry words, maybe

faster than (the) sea

mathematical and black

reflecting (truth)

what really matters

the violence of things that mean something

that pump the kroovy

that crumple old

inky receipts

thrown

III

they warp the desk

spinning the world into the anaphora of a pale blue dot

a period

a full stop

IV
Claire Walters Apr 2016
Second hand secrets
Bubbling bathtubs
Drowning the dread
Escaping evil
Violent videotapes
Sickening stories
******* and *******
Driving drunk
Elaborating on the evening
Vicious voices
Warped whispering
Only I can hear
Oblivious to what was happening
Sinking under the water
Not wanting to come up for the desired air
For I thought I could breathe underwater
My lungs would fill with the air for fish
My brain would explode
I could hear the muffled screams
But I liked it better under a world I barely knew
no longer had I have to worry about what was above sea level
For it didn't matter in my tattered mind
My heart was pounding in my body
Almost screaming and grabbing at my chest trying to pull me back up
Gone girl
Girl now gone
smallhands Jul 2016
men in white coats call their valentine, asking,
"are you there, sweetheart? I'm in london, watching your videotapes,"
while I sit on the cold patient's bed, wondering if I could
capture a phone call with my boyfriend, find out how the party was,
if his father has gone up in the business
but then I am chemical dizzy
and then the doctor whispers to hush my teenage mouth, that I'm only in high school
that all I do is go to the dance hall and eat lucky charms the next morning like a child
I used to believe I was a prodigy, even if all I could do was tie-dye
the medicine puts me to sleep and the white coat clad man tells my parents it's not serious

-c.j.
Damon Beckemeyer Aug 2018
My head rolls down the crook of my arm
My mind spins backwards to where my eyes want to be
I’m staring at the ceiling now
I’m falling now

There’s wind in my ears
Everything is being hand-drawn
These pictures are day dreams

I wince at the apple in my hand
I don’t care what the first fruit was
But I know what my fruits should be
And my labor of love is cherry-picking as many watermelons as I can carry

My hair is three feet in front of my vision
And a second behind in hang-time
It’s grayer now
Pencil drawings look more like ink now
Etchings in a clay tablet

Writing messages on my ribs since I was born
You just run out of space
And there’s a fist-sized hole where my sternum should be

Closed for maintenance
Easy access
And you’re still beating it with your fists like a VCR that doesn’t work any more

You blow whispers into my ear
And your dusty words make my neck snap at the sound of static

There’s tape around my neck now
Family videotapes rewound with red
With all the conditions involved

I was the character who was out of place
And now I’m spliced into someone else’s movie

There are arms down here
They caught me?
They’re warm
I belong here

They stretch
They can hold me as I grow
They can send me off into the air like a clay pigeon

And now the picture is so far from digital
I can’t remember the last time I watched a show in the family pictures in the hall

The glass is cracked Dad
Mom, I’m not in any of these...

I take a bite of home-cooked leftovers at work.
There is a kiwi in my lunch bag
Coffee in the little cups by the machine on the counter

They see me.
Lawrence Hall Oct 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                            Our Lady of the Perpetual Garbage Sale

It’s for the youth

Our parish hall is now a re-sale shop
All full of junk that never goes away
Boxes of videotapes and castoff slop
And smelly clothes that have had their day

It’s for the youth

The Mass no longer ends with “Ite, missa est
But rather, “After Mass would some of the men…”
Shift the same old debris without let or rest
Sisyphean labors for original sin

It’s for the youth

Fellowship after Mass is tired and pale -
The one eternal is the garbage sale

But it’s for the youth
Another reason why men race God out of the parking lot after Mass.
Lawrence Hall Feb 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­  A Dusty Drum Kit

                             In a re-sale shop in Huntington, Texas

Fronting for decaying videotapes
And clocks that will never again chime the time
Through tinny mechanical syncopation
A drum set reposes without percussion

An arpeggio of silent despair
Whose cymbals and snare impatiently wait
As do the bass and other impedimenta
For the hand of a youth who has something to howl

The next kid through the door might bell the cat:
“There it is – I will rhythm the truth with that!”

— The End —