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zebra Mar 2018
dangerous woman
she looked good in black electrical tape
with a knife in her hand
ready to yield to a switch blade bite
a red comet
scarring the pale blue sky

trussed like a raveled snake
tight around her belly throat ankles and thighs
her lips sealed shapeless
with a black
X
shut down hard
and needing it bad

a black light
Lilith

the *** slave look
aches to be used
ravished
and amused
head back
*** high, enflamed
maid for love
a moist yoni clam
pushing up from the earth
in pink ******* smeared puce
red rubber sheet
for the mess she wants to be
dressed in salad oil
extra ******
hot pressed
a squandered torso flexed
buttered *****
like a gaping toothless mouth
her pain pleasures dinner
with searing crystal eyes
her mouth fire black
and rabid pink tongue
pink flickering hot
i brawl under her feet
like a mob of bloodthirsty *****
chattering slaves
masters of the taboo
face down in her heat
her musk is in my lungs
i'm
lost in her every twitch and writhe
a ******* bucking *****

can you touch her mystery?

there are many women like her
more then we can imagine
behind stone faces
of shame
in every culture
and innocence

what they do is secret
so dark like clanking skulls between open thighs
dancing goth belly rolls
in a crypt of jerking slick *****
and greased swollen *****

have you met her?

she holds her cards close
but dies in desire
that you may penetrate her
insertions
insertions
insertions
the glory of gory sumptuousness
every hole
a wound of butter and fire

can you feel her at a glance
the whites of her eyes like a flashing ghost
handcuffs razors and a black nine tails
the aesthetic of voluptuous cruelties
barbarous ***** upleaping
a tarnished moon
of broken skin weeping red
and begging mouth for tender kisses too
the hard geometry of red teeth
and milk saliva out of curved lips
through flesh
that brings
tears like rain to swooning visions
that yield relief
like heavy cloud monsoons
plummeting

a dark storm of craven urges
poised dregs and stretched legs
from the black corridors of her soul
a plate of ****** *******
and bruised thighs

service with a smile

squeals and welts
whelping gorgeous
ascending from hell
like temple incense
melting the gates of heaven
with
screaming lady sauce laughing
giving God
the **** of the beast

she wouldn't have it any other way
can you touch her mystery?
For Liz Vicious Dark and those like her
Travis Green Aug 2018
An immense circle of thoughts was clouding
my brain in this room of reconfigured dimensions,
the spinning ceiling fan whirling into a windmill,
the ******* floors breaking into a wave of sharpened
metaphors, the expressionless curtains filled with fear
and crashing scenery, a dark hollow surface converging
in a rhythm of insane beats, imprisoned noted drumming,
disentangled sentences, shattering subjects, compressed
conjunctions and compounds accelerating into an eternity
of uncolored existences, as I stare at the isolated sky,
swollen stars diverging in a broken pattern of faded worlds,
the breathless moon sunken in a domain of interchangeable
languages, meaningless mazes, chopped consonants,
crumbling dreams, everything shifting in a sea of diminishing
whirlpools, while I drifted into a realm of uncaged thoughts,
a crushing cycle of unbalanced worlds, dizzy and senseless
paragraphs bleeding into timeless realities.  My eyes are
plummeting and shackled in drumbeating rhetoric, lost logos,
swallowed pathos, enveloped ethos, rainless cheeks, cloaked chests,
handcuffed arms, square root hips disassembling into deferred
depictions, distilled dreams, shadowed feet hardly more than a
poetic sound, a sore scrawled letter stretched in ragged angles,
stinging, helpless horizons.  I gazed at the shattered glass on
the kitchen floor, how its cracking vibration rumbled inside
my veins, how its impossible syllables blazed my soul,
the burning air around my inner being suffocating in Saturn,
vanishing in Venus, exploding on Earth, every ****** debris
splitting in horrid labyrinths, a screaming depth hidden in
disguise.  I glanced around at the broken wall where
my drunken dad fists where imprinted, the mangled wood
hanging in drugged vowels, the rotten symmetry disappearing
in chalky chambers, roughly lined hues declining without a trace,
as I reflected on the series of events that transpired, the way I
could hear the slamming door raging inside my vessel,
enflamed flaming verbs hovering in high rhymes,
hardened adjectives, destroyed derivatives, disintegrating
equations, the way his bladed feet dragged across the floor,
every reverberating step drowning the sunken space between us,
unwritten surroundings trapped in the atmosphere, confined in a
cloud of inconsolable galaxies, the raging fire stained ***** bottle
wedged between his grubby hands, as I could smell the reeking
breath sifting out of his mouth onto my monotonous flesh,
the same ruthless flow traveling in stuttering nouns, drowning
my heart in Neptune, while I listened to his blazing bloodshot
words, You are nothing without me!  You are worthless!  
You are just a filthy *****!  I wish you would die!  The rising
diction clenched every part of my frame, the way I could breathe
in the asphalt in his tasteless lips, a dying aroma that made me feel
like I was a featureless street seeping into underground dungeons, undone, a destroyed beauty shotgunned.
Travis Green Aug 2018
Your crimson flames are a raging kiss                                          
seeping inside my frame
a thrashing mountain awakening in
my veins
darkened
amplifying hallucinations
a brutal addiction
becoming an enflamed invention
Keith J Collard Sep 2012
Forsythia enflamed,
with not yet budded rose,
together in bed,
together they grow.

thorn on bark climbed,
coming of red rose,
but yellow flames,
fell away long ago.

Rose petals,
Become rose hips,
No golden beauty,
His petals slip,
A wedding photo,
a wedding kiss,
Perrenial memories,
They always miss.

And not for him,
She fits into wedding dress,
And not for her he will look his best,
Hot summer and early spring,
Meet and marry with no engagement ring.


Together in bed, they grow old,
hugging in the autumn cold,
no more vain red rose,
no more gold to behold,
Not blooming for bees not blooming for snow,
No blooming for others, nor blooming for show.
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Her life can’t be denied
First to vent then try to understand then accept death of innocence first seething anger only more enflamed by people trying to
Politicize and lessen the loss of innocent American lives especially little one, long before face book there was basebook evil’s network
This country has rings of evil a year after the bombing in Oklahoma I flew back here and then drove a car back home I stopped and
Videoed the bomb site and then many miles later and much video of this great country I pulled up behind a pickup in Kingman Arizona
Still videoing I was surprised and angered when he had a bumper sticker up on his back window over from his lariat and high powered
Rifle that said something to the effect you haven’t got all of the explosives this wasn’t the only comment there were other signs of a
Gun culture what made it so offensive was it was well known McVeigh and Terry Moore had used Kingman as a base of operations
Arguably this was just a bunch of jerks not real disturbed people like the one in Tucson I understand because while running production
In a chemical plant we had a big government contract which involved a lot of piecemeal work we hired in thirty temps and one was a
Carbon copy of the shooter in Tucson we already had two deadly chemicals everyone knows cyanide but phenol is liquid poison it has
A couple of tricks it freezes at eighty degrees and it absorbs through the skin and when it gets to the blood your dead one guy
Unloading a tanker the line froze he breaks the hose but when he does the chunk of ice flows out hitting him with a load he was dead
before he hit the ground I got a face full of it deluded to fifteen percent when the electric pump transferring to another drum caused the
Plastic hose to jump out the force of the pump shot the deluded phenol against the rim across from me I saw it coming all I could do
Was close my eyes as tight as I could get them instantly ten thousand bees were stinging my face I staggered around until one of the
Guys led me to the emergency shower that was there for this very reason I was taken to the hospital my wife walked in and stated
Crying my brother in law said I looked like Anthony Quinn in the film requiem for a prize fighter they told me as they continued to
Steadily bathe my face with water if the phenol got to the blood there was nothing they could do I survived but then one of the temps
Named randy was a skin head so now we had three deadly poisons it was the hardest thing to interact even simple conservation was
Really impossible like the scene with two polar bears it followed their lives from cubs to three years old and they were being shipped
To another zoo how cute but something triggered the one he became pure bear instant raw aggression at a level that was unnerving
Even from watching it from Television it was like it was crazed just like Randy in an instant he was back in his room with his swastikas
Barely coherent and defiantly not cogent being around him was like getting high on some of our bad fumes I’m interested in helping
People the most powerful drugs couldn’t get you in line with his thinking delusional twisted into a knot of hate and violence he had a
Another thing he liked to brag and had a habit of drinking weird stuff he poured our H B Fuller industrial strength glue into a Pepsi can
And drank it we never seen him again although we watched with keen interest all the entry points to the building for the next two
Weeks incase Randy was paying us a visit with his AK forty seven rifle that is the only reason I have any concern for the shooter in
Arizona again all the warning signs were evident he is disturbed others must protect him plus others he would harm but they still
Wait until yet again as a nation we bleed with profound sorrow from innocence lost.
Madness slays a princess, love of country brought her to the place it would be so harshly violated
In her face America shines with what it should be perfected in innocence raised with all the colors of our vibrancy as a nation then the
Dark foreboding it steals light and life at only nine but she was far ahead of that measurement of earthen time she was endowed with
Power that lives in highest possibilities that are only possible in true unaffected innocence her country was the true country not this
Unrecognizable one that every manner of evil is allowed to flourish and then when openly shown its true depths of departure from
Its true excellence we fail to take the reigns as men and women of character we let drugs alcohol and *** rule without raising the least
Bit of a challenge our enemies spit and scoff at our claims of being a moral ceat for the rest of the world we seek only rewards never
Stopping to be sacrificial givers I know our troops and there are a select few that are this noble but the scale is tipped in evils favor
We are weighed divine justice and peace withdraws behind our ways that are filled with greed and failure at every turn measures taken
From our history shows such gaps of even the smallest vestures of righteous endeavor is tossed as backward living out of tune with the
Times Tucson is the product of the new standard of thought that guides us as a people you can’t wallow in filth and then go out to
Be a force and an advocacy for truth you are breaking down all moral restraints and wonder why we are in a flood of insanity you sow
To the wind then you reap a whirlwind each step each day distances us from divine defenses we invite only trouble as long as we
Pursue the course we are on all who is weak in our nation bare the blunt of this misguided thinking the world has never been this
Close to the brink it’s beyond human control that which is to be played out get in line or see more innocence perish right before our
Eyes this tide can be turned but it takes us all not a grand few that are ignored and steam rolled as a new advantage is gobbled up
For a short temporary season our founding fathers talked of posterity we talk of prosperity and everyone else be dammed.
Damien Ko Nov 2020
I met you in the time between embers and aries
when the sky darkens early and the leaves decide to depart from branches
when the cold grey dreary fuels me emphatically
and the cold crispness reminds me I am so delightfully alive
In those fiery red orange embers to the grey bleak aries
was I thus enflamed and envigorated by you
When I met you in that time between embers and aries
and we traded soft whispers and heated glances,
salacious banter and satisfied stares
in that time between embers and aries
where I hungered for all of you
exuding avaricious energy
to slake myself with your scent
and delight in the way my fingers dance through your hair
and revel in the way I trace my desire across your skin

my embers and aries are stained with you
I think the fall/winter months having a lot of -EMBER and -ARY is pretty cool, I think I wrote this fairly victorian though
pitch black god8 Mar 2019
while the debate goes on and on,
as to which country has the longest, continuous
democratic parliament, have it on on good authority
that the subject above,
is it better to love your kids too much than not enough?
was the first among all temporal discussions ever held,
despite periodic tabling, the debate remains unresolved,
the question unsettled even after 1000 years+ of argumentation

when over time, Universal Adult Suffrage finally came to be,
the debate became renewable, enflamed, divisive most contentiously,
various coming down on each side of a point of view topically

since mother, father and child, i.e.
pretty much everyone, definitionally,
claimed total expertise,
and sparing the rod was deemed by most to be illegally,
no plebiscite, amendment or ballot initiative was resolved resolutely,
the beat goes on continuously as new children reach voting age, sagaciously repeating their view, personally

my view?

I’ve tried both and failed equally
so I’ve little to contribute,
so let it be stated in manner unequivocally,
the sweet sensibility says too well,
but helicopters crash and monied snowplows
run over other both their own and others better deserving,
leaving all of them buried in snow piles street side,
while those who blame their faults on insufficient love,
are later most demanding more attention than any,
having becoming painfully hardy, by being treated hard about,
******* themselves and worse to others

everyone knows the answer to this question for themselves
but I’ll leave you with this,
permitting a child to fail is a winning strategy,
as long as there is no legal limit
regarding the amount or frequency
on lifetime hugging
2:13am
3/26/19
fo SY
Edward Hawthorne May 2013
I remember when we were young,
and the shark fin made by falling water droplets
from the back-and-forth sway of windshield wipers
on our car window would scare you
Because you thought that the spaces we couldn’t reach
would form monsters in their crevices,
and I would laugh and roll my eyes,
like big brothers did.
And I remember how,
on nights when we would sleep over at grandma’s,
the pitter-patter of our puerile feet on hardware floors
was the only sound to be heard.
Shadows formed where the beam of my flashlight hit,
adorned with fading Spiderman stickers and the like-
and you would squeal under my whispered protests
because of the unfurling octopus limbs
that were the leaves of a potted plant.
We grew older, and so did my suspicions,
as you crept out of the realm of childish make-believe
and into a world that even when showcased in daylight was a nightmare.
Demons, from the deep fire that enflamed the world’s core
tried to penetrate  the surface, according to you.
But as their hands reached forth out of the earth’s skin,
they curled in agony, the evil of the earth halting their conquest.
They fossilized and shriveled in autumn’s wake,  
gray and deadened fingertips just unassuming tree branches,
the perennial reaches just fibrous spindles blurring in the sunlight.
The world held prospects despite your macabre claims,
And as we grew I distanced myself from your melancholic tune.
Trees were trees, and bore fruit at summer’s twilight
and the friends I made were all of the parts most sweet.
I was content with the woman I met, she blonde-haired and lovely
her free-falling locks sparkling gold in every light,  
and her personality as rich and as glossy.  
I was content with my life of looking away from spaces
where our human hands couldn’t reach,
demons out of eyesight in the beam of glass city buildings.
But as the dusk of one day segued into the dawn of another,
I grew weary,
each routine just a part of this monotonous human noise
to which I, too had voiced.
And I found myself driving one day when thunder roared in the sky,
rain once again pouring into its shark fin mold.
Your voice came into my head,
the demon hands that had had died trying to take us over with their evil
but overwhelmed by our own brand of hellish wretchedness
lined the freshly paved sidewalk,
and with a twist of the wheel one unreachable space met another.
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2015
~for Steve R. & Stephen Y.~

"two regrets are mine -
not finding you earlier in life when...words would have carved for me a better road, and...not hand-ing you a touch, the perfect tightness-shake of one's hand reserved for fondest friends and the light press on one's back deserved for dearest brothers!"
~~~

the light press surety of five fingers on one,
oh, what messages it composes, oh, what duty weighty it transmits

dear brothers:

tho this hands-on handoff, this fly-over, is still a  
mission unaccomplished,
yet no regrets, please!

men don't overuse superlatives,
what you lovingly uncover in my rocket-verbal Mars probes,
is more telling, more revealing of  who you are,
than any hand-tightness shake,
any touching grasp, could e'er convey

yet I promise, forsworn upon the cross
of the north west Pacifico latitude and longitude
a latitude that just happens to intersect
my olden, new english state,
knowing that Interstate 90
a straight transcontinental shot,
and the car keys just an impulse grab away

to tell your arms, your face, your back, our hands,
that when you love my poetry,
you love me,
you friends,
are an affirmation of  Pablo Neruda's words:

"whoever discovers who I am
discovers who you are"


fondness is not distance constrained,
touching grasps pay no obeisance to time,
the honor of your affection permanent
affirmed and enflamed,
all mine, sublime, to lead my heart,
where to lay hands upon your back,
to realize even more
our single united rhyme
November 7, 2015
4:50 pm
nyc/nl
The Pioneer Jun 2015
17
untold horrors
Innumerable errors
Front of no worries
Inside of painful flurries
Fighting down the guilt
The pain
The fear
The anger
The hate
Of actions
Of the past
Present
Full of resent
Never being good enough
For self standards
3 times
3 full restarts
3 times failed
Sadness
Not being able to be
What is needed
Knowing those laid to rest
Would be ashamed
And Enflamed
Being a self
That is despicable
Unreadable
Disagreeable
Unchanging
Lacking the will
To change
And fulfill
All that is wanted
Knowing that self
Is broken
Where Shelter May 2017
The Prism Through Which We See Clearly

~

light saws our untrue selves with acute angles,
piercing our holistic pretenses, daily disambiguation features,
our sheltering disguises into our essence refractive elements

this is not a cute rainbow poem - run from here

it is a dissection of our true nature
why belabor, why elaborate?

through the prism
you color-coded self, tracted,
a mapping of your intersections,
what each color speaks, needs not an explication,
your hidden humanity comes to my eyes, in full revelation

at last I see you clearly

the lost and black withered limbs,
the stirring, leaping, enflamed flaring, never ceasing, breathing elements that mark your singularity

did you know your eyes are constant singers?

through prism, each note heard distinctly, as it rises uplifted,
your song, mine for observation and weeping exhalations,
your song, the production number of thy own composition,
through prism, our interior visual disinterred and released,

here I must cease, for what seen, grievous weeping deepens,
from the glory and the pain my blurred wetness overwhelms
the clarifying crystal useless when tear coated

through the prism,
before the full length mirror,
my own, unowned, never could be owned,
'mirror mirror on the wall,'
warped weave of tissues, mine,
the song sounds, mine,
from lungs disgorged
myself, diagnosed and displayed

of what I see, spitting speech
ceases and desists,
the only thought permitted, repeated,

where is my shelter now?**


5/13/17 6:49am
Love is chapped
It's rough and enflamed
I lick its surface with my tongue
My saliva only just stung
So as I wait for the flames to disitigrate
from my unprotected lips
Your balm fills in the cracks
and sheilds over them
and the rocky terrain becomes calm.
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2014
early risen,
life's au courant
contextual issues
are all bad bus driver dream driven,
visualizations of sonograms
of erred memories,
road forks, unwisely chosen,
incorrect in retrospect,
look back notion thoughts,
and fears of the
good works in process
never finished,
these are all the best ****
too early,
highly reliable,
internal/infernal
alarm clock

waken only to plod the dark,
upon the cool wood floors,
without any slippered coverings,
closet buried unavailable
(no treasure noisy hunting
in the dark permitted,
while the party of the second part,
yet sleeps)

the floored bottom chills
do not succeed
in comforting a mind
instant awakened-enflamed
by a long lived life recalled recapped,
of inaction and interactions,
thrones lost by
choices guided by fear and not
risk,
that in summation,
too many debtors-in-possession
of rose colored
minus signs

so the companions constants,
these well-worry-worn floors,
now refuse me,
no more to repeat,
what all too oft
they have before,
wisely spoken:

too early, man,
too late, fool,
the answers
required/sought
upon our ashen wooden countenance
cannot be elicited nor derived,
go back to bed
there, perhaps,
find what you need,
somewhere,
between the day's rising orb,
the Lady Luck of
a woman's heat,
the grand canyoned
Pachelbel cannon,
the Bach adagios
soulful sweet,
the answers could begin,
the endings,
perhaps can find
you and show
the restart signs positively
new directional


yet obedient to the old nether-wisdom
of these inanimate intimates,
(that are classified now as
sourpusses &  ex-best friends),
off to
back-to-bed,
self-dispatched,
arriving amidst the departing darkness,
being infiltrated by new day
dawning light suffusions,
with coffee armed,
pillows plumped,
all done with
church mouse quietude,
lest I wake the
party of the second part

into bed returns
the prodigal son,

uh-oh,

the poem ***** stiffens

cannot be refused,
it offers me
this challenged relief and a challenged
pleasure:

Subtext

commandeering and commanding:

dispense what you cannot say,
but wish for all to understand,
teach them how to write the literary
subtext
of one man's life


his fantasies *******,
thoughts of world-over trips
upon which his poems trip,
thinking thoughts
of meeting you
first time and fittingly,
reunions of longtime knowing
mutual souls, the lovely perfection
of the guarantee of
better days past
and better yet,
of better days
yet to come,
of first embraces,
longingly overdue,
but happily
familial familiar
even upon initial conception

motioned potions notions
of what he would do
when that lottery ticket
comes true,
seeing hazy
visions of loined, coined children babes naves
as someday adults,
from a future past of
a collection of visions
happily well imagined

now in bed,
dancing (quietly) to a Strauss waltz,
all his sisyphean tasks unmasked,
and peace in his heart,
returning to supreme reign,
re-gifting it all forward,
in a subtext contextually
poem within herein

the coffee now cooled,
the mental dispensary instead,
has issued
a scrip
prescribed and commissioned

write yourself,
one poem,
overly long and rambling,
as always,
(knowingly he smiles at his own critique)
this poem
to be issued
from his ******-brain,
amniotic-bathed,
anointed and by appointment
to her majesties,
The Queen of Hearts
and the
Red Queen,
entitled:


Subtext

the scrip reads:
"take once a day,
life clarity should return
sooner than later,
which is to say
medically and medicinally
eventually,
which is far, far better
than never"

the meds imbibed
the coffee reheated,
and while
waiting for its effects,
the subtext of a man
who drinks drams
of lives of poetry
for all
sees his future dreams
and happily awaits
their completed execution
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2023
zero context shifts

multitasking is multi~asking your brain
to do what does not come naturally,
the enthused poem starts up, lion roaring,
a muscle car, brain throbs organic pulses
semi~******* of a near-completion in
your neuronic *****, exciting and ****
all you-writ so far is:

your name, some crazed, minimal
******* of words with

no context, no preconceived word lotion to
balm-spread over the enflamed areas of
your brain skin
except that it’s
6:47 am, coffee in hand,
your woman slumber rumbles a left over dream,
speechifying, and room, cool conditioned cold,
ignoring notifications of overnight elections,
and a reminder-by-photo where you were this
day seven years ago today, all put asided,
permission ungranted to any distractions,

there will be zero context shifts
til the
spillage of your morn squeaking meager is fully
pillage~d here, it be within my it-takes-no-
village,

@ 6:56 and Whitman is tsk-tsking at the low poetry of my scripting, Hafiz says “hey!
nothing about god or love, what good is that?”

but it’s ok for i’ve emptied the early morning
brain bowels,
defused fusses and asides, tossed asided & there is yet some coffee
remaining but the expiation for having been
reborn this newly birthed day has earned me atonement

for taking up space in this planet
and as of yet, I’ve not stated yet to any, no. all
humans, I hate you ~ but the day is infantile
and opportunity plentiful

@7:03AM
nyc
morning
Wed Nov 8,
in the year of hatred,
a/k/a twenty twenty three.
Sarah Kunz Nov 2016
Cadaverous crotchety gouged out eyes.
Scalped trite and malnourished minds.
Where am I? What has this land become?
My vessel is gutted galled and splayed out upon the enflamed remains of our democracy.
I try to embody the equanimity peaceful   qualities of the lulling Gandhi characters before me...
But ****, I am angry, jolted and saturated in shock in fear.
Being an advocate for the people so dismissively marginalized, is what brings substance to my life.
I look into the eyes of my mirthful clients and future students, my heart winces.
How did I allow this to happen to you?  
A man who so boastfully incinerates and debased the citizens of our land with his farcical vitriol, is no man at all but merely an unsightly shrew, cozily cosseted in his world of soot and pooh.
The bosky gorgeous land we inhabit sobs in noxious fright.
To be despoiled and berated as some "natural right" splintered and tainted to allow the green cash river flow into the dubious maw of the man with no dignity to show.
A man who preens such a degenerated mindset is only aptest to a society in shambles.
Our global haimish home yearns for the equilibrium from which it was born.
In such a seeded tumultuous time my heart is seeped in reverberating sorrow.
Let your love and purity coat your vessel, do not let this barbaric man permeate your soul.
Hold steadfast to the testament of our land
True revolution is budded from a web of genuine connection, not devise brandished weapons.
Don't shroud yourself in misery, break free and be prepared to encite love with your authenticity.
Graff1980 Jul 2015
There is fire in the dance. The head of a candle burning and flickering in time to the dancer’s movement. The flame sways to and fro, responding to the dancer’s energy. Then the candle disappears.  

Blisters begin to bubble up upon the dancer’s skin; then fully formed explode with liquid fire. Screams of agony reverberate across her tortured flesh. Her cries go silent as the pain slowly fades.  The dancer becomes a living flame.

So, she dances.  Each step scorching the soft ground, leaving little fires in their wake. Her legs ascend at an angle and descend in a spin. Hands clasped and rising upwards as her feet return to the earth. The fire trailing her movements like living echoes.  Enflamed arms opening and closing with billows of smoke expanding around them. The ground burns beneath her feet as she leans her head back slowly.

Her face consumed by the flames fury; she attempts to howl. Instead of sound, rivers of crimson liquid explode from her lips. Jets of blood red water congeal into shiny flesh. First, impressions of a face form in the flat flowing puddle of scarlet goo. Then, a neck, next something akin to limbs takes shape.
The red rawness is evident but not painful, as she spews the last bits of the red liquid. Drips of crimson drops from the newly formed figure fall on the flaming dancer. The droplets sounding a soft beat and sizzle in rhythmic fashion like a drum snare; T sss T sss T sss T sss. The flaming dancer shudders in pleasure. The flames, encouraged by the dark moisture, recede then rise, as rouge vapors smoke off its’ figure. The fluid form expands further forming sinuous strands of cerise liquid hair.

Pirouetting in a whirlwind fashion the dancer continues her ballet. Her leg rises again as she leans back. Her head, inches from the ground, drops liquid fire. Then she straightens her tiny flaming frame. Behind her the red watery body slides its hands across the ground, calming the flames, and leaving only scorched and sticky earth in its wake.

So it goes with each movement the dancer lights the earth afire, and behind her the flames are doused. Each minute passing the fire weakens and shrinks as does the scarlet body. Until at last they embrace. The dancer’s arms rest upon her sides as the crimson liquid figure envelopes her.
One more red stroke across the canvass and the figures blend perfectly. One color fading and bleeding into the next in perfect abstraction. The month long dance finally finished. The brush is rinsed then ceremoniously placed in its spot. The artist sighs, there is a slight sense of relief, for this dance is finished, but an echo of sorrow remains for this dance is finished.
Elizabeth Mayo Dec 2012
your mother
was a girl with ashes in her eyes and gold in her nostrils
a chain delicate as autumn leading from ear to the centre
of her heart, of the place where our priest's holy incense found its sole purpose.

I just assumed that she
was a wild wanton that ran through the ashes and dust of the
streets of the market at dust, and she loved and did not love
and not loving made it easier to lay on the tabernacle of a sacred courtesan.

we don't have those anymore
they drove them out screaming, naked, heads shaven
as barren and scorched as the desert in their dying breaths
and Maryam, we don't have those anymore,
the word is not courtesan but *****.

but I took it on faith out of love for you
when you told me with fire in your eyes that your mother
saw the face of God in between the sheets of paper
as a maiden pure, the Egyptian lotus in her secret sweetness only God knew,
Psyche drawing back the veil of Isis, looking at the face of her star-birthing lover.

to love you was to look at the sun
and be burned, enflamed, seared into agony and nothingness
and yet to be clothed in the flesh of the sun anew
and when I wore nothing but the star-strewn gold dusk of my skin
I wore the sacred mantle of a courtesan.
Edna Sweetlove Mar 2015
A famous "Barry Hodges" poem!

I was strolling along the Normandy beaches
In the close vicinity of Caen one day
With a very tasty piece of arm-candy to hand
When I found a bleached human femur on the beach.
Oh dear me, what thoughts this conjured up in my brain
As I imagined whose bone it might have been!
Perhaps some pathetic soldier boy landing in forty-four
Who got slotted by a gallant German gunner,
His eyes feasting on the sacrificial cannon fodder
So foolishly supplied for his target practice.

Then, as I grabbed my lady friend's juicy ****,
Causing her to turn and sink her tongue into my earhole,
We sank onto the sands in order to sate our lusts,
(enflamed by a very delicious meal of *moules marinières

and a bucket or two of well-chilled Muscadet sur Lie)
I thought, what the **** does it all matter?
This is now, and that was then, and this old world
Has become a much nicer place nowadays;
But how mistaken I was in that fond thought;
Oh what an idealist I am in a world of woe.

For, all of a sudden, a contingent of fat dwarfs appeared,
Totally naked apart from their luminous Uncle Sam hats
And the Stars and Stripes hanging from their arseholes;
How I marvelled at their disgusting shapes
(and how surprised was I to find their genitals
were of normal measurements and thus
rather intrusively large by comparison
with the rest of their miniature bodies).
O dear Lord and alleged Father of Mankind
Forgive their horrid ways verily and forsooth.

With a whoop, those demented military retards, [see note below]
The famous 118th battalion ****** Marine veterans,
A contingent of whom emerged from a portable toilet
(which must have been a bit of a tight squeeze),
Chopped my girl-friend up with their bayonets,
Whereupon I crapped myself in terror and pity,
Before retrieving the purse from the eviscerated corpse,
Realizing that her PIN number was still useable
Until 'les flics' discovered her unfortunate remains
After the shore ***** had partaken thereof.
NOTE *: The 118th ****** Marines were a very brave battalion of dwarfs of whom unfortunately 91% drowned on the Normandy beaches on D-Day as the water was too deep for them. Their tiny descendants visit Normandy from time to time to commemorate this sad event and usually get totally rat-arsed on too much Calvados (being gnome-like in stature, they have a smaller capacity to absorb large quantities of *****). It was my bad luck that my visit coincided with one of their trips as their brutality is world-famous and their lack of intelligence is wondrous. They are basically retards and best avoided.
Jade Steen Sep 2013
Suppression
It's been naturally selected over and over and over
Here we are
Can anyone explain why?

Is it just a glitch?
A human gets so mangled they should be dead, but the body can't find a reason to stop
Natural selection had no part
You're already dead
This is just the brain buying time until the body wears down
You're dead weight, humanity can't use someone with memories only
Deformed
Corrupted
Misguided
Abused
You've been molded by all that hurts the species
Rot
Die
But in the meantime
Just forget about it

Go through years numb
Years of paranoia
There can never be an explanation because
What if I'm missing a piece
Or the whole story's right in front of me
There's no sense, no rhyme, just passing time
So I obsess
There must be more

But there could be so much more
When he took me home sick
He picked me up because Mom wasn't home
My brother must have been at school
So, was it just us?
He could strangle Mom and say Brother's ****** in the head
But never a bad word to me

There's the time in kindergarten
I stayed in from recess
And a boy in my class came out of the bathroom
Entirely naked
Teacher was there
What did she say about it?
Why was I staying in the room?

How twisted can the facts get?
Am I just denying you?
Forgetting all you did
And searching for the culprit in suspicious memories of the past
*******, I'll be the one sending someone to life in prison for what my brain wanted to believe

Because you
Well, in the park last week
I was sitting on a bench waiting to see you
As I've done frequently the past year and a half
Which is sick and unsettling
Why do I want to see you?
Am I still seeking all that self destruction you nurtured?
No.
I wanted to tell you a shamefully obvious fact
You ***** me

Seeing as you're chicken wire, stuffed with media and sent out to parade
You wouldn't believe me
There was no dark alley, no knife to my throat, little objection you ever truly heard
Though I don't think we can deny, I never had a good time
I'll reveal to you now
I was being stuffed in a plastic bottle
That's twisted and crinkled
Elephant skin plastic buckling into my face
Aching my body
My self affirmed tears lost in water remnants

Here's where all reality is lost
Here's where my obsession starts
Did I crawl to your vicious manipulative being
Because it was all too familiar?
You're old, you see me as a slaughtered *** cow
Bleeding on the ground my body no longer objecting
You offered promise of corruption
Chaos
Everything that could have been a comforting resemblance to

Suppressed memories

So **** me.
I have no ******* clue.
I never will.

That would be fine
Except now I love
And I am loved
I am so loved

This mind, though
It doesn't know how to love
It knows of ***
It knows *** used to be the closest thing to closeness
Chemicals dropping me into the comfort of careless arms

Now, *** is all part of the closeness
When words are failing
We're suspended in exclamation
I look into your eyes
And if it didn't blind you
I'd grab them
Loving to a point of passionate exasperation
That's when *** comes into play

My mind loves it then
But it loves it all the time
Or
The prospect of it
The undebatable joy I convince myself will follow

But I chewed and clawed and smeared ***
It was a drug
An abuse
An outlet
A torture

Now, I hardly feel passionate or enflamed
I space out
A habit from when I reluctantly passed my body off 2,3,4 times within hours
I can only think of you
Are you enjoying yourself?
Am I attractive enough?
Are you getting bored of me?

But you, I know, only think of me
You care so much
In every aspect
Especially ***, you're so balanced and pure
It drives me up the wall how much I envy it

Although, it's made *** worse
Now i worry about you worrying about me having a good time
Guilt fills up my stomach
Because
I can't enjoy it, not the way you do, I see in your eyes how much it means
And you can tell in my eyes, I'm not too moved
I wish I could act
I try a bit
But that's terrible, I know you'd hate that

******* I should just ******* talk to you. Sorry. It all makes me feel very sick
And
You get so upset I hate it. I hate being the cause of that, I hate having the ability to prevent that and the weakness to still throw all my worries on you.

I'm so stupid.
I love you.
claire May 2015
There are things we come back to:

People we can’t stop loving. Places that sing and sigh. Words gritty and livening inside our mouths. Songs that shake us out of our indifference, make us feel. Those little coffee shops rattling with charming oddities. Stories of scares that turned out to be enjoyable thrills. Photographs where their hands are in yours and you are both beaming. Poetry. Motion. Light.

It’s all the same. All the wonder and heart-twist, all the love and loss.



There are things we come back to.

There are things we come back to, and there is you.



A long time ago, I dreamed of you. Back when everything was uncertain and fantastically, despairingly painful.

In this dream, you looked like the end of one world and the beginning of another. Like a door cracked part of the way open. I wanted to walk through to the other side. I wanted to see what this new world was like. I wanted rebirth. I wanted you. Simply, stupidly.

I’ll never forget the way the night and all its neon lights played with your face. I’ll never forget waking up with a pulse faster than a bird’s, and swinging my legs over the edge of the mattress, and blinking at the wall as I decided it was time to take my poor, engorged heart to the page.

I didn’t write that day. I confessed. I admitted the unadmittable: Love, being in love.  

I erupted.



Tell me to stop romanticizing you and I will be defiant, I will refuse your request.

Tell me to stop rhapsodizing you and I will tell you that I have always done so, have always been composing poems within your orbit, as if, like some kind of Jerusalem, all roads lead to you.

Tell me stop idealizing you and I will say it’s impossible for me, for someone who falls in love with everything raw and good and blooming, for a writer, for a woman who is all blush beneath her sarcasm, all stomach-flutter beneath her carefully arranged neutrality.

Tell me to stop and I will rebel.

I will keep writing you as you exist. Crackling with energy. Sharp, like new ice. Flagrant.

I will keep drawing upon language to arrange as close an image of you as I can possibly come.

I will keep telling all the world how you are collision upon collision of forest and wind, endless.

You cannot stop me.



There are things I come back to.

This (eyes that never fail to see straight through to my core; a laughing mouth; beautiful hands tuning a violin in sun-dusted silence as I watched with my own poised over piano keys, wondering despondently why our duets were always love songs);

and this (a small, privately lovely box of canvases with your trees, star-swirls, phoenix enflamed, and other rising things; two girls, a bookstore, a meeting of souls, a rescue from excruciating loneliness; us sprawled out side by side on an uneven cellar floor beneath the glow of lights strung everywhere, awash in amusement because parties were never something we excelled at);

and this (the moment it all became clear; the answering longing; the brilliance of synergy; the soft and glorious voyage of our hands toward each other; the inevitability of it all).

You, always.

You.
Nat Lipstadt Oct 2013
The young poetess^ writes:

Sitting on the edge of brilliance,
that cuts my youthful pride to shreds,
are the verbal shards of bards,
poets, beyond my experience.

Expelling their lifeblood,
I can, but only,
place my hands upon
their open wounds
murmuring hopeful platitudes,
praying that their blood spilled,
is not their excellence drained,
their wisdom wasted and stained!


The old hoary replies:

Wishful thirsty drinkers
from the cups of youth are we.

We 'presumed' ancient bards
have lived to regret the
burden of our accumulations,
the weightiness of our pages,
owning insights, steeped,
fermented, wine-to-vinegar,
spoiled by age, time-wasted.

Our words, product of visions
grown dim and simp,
under no duress,
we-eager confess!

Better poets were we,
when possessed of
blood hotter, skin smoother,
brow clearer, innocent of fear!

Your eager cuts run
zesty red and freely,
Ours, clotted ones,
anemic, yellowed from
the curse of the boundaries
of too much experience,
purchased pricey rules,
murderers of our uninhibited courage.

You cogitate with
passions unlined, unruled.
We shuffle, bemoan
our drizzling days,
waiting for relief,
and yet, rue
our inevitable conclusion.

We curse our fate, our slow dissolution.

You bless the opportunistic rising sun,
enervated by energies unbounded,
You animate for answers, solutions!

We sit caned and quiet, acidic,
damning Solomon and his caustic words -
There is nothing new under the sun.

Perhaps we know a word or two more than you.
Gladly we'd trade that for youthful hands
that pray, point and scribe, with the eagerness
that sets words upon paper of spirits enflamed!

Time, our master, has shred our writs to pieces,
yet, you young poetess, greet the morn, confident, saying
**today I will give birth to the first of many, masterpieces.
^The Young Poetess - Helen
Hal Loyd Denton Aug 2013
The old country singer set on a bench at the edge of this great lake in the distance the sun was
As a great fire ball it caused a wide golden stream to set in the water between the man and the
Scene it made it was a perfect picture and the gold gleamed on the guitar strings and at that
Moment he began to pick that was when the magic occurred it was a dazzling riveting as
Though sparks flew and it caused his voice to engage from some other place his voice liquid
Gold started a mesmerizing crescendo you could feel the total depths of his pure soul explode
Truly the earth stood still only his voice and a distant whippoorwill could be heard the branches
In the tree were alight and began to sway he began to sing about the sweet sounds of his
Christian mother’s voice his smile grew ever wider boyhood memories filled his eyes and they
Filled with tears his voice was filled with such tenderness the sky grew mild he spoke of the old
Country church and the rough hewn pews and the tough men and kind genteel women that
Filled them this was where the country drew its strength from there piety and prayer it was this
Undeniable riches that was the stalwart ship that kept the country on an even course and he
Sang it that way and a chorus of angels joined in from the truth that he expressed there isn’t a
Mountain high enough that can stop me from my journey now he turned and looked at those
Glorious waters and with a swelling voice he sang all waters he made calm from war and
Difference of skin color he gave love in great abundance it stilled the enflamed and dangerous
Parts of man a great peace was felt across the land it wasn’t political acumen no it was men and
Women crying out we have lost our way please be our stay and guide what rejoicing was felt all
Was well because from trust we made our plea He gladly heard our call and sent the answer He
Was and is the first UN unspeakable peace I found when on Him I did call He knows all of my
Needs if I will just bring them to Him in prayer how simple we don’t need an apparatus we only
Need a ruler that has proven His ability time and time again you want to clean up Wall Street
And banks then shift your allegiance from that which is unprofitable to a sure thing I heard it in
A song and what blessing I know all is secure when I take all to him in prayer He calms all my
Fears and alarms I have sweetest peace hell vanished the day I said Heavenly Father I humbly
Said I’m not able it’s your job anyway and with one thunder clap of His word everything was set
Right now I dwell in ultimate care and peace sing it friend and tell it true because truth will set
You free!
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2015
dying and living in a pantheon
~


a dusty storage place
for basement keepsakes,
somewhere out back,
full of emeritus stocking stuffers,
an ex-trendy,
royalty-dethroned room

where kept
ancient scriveners,
last year's flash frozen princesses and
plastic wrapped scribes,
cloud stored,
on soft decaying hard drives

prior renters, leases unrenewed,
now pushed aside,
upcoming upstanding upstarts,
looking to trade up,
let bigger quarters,
an existential reminder,
that in the word game,
no perm-press recognition,
in today's poetry biz,
it's what ya done lately

deaf dumb blind,
unsung former idols,
talk to mirrors
that no longer answer,
dial 1-800-pantheon,  
sorry, number no longer in service,
so you voyageur-visit
the other side of Styx,
a bluff overlooking
a body's work,
where glory fleeting
comes to rest,
where time judges well,
partiality impartial,
selects thy best

author an audience of sole one
that be more than
good and plenty,
a heaping teaspoon of sufficient,
glance back at discarded, outdated maps,
glory may transit
but satisfaction eternal,
when you read the old writes thinking
****, did I write this?
"Yes," answers a creased smile
cracking crusted lips

~~~~~

then blood of pride and satisfy, rejuvenates

chest warms, heart thumps,
quill beckons, tablet charges - jot hot

write for whom the bell tolls,
knowing full well
this raucous bell tolls for thee,
you re-become an
irrational ill-defined room possessed

heat,
this realized, fevered and fervent, physical pleasure,
sensory gladness,
the fat fullness of creation,
flooded breathable sunlight,
stormy uncalming indigo waters,
a natural disquietude beckons,
arousal of an old-friend welcoming

this encompassing emotion,
no-direction-known fearful commotion,
your mind, all skin,
tissues enflamed,
your ears speak,
your tongue listens,
five senses unified in
disheartened happy discordant perfection,
this you recognize,
this familiar,
is not a storage place
this, your true everlasting pantheon


glory glory - expel thy word works,

*the burnishing of fain fame
is not walled jailed,
but in-deed
actionable and transitory best honored,
peaks of mountainous-emotions, homeland, motherland,
recording, recoding in words-vision notions,
this is the one,
the inky clarity pantheon place
of the living poet
Night of the kettle drum roll
Of black shrouds enflamed with
jagged prosecution
Of the gray coyote disoriented with invisible
confusion
Twilight of the elements hurtling a thousand miles an
hour
Night of the ever constant fight for power
Copyright April 28 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Alex McDaniel Oct 2014
From his balcony above a man watches down on a little town in Missouri,  
he pinpoints a bleak silver container as it slingshots into the darkening shadows above.

It yells to him,
"help, get me out of this awful place."
A trial of slate grey smoke follows the container as if it were it's overly attached mother and within a second pulls it back down into the atmosphere.
After descending the container skids across a schoolyard, rolls off the sidewalk and crakes into minuscule pieces.
From the cracks tear gas spills out in all directions covering the once quiet little down in terror, relinquishing it of any tranquility that remained.

The man on the balcony sits and observes the events that have unfolded.
From his perch he can not tell black from white.
He can not tell man from women.
Turban from top hat,
child from elder.
he can not see if interlocked hands declaring their love and denouncing death that blares from police megaphones, are hetero
or ****.
He can not see who's pride is enflamed by blue uniforms
or who's mouth's are covered by dew rags to prevent themselves from speaking a death sentence.

The gas covers it all.

He can only hear footsteps running away,
guns shots following the footsteps,
and unfinished prayers as bodies stain the side walk.

In this moment,
the chess game of life becomes not black versus white
but human versus human.
And the man wonders, from his balcony above,
why it must take weapons that destroy equality,
to make us see each other as equal.
https://twitter.com/alex_mcdaniel40
Travis Green Nov 2018
There was a blazed beat beneath
my feet, hard rumbling sounds
knifed and ******, slammed,
a smoked gunshot enflamed
with anger and pain, harboring
hurricanes whirling a crazed
chaos, a smashed sea of squared
thoughts, stormy and ravaged
depths, crime damaged breaths,
scarred imperfections exploding
in gushing bruises, beaten bridges
and existences, unstable and
disabled, a flaming brain of
scorched sunrises,beyond
blackened worlds, a slashing
rhyme with no goodbyes.
A lovely melodious flowing could be heard
Throughout the radiant air
From the window near where the river empties
Into the grass growing  
Tall and fair

I deemed it was coming and going
Soft and slow in my memory
As I could not feel my heart wildly beating
Within the degree
This flow
Was reaching

Surely it would have taken me onto a path which cleared my heart
As it flowed into my ears and fondest desires
Yet I sat there in the shadowy dark
Enflamed by incandescent
Tears of fire

A living being sitting by the fireside of my own making
Did not see the peaceful eyes of the flow
Bringing to me solitude in a melodious overflowing
That I should have grasped
And held inside
My soul
Copyright *Neva Flores @2010
www.changefulstorm.blogspot.com
www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/Changefulstorm
jeffrey robin Jul 2010
and "spoken for" still

the young hippie boy
the young hippie girl

cursed by the killer mouths on teevee
blamed for it all

let these liars rot in hell

be true child
always

be true always
to yourself

better to die  self enflamed
then to live like a pig in amerikka

better to die with the truth on your tongue
than to live like a pig in amerikka
Tommy Jun 2014
I know because I am, just as you are not.
And you can ask me why I did it,
How I could have committed such an act
Of cruelty, of violence and of brutality,
And I will tell you it is in my nature.
I am a carnivore
And I will eat away at you until there is nothing left.

And you can tell whoever you want
Who is responsible for your undoing,
You can shout it on high
But know that they will never listen
You can scream until your throat is raw, enflamed
And red as the blood which stains your hands
But every time you will be met with silence
As you realise you no longer exist
I am winning this battle.

Just as I was not born for that life,
You were not born for yours,
And she was not born to live a life of sorrow and struggle
We are one,
And we will become even stronger
And I will fight for my life to enforce that,
I will fight as she could not
As all the strength was drained from her
And that light flickered in her eyes
Before fading away,
And leaving her a lifeless bag of bones.

You’re frightened now that you’re losing this war,
You see your power slip through your fingers
But it was naïve to think you could have won;
You are but a small mind and we are the rest.
And you should know that we will show you no mercy,
Just as you were taught from your father,
And his father and his father,
The old men who ruled the world.
But our time is coming,
And we will know real freedom.
Whether or not it requires taking your life,
Is irrelevant.
Mitchell Jul 2014
The whole
Thing started from dropping
The wrong name
At
The wrong time.

"And
How do you know
Adam?"

"Who?" She asked, stepping back. A look
Of horror was painted on her already
Heavily painted face.

"Adam...the guy's who's throwing
This party..."

I knew
I had made
An error.

"Who will pay?"
I thought.

"I'm throwing this party," she hissed, "Who
The **** is ADAM?"

I answered instantly.

"The guy manning
The grill with the Acapulco shirt
And yellow pineapple sunglasses. He
Said he organized and is
Running this whole thing..."

If an Australian wolverine mixed with
A Bay area Marina girl combined and birthed
Their rage into a single ball of high-powered,
impenetrable violence, bent only to destroy
Only who had crossed them well, that is what I witnessed
That night.

Her pupils
Became enveloped in a hot rose red.

Her cheeks, which had been
A pretty pink rouge color just a minute before,
Instantly switched into a purplish, slug-like color.

The blood within looked to be
Literally
Churning.

At one point, I swear I saw smoke coming
From her ears while her lips shook so bad I thought
She was going to ***** bile.

I didn't say another word.

I let her pass.

There was nothing I could do.

She put his face
In
The grill.

What I mean by "in the grill" is
That she whipped the metal grate off barehanded,
Proceeded to grab a very
Surprised Adam, and shoved his face
Into a searing ashy pie of red hot coals.

If it were a pie,
Everyone would have laughed, but because
It was red-hot-coals hotter than fire,
Everyone screamed.

I've never heard a man howl so loud.
It sounded like a million new born babies crying
When he hit the fresh summer grass.

A few girls screeched in fear, but everyone else
Gasped, looked at Aimee (the name of the actual
Thrower of the party), and took a few steps back.

No one was sure what she would do next.
And then,
She did.

"YOU PIECE OF MOOCHER
****!" she screamed.
Her eyes had washed over
Completely black.

I stood behind the screen door between
A shivering 1st string linemen who played for
The ducks and a pre-law major. Pre-law had
Wet himself at the sight of Adams meeting
With the coals. He didn't even make an
Effort to cover it up.

There was no shame anywhere anymore.

"YOU COME MY HOUSE, TO MY
N-E-I-G-H-B-O-R-H-O-O-D, AND YOU
HAVE THE ******* AUDACITY
TO SAY YOU'RE THROWING THIS PARTY!"

"Hey Aimee, I think
He's really hurt..." her friend
Tried to say. Aimee whipped
Her hand back and
Caught the poor ******* the lip.
It split instantly and she let out a
desperate cry. She whimpered and
Slunk back to whatever corner she
Had come from.

"IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR SLIMY LEACH
*** OUTTA' HERE NOW, I'LL POOR THESE
******* COALS OVER YOUR **** CORPSE!"

Adam tried to say something, anything, but
All that came out was a slow whimper.
It sounded like 0"help...me..."

No one dared move.

Then, she kneeled down and got
Very close to him. His face was
The texture of
Cheap, overcooked steak.

Her voice was quiet as
She spoke,

"And if you dare tell the cops
About this," she whispered, "I'll find
You. These are all my friends, you
Understand?"

Adam didn't say anything.
His eyes were locked on the ground.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND YOU
LITTLE PIG ****! I'LL GUT YOU LIKE
A POMEGRANATE!
PIECE BY ******* PIECE!"

She exhaled. She calmed down. Her eyes fluttered
As she threw her hair back, regaining
Her composure.

Then she began again,
"Do you understand?"

"Yeshhh," Adam struggled to say.
A piece of skin
Was hanging off his scorched lip,
Interrupting his speech.

"I didn't quite get that," she said,
Almost apologizing.

She got closer,
Reached for the dangling piece
Of skin, and viciously ripped it clean
From Adam's face
Like a child would a band-aid.

"OHHHHHHHHHHH!"
We all yelled.

Adam screeched another
Furies howl and rolled over onto
His back. "I UNERSTAND! I UNERSTAND!
I UNERSTAND!" He wasn't
Able to pronounce the D, but Aimee
Looked to be letting it slide.

"Good," Aimee said simply, "Now,
GET THE **** OUTTA' HERE!"

A tiny guy in a ducks
beanie and board shorts struggled
To pick Adam up. Adams
Eyes had rolled to the back of his head
And his breathing looked to be
Getting dangerously shallow.

He had ****** himself too.

The tiny guy and what looked to be
His probably now ex-girlfriend got him out
The back gate, onto the street, and into
A car. I don't think they would
Be calling the cops on Aimee.
For their sake, I hoped they told the emergency room
He had tripped and fell into the grill.

Aimee looked around at
All the stunned faces of her party.

She grinned, revealing
A very attractive row
Of perfectly white teeth.

"WHO NEEDS A SHOT!" Aimee screamed.

There was a pause. All
Was as still as the graveyard
Up the street.
That reminded me of a story a friend
Had told me.

He had decided to do mushrooms
After a hard rain. Being high, he
Needed something to do. He went on
A walk and while walking, passed
A graveyard, the graveyard I was thinking of.

He stripped down to his tighties
And bathed in the mud of the graves.
I remembered asking him if he was scared
While he did this. "No," he laughed.
I asked him why and he answered frankly,
"Even the dead need to bath."

Behind the screen door, I instinctively wooed.
It's like a knee-**** reaction. I didn't even really
Want to take a shot. I wanted to leave, badly.

"YOU!" she screeched.
Her dagger finger was pointed
directly at me.

"YOU AND ME
ARE TAKING
A SHOT!"

I looked over my shoulder, to the left and
Right of me, but there was no one there.
The spineless **** and pissy-pants leech
Were gone.

Aimee marched toward me. Her eyes
were Enflamed with the intense need
To drown out whatever she had done in the past
With highly toxic amounts of alcohol.

She grabbed me by the arm and
Tossed me in the kitchen.

"Tequila..?" she asked, "Or whiskey?"

I bead of sweat
Slid down my
Brow.

The answer felt as if it could
Determine
The rest
Of my life.

"How bout' both?" I managed to say.

She eyed me down.
I think she thought
I was trying to make fun of her but then,
She saw
I was serious.

"I love you," she said.

"Let's drink," I told her.

And that's how

I met my

Ex-wife.
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
Up and out
Through tinted pane
Exhausted and drawn
To the crimson moon
Raw and impassioned
***** and enflamed
Like good conversation
From the night before
Travis Dixon Aug 2010
I feel the changes.
They’re scary but I’m keeping calm.
Panic is good for no one.
Life is exhilarating.
You have to move with it, not against.
The hard part is figuring out which way you’re going.
But it doesn’t matter; we’re going wherever the hell we’re going,
so you’d better pay attention to the ride.

You mustn’t fight your unique way of life.
It is yours and you chose it for a reason.
Accept that you are exactly where you’re supposed to be.
All is well in the universe.
Suffering is the struggle to accept change.
Accept change with an easy laugh and the suffering goes away.
The synchronicity of life is part of the joy of shared existence.
It proves to us daily that solipsism is but a selfish naiveté.
We have never been alone, even in the depths of our loneliest nights.

True, we feel apart,
but it’s merely an illusion,
the sleight of distraction
spurned by our need
to generate income, which feeds
our fears & desires,
coddled & enflamed
by a fierce media
creating dreams
for others to buy or believe in
but hopefully both
because then
the machine
churns
faster.

No blame.
Forgive, then remember.

We’ve a break, a recession or depression,
or whatever session you want to call it,
it’s reality — you get what you pay for.
You make an honest living or invite problems down the line.
A problem is still a problem even if you postpone it.
They don’t just disappear; you fix them.

Each problem is unique in structure,
the way it weighs upon you,
the ins & outs of unknown routes
& dark “what ifs” that persist like cysts
in the back of your mind, little vortexes
spinning wildly about, ******* us in
when we get lazy & distracted.

But it’s not all hard, not all the time.
Some problems are like puzzles that are fun to solve,
which may be why we have so many lying about.
The problem is that instead of solving puzzles
we should be loving each other.

Unconditional love isn’t easy, but that’s part of the work.
Some say no good deed goes unpunished.
That’s part of the work too.
Invite the life you love,
not the one you hate.
Every choice you make in life
carries the balance of this weight.
Mitchell Oct 2012
Negative funds on rock bed foundations
The faucet has grown leaky
And my soul has grown tarnished in the rain
The mental connections thin - well spoken when drunken

Life is the low down
***** work here or
Go South for the dirtier
The roads are all monitored
By electric lights & satellites

Freedom's taken
A vacation down in Florida
Where the water is warm, the
Women don't mind if you buy them drinks, and
The men are always willing to fight

I took the wrong turn somewhere
I've lost my map
My head's night right
The street lamps flicker dead
I am walled up naked in this night

Animal that we are
The greedy vermin for material and survival
A truth so terrifying and blissful
Confrontation is on the forefront of our tongues
Mankind has been in a permanent state of repression

The world makes us into Beasts
Yet we make the world what it is
We are to blame and we are not
A priest whispers to me in the confession booth
The only way to win in this world is to sin

A son lost in search of the man
Who - by conscious choice or not - brought
Him into this God forsaken mess
A message sought but lost in the wind

To be set free by a physical truth
Where in the end
We are bitter tasting worm feed
Dust that settles on the boots of workmen
Stories told for the illusion of love & greatness

But, also, we revolve into
The sunlight whose rays
Flutters the eyelashes
Of children at play in the garden

Holy harmony enflamed in liquid
Intoxication - A refuge for the knowing
****** and outcasts sworn to a physical
Upheaval of new-age enlightenment whose
Holy hipsters of old meets the new of today

The blood is what matters
Regret is thick like it
A moan in the dark to call out
In repose where only silence is given,
Not as a consolation, but a warning of
Love and the delicate fall to Hate

I have sworn myself to this place
My finger prints my guilty proof
A touch of blood my deposit
My life on the road impurities aloof
Avegail Marie Apr 2014
WE WILL STOP WRITING **** POEMS WHEN WE RUN OUT OF MATERIAL BUT UNTIL THEN WE WILL CONTINUE TO SAY WHAT NEEDS TO BE SAID TO THOSE WHO REALLY NEED TO HEAR IT BECAUSE THE HALT IN THE FLOW OF THE SCARLET RIVER DOES NOT MEAN WE ARE WEARING SCARLET LETTERS
DON'T EXPECT ME TO BREAK MY BONES FOR YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT MY BONES BREAKING, MY HEAD SHAKING, AND MY HEART QUAKING
I AM SORRY THAT I AM ATHENA

I AM SMILING BECAUSE I CAN AND MY LIPS ARE NOT ENFLAMED FROM KISSING YOUR *** BUT FROM KISSING THE BOY WHO TOLD ME HE LOVED ME FROM THE BOTTOM OF HIS HEART, NOT THE TIP OF HIS ****,  AND MEANT IT
I AM LAUGHING AT YOUR VIRGINITY THAT YOU ARE SO PROUD OF BECAUSE MINE NEVER EXISTED, AND NEITHER DID THOSE OF YOUR BELOVED ADAM AND EVE
AND I AM ATHENA

AS MY SCARLET RIVER BEGINS TO FLOW AGAIN, THE HANDS OF GOD RETRACT BACK TO THE SHADOWS HE IS NOT HER GOD, BUT HERR GOD
MY BAD FOR THINKING THAT HE WAS OURS
I SHOULD NOT BE LIVING IN FEAR BECAUSE I AM ATHENA

THE PATRIARCH QUESTIONS MY BODY AND MAKES ME ASHAMED OF MY NATURAL ANATOMY
AND I AM SORRY THAT MY BODY UNDERGOES PROCESSES AS NATURAL AS ******* PHOTOSYNTHESIS
BUT IT'S NOT MY FAULT THAT YOU FORGOT THAT THE LAST TIME YOU ****** OFF
BUT DON'T FORGET THAT I AM ATHENA
GO AHEAD AND COMPLAIN ABOUT MY ENDLESS PREACHING BUT THIS IS NOT MY FIRST **** POEM AND IT IS DEFNITIELY NOT MY LAST
BECAUSE THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE SAID WHEN ROBIN THICKE CAN SAY HE HAS A BIG **** YET I CANNOT WEAR A SPAGHETTI STRAP TO SCHOOL
AND GOD FORBID I HAVE TO *** AT A PARTY, YOU'LL JUST POISON ME INTO YOUR SHEETS
AND IF BY CHANCE I MAKE IT OUT OF THAT PARTY ALIVE, I CAN'T WALK DOWN THE STREET AT NIGHT WITHOUT MY KEYS SCRAPING THE CREVICES OF MY FINGERS
REMEMBER WHEN NO MEANT NO? AND STOP DID NOT MEAN GO?
I AM ATHENA BECAUSE I NEED TO BE PLEASE DON'T TURN INTO HEPHAESTUS
brandon nagley Jul 2015
In these closely quarter's called apartments....
There's a porch right next to me
Third floor

There is a man named Anthony
Thirties in age or so,
Mine neighbor girl is who he's friends with
Yet friends he doth not seeketh....

He doth not liveth here
Yet myswell sayeth he doth...

The girl next to me
Dallas ( her name)
Isn't with Anthony
( as I said) just friends....
But I just saw Dallas bring over a guy friend...

As Anthony's outside taking a hit of his light drag in hurtful motion....

I canst seeith the pain that holds his face up
Like a lantern to a flame....
I seeith his hearts enflamed...

Though knowing him and Dallas art ust friend's..  
What canst the man do?

As I seeith him take a heavied puff
Blowing out all of his pains through the tobacco misty....

I seeith he dreaded going back inside
As his heart was screaming
( GET OUT, SHES MINE *****)
He kept his head hung low

As if going to the gallows.....
Alexandria Hope Oct 2014
Now you know that I’m just a borderline
I’ll kick you out when my bloodstreams flow
Even if a firm hand on mine could stem it,
I let you in only to tickle the sinew and marrow
But I love you, true, you’re my only glass case
Needing you to borrow all my pain,
I pinned your wings and made you taste
The bile of my noncommittal pendulum again, again.
Between the tumult of self hatred and desire’s embrace
That dark dysphoria you found in seeing me
Enflamed loss when I left the mire of us
Without a battle calm instilled at the seams
Allowing our hearts in the rolls of our sleeves
We are dangerous.
For Cathy and Marc,



The orchid wakes up to the rising Sun
And the aster shines on her his purest lights
She asks, with her blinding smile
“Say, am I the prettiest among flowers?”

And she opens up to him with her light veil
Whose diamond-like reflections are seen on this nuptial cloth
On her wet petals, the dew still falls down
Their hearts are linked, fusional like gold…

The Sun’s enflamed sight desires her
Singing a sweet lullaby to her ears
His honey-like chant reaches her
Empowered, she intensely charms him…

And the beloved dear feels a burning stream
Burning her like a radiating ray
The Earth witnesses in a new gleam of a morning
Two creatures of passion, in the wind, kissing…

To please them, a party is organized
To their wedding, everyone must be around them
They made sure to look sharp taking part
Happy witnesses, so in Love they can depart!

To you, listeners of this ode to life
Did you get the meaning of my rime?
The Flower incarnates the beautiful bride
And the Sun, her groom, his pride!

Translated on August 24 2015
1st place, Arthur Rimbaud prize, “Jeux Floraux du Béarn” (French poetry contest), 2009

— The End —