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trf Nov 2018
a hundred years of rain
drops down the tall, tilted rooftop
towards the porous landscape below,
as love soaks, the dust settles.

dreams of fluid summers
in the nineteen hundreds,
children's laughter echoing
through candle lit halls of timber,
front porch rocking chairs squeaking
after grandpa's dinner
where this happy home
is a dream you'll remember.
STATE SHUT DOWN BY IDIOCY

"This is correspondent, uh, burp...
wait, winds r, yeah, okay go
back on live camera..."

pretend the wind
is
blowing you back

"This is the most major storm in recorded history of this network!"

"My God,
I could die in this sh..stuff."

"Five star hotel what the ****?"

"Okay, okay, live we are,
look here, pan closer, these leafs on this Raleigh plant here,
see how violently they are moving?"

LEAVES ARE FALLING!

"That is the fear one feels knowing that a category two,
at any moment, could become a category five."

"This Dave Mowers live from Hawaii,
checking in before I possibly die.
Mom I love you, Dad, well,
look how brave I am!"

"Is that an Asian girl?"

"What an a..cute ***, that,
cut to...
to the violent leaves again you ****!"

"I'll fire you cameraman!"


Four large oak trees have fallen.
HAWAII HAS ENORMOUS SURF!.
 Four large oak trees have fallen.
Lucius Furius Apr 2018
Do not think because I have a roving eye
that I am any less in love with you.
A knowing wink, a bashful smile, a haughty stare,
these are the terra incognita
which I, beauty's student, must needs explore.

But like Raleigh in Guiana, in search of El Dorado,
thinking of  his Bess,  
or Daniel Boone in Kentucky,
it is you I am thinking of, always,
and it is to you I will, Odysseus-like, return.
You can see the poem – with pictures – (and hear it) at https://humanist-art.org/do-not-think/ .
Antino Art Apr 2018
We wear this city on our feet
Planting our roots with each step
Our shadows

cast shapes of ancient oak trees stretching out over old squares at daybreak
We grow here

with the spirit of buildings past,
present and rising like a staircase to heaven in the distance,
the plumes of white smoke from their rooftops as burnt offerings for incense,
spires for steeples,
the bundled masses of people moving beneath as the calloused soles
of our feet pounding the pavement,
Our congregation

seated in reverant silence on the R-Line hissing to a stop
Their hushed prayers filing out from within to bring the reclaimed sidewalks of Fayetville Street back to life to join this pilgramage
They march

downtown toward Capitol
holding signs for disarmament
They bar-hop through Glenwood toasting to deliverance
They move in a blur of faces that become us,
Rush at all hours through our veins
Cross our hearts and keep us breathing,
Moving
wearing the city on our minds
like the greyest pieces of their winter sky and the way it caps the peaks of Mount PNC, BB&T and Wells Fargo like hoodies over our heads
We assume monk-like appearances
in robes color-coded by season- from blue collar sweaters to cold hard sweat
We'll wear their city until we're worn out and wet,

We'll wear their dreams at night
like streetlamps flickering on beneath wired telephone poles carrying conversations about each one as far south as Florida, fears unspoken, made visible
on iron park benches too cold to sit on at this hour
We'll keep walking

and wear this city like backpacks over our shoulders

under the watch of their heavens,
the skyline
a glowing testament
of every step taken
toward someplace higher.
Samuel Fox Apr 2016
the patrol car has left the block once more,
a bull shark circling
nearer to some shore, headlights
blared, a black silhouette steering the vehicle;

night kisses the horizon, pecks it sharp
like a bullet case
scraping the darkling pavement,
only the whitest stars visible above.

many like me stroll sidewalks at this hour,
smoking a stogie
or sitting on empty swings
in playgrounds vacant of laughter; it is better

that children sleep while they can and can dream
before the true night,
that blight of bruise blue, sirens
wailing on their way to steal away some dark man

from the streets. where I stand on an apartment stoop
I count the vehicle
for the fourth time, lurking
out around the corner, like a wolf dressed metallic.

nothing gets better come nightfall. nothing
gets done while asleep.
i slip on my shadow, hood
dark, concealing my face. lean back into the steps

and light another cigarette. inhale.
exhale. most don’t have
to worry: their paleness turns
them ghostly, invisible, to the patrolling cars.

but I wear my darkness. i wish I knew
how to make sparks fly,
have them issue from throat, crack
into splinters of glass. the law tells me to sit

but I refuse. i am a phosphorus
fuse; i am whitened;
but i am impoverished,
and I too have my own reasons to be frightened.

— The End —