Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Benji James Sep 2018
I'm going to write this one in blood
Just so you know it's straight from my heart
Where should I begin, where do I start?
Let me fill a new page with art
This was written in the dark
By the candlelight spark
****** ink spilt across the page
With all these things
That I just have to say
It all comes bursting out my chest
Just so you know I mean what it is that's said
So that this can all heal and mend

I'm sorry for the way
I let you down
In your emotions
I let you drown
I'm sorry for not speaking out
When you clearly needed sound
Someone to just say it's all gonna be okay
I just looked the other way
Only cared about me
And now that thought plagues my conscience
I'm sorry that I am stuck in selfish ways
Only thinking of my own feelings
And not much of yours
I'm sorry that I couldn't save you in ways that you had pictured
You thought that I'd be different
I let you walk that lonely road
Ignorant to your hurt
Our lives drifted in different directions
Now you're somewhere out there
beyond my detection
Just hope these sorries find their way to you

I'm going to write this one in blood
Just so you know it's straight from my heart
Where should I begin, where do I start?
Let me fill a new page with art
This was written in the dark
By the candlelight spark
****** ink spilt across the page
With all these things
That I just have to say
It all comes bursting out my chest
Just so you know I mean what it is that's said
So that this can all heal and mend

I'm an ocean of emotions
When we hit rough seas
That's when you don't see
The best parts of me
I'm sorry in my anger
I can get violent
Sometimes I just can't stay silent
I lose control when this rage stays caged
And that is one of my greatest flaws
Hurt people that mean so much to me
Out of anger and stupidity
I'm sorry for the bruises and marks
I'm sorry for all the hurting parts
I'm sorry for the damaged soul
I'm sorry I lost control of my thoughts
Let rage overpower,
still, decisions made in moments of regret
These are moments that weren't my best
Maybe that's why they say rage is blind
Cuz we don't see in those moments
What we become, It's only after it is done

I'm going to write this one in blood
Just so you know it's straight from my heart
Where should I begin, where do I start?
Let me fill a new page with art
This was written in the dark
By the candlelight spark
****** ink spilt across the page
With all these things
That I just have to say
It all comes bursting out my chest
Just so you know I mean what it is that's said
So that this can all heal and mend

I'm sorry for all the missed signs
and all of the misinterpreted lines
I'm sorry to those that I've offended
I'm sorry to those I couldn't connect with
I'm sorry that sometimes I struggle to find the line
I cross that thing a lot of the time
I'm sorry for the worries
I'm sorry for the tears
I'm sorry for filling you with fears
I'm sorry for the times I just couldn't bring myself to write
I'm sorry for all the failed lines
And mediocre rhymes
I'm sorry this took me a long time

I'm going to write this one in blood
Just so you know it's straight from my heart
Where should I begin, where do I start?
Let me fill a new page with art
This was written in the dark
By the candlelight spark
****** ink spilt across the page
With all these things
That I just have to say
It all comes bursting out my chest
Just so you know I mean what it is that's said
So that this can all heal and mend

Dear me, are you listening...
Most of all I'm sorry to you
And for all the things I've put myself through
I'm sorry for tearing myself apart for art
I'm sorry for holding out air from my lungs
I'm sorry for all the times that I've looked in the mirror
Only to call me ugly, a monster, a freak
Frequent hate to which most can relate
I'm sorry for all the self-loathing
I'm sorry for the sleepless nights
And the endless fights inside my own mind
I'm sorry for saying, I'll never be enough
I'm sorry for not being able to let myself love

I'm going to write this one in blood
Just so you know it's straight from my heart
Where should I begin, where do I start?
Let me fill a new page with art
This was written in the dark
By the candlelight spark
****** ink spilt across the page
With all these things
That I just have to say
It all comes bursting out my chest
Just so you know I mean what it is that's said
So that this can all heal and mend

I'm sorry to the girls
Who wanted my love
I couldn't return the love they gave
Cuz I didn't feel the same way
I'm sorry to the friends that I cut off
I only did what I thought was best
I'm sorry that this life of mine is still a mess
I'm sorry to the girls that I hurt with words
Out of jealousy or rejection
I'm sorry for the lyrics that I wrote about you
May have been something said that hurt
I'm sorry I take so long to learn

I'm going to write this one in blood
Just so you know it's straight from my heart
Where should I begin, where do I start?
Let me fill a new page with art
This was written in the dark
By the candlelight spark
****** ink spilt across the page
With all these things
That I just have to say
It all comes bursting out my chest
Just so you know I mean what it is that's said
So that this can all heal and mend

I'm sorry that in my weakness I want to die
I'm sorry that I struggle with this life
I'm sorry for all the crazy things that cross my mind
I'm sorry for all the broken promises
I'm sorry I haven't achieved any of my dreams
I'm sorry that I'm inconsistent
I'm sorry that I claim I'm a victim
I'm sorry for the times I don't accept the blame
I'm sorry for the jokes I made that were lame
I'm sorry that this song is full of sorries
I'm sorry to all those people I've wronged
I'm sorry to myself for never feeling real love
I'm sorry for having no faith in a god above

I'm going to write this one in blood
Just so you know it's straight from my heart
Where should I begin, where do I start?
Let me fill a new page with art
This was written in the dark
By the candlelight spark
****** ink spilt across the page
With all these things
That I just have to say
It all comes bursting out my chest
Just so you know I mean what it is that's said
So that this can all heal and mend

©2018 Written By Benji James
It's taken me so long to write something completely new, but I finally did it, I sat myself down and finally just gathered some motivation to finally finish something. :P
Sophia Granada Nov 2012
Sweet-lipped Psyche's pale white skin
All the men in Greece dragged in.
And the poor girl's dark brown eyes
Led Aphrodite her to despise.
For Psyche truly was a beauty,
Reputed as brighter than Aphrodite.
If Aphrodite was a dark red rose,
Of which we've written poetry and prose,
Psyche was a pure-white Aganisia
For which they wrote a deep-sea saga.
But she knew it was sore unwise
To find herself level with a Goddess' eyes.
The only proof needed for Psyche
Was the sad fate of the maiden Arachne,
Who challenged Athena to a weaving contest,
And though her tapestry was judged the best,
It was she that ended as the melancholy loser,
For Athena punished her with the life of a spider.
And so it was that Psyche knew
Aphrodite wold claim her life too.
So Aphrodite sent her son,
The lovely, winged, holy one,
Whose golden arrows fly at night
And relieve bored lovers of their plights.
She sent Eros to shoot his arrow
And pierce it through to Psyche's marrow,
Then set before her a crocodile,
The scaly terror of the Nile,
With which she'd fall in love straightway,
And then she'd come to rue the day.
For crocodiles have no love to give,
So it would eat her, and she'd cease to live.
On the sleeping Psyche Eros descended,
Long before the night had ended,
In whose dainty breast to shove
A golden arrow poisoned with love.
He prepared to bury it to the hilt,
But a drop of love on him was spilt,
At the moment he saw her eyes, dark brown,
Look to him and stare him down.
Then Eros went back to his mother
And told her he could not wed another
Who did not shine quite so brightly
As his sweet-lipped brown-eyed Psyche.
So spiteful Aphrodite cursed
Psyche through her red lips pursed,
That the girl would find no husband
Among God, animal, or man.
And Eros this so greatly angered
He could no more with arrows linger
At the foot of lovers' beds
To foster love in their young heads.
The entire world then ceased to love
Whether it walked on foot or hoof.
Whether it swam or flew on wing
It could not love nor gain others' loving.
When love no longer circulated,
Aphrodite it aggravated
To see her temple lying bare
And to feel the gray growing in her hair.
She told Eros he'd have what he desired
If only he would kindle love's fires.
So at the mountain, Psyche's family offered her
And she was borne away on the back of Zephyr
To Eros' golden gay abode
That he and his ghostly servants called home.
In the golden rooms she wandered by daylight,
But she lay with Eros in the dark when came night.
She knew not who her darling was,
But called her ignorance a test of trust.
Never to look upon him by day,
She continued in this way,
Until she longed to visit her family,
Which her husband granted her gladly.
But he held her, and he warned her
Not to let her sisters persuade her.
"They may try to tear you away
By telling you gruesome stories." he'd say.
Then, trippingly, from Olympus she jumped down
To walk the streets of her hometown.
She told her sisters her whole story
And they turned it into something gory.
"He could be a serpent," they'd say,
"Fattening you up for the day
When he can pop you in his mouth and eat you"
Unfortunately, she took their words as true.
"So, when he comes to you at night,
Just gaze on him by candlelight!
If he's a serpent, use this knife,
And you'll no longer be his wife.
But make sure not to spill the oil,
Or his waking will cause great turmoil!
We'll find out about that young buck!
Use the candle, the knife, don't spill, and good luck!"
She walked back to the palace at their behest,
Butterflies banging within her chest.
Could the faceless man with whom she'd spent her nights
Be revealed as a serpent by candlelight?
She did not have to wait for long
To prove her treacherous sisters wrong.
As she lay in the great soft bed,
The instructions tangled inside her head,
And lighting the candle, she almost fumbled,
But when she saw his face, she truly stumbled!
Eros' beauty knocked her senseless,
Leaving mortal Psyche defenseless,
And causing her to spill the oil, which smoldered
On Eros' godly golden shoulder.
He, awaking with a start
Was disappointed to his heart
That Psyche cold be so unfaithful
And make a decision so egregiously fatal.
Then, jumping from the casing, he flew
Out of Psyche's lustful view.
And she, for her part, suddenly found
That from the palace she'd been cast down
To a field of which she had no memory,
Or very dim, if she had any.
In despair, she began to flounder,
Then resigned herself to wander
Until she came to a temple edifice,
Which was, on Earth, Aphrodite's face,
And begged the unseen Goddess hear her out,
Trying her patience with childish whining shouts.
Aphrodite, trying only to divert,
Cast a basket of grains down to the dirt,
And told the weeping lovely malcontent
That if she sorted the grains 'fore day was spent,
She just may see her sweetheart once again.
All she had to do was sort the grain.
But Psyche, though her fingers were dainty and thin,
To separate the grains could not begin,
And sobbing, lay upon the stony floor
That was as cold as the Goddess had acted before.
The ants, which had been drawn to the golden grain,
Bore her load and relieved her of her pain.
In their famously sure and straight black line,
They each picked up a piece of grain so fine
That it might with ease pass through a needle,
And into order they the sweet grain wheedled.
Then at the very setting of the sun,
Aphrodite found the task was done,
And though she praised the poor girl outwardly,
Inside she felt the bloom of hate for Psyche.
So she set her down on one side of a stream,
Where on the other was a field of green,
In which lived Helios' golden sheep
From which she was to obtain some shining fleece.
Then Aphrodite left her there to play,
And flew to Mount Olympus far away.
But Flumen, God of Rivers, raised his head
To warn sweet Psyche from his riverbed
That the sheep were so fierce, if she but pulled one hair,
They'd all turn on her and eat her then and there.
It was better if she waited 'til midday
When the sheep lay down to sleep the heat away.
Then she could cross where the river rushes,
And pick the wool that had got caught in the bushes.
So Psyche followed Flumen's good advice,
And for Aphrodite's cruelty she paid no price.
Aphrodite's blood boiled when she saw
That Psyche had survived it after all.
Again, she tried to send her to her death
And charged her to collect water from a cleft
Which mortal humans could not enter,
And in which serpents would surely spend her.
But now it was an eagle came to her aid,
Who stormed inside and flew between the snakes,
Then picked a pouch of water in its beak,
And back out of the cleft to Psyche it sneaked.
Aphrodite, at her dastardly wit's end,
Devised a horrible place for her to Psyche send.
"Psyche, caring for my ailing son
Has drained each drop of beauty, every one,
From my former glory of a face.
Therefore, I command you to that place
Where Persephone dwells. Then you must beg
For some of her beauty, just a tiny dreg.
Then you may have my son, I give my promise,
As holding him from you has marred my face."
Then Psyche, with tears streaming from her eyes,
Decided the only way there was to die.
In what she had appointed her fatal hour,
She climbed up to the top of a high tower,
But her melancholy was so disturbingly great,
All the Universe moved to it abate,
So that the very tower she climbed upon,
Awoke and spoke to her as if a person.
"Psyche, there is a way to the Underworld alive,
So that you need not from my roofing dive."
And to the Underworld the tower gave her
A route and some directions just to save her,
Then it sternly warned her that not of meat,
Nor of anything but bread in Hades could she eat.
So she followed the Tower's path back down
And disappeared into the heaving ground.
And when she found herself before Persephone's throne
She asked to take a parcel of her beauty home,
Which the emotionless Queen of the Screaming ******
Without word placed in Psyche's quivering hand.
The hardest part of the impossible task being done,
Psyche headed back up toward the sun,
And, reasoning that she was to see her beloved before nightfall,
Decided to use some beauty from the parcel.
Inside she found not beauty, but a stifling sleep,
Which forever in its clutches would she keep
If Eros had not chancely happened by,
And wiped Persephone's sleep from Psyche's eye.
Then, carrying her on his back, he barged
Into the Hall of the Olympian Gods.
He bade them let him wed himself and Psyche
And disregard the protests of Aphrodite.
Then Jupiter, indeed, allowed it obligingly,
For he was a man who greatly enjoyed a party.
Ambrosia she was given so to seal
Her immortality and place her among the surreal.
Then after many years of love and laughter,
Psyche bore Hedone, their lovely daughter.
This is how the beauty of the Human Soul,
Triumphed over the beauty of lust and gold.
All this Eros and Psyche had to take.
All this they endured for their love's sake.
They demonstrate the purity of love,
That is admired by Gods above.
In the end, it is the pure Mariposa
Who is more deserving of ambrosia.
WE that have done and thought,
That have thought and done,
Must ramble, and thin out
Like milk spilt on a stone.
jayellen May 2017
i spilt tea on my floor
tonight
and it reminded me of you
the way the sticky sweet
coated each tile
the way it stuck to my skin
like an undeniable sin
like you
suicidal tendencies
with starved remedies
breathe me in like a camel ninety nine
i parch your mouth
and chap your lips
like a deceitful crime
i am the sound of silence
that plasters your room
you sit there like it's your
self-proclaimed tomb
and i sit here awaiting
a silent conversation
to resume
my thoughts are absurd
and obscured
and they twist and churn
rarely settling
as though they are waters post stir
i do not like being less than
and i am afraid i am never more than
and i'm always settling
for less than
because i am
less than
hot tea sticks to my lips
and i can feel a death sentence on
my tongue
and it tastes like ***
mixed with ***** and wine
and i cannot comprehend why
i would make such a drink
but i cannot comprehend
why i do much of
anything
you say i am thunder
that you love the sound of me
but in my wake you blunder
and i realize
how i am a horror story
that you shoved with the rest of
the skeletons in your closet
and i realize
i reek the most
instigated arguments
tearing parchments
isolated little girl
i am alone
i am alone
i am alone
i am surrounded by people
but i am alone
do you hear me screaming
for you to look at me
and see me
for all you see is
sticky sweet
like i am spilt tea
you could lap up
on your charcoal tongue
cancer smells good on you
it smells like lilac lullabies
like lavender daydreams
and lily sighs
you are a nightmare
lost in a fantasy
of being something real
and i am alone
lost in a reality
of wanting adventure and fantasy
but nobody could foresee
the greenest of envies
that sat in my fragile mind
all i could feel anymore
was blind
for i cannot see
i cannot feel
i cannot breathe
help me
my heart is not beating
and i can feel it rising
to the ceiling of my throat
i'm afraid i will choke
each of my organs have shifted upwards
i cannot think
my tongue is not in my mouth
rather it sits in your hand
and you dip it into spilt tea
before asking if i would like a drink
i am smoke
sifting down your throat
chasing all of the memories
of happiness that no longer
sit in your chest
instead they dance
and adhere to the floor
as hot tea sticks like glue
and holds you hostage
and my thoughts run rampant
and spill onto my floor
with the black tea
that suppresses my urge to breathe
and it is like it is spilling into my lungs
and you ask me
if this is fun
but you hold my tongue in your fist
and my lips still feel smothered
by your kiss
because your lips feel like
your fist
and my blood oozes
like spilt tea
and you want to take a drink.
Zeeb Jul 2015
Hotrod
Verse I

Wrenches clanging, knuckles banging
A drop of blood the young man spilt
A new part here, and old part… there
A hotrod had been built!
A patchwork, mechanical, quilt

Feeling good.  Head under a raised hood, hands occupied, the job nearing completion.  Sometimes the good feelings would dissipate though, as quickly as they came, as he cursed himself for stripping a bolt, or cursed someone else for selling him the wrong part, or the engineer whose design goals obviously did not consider “remove and replace”.
He cursed the “gorilla” that never heard of a torque-wrench, the glowing particle of **** that popped on to the top of his head as he welded, the metal chip he flushed from his eye, and even himself for the burn he received by impatiently touching something too soon after grinding. 
 He, and his type, cursed a lot, but mostly to their selves as they battled-on with things oily, hot, bolted, welded, and rusty – in cramped spaces. One day it was choice words for an “easy-out” that broke off next to a broken drill bit that had broken off in a broken bolt, that was being drilled for an easy-out. 
  Despite the swearing, the good and special feelings would always return, generally of a magnitude that exceeded the physical pain and mental frustration of the day, by a large margin.  
Certifiably obsessive, the young man continued to toil dutifully, soulfully, occasionally gleefully, sometimes even expertly, in his most loved and familiar place, his sanctuary, laboratory… the family garage.

And tomorrow would be the day.
With hard learned, hard earned expertise and confidence - in this special small place, a supremely happy and excited young man commanded his creation to life.

Threw a toggle, pressed a switch
Woke up the neighbors with that *******

The heart of his machine was a stroked Chevy engine that everyone had just grown sick hearing about.  Even the local machine shop to which the boy nervously entrusted his most prized possession had had enough.  “Sir, I don’t want to seem disrespectful, but from what I’ve read in Hot Rod Magazine, you might be suggesting a clearance too tight for forged pistons…” then it would be something else the next day.  
One must always speak politely to the machinist, and even though he always had, the usual allotment of contradictions and arguments afforded to each customer had long run out – and although the shop owner took a special liking to the boy because, as he liked to say, “he reminds me of me”, well, that man was done too.  But in the end, the mill was dead-on.  Of course from the start, the shop knew it would be; that’s almost always the case; it’s how they stay in business - simply doing good work.  Bad shops fall out quickly, but this place had the look of times gone by.  Good times. 
 Old porcelain signs, here and there were to be found, all original to the shop and revered by the older workers in honored nostalgia.  The younger workers get it too; they can tell from the co-workers they respect and learn from, there is something special about this past.  One sign advertises Carter Carburetors and the artwork depicts “three deuces”, model 97’s, sitting proudly atop a flathead engine, all speeding along in a red, open roadster.  Its occupants, a blond haired boy with slight freckles (driver), and a brunette girl passenger, bright white blouse, full and buttoned low. They are in the wind-blown cool, their excited expressions proclaim… "we have escaped and are free!" (and all you need is a Carter, or three).  How uniquely American.

The seasoned old engine block the boy entrusted to the shop cost him $120-even from the boneyard.  Not a bad deal for a good high-nickel content block that had never had its first 0.030”overbore.  In the shop, it was cleaned, checked for cracks by "magnafluxing", measured and re-measured, inspected and re-inspected.  It was shaped and cut in a special way that would allow the stroker crankshaft, that was to be the special part of this build, to have all the clearance it would need.  The engine block was fitted with temporary stress plates that mimic the presence of cylinder heads,  then the cylinders were bored to “first oversize”,  providing fresh metal for new piston rings to work against.  New bearings were installed everywhere bearings are required.  Parts were smoothed here and there.  Some surfaces were roughened just so, to allow new parts to “work-into each other” when things are finally brought together.  All of this was done with a level of precision and attention far, far greater than the old “4- bolt” had ever received at the factory on its way to a life of labor in the ¾ ton work van from which it came, and for which it had served so dutifully.  They called this painstaking dedication to precision measurement and fit, to hitting all specifications on the mark, “blueprinting”, and it would continue throughout the entire build of this engine.  The boy remained worried, but the shop had done it a million times.

After machining, the block was filled with new and strong parts that cost the young man everything he had.   Parts selected with the greatest of effort, decision, and debate.   You can compromise on paint and live with some rust,  he would say, wait for good tires, but never scrimp on the engine.  Right on.  Someone taught the boy right, regardless of whether or not he fully understood the importance of the words he parroted.  His accurate proclamation  also provided ample excuse for the rough, unfinished, underfunded look of the rest of his machine.  But it was just a look, his car was, in fact, “right”.   And its power plant?  Well the machine shop had talked their customer into letting them do the final engine assembly - even cut their price to do it.  To make that go down easy, they asked to have two of their shop decals affixed to the rod on race-days.  The young man thought that was a fair deal, but the shop was really just looking out for the boy, with their herring of sorts.  
The mill in its final form was the proper balance of performance and durability; and with its camshaft so carefully selected, the engine's “personality” was perfectly matched to the work at hand.   It would produce adequate torque in the low RPM range to get whole rig moving quickly, yet deliver enough horsepower near and at red-line to pile on the MPH, fast.  No longer a polite-natured workhorse, this engine, this engine is impatient now.  High compression, a rapid, choppy idle - it seems to be biting at the bit to be released.  On command, it gulps its mixture and screams angrily, and often those standing around have a reflexive jump - the louder, the better - the more angry, the better.  If it hurts your ears, that’s a good feeling.  If its bark startles, that’s a good startle.  A cacophony?  No, the “music” of controlled explosions, capable of thrusting everything and everyone attached, forward, impolitely, on a rapid run to the freedom so well depicted in the ad.  

This is the addictive sound and feel that has appealed to a certain type of person since engines replaced horses, and why?  A surrogate voice for those who are otherwise quiet?  A visceral celebration of accomplishment?    Who cares.  Shift once, then again - speed quickly makes its appearance.  It appears as a loud, rushing wind and a visually striking, unnatural view of the surrounding scenery.  At some point, in the sane, it triggers a natural response - better slow down.    

He uncorked the headers, bought gasoline, dropped her in gear, tore off to the scene
Camaros and Mustangs, an old ‘55
Obediently lined-up, to get skinned alive!

Verse II (1st person)

I drove past the banner that said “Welcome race fans” took a new route, behind the grandstands
And through my chipped window, I thought I could see
Some of the racers were laughing at me

I guess rust and primer are not to their taste
But I put my bucks mister in the right place

I chugged/popped past cars that dealers had sold
Swung into a spot, next to something old

Emerging with interest from under his hood
My neighbor said two words, he said, “sounds good”

The Nova I parked next to was “classic rodding” in its outward appearance.  The much overused “primer paint job”.  The hood and front fenders a fiberglass clamshell, pinned affair.  Dice hanging from the mirror paid homage to days its driver never knew, but wished he had.  He removed them before he drove, always.

If you know how to peel the onion, secrets are revealed.  Wilwood brake calipers can be a dead giveaway. Someone needs serious stopping power - maybe.  Generally, owners who have sprung the bucks for this type gear let the calipers show off in bright red, to make a statement, and sometimes, these days, it’s just a fashion statement.  Expensive calipers, as eye candy, seem to be all the rage.  What is true, however, is very few guys spend big money on brakes only to render them inglorious and seemingly common with a shot of silver paint from a rattle can - and the owner of this half fiberglass racer that poses as a street car had done just that.  I'll glean two things from this observation. One, he needs those heavy brakes because he’s fast, and two, hiding them fits his style.  
Really, the message to be found in the silver paint, so cleverly applied to make your eyes simply slide across on their way to more interesting things, was “sleeper”.   And sleeper really means, he’s one of those guys with a score to settle - with everyone perhaps.   The list of “real parts” grew, if you knew where to look.  Looking was something I had unofficial permission to do since my rod was undergoing a similar scrutiny.  
“Stroked?”, I asked.  That’s something you can’t see from the outside. “ No”, my racer friend replied.  
“Hundred shot?”  (If engines have their language, so do the people who love them).   Despite the owner’s great efforts to conceal braided fuel and nitrous lines, electrical solenoids and switches, I spied his system.  The chunks of aluminum posing as ordinary spacers under his two Holly's were anything but.   “No”, was his one-word reply to my 100- shot question.  I tried again; “Your nitrous system is cleanly installed, how much are you spraying?”  “Two hundred fifty” in two stages, he said.  That’s more like it, I thought, and I then figured, he too had budgeted well for the machine shop – if not, he was gambling in a game that if lost, would soon fly parts in all directions.   Based on the overall neat work on display, I believed his build was up to the punishment planned. 
  I knew exactly what this tight-lipped guy was about, seeing someone very familiar in him as it were, and that made the “sounds good” complement I received upon my arrival all the more valuable.  I liked my neighbor.  And I liked the fact of our scratch-built rods having found each other - and I looked forward to us both dusting off the factory jobs.  It was going to be a good day.

The voice on the loudspeaker tells us we’re up.

Pre-staged, staged, then given the green
The line becomes blurred between man and machine

Bones become linkage
Muscle, spring
Fear, excitement

Time distorts ….
Color disappears …
Vision narrows…
Noise ---  becomes music
Speed, satisfaction

End
WiltingMoon May 2016
The plead of love
Forever stains my hands
The colour of your heart
Always to be seen
Your voice
Bouncing forever in my head
The light in your eyes
Shall rid my sleep for eternity
It was love I asked for
It was the kiss of your peace I craved
It was your touch of warmth I miss every day
I wished for your love
That's now spilt on the floor
Staining my hand's
Blinding my eye's...
I asked for silence of your touch
For my breath to be felt again
For my sight to again clear
For your mind to reverse back...
To the day we meet
To the day I knew
To the day I thought I truly loved you...
I'm sorry that I spilt your love on the floor
When it was mine you wanted spilt...
Aric Wheeler Jul 2013
My cigarette tastes like uncertainty and now my plain croissant is seeping my black coffee onto my plate.

Was it too much to ask for something simple? Life isn't as complicated as people make it. Right?

Now I sit here, with coffee spilt on myself and my shirt.

Annoyed.

Or Annoying?

Is it my fault that **** is falling apart? Am I the problem that is ruining something so pure by pouring black liquid all over and complicating something I was so sure about?

Am so sure about.

My croissant was perfect until I spilt **** all over it. Now I have a soggy croissant and a crooked cigarette that still tastes like uncertainty.
calm Jan 2018
Music blaring violently loud
You can hear it every word even though he's wearing headphones
Not concentrating,
He quickly goes through cupboards
Finding a glass
Then slowly but surely pulls open the fridge door
He wants a drink of milk, like when he was seven and rushing around the garden til his chest hurt
Having the time of his life
Until he needed a drink
Water? Yuck. Boooooring!
Juice? His mother would disapprove of that until after dinner.
Milk? Seems like the only good option.
The boy, now a man at 22 again, chuckles to himself as the song ends and he remembers what life was like as a child.
So innocent, so pure.

Then the song ends. A new one begins.
Your song.
His hand unwillingly jerks, spilling milk on the polished-to-perfection-counter,
He curses and puts down the bottle, sliding the cap on as tight as possible so he feels he still has strength in him.
He curses repeatedly,
But not because of the spilt milk.
But because he forgot.
All pictures were deleted from phones, all text messages ignored, all social media blocked
But he forgot about the song.

He hurries to find something to mop it up
And he tries hard not to
But he lets the lyrics pour into his brain
And he begins to crumble all over again

He remembers.
He remembers you telling him
"There's no point crying over spilt milk."
Yet his eyes are prickling with tears.
He chuckles because he thinks that's what he's doing
He believes that he is crying over spilling milk on his polished-to-perfection-counter in his tiny flat in the large, daunting city.
But he isn't.
And deep down
He hears a voice telling him he isn't.

But he won't listen to that voice.
He has to get over you.
He has gotten over you already.
Angry, pathetic tears fall down his face
As he sinks down to the ground
Looking into nowhere
But seeing only you

His hands tremble ever so slightly
As he fishes around for his phone
Buried deep in his pocket.
He begins to whimper slightly
But tells himself he is a grown up
And how he needs to act like one.

He slowly and uncertainly unlocks his phone
Which no longer has a selfie of him and you as a lockscreen
And fingers shaking with regret
He presses 'delete'
Just as the song ends

And just like that
Tears pour out of nowhere
As if he was suddenly hit on the back and they were pushed out
As if he was a bottle of milk
And someone's arm jolted
So what he had been holding in for too long
Just
       spilt
               like
                      milk.
This is another oldie, as you can maybe tell from the way I wrote it. I've always liked this one of mine, even though it may not be my most well-written piece ever. I just love the emotion in it is all. Hope you enjoy.
Cedric McClester Sep 2019
By: Cedric McClester

Now that the tea’s been spilt
It’s conscientiousness of guilt
Like a game machine you tilt
His image can’t be rebuilt
Although his many apologists
Will no doubt still insist
While balling up their fists
Simply, he must resist

Now that the tea’s been spilt
We see a patchwork quilt
The knife’s in to the hilt
In time we’ll watch him wilt
By now we all should know
The rules of quid-pro-quo
His nose is bound to grow
Remember who told you so

Now that the tea’s been spilt
We see him walking on a stilt
So we know what’s under his kilt
And he isn’t that well built
So let me take time to expand
By asking what manner of man?
He’s used to having the upper hand
But they’ll impeach him on demand

Now that the tea’s been spilt
And everything’s atilt
His voice has a weary lilt
Who else must he try to jilt?
All his sycophants
Must be peeing in their pants
As he carries on and rants
They may not get a second chance





           Cedric McClester, copyright © 2019.  All rights reserved.
Out here there are no hearthstones,
Hot grains, simply.  It is dry, dry.
And the air dangerous.  Noonday acts queerly
On the mind's eye erecting a line
Of poplars in the middle distance, the only
Object beside the mad, straight road
One can remember men and houses by.
A cool wind should inhabit these leaves
And a dew collect on them, dearer than money,
In the blue hour before sunup.
Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow,
Or those glittery fictions of spilt water
That glide ahead of the very thirsty.

I think of the lizards airing their tongues
In the crevice of an extremely small shadow
And the toad guarding his heart's droplet.
The desert is white as a blind man's eye,
Comfortless as salt.  Snake and bird
Doze behind the old maskss of fury.
We swelter like firedogs in the wind.
The sun puts its cinder out.  Where we lie
The heat-cracked crickets congregate
In their black armorplate and cry.
The day-moon lights up like a sorry mother,
And the crickets come creeping into our hair
To fiddle the short night away.
Victor D López Dec 2018
You were born five years before the Spanish Civil War that would see your father exiled.
Language came later to you than your little brother Manuel. And you stuttered for a time.
Unlike those who speak incessantly with nothing to say, you were quiet and reserved.
Your mother mistook shyness for dimness, a tragic mistake that scarred you for life.

When your brother Manuel died at the age of three from meningitis, you heard your mom
Exclaim: “God took my bright boy and left me the dull one.” You were four or five.
You never forgot those words. How could you? Yet you loved your mom with all your heart.
But you also withdrew further into a shell, solitude your companion and best friend.

You were, in fact, an exceptional child. Stuttering went away at five or so never to return,
And by the time you were in middle school, your teacher called your mom in for a rare
Conference and told her that yours was a gifted mind, and that you should be prepared
For university study in the sciences, particularly engineering.

She wrote your father exiled in Argentina to tell him the good news, that your teachers
Believed you would easily gain entrance to the (then and now) highly selective public university
Where seats were few, prized and very difficult to attain based on merit-based competitive
Exams. Your father’s response? “Buy him a couple of oxen and let him plow the fields.”

That reply from a highly respected man who was a big fish in a tiny pond in his native Oleiros
Of the time is beyond comprehension. He had apparently opted to preserve his own self-
Interest in having his son continue his family business and also work the family lands in his
Absence. That scar too was added to those that would never heal in your pure, huge heart.

Left with no support for living expenses for college (all it would have required), you moved on,
Disappointed and hurt, but not angry or bitter; you would simply find another way.
You took the competitive exams for the two local military training schools that would provide
An excellent vocational education and pay you a small salary in exchange for military service.

Of hundreds of applicants for the prized few seats in each of the two institutions, you
Scored first for the toughest of the two and thirteenth for the second. You had your pick.
You chose Fabrica de Armas, the lesser of the two, so that a classmate who had scored just
Below the cut-off at the better school could be admitted. That was you. Always and forever.

At the military school, you were finally in your element. You were to become a world-class
Machinist there—a profession that would have gotten you well paid work anywhere on earth
For as long as you wanted it. You were truly a mechanical genius who years later would add
Electronics, auto mechanics and specialized welding to his toolkit through formal training.

Given a well-stocked machine shop, you could reverse engineer every machine without
Blueprints and build a duplicate machine shop. You became a gifted master mechanic
And worked in line and supervisory positions at a handful of companies throughout your life in
Argentina and in the U.S., including Westinghouse, Warner-Lambert, and Pepsi Co.

You loved learning, especially in your fields (electronics, mechanics, welding) and expected
Perfection in everything you did. Every difficult job at work was given to you everywhere you
Worked. You would not sleep at night when a problem needed solving. You’d sketch
And calculate and re-sketch solutions and worked even in your dreams with singular passion.

You were more than a match for the academic and physical rigors of military school,
But life was difficult for you in the Franco era when some instructors would
Deprecatingly refer to you as “Roxo”—Galician for “red”-- reflecting your father’s
Support for the failed Republic. Eventually, the abuse was too much for you to bear.

Once while standing at attention in a corridor with the other cadets waiting for
Roll call, you were repeatedly poked in the back surreptitiously. Moving would cause
Demerits and demerits could cause loss of points on your final grade and arrest for
Successive weekends. You took it awhile, then lost your temper.

You turned to the cadet behind you and in a fluid motion grabbed him by his buttoned jacket
And one-handedly hung him up on a hook above a window where you were standing in line.
He thrashed about, hanging by the back of his jacket, until he was brought down by irate Military instructors.
You got weekend arrest for many weeks and a 10% final grade reduction.

A similar fate befell a co-worker a few years later in Buenos Aires who called you a
*******. You lifted him one handed by his throat and held him there until
Your co-workers intervened, forcibly persuading you to put him down.
That lesson was learned by all in no uncertain terms: Leave Felipe’s mom alone.

You were incredibly strong, especially in your youth—no doubt in part because of rigorous farm
Work, military school training and competitive sports. As a teenager, you once unwisely bent
Down to pick something up in view of a ram, presenting the animal an irresistible target.
It butted you and sent you flying into a haystack. It, too, quickly learned its lesson.

You dusted yourself off, charged the ram, grabbed it by the horns and twirled it around once,
Throwing it atop the same haystack as it had you. The animal was unhurt, but learned to
Give you a wide berth from that day forward. Overall, you were very slow to anger absent
Head-butting, repeated pokings, or disrespectful references to your mom by anyone.    

I seldom saw you angry and it was mom, not you, who was the disciplinarian, slipper in hand.
There were very few slaps from you for me. Mom would smack my behind with a slipper often
When I was little, mostly because I could be a real pain, wanting to know/try/do everything
Completely oblivious to the meaning of the word “no” or of my own limitations.

Mom would sometimes insist you give me a proper beating. On one such occasion for a
Forgotten transgression when I was nine, you  took me to your bedroom, took off your belt, sat
Me next to you and whipped your own arm and hand a few times, whispering to me “cry”,
Which I was happy to do unbidden. “Don’t tell mom.” I did not. No doubt she knew.

The prospect of serving in a military that considered you a traitor by blood became harder and
Harder to bear, and in the third year of school, one year prior to graduation, you left to join
Your exiled father in Argentina, to start a new life. You left behind a mother and two sisters you
Dearly loved to try your fortune in a new land. Your dog thereafter refused food, dying of grief.

You arrived in Buenos Aires to see a father you had not seen for ten years at the age of 17.
You were too young to work legally, but looked older than your years (a shared trait),
So you lied about your age and immediately found work as a Machinist/Mechanic first grade.
That was unheard of and brought you some jealousy and complaints in the union shop.

The union complained to the general manager about your top-salary and rank. He answered,
“I’ll give the same rank and salary to anyone in the company who can do what Felipe can do.”
No doubt the jealousy and grumblings continued by some for a time. But there were no takers.
And you soon won the group over, becoming their protected “baby-brother” mascot.

Your dad left for Spain within a year or so of your arrival when Franco issued a general pardon
To all dissidents who had not spilt blood (e.g., non combatants). He wanted you to return to
Help him reclaim the family business taken over by your mom in his absence with your help.
But you refused to give up the high salary, respect and independence denied you at home.

You were perhaps 18 and alone, living in a single room by a schoolhouse you had shared with Your dad.
But you had also found a new loving family in your uncle José, one of your father’s Brothers, and his family. José, and one of his daughters, Nieves and her
Husband, Emilio, and
Their children, Susana, Oscar (Ruben Gordé), and Osvaldo, became your new nuclear family.

You married mom in 1955 and had two failed business ventures in the quickly fading
Post-WW II Argentina of the late 1950s and early 1960s.The first, a machine shop, left
You with a small fortune in unpaid government contract work.  The second, a grocery store,
Also failed due to hyperinflation and credit extended too easily to needy customers.

Throughout this, you continued earning an exceptionally good salary. But in the mid 1960’s,
Nearly all of it went to pay back creditors of the failed grocery store. We had some really hard
Times. Someday I’ll write about that in some detail. Mom went to work as a maid, including for
Wealthy friends, and you left home at 4:00 a.m. to return long after dark to pay the bills.


The only luxury you and mom retained was my Catholic school tuition. There was no other
Extravagance. Not paying bills was never an option for you or mom. It never entered your
Minds. It was not a matter of law or pride, but a matter of honor. There were at least three very
Lean years where you and mom worked hard, earned well but we were truly poor.

You and mom took great pains to hide this from me—and suffered great privations to insulate
Me as best you could from the fallout of a shattered economy and your refusal to cut your loses
Had done to your life savings and to our once-comfortable middle-class life.
We came to the U.S. in the late 1960s after waiting for more than three years for visas—to a new land of hope.

Your sister and brother-in-law, Marisa and Manuel, made their own sacrifices to help bring us
Here. You had about $1,000 from the down payment on our tiny down-sized house, And
Mom’s pawned jewelry. (Hyperinflation and expenses ate up the remaining mortgage payments
Due). Other prized possessions were left in a trunk until you could reclaim them. You never did.

Even the airline tickets were paid for by Marisa and Manuel. You insisted upon arriving on
Written terms for repayment including interest. You were hired on the spot on your first
Interview as a mechanic, First Grade, despite not speaking a word of English. Two months later,
The debt was repaid, mom was working too and we moved into our first apartment.

You worked long hours, including Saturdays and daily overtime, to remake a nest egg.
Declining health forced you to retire at 63 and shortly thereafter you and mom moved out of
Queens into Orange County. You bought a townhouse two hours from my permanent residence
Upstate NY and for the next decade were happy, traveling with friends and visiting us often.

Then things started to change. Heart issues (two pacemakers), colon cancer, melanoma,
Liver and kidney disease caused by your many medications, high blood pressure, gout,
Gall bladder surgery, diabetes . . . . And still you moved forward, like the Energizer Bunny,
Patched up, battered, scarred, bruised but unstoppable and unflappable.

Then mom started to show signs of memory loss along with her other health issues. She was
Good at hiding her own ailments, and we noticed much later than we should have that there
Was a serious problem. Two years ago, her dementia worsening but still functional, she had
Gall bladder surgery with complications that required four separate surgeries in three months.

She never recovered and had to be placed in a nursing home. Several, in fact, as at first she
Refused food and you and I refused to simply let her waste away, which might have been
Kinder, but for the fact that “mientras hay vida, hay esperanza” as Spaniards say.
(While there is Life there is hope.) There is nothing beyond the power of God. Miracles do happen.

For two years you lived alone, refusing outside help, engendering numerous arguments about
Having someone go by a few times a week to help clean, cook, do chores. You were nothing if
Not stubborn (yet another shared trait). The last argument on the subject about two weeks ago
Ended in your crying. You’d accept no outside help until mom returned home. Period.

You were in great pain because of bulging discs in your spine and walked with one of those
Rolling seats with handlebars that mom and I picked out for you some years ago. You’d sit
As needed when the pain was too much, then continue with very little by way of complaints.
Ten days ago you finally agreed that you needed to get to the hospital to drain abdominal fluid.

Your failing liver produced it and it swelled your abdomen and lower extremities to the point
Where putting on shoes or clothing was very difficult, as was breathing. You called me from a
Local store crying that you could not find pants that would fit you. We talked, long distance,
And I calmed you down, as always, not allowing you to wallow in self pity but trying to help.

You went home and found a new pair of stretch pants Alice and I had bought you and you were
Happy. You had two changes of clothes that still fit to take to the hospital. No sweat, all was
Well. The procedure was not dangerous and you’d undergone it several times in recent years.
It would require a couple of days at the hospital and I’d see you again on the weekend.

I could not be with you on Monday, February 22 when you had to go to the hospital, as I nearly
Always had, because of work. You were supposed to be admitted the previous Friday, but
Doctors have days off too, and yours could not see you until Monday when I could not get off
Work. But you were not concerned; this was just routine. You’d be fine. I’d see you in just days.

We’d go see mom Friday, when you’d be much lighter and feel much better. Perhaps we’d go
Shopping for clothes if the procedure still left you too bloated for your usual clothes.
You drove to your doctor and then transported by ambulette. I was concerned, but not too Worried.
You called me sometime between five or six p.m. to tell me you were fine, resting.

“Don’t worry. I’m safe here and well cared for.” We talked for a little while about the usual
Things, with my assuring you I’d see you Friday or Saturday. You were tired and wanted to sleep
And I told you to call me if you woke up later that night or I’d speak to you the following day.
Around 10:00 p.m. I got a call from your cell and answered in the usual upbeat manner.

“Hey, Papi.” On the other side was a nurse telling me my dad had fallen. I assured her she was
Mistaken, as my dad was there for a routine procedure to drain abdominal fluid. “You don’t
Understand. He fell from his bed and struck his head on a nightstand or something
And his heart has stopped. We’re working on him for 20 minutes and it does not look good.”

“Can you get here?” I could not. I had had two or three glasses of wine shortly before the call
With dinner. I could not drive the three hours to Middletown. I cried. I prayed.
Fifteen minutes Later I got the call that you were gone. Lost in grief, not knowing what to do, I called my wife.
Shortly thereafter came a call from the coroner. An autopsy was required. I could not see you.

Four days later your body was finally released to the funeral director I had selected for his
Experience with the process of interment in Spain. I saw you for the last time to identify
Your body. I kissed my fingers and touched your mangled brow. I could not even have the
Comfort of an open casket viewing. You wanted cremation. You body awaits it as I write this.

You were alone, even in death alone. In the hospital as strangers worked on you. In the medical
Examiner’s office as you awaited the autopsy. In the autopsy table as they poked and prodded
And further rent your flesh looking for irrelevant clues that would change nothing and benefit
No one, least of all you. I could not be with you for days, and then only for a painful moment.

We will have a memorial service next Friday with your ashes and a mass on Saturday. I will
Never again see you in this life. Alice and I will take you home to your home town, to the
Cemetery in Oleiros, La Coruña, Spain this summer. There you will await the love of your life.
Who will join you in the fullness of time. She could not understand my tears or your passing.

There is one blessing to dementia. She asks for her mom, and says she is worried because she
Has not come to visit in some time. She is coming, she assures me whenever I see her.
You visited her every day except when health absolutely prevented it. You spent this February 10
Apart, your 61st wedding anniversary, too sick to visit her. Nor was I there. First time.

I hope you did not realize you were apart on the 10th but doubt it to be the case. I
Did not mention it, hoping you’d forgotten, and neither did you. You were my link to mom.
She cannot dial or answer a phone, so you would put your cell phone to her ear whenever I
Was not in class or meetings and could speak to her. She always recognized me by phone.

I am three hours from her. I could visit at most once or twice a month. Now even that phone
Lifeline is severed. Mom is completely alone, afraid, confused, and I cannot in the short term at
Least do much about that. You were not supposed to die first. It was my greatest fear, and
Yours, but as with so many things that we cannot change I put it in the back of my mind.

It kept me up many nights, but, like you, I still believed—and believe—in miracles.
I would speak every night with my you, often for an hour, on the way home from work late at
Night during my hour-long commute, or from home on days I worked from home as I cooked
Dinner. I mostly let you talk, trying to give you what comfort and social outlet I could.

You were lonely, sad, stuck in an endless cycle of emotional and physical pain.
Lately you were especially reticent to get off the phone. When mom was home and still
Relatively well, I’d call every day too but usually spoke to you only a few minutes and you’d
Transfer the phone to mom, with whom I usually chatted much longer.

For months, you’d had difficulty hanging up. I knew you did not want to go back to the couch,
To a meaningless TV program, or to writing more bills. You’d say good-bye, or “enough for
Today” and immediately begin a new thread, then repeat the cycle, sometimes five or six times.
You even told me, at least once crying recently, “Just hang up on me or I’ll just keep talking.”

I loved you, dad, with all my heart. We argued, and I’d often scream at you in frustration,
Knowing you would never take it to heart and would usually just ignore me and do as
You pleased. I knew how desperately you needed me, and I tried to be as patient as I could.
But there were days when I was just too tired, too frustrated, too full of other problems.

There were days when I got frustrated with you just staying on the phone for an hour when I
Needed to call Alice, to eat my cold dinner, or even to watch a favorite program. I felt guilty
And very seldom cut a conversation short, but I was frustrated nonetheless even knowing
How much you needed me and also how much I needed you, and how little you asked of me.  

How I would love to hear your voice again, even if you wanted to complain about the same old
Things or tell me in minutest detail some unimportant aspect of your day. I thought I would
Have you at least a little longer. A year? Two? God only knew, and I could hope. There would be
Time. I had so much more to share with you, so much more to learn when life eased up a bit.

You taught me to fish (it did not take) and to hunt (that took even less) and much of what I
Know about mechanics, and electronics. We worked on our cars together for years—from brake
Jobs, to mufflers, to real tune-ups in the days when points, condensers, and timing lights had Meaning, to rebuilding carburetors and fixing rust and dents, and power windows and more.

We were friends, good friends, who went on Sunday drives to favorite restaurants or shopping
For tools when I was single and lived at home. You taught me everything in life that I need to
Know about all the things that matter. The rest is meaningless paper and window dressing.
I knew all your few faults and your many colossal strengths and knew you to be the better man.

Not even close. I could never do what you did. I could never excel in my fields as you did in
Yours.  You were the real deal in every way, from every angle, throughout your life. I did not
Always treat you that way. But I loved you very deeply as anyone who knew us knows.
More importantly, you knew it. I told you often, unembarrassed in the telling. I love you, Dad.

The world was enriched by your journey. You do not leave behind wealth, or a body or work to
Outlive you. You never had your fifteen minutes in the sun. But you mattered. God knows your
Virtue, your absolute integrity, and the purity of your heart. I will never know a better man.
I will love you and miss you and carry you in my heart every day of my life. God bless you, dad.
You can hear all six of my Unsung Heroes poems read by me in my podcasts at https://open.spotify.com/show/1zgnkuAIVJaQ0Gb6pOfQOH. (plus much more of my fiction, non-fiction and poetry in English and Spanish)
Alyssa Underwood Mar 2016
I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
  For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
  When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
  And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
  In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
  With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
  Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
  A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
  “That fellows got to swing.”

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
  Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
  Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
  My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
  Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
  With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
  And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

Some **** their love when they are young,
  And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
  Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
  The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
  Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
  And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
  Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
  On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
  Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
  Into an empty place

He does not sit with silent men
  Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
  And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
  The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
  Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
  The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
  With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
  To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
  Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
******* a watch whose little ticks
  Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
  That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
  Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
  That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
  The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
  Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
  Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
  Through a little roof of glass;
He does not pray with lips of clay
  For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
  The kiss of Caiaphas.


II

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
  In a suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
  Its raveled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
  Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
  In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
  And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
  Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
  Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
  As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
  Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
  A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
  The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass
  With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
  So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
  Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
  That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
  With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
  Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace
  For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
  Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
  His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
  When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
  Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
  To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
  We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
  Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
  His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
  Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
  In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
  In God’s sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
  We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
  We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
  But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
  Two outcast men were we:
The world had ****** us from its heart,
  And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
  Had caught us in its snare.


III

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
  And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
  Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
  For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
  His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
  And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
  Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
  The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
  A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called
  And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
  And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
  No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
  The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
  No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
  Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
  And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
  To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
  Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
  Could help a brother’s soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
  We trod the Fool’s Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
  The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
  Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
  With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
  And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
  And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
  We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
  And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
  Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
  Crawled like a ****-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
  That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
  We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
  Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
  To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
  Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
  On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
  Went shuffling through the gloom
And each man trembled as he crept
  Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
  Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
  Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
  White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
  In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watcher watched him as he slept,
  And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
  With a hangman close at hand?

But there is no sleep when men must weep
  Who never yet have wept:
So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
  That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
  Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
  To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
  Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
  For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
  Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
  Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
  Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
  Mad mourners of a corpse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
  The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
  Was the savior of Remorse.

The **** crew, the red **** crew,
  But never came the day:
And crooked shape of Terror crouched,
  In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
  Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
  Like travelers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
  Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
  The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
  Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
  They trod a saraband:
And the ****** grotesques made arabesques,
  Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
  They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
  As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
  For they sang to wake the dead.

“Oho!” they cried, “The world is wide,
  But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
  Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
  In the secret House of Shame.”

No things of air these antics were
  That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
  And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
  Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
  Some wheeled in smirking pairs:
With the mincing step of demirep
  Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
  Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
  But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
  Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
  Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
  The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning-steel
  We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
  To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars
  Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
  That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
  God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
  At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
  The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
  Had entered in to ****.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
  Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
  Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
  To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
  Of filthy darkness *****:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
  Or give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
  And what was dead was Hope.

For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
  And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
  It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
  The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
  Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
  That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
  For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
  Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
  Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick
  Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
  Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
  Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
  From a ***** in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
  In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
  Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
  Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
  That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the ****** sweats,
  None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
  More deaths than one must die.


IV

There is no chapel on the day
  On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
  Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
  Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
  And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
  Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
  Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God’s sweet air we went,
  But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
  And that man’s face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
  In happy freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all
  Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
  They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived
  Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
  Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
  And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood
  And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
  With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
  The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
  And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
  And through each hollow mind
The memory of dreadful things
  Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
  And terror crept behind.

The Warders strutted up and down,
  And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were ***** and span,
  And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at
  By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
  There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
  By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
  That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
  Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
  Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
  Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
  Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
  And the soft flesh by the day,
It eats the flesh and bones by turns,
  But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow
  Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
  Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
  With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer’s heart would taint
  Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God’s kindly earth
  Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
  The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
  Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
  Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
  Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red
  May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
  Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
  A common man’s despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
  Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
  By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who ***** the yard
  That God’s Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall
  Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit man not walk by night
  That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may not weep that lies
  In such unholy ground,

He is at peace—this wretched man—
  At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
  Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
  Has neither Sun nor Moon.

They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
  They did not even toll
A reguiem that might have brought
  Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
  And hid him in a hole.

They stripped him of his canvas clothes,
  And gave him to the flies;
They mocked the swollen purple throat
  And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
  In which their convict lies.

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
  By his dishonored grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
  That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
  Whom Christ came down to save.

Yet all is well; he has but passed
  To Life’s appointed bourne:
And alien tears will fill for him
  Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourner will be outcast men,
  And outcasts always mourn.


V

I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
  Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law
  That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother’s life,
  And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
  With a most evil fan.

This too I know—and wise it were
  If each could know the same—
That every prison that men build
  Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
  How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,
  And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
  For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
  Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds
  Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
  That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
  And the Warder is Despair

For they starve the little frightened child
  Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
  And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell
  Is foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
  Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
  In Humanity’s machine.

The brackish water that we drink
  Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
  Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
  Wild-eyed and cries to Time.

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
  Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
  For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
  Becomes one’s heart by night.

With midnight always in one’s heart,
  And twilight in one’s cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
  Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
  Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near
  To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
  Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
  With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life’s iron chain
  Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
  And some men make no moan:
But God’s eternal Laws are kind
  And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,
  In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
  Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean *****’s house
  With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break
  And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
  And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
  May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat.
  And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
  The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
  The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law
  Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
  His soul of his soul’s strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
  The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
  The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
  And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
  Became Christ’s snow-white seal.


VI

In Reading gaol by Reading town
  There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
  Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
  And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
  In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
  Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.

And all men **** the thing they love,
  By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!
WickedHope Sep 2014
My days blur together.
I am spilt paint on the floor, a mess.
Don't say it gets better,
There is no coming back from this.
I broke loose from my tether.
Now I wander alone, useless, hopeless.
Natasha Mar 2015
No one loves me
I'm not worth a single drop of blood

It would be wasted
If you spilt it for me

And dry your tears
For I'm the only one that has to cry

This time,
So there's no use shedding them for me

Sometimes, I wish I knew
How to disappear completely

So no one would remember my voice
Have no memories with me

I feel like life
Would merrily move along

If I were just simply
Gone
                     Gone

    Gone.
The titles also a radiohead song. But it doesnt seem like a bad idea. Erase everyones memories of me and just leave. Fall back into the everlong seas of black unconcious and then hopefully to the end of time- the extraterrestrial, super inconcievable meaning of life. I believe we find it when we die. I dont even know, I dont think anyone loves me so its about that time.
ellie danes Oct 2015
Ellie. My name is Ellie.
I want to be a writer. I want to be a star. I want to be free.
I imagine myself riding on wide open roads,
on the back of a motorcycle with a boy
who is as much of a ghost as he is a person.
I imagine myself dazed in rooms
filled with a purple glow.
I imagine pills, lust, liquor, leather.
I want to live forever
and I want to die young.
My name is Ellie.
I don’t know what home means;
I don’t want to.
I need people to love me.
I will break all of their hearts.
I imagine late nights in underground clubs…
Marlboro, rock & roll, Howl by Allen Ginsberg–the bible.
Tanqueray;
falling down in a graveyard muttering in Romanian,
hoping for salvation,
but while I’m called an angel night after night
I’ve got the devil in me.
Rosewater runs through my veins,
the blood has already been spilt.
I won’t ever belong to anyone, not even myself.
When you have the knowledge that nothing’s real
it’s hard to do what’s expected of you.
I relate to flowers a lot.
They’re beautiful, but they don’t last.
Sometimes no matter how hard you try to take care of them,
they just run out of life.
I think I ran out of life the day I was born.
Everything is nothing.
The gods don’t want you to know that,
but that is the one truth.
"about me"
In Nero’s private stage,
Disaster was
His audience. Rome mimics fallen Troy in play.
What was reflected in Nero’s eyes
when he sang of the swirling patterns
of fire? When Rome was caught burning;
When conspiring led to its fall.

Fire engulfed Rome with fiery teeth.
The clouds hide or faint into black smoke.
The skies bleed heavily with rust
Its brassy color mixing with the
*** of burning seas, like oceans melting

Could you not feel the sun’s weight?
Now it is incomparable to
Molten seas and softened lead!

Blood spilt from sea-point, waves wallow the cries
Of the fallen. Like a bellowing sound marching
Against caverns of ears, Copper soldiers
Melt into clouds oozing with emotion,
Shattering their now empty metal hearts,
Hollow hearts that outlive the muteness.

It is awakened when
Spark and light is absent.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 26, 2009 - Alabang)
2nd Prize Winner - POETRY CATEGORY - Cesar S. Tiangco Literary Awards 2010
Rachel Procopio Apr 2017
They say don't cry over spilt milk,
But this isn't just a glass of milk,
This was the best milkshake I've ever had,
Complete with whipped cream and a cherry,
The smoothest blend of cream and sugar to ever meet my tastebuds,
And it wasn't just spilt over, it was knocked out of my hands.
Written on 11/12/16
Prohemium.

But al to litel, weylaway the whyle,
Lasteth swich Ioye, y-thonked be Fortune!
That semeth trewest, whan she wol bygyle,
And can to foles so hir song entune,
That she hem hent and blent, traytour comune;  
And whan a wight is from hir wheel y-throwe,
Than laugheth she, and maketh him the mowe.

From Troilus she gan hir brighte face
Awey to wrythe, and took of him non hede,
But caste him clene out of his lady grace,  
And on hir wheel she sette up Diomede;
For which right now myn herte ginneth blede,
And now my penne, allas! With which I wryte,
Quaketh for drede of that I moot endyte.

For how Criseyde Troilus forsook,  
Or at the leste, how that she was unkinde,
Mot hennes-forth ben matere of my book,
As wryten folk through which it is in minde.
Allas! That they sholde ever cause finde
To speke hir harm; and if they on hir lye,  
Y-wis, hem-self sholde han the vilanye.

O ye Herines, Nightes doughtren three,
That endelees compleynen ever in pyne,
Megera, Alete, and eek Thesiphone;
Thou cruel Mars eek, fader to Quiryne,  
This ilke ferthe book me helpeth fyne,
So that the los of lyf and love y-fere
Of Troilus be fully shewed here.

Explicit prohemium.

Incipit Quartus Liber.

Ligginge in ost, as I have seyd er this,
The Grekes stronge, aboute Troye toun,  
Bifel that, whan that Phebus shyning is
Up-on the brest of Hercules Lyoun,
That Ector, with ful many a bold baroun,
Caste on a day with Grekes for to fighte,
As he was wont to greve hem what he mighte.  

Not I how longe or short it was bitwene
This purpos and that day they fighte mente;
But on a day wel armed, bright and shene,
Ector, and many a worthy wight out wente,
With spere in hond and bigge bowes bente;  
And in the herd, with-oute lenger lette,
Hir fomen in the feld anoon hem mette.

The longe day, with speres sharpe y-grounde,
With arwes, dartes, swerdes, maces felle,
They fighte and bringen hors and man to grounde,  
And with hir axes out the braynes quelle.
But in the laste shour, sooth for to telle,
The folk of Troye hem-selven so misledden,
That with the worse at night homward they fledden.

At whiche day was taken Antenor,  
Maugre Polydamas or Monesteo,
Santippe, Sarpedon, Polynestor,
Polyte, or eek the Troian daun Ripheo,
And othere lasse folk, as Phebuseo.
So that, for harm, that day the folk of Troye  
Dredden to lese a greet part of hir Ioye.

Of Pryamus was yeve, at Greek requeste,
A tyme of trewe, and tho they gonnen trete,
Hir prisoneres to chaungen, moste and leste,
And for the surplus yeven sommes grete.  
This thing anoon was couth in every strete,
Bothe in thassege, in toune, and every-where,
And with the firste it cam to Calkas ere.

Whan Calkas knew this tretis sholde holde,
In consistorie, among the Grekes, sone  
He gan in thringe forth, with lordes olde,
And sette him there-as he was wont to done;
And with a chaunged face hem bad a bone,
For love of god, to don that reverence,
To stinte noyse, and yeve him audience.  

Thanne seyde he thus, 'Lo! Lordes myne, I was
Troian, as it is knowen out of drede;
And, if that yow remembre, I am Calkas,
That alderfirst yaf comfort to your nede,
And tolde wel how that ye sholden spede.  
For dredelees, thorugh yow, shal, in a stounde,
Ben Troye y-brend, and beten doun to grounde.

'And in what forme, or in what maner wyse
This town to shende, and al your lust to acheve,
Ye han er this wel herd it me devyse;  
This knowe ye, my lordes, as I leve.
And for the Grekes weren me so leve,
I com my-self in my propre persone,
To teche in this how yow was best to done;

'Havinge un-to my tresour ne my rente  
Right no resport, to respect of your ese.
Thus al my good I loste and to yow wente,
Wening in this you, lordes, for to plese.
But al that los ne doth me no disese.
I vouche-sauf, as wisly have I Ioye,  
For you to lese al that I have in Troye,

'Save of a doughter, that I lafte, allas!
Slepinge at hoom, whanne out of Troye I sterte.
O sterne, O cruel fader that I was!
How mighte I have in that so hard an herte?  
Allas! I ne hadde y-brought hir in hir sherte!
For sorwe of which I wol not live to morwe,
But-if ye lordes rewe up-on my sorwe.

'For, by that cause I say no tyme er now
Hir to delivere, I holden have my pees;  
But now or never, if that it lyke yow,
I may hir have right sone, doutelees.
O help and grace! Amonges al this prees,
Rewe on this olde caitif in destresse,
Sin I through yow have al this hevinesse!  

'Ye have now caught and fetered in prisoun
Troians y-nowe; and if your willes be,
My child with oon may have redempcioun.
Now for the love of god and of bountee,
Oon of so fele, allas! So yeve him me.  
What nede were it this preyere for to werne,
Sin ye shul bothe han folk and toun as yerne?

'On peril of my lyf, I shal nat lye,
Appollo hath me told it feithfully;
I have eek founde it be astronomye,  
By sort, and by augurie eek trewely,
And dar wel seye, the tyme is faste by,
That fyr and flaumbe on al the toun shal sprede;
And thus shal Troye turne to asshen dede.

'For certeyn, Phebus and Neptunus bothe,  
That makeden the walles of the toun,
Ben with the folk of Troye alwey so wrothe,
That thei wol bringe it to confusioun,
Right in despyt of king Lameadoun.
By-cause he nolde payen hem hir hyre,  
The toun of Troye shal ben set on-fyre.'

Telling his tale alwey, this olde greye,
Humble in speche, and in his lokinge eke,
The salte teres from his eyen tweye
Ful faste ronnen doun by eyther cheke.  
So longe he gan of socour hem by-seke
That, for to hele him of his sorwes sore,
They yave him Antenor, with-oute more.

But who was glad y-nough but Calkas tho?
And of this thing ful sone his nedes leyde  
On hem that sholden for the tretis go,
And hem for Antenor ful ofte preyde
To bringen hoom king Toas and Criseyde;
And whan Pryam his save-garde sente,
Thembassadours to Troye streyght they wente.  

The cause y-told of hir cominge, the olde
Pryam the king ful sone in general
Let here-upon his parlement to holde,
Of which the effect rehersen yow I shal.
Thembassadours ben answered for fynal,  
Theschaunge of prisoners and al this nede
Hem lyketh wel, and forth in they procede.

This Troilus was present in the place,
Whan axed was for Antenor Criseyde,
For which ful sone chaungen gan his face,  
As he that with tho wordes wel neigh deyde.
But nathelees, he no word to it seyde,
Lest men sholde his affeccioun espye;
With mannes herte he gan his sorwes drye.

And ful of anguissh and of grisly drede  
Abood what lordes wolde un-to it seye;
And if they wolde graunte, as god forbede,
Theschaunge of hir, than thoughte he thinges tweye,
First, how to save hir honour, and what weye
He mighte best theschaunge of hir withstonde;  
Ful faste he caste how al this mighte stonde.

Love him made al prest to doon hir byde,
And rather dye than she sholde go;
But resoun seyde him, on that other syde,
'With-oute assent of hir ne do not so,  
Lest for thy werk she wolde be thy fo,
And seyn, that thorugh thy medling is y-blowe
Your bother love, there it was erst unknowe.'

For which he gan deliberen, for the beste,
That though the lordes wolde that she wente,  
He wolde lat hem graunte what hem leste,
And telle his lady first what that they mente.
And whan that she had seyd him hir entente,
Ther-after wolde he werken also blyve,
Though al the world ayein it wolde stryve.  

Ector, which that wel the Grekes herde,
For Antenor how they wolde han Criseyde,
Gan it withstonde, and sobrely answerde: --
'Sires, she nis no prisoner,' he seyde;
'I noot on yow who that this charge leyde,  
But, on my part, ye may eft-sone hem telle,
We usen here no wommen for to selle.'

The noyse of peple up-stirte thanne at ones,
As breme as blase of straw y-set on fyre;
For infortune it wolde, for the nones,  
They sholden hir confusioun desyre.
'Ector,' quod they, 'what goost may yow enspyre
This womman thus to shilde and doon us lese
Daun Antenor? -- a wrong wey now ye chese --

'That is so wys, and eek so bold baroun,  
And we han nede to folk, as men may see;
He is eek oon, the grettest of this toun;
O Ector, lat tho fantasyes be!
O king Priam,' quod they, 'thus seggen we,
That al our voys is to for-gon Criseyde;'  
And to deliveren Antenor they preyde.

O Iuvenal, lord! Trewe is thy sentence,
That litel witen folk what is to yerne
That they ne finde in hir desyr offence;
For cloud of errour let hem not descerne  
What best is; and lo, here ensample as yerne.
This folk desiren now deliveraunce
Of Antenor, that broughte hem to mischaunce!

For he was after traytour to the toun
Of Troye; allas! They quitte him out to rathe;  
O nyce world, lo, thy discrecioun!
Criseyde, which that never dide hem skathe,
Shal now no lenger in hir blisse bathe;
But Antenor, he shal com hoom to toune,
And she shal out; thus seyden here and howne.  

For which delibered was by parlement
For Antenor to yelden out Criseyde,
And it pronounced by the president,
Al-theigh that Ector 'nay' ful ofte preyde.
And fynaly, what wight that it with-seyde,  
It was for nought, it moste been, and sholde;
For substaunce of the parlement it wolde.

Departed out of parlement echone,
This Troilus, with-oute wordes mo,
Un-to his chaumbre spedde him faste allone,  
But-if it were a man of his or two,
The whiche he bad out faste for to go,
By-cause he wolde slepen, as he seyde,
And hastely up-on his bed him leyde.

And as in winter leves been biraft,  
Eche after other, til the tree be bare,
So that ther nis but bark and braunche y-laft,
Lyth Troilus, biraft of ech wel-fare,
Y-bounden in the blake bark of care,
Disposed wood out of his wit to breyde,  
So sore him sat the chaunginge of Criseyde.

He rist him up, and every dore he shette
And windowe eek, and tho this sorweful man
Up-on his beddes syde a-doun him sette,
Ful lyk a deed image pale and wan;  
And in his brest the heped wo bigan
Out-breste, and he to werken in this wyse
In his woodnesse, as I shal yow devyse.

Right as the wilde bole biginneth springe
Now here, now there, y-darted to the herte,  
And of his deeth roreth in compleyninge,
Right so gan he aboute the chaumbre sterte,
Smyting his brest ay with his festes smerte;
His heed to the wal, his body to the grounde
Ful ofte he swapte, him-selven to confounde.  

His eyen two, for pitee of his herte,
Out stremeden as swifte welles tweye;
The heighe sobbes of his sorwes smerte
His speche him refte, unnethes mighte he seye,
'O deeth, allas! Why niltow do me deye?  
A-cursed be the day which that nature
Shoop me to ben a lyves creature!'

But after, whan the furie and the rage
Which that his herte twiste and faste threste,
By lengthe of tyme somwhat gan asswage,  
Up-on his bed he leyde him doun to reste;
But tho bigonne his teres more out-breste,
That wonder is, the body may suffyse
To half this wo, which that I yow devyse.

Than seyde he thus, 'Fortune! Allas the whyle!  
What have I doon, what have I thus a-gilt?
How mightestow for reuthe me bigyle?
Is ther no grace, and shal I thus be spilt?
Shal thus Criseyde awey, for that thou wilt?
Allas! How maystow in thyn herte finde  
To been to me thus cruel and unkinde?

'Have I thee nought honoured al my lyve,
As thou wel wost, above the goddes alle?
Why wiltow me fro Ioye thus depryve?
O Troilus, what may men now thee calle  
But wrecche of wrecches, out of honour falle
In-to miserie, in which I wol biwayle
Criseyde, allas! Til that the breeth me fayle?

'Allas, Fortune! If that my lyf in Ioye
Displesed hadde un-to thy foule envye,  
Why ne haddestow my fader, king of Troye,
By-raft the lyf, or doon my bretheren dye,
Or slayn my-self, that thus compleyne and crye,
I, combre-world, that may of no-thing serve,
But ever dye, and never fully sterve?  

'If that Criseyde allone were me laft,
Nought roughte I whider thou woldest me stere;
And hir, allas! Than hastow me biraft.
But ever-more, lo! This is thy manere,
To reve a wight that most is to him dere,  
To preve in that thy gerful violence.
Thus am I lost, ther helpeth no defence!

'O verray lord of love, O god, allas!
That knowest best myn herte and al my thought,
What shal my sorwful lyf don in this cas  
If I for-go that I so dere have bought?
Sin ye Cryseyde and me han fully brought
In-to your grace, and bothe our hertes seled,
How may ye suffre, allas! It be repeled?

'What I may doon, I shal, whyl I may dure  
On lyve in torment and in cruel peyne,
This infortune or this disaventure,
Allone as I was born, y-wis, compleyne;
Ne never wil I seen it shyne or reyne;
But ende I wil, as Edippe, in derknesse  
My sorwful lyf, and dyen in distresse.

'O wery goost, that errest to and fro,
Why niltow fleen out of the wofulleste
Body, that ever mighte on grounde go?
O soule, lurkinge in this wo, unneste,  
Flee forth out of myn herte, and lat it breste,
And folwe alwey Criseyde, thy lady dere;
Thy righte place is now no lenger here!

'O wofulle eyen two, sin your disport
Was al to seen Criseydes eyen brighte,  
What shal ye doon but, for my discomfort,
Stonden for nought, and wepen out your sighte?
Sin she is queynt, that wont was yow to lighte,
In veyn fro-this-forth have I eyen tweye
Y-formed, sin your vertue is a-weye.  

'O my Criseyde, O lady sovereyne
Of thilke woful soule that thus cryeth,
Who shal now yeven comfort to the peyne?
Allas, no wight; but when myn herte dyeth,
My spirit, which that so un-to yow hyeth,  
Receyve in gree, for that shal ay yow serve;
For-thy no fors is, though the body sterve.

'O ye loveres, that heighe upon the wheel
Ben set of Fortune, in good aventure,
God leve that ye finde ay love of steel,  
And longe mot your lyf in Ioye endure!
But whan ye comen by my sepulture,
Remembreth that your felawe resteth there;
For I lovede eek, though I unworthy were.

'O olde, unholsom, and mislyved man,  
Calkas I mene, allas! What eyleth thee
To been a Greek, sin thou art born Troian?
O Calkas, which that wilt my bane be,
In cursed tyme was thou born for me!
As wolde blisful Iove, for his Ioye,  
That I thee hadde, where I wolde, in Troye!'

A thousand sykes, hottere than the glede,
Out of his brest ech after other wente,
Medled with pleyntes newe, his wo to fede,
For which his woful teres never stente;  
And shortly, so his peynes him to-rente,
And wex so mat, that Ioye nor penaunce
He feleth noon, but lyth forth in a traunce.

Pandare, which that in the parlement
Hadde herd what every lord and burgeys seyde,  
And how ful graunted was, by oon assent,
For Antenor to yelden so Criseyde,
Gan wel neigh wood out of his wit to breyde,
So that, for wo, he niste what he mente;
But in a rees to Troilus he wente.  

A certeyn knight, that for the tyme kepte
The chaumbre-dore, un-dide it him anoon;
And Pandare, that ful tendreliche wepte,
In-to the derke chaumbre, as stille as stoon,
Toward the bed gan softely to goon,  
So confus, that he niste what to seye;
For verray wo his wit was neigh aweye.

And with his chere and loking al to-torn,
For sorwe of this, and with his armes folden,
He stood this woful Troilus biforn,  
And on his pitous face he gan biholden;
But lord, so often gan his herte colden,
Seing his freend in wo, whos hevinesse
His herte slow, as thoughte him, for distresse.

This woful wight, this Troilus, that felte  
His freend Pandare y-comen him to see,
Gan as the snow ayein the sonne melte,
For which this sorwful Pandare, of pitee,
Gan for to wepe as tendreliche as he;
And specheles thus been thise ilke tweye,  
That neyther mighte o word for sorwe seye.

But at the laste this woful Troilus,
Ney deed for smert, gan bresten out to rore,
And with a sorwful noyse he seyde thus,
Among his sobbes and his sykes sore,  
'Lo! Pandare, I am deed, with-oute
Dougie Simps Jun 2013
the bass hits, the drum rolls
Being a victim of a spilt decision of a racial war at 10 years old
Was never told, a way to be, but my fathers legacy, made me look at one side painfully cold
Wide awake, as I lay my head
On the belief my kind is dead
The proper stereotype of a white kid
But the preference to black kids outfit
Putin on a show, to simply fit in
Not knowin were the **** I should of truly been
The constant pain of feelin like ****
A young man who is confusingly mixed...
...
I see a star who shines bright, in a darken night,
Did you know, not all stars shine white?
They're shades of black, just remember that...why couldn't I see this logic way back?
Another poser, who's addicted to rap..
"Ya not black" like what kind of stupid **** is that?
You speak a way, but was always consider white
Do you see the mixed feeling? ******* mixed signs!?
Why can't ya accept me for just me?
Why can't ya just learn to love me?
Why who I am means I have act a certain way!?
that kinda **** makes me doubt people everyday!
My verses struggle with a troubled hook!
Can you see me now? Have you even looked?
A black father, who showed me fear
A white mother, who's voice I hear!
Another song, sharing my lies!
Another fight, with my dark side!
When will ya get it and just put this **** to rest? You judge so much, make it hard to be my best
Your words are a bullet! Penetratin my chest, I done clean up my act but you keep making another mess
I'm tired of trying to please you, tired of trying to defeat you
Ya minds are so glassy, it obvious to see through. *******, be gone! Stop and please carry on! Fly away! Take a trip don't tell me when ya landin
You all pushed me so much...........yet I'm still standin...standin...standin....but I will be gone, soon.
I'm a mixed race as well as personality so I felt this writing helped me through confusion through out my life.
Josh Koepp Oct 2012
Every morning i greet the sun smelling like jasmine and spice
the rays roll through my window
bend nicely and tip their hats only to figure out
that i am a man
and they switch between reaching down to kiss my hand
something they subconsciously planned
ever since that smell of sensual perfume heated up
even the hottest, and the coolest
made them too woozy to stand
they switch to an improvised hand shake
their mother told them not to judge on every
first impression that they make
but they smell my personality
my mannerisms and the way i walk and talk
WAFTED into their nostrils
like some woman dolled up before a date
with no one
to sit alone and say
"** hum"
and wait for the casual wreck of a man to walk in
to punch his time card and clock in
to commit sin upon this woman

but no

their nostrils and their eyes
seem to not agree
on what is
me

i wake up smelling like jasmine and spices
like a woman who spent all night in sin
taking pleasure from her vices
and i waft into every man and womans nostrils

and their eyes say man

their nose says woman so it seems
so they think i must be something in between

when in reality i smell like this because
i spent an entire night in love
with someone i lost the next day
and in our own way she brought her oils
for me to serve and slave her body with
and i wasn't ashamed of it

i spilt the oils all over our bodys they caressed us
and gave every motion an unstoppable velocity
every situation was slippery
and things that shouldnt have been
almost came to be

as we slept the oils clocked out
and slid down our still interlocked bodies and into the bedspread
it opened up its homestead
and buried its dead, started families and grew in number
until the population of the smell was too strong
too strong and the one i shared the smell with
was gone

but i hold that night fondly
i hold it above my head in all its glory
and when i am judged by my scent and called
gay
***
or questioned of my sexuality
i just tell them
i'm being the scent i smelled when i discovered my masculinity
when i tried gender fusion and it didn't quite work
but i covered every other base
i swear my good sir

so ill tell you one thing
i am not an inbetween because i have never joined in the sweet final base
into sweet sexuality
with the opposite *** making man and woman
into man-woman
the in between

what i really mean is i am not what you think of me
i am 100% man until i find the right woman
a beautiful sight in the sunlight
and when night falls and i cant see her at all
i can find even more things i like
to take that from me
and i will give it up gladly

i am a man
as much as any man woman
or man man is
and stereotypes are for those who dont understand
that there IS no difference.
Bogle Sep 2013
Sax,
   clarinet,
      grade 8,
scales,
   sight reading,
      frustrate.

Super rock,
   teaching,
      french cafe,
logic,
   preaching,
      don't go that way!

Camp,
   sociology,
      tech,
music,
   general,
       respect.

cleaning,
   brother,
      size,
love,
   loss,
      surprise.

feet,
   freedom,
      modelling,
workout,
   fear,
      not bothering.
Seán Mac Falls Jul 2012
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing.  Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands.  Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.

                               My blood was a river that ran
Its course.  Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness.  Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell.  Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping.  Did I mention that the earth moved?
No?  Her displacement was involuntary.

Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time.  The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean.  And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light.  A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.

I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
Jenny Mar 2018
love
its a beautiful thing really,
its brutal, its strong
it so deep, and so heartwarming,
and at the same time,
it makes me want to cry, scream
pound my bed,
punch the white cement wall until my knuckles are ******, raw
and the wall has a display of reds.
it makes me want to break an elegant expensive vase, and crush it in my hand.
its destructive, desired, dangerous,
and yet
i want to laugh
i want to sing
and dance!
dance to oh what a night
dance with my yellow watercolored pillow case, with my favorite pillow stuffed inside
oh, love is so peculiar isn’t it?
its spectacular,
and its like standing in the middle of a ballroom
where dresses and suit ties of different hues reflect the chandelier light hanging from the ceiling,
an array of rainbows cast on the walls.
and yet, theres an emptiness…
one I’m afraid i cannot fill, and rely on you to.
its like standing in an ocean of chaos, of excitement and watching it from afar at the same time.
i can see myself swimming with the sharks, yet i am a bystander
as the thread of my life is strung tautly,
i watch myself bleed, gruesomely torn to pieces
i watch as the water darkens from spilt wine,
the wine that was once salty becomes sickly sweet around me
but i continue watching myself become bones stuck in their teeth.
its like being in an aquarium, encased in water,
and yet, still not a part of it, a distance, yet, a proximity
i watch myself drown through the looking glass, unable to help.
the sign says don’t tap the glass, but i pound and pound.
I am the only one watching myself slowly slow, and slowly stop.
stop breathing, stop fighting.
love is holding your breath, being cautious, yet careless.
Its diving recklessly, unsure whether to be sober, or drunk,
and being both.
its like seeing myself on a high diving board, the water beneath is so deep,
it seems to never start, and never end at the same time.
I can see myself, on the edge peering over,
scared to take a leap of faith,
yet relived i can still feel the sharp breaths,
nervous stomach,
because it means i can still feel, i am still capable of human emotions
i thought had left me long ago, before you.
Baby Don't Hurt Me
Mitchell Dec 2012
She stood up against the wooden bar lit by a stale football field that shined florescent green and highlighted polyester blue like a muse of Van Gogh or Galileo. Her hair ran down the nape of her neck like a ****** waterfall and the light of the bar highlighted her sphinx like eyes as she turned and caught his eye. He stood at a small table away from the main bar with a couple of friends who were telling stories of their old college days and he, half-listening, quickly looked away, faking to scratch his eye, for he knew he had been caught looking at the back of her and she, with her women's intuition of being observed and knowing this, kept looking and he knowing the only way not to show he had been caught was to look away quickly and very obviously; like a bad actor caught dumb and silent, clueless of their next line. They blushed and shared the heat of embarrassment in their cheeks with the sounds of worn dollar bills slapping hard against the smooth wood of the bar, the bar man eyeing it angrily as cigarette smoke surrounded them and slowly drifted up like a lost soul toward the ceiling and the piano man, eyes tight shut played for everyone there when no-one cared to listen, all underneath the dim light of the bar as they strained to look away from one another, trying to find something they could put their focus upon, but, at the same time, wanting very much to look back and have their eyes meet by mistake all over again.

He focused on the design of the bathroom placards that were in the right corner of the tiny bar where you had to turn sideways and touch shoulder's with every soul inside just to get a drink. He feigned interest in the bronze design of the men's bathroom: a tiny boy looking down at his pecker as he ****** a 1/2 inch thick stream into what the man gathered to be a sunflower ***. The boy was thrusting his hips forward, both of his hands on his side, and he showed no smile, no grin of satisfaction or victory, just a stark, blank face, as if he were thinking "I am peeing in this ***. That is all." The women's bathroom sign was of a young girl with the same kind of *** the boy had been ******* in, but it was missing the sunflower and was replaced by the *** of the girl. She stared up into the sky and into the ceiling lights and was dramatically reaching for a butterfly or bird - he couldn't make out which - something with wings and made him think of a basic metaphor that this poor little girl just wants to get off the *** and be free like the birds and butterflies and clouds in the wide blue sky.

She focused on the man's shoes. She looked at the black shine and the pristine black shoe laces, all looking like everything had just been purchased that day. "There is not a single scuff on them and the way this man cuffs his pants only a single turn," she thought to herself, "Tells me he has something of a style on him". Not so run of the mill. Something special. Something of interest.* But then, she was annoyed by the cuff of the pants because she remembered that was what all the schoolboys in her prep school would do when the day was rainy or the boys rode their bikes home from school or they were nerds. The memory immediately turned her off of the man all together, but luckily, she put her gaze back on the jet-black, seemingly un-touched leather that told her success, class, and security.

The man heard a loud Cheer's!" from his table, abruptly bringing him out of his distraction. He was forced to turn and as he did, he made sure not to look up. He kept his eyes on the table and looked for the half-full beer with the worn Budweiser coaster underneath it. He could see from the his top periphery that she was still facing him but she was looking down at something toward the floor. He fumbled with his large hands for his glass and panned his eyes up slightly. The woman, seeing the movement at the table, looked up. She stared back to where she had first caught him looking at her and waited. The man felt her looking at him and in the same instant, saw the faded Budweiser coaster and reached for his beer. He picked the glass up and as the second Cheer! was yelled, he clashed his glass against all the others, all the while keeping his head not toward his friend's faces, but turned in the direction of the bar toward the girl. He smiled at her as he lowered his glass, not taking a drink. His friend slapped him on the back and told him," You gotta' drink after the cheers or its bad luck," and so he did, still staring dumbly at her as he did. She nodded at him with a self-conscious and embarrassed grin, raised her nearly gone low-ball glass of gin and tonic and tipped it toward him and turned around to face the bar.

"I"ll stand here and wait for him to come up to me," she thought, "And if he doesn't the man is a coward and a louse and not worth my time. I have looked twice now and there is some rule in some magazine that I read somewhere, that if you look twice at a man that it is sign, not a coincidence. No, it has a purpose and though I barely know what reason I want this man to look at me other then to get a drink out of him and maybe some conversation, I am certain I have looked twice, maybe even three times. Yes. I have looked at him and I have made my interest known and now I must wait for him to either come or stay with his drunken friends. They look like frat boys cheering like that. They look like drunken, silly frat boys that wouldn't know the first thing about chivalry. Hell, they probably couldn't even spell the ****** word." She laughed under her breath and smiled maliciously to herself and caught her own reflection in the mirror and, for an moment, wanted to quickly look away. Her face did not frighten her, for she was a beautiful woman, not her skin, which was milky white with the faintest and gentlest dash of rouge on each cheek, nor her chocolate colored curls that bounded like boulder's down a hillside. She turned away from a look upon her eye she had not seen or had recognized in a very long time. Her eyes were frightened.

"Frightened?" she wondered.

The man put his beer glass on the table on top of the coaster. The foam rested at the bottom of the cup like the thin layer of ice that blows over a frozen lake, barely there at all passing with the wind. He stared at her back and liked how she leaned on her right hip and put the toe of her left high-heel to the ground, rocking the nose of the shoe back and forth like she was thinking about something playfully frivolous. Behind him, the noise of his friends became a hollow echo, drowned out by the draw of this woman. She swung her left heel back and forth like a pendulum trying to hypnotize him. Someone touched his shoulder but he shrugged the hand away as in this echo chamber he could only hear the music change tracks on the juke box. The song had changed to an old Ottis Redding song and there was nothing else in the world that he wanted to listen to in that moment. As he watched her, leaning into the bar seemingly all alone, no boyfriend or girlfriend in sight, he saw her raise her glass to the barman and knew she had something by the gentle nod of the back of her head. He then saw her point with her left finger and tap the rim of the glass. Her drink was empty. She wanted another drink. He would buy her another drink.

"There is nothing in this world that a man is more responsible for than getting a woman like this a drink," he nodded, thinking to himself and trying to pick up his courage,"One that plays with my heart like a kitten would a spool of yarn, and yet also like a vulture who would peck out the eyes of a dead man in the desert. This is nothing more then that obligation. A rule passed down from man to man, from age to age, where chivalry was not for the base reason to lay with the woman, but to honor them, praise them lightly as the rain from a heavy mist and show them to the pedestal every woman, whether they wish to admit it or not, do wish for, sincerely do at least once in there life." He readjusted his belt and realigned his shirt that had gotten crooked after the celebratory cheer and thought some more,"I'm not going to do that here, this pedestal stuff. This is more like a step toward that pedestal. Yes. A step toward the shrine she wants to trust she deserves and will one day end up on. And this shrine is all cast and painted in the blurry french film noir of dream, is it not? Aren't dreams the only thing we hope to one day come true? How often - when and if they do come true - they can sometimes disappoint and eventually turn sour like a bad orange. I hope she is drinking and that wasn't just a tonic water. If this woman doesn't drink I don't think any of this will be worth anything at all."

She stood there serene and angelic, the hand that held her drink now resting on the base of the bar. Behind the man, he heard the chatter of his friends and the drone of football scores and player updates coming from the ten or more televisions that hung from the ceiling. Someone reached out to touch his shoulder but missed him as he left the table. His name then echoed behind him but soon the sound evaporated as dew does that rests on blades of grass in a summer morning to a summer afternoon. There was only her and her smell that had drifted to his table and shrouded him with the scent of white chocolate and smoke and her delicate, porcelain hand that had held up the drink shyly but not weakly, in passing demand without that demanding quality drunk people can get like at bars sometimes. He approached her, hovered behind her, but she did not turn, and then came up to the bar to lean into. He did not turn to look at her, though he wanted to very badly, but looked down at her low-ball glass with two half-melted ice cubes and a used lime. The smell of gin came from the glass and the man smiled to himself and put his hand up to signal the bartender.

"If this man orders his drink first and walks back to that table with all of his drunken friends, I am giving up men all together," the woman thought to herself," * Tonight and forever! If he can put his hand up and not even turn to look at me, as I was doing, I thought, to be very flirtatious but gentle, then I see no reason at all to keep going with men. They are barbarians that only want to eat, drink, sleep, and fornicate with women that are easy and provide no real challenge at all in their life. If he wants it easy, he can have it as easy as he wants, but not with me. No sir. Not with me ever. Not with me for a night, an hour, a minute, or even a second."

The bartender, a stout slightly overweight man that was a little over forty with streaks of grey in his thin, short-cut hair, looking very much like he should be home reading with a nice cup of tea by his side rather than in the bar serving drinks to stranger's, approached the man and asked him what he would like.

"Two gin and tonics please," the man said, "With a slice of lime and four ice-cubes in each."

"And what kind of gin, sir?"

The man turned to the woman, "What label do you drink?" he asked.

"Pardon me?" she stuttered startled, her eyebrows raised.

"Your drinking gin, aren't you?" He nodded his head toward the woman's empty glass. The tiny lines of transparent lime skin floated on top of the water that had gathered from the melting ice-cubes.

"Yes, I am. I was just about to order."

"I'll get this round and you'll get the next one."

"Any gin is fine."

The man turned to the bartender," Tanqueray, please bartender."

He nodded and went to make the drinks.

"Your very perceptive," the woman said as she turned to face him.

"I try."

"I saw you from across the bar, but was afraid to walk up to your table for fear of getting ambushed by all of your friends. Those are your friends, right?"

"Yes," he nodded as he looked over his shoulder at them, "Old college friends all with old stories of college that, truthfully, bring me little or no joy to even hear."

"Then why come at all?" she asked, "You seem smart enough to know that if you meet up with old anything, you'll be hearing about the old times all night."

"I was forced to come."

"Someone getting divorced?"

"No," he laughed, "The opposite. Married."

"Well, I hope it's not you or this would look very bad if your fiance walked in."

"And why's that?"

She clicked her tongue and turned to look at the shelves stocked with every kind of liquor. The bottles reflected the soft orange glow of the lights that circled the bar and the colors of the television screens. The man continued to look at the woman who had turned her back on him and caught their reflection in a bottle of Jack Daniel's. He waited for a response, but she stood there silent, knowing she was playing with him. Behind him, his friends were growing louder and a tray of shots had found its way to their table. The waitress who had brought the drinks, polite and with a smile, asked them to try and keep it down. They shouted "YES'S and screamed "YEAH'S" with moronic smiles on their faces, their heads nodding up and down like a dog playing fetch. The waitress giggled a thank and walked away shaking her head with disgust when she was out of sight.

"Well," she said,"You did just order two gin and tonics and I think if your fiance walked in with you chatting with me with the same drink in both of our hands, I think she would be a little upset. I know I would be."

"Perhaps we could act like we are old grammar school friends and just happened to run into one another?"

"Well, that would be a lie."

"Yes, that would be a lie."

"Which would mean we were hiding something from said wife."

"And what would that be?"

"That you approached me after I looked at you, perhaps the look from me wasn't flirtatious, maybe I thought you looked familiar, like I had seen you somewhere, and you came up to me and ordered me a drink and started a conversation with me, much like we are doing right now."

"What's wrong with conversation?" The bartender approached them and placed the two drinks in front of the man. The man took out his wallet without losing his gaze on the woman, took out a twenty and slid it toward the bartender. The bartender took the twenty, paused for a moment to see if the man wanted any change, but left when he saw he didn't want any by not moving.

"Conversation can lead to very dangerous things," the woman said playfully and wise.

"Your here by yourself and your not stupid; someone is going to come up to talk to you."

"And your that somebody?"

"I'm sure I'm not the first one tonight."

"Your sweet."

"I try," he said as he slid the drink over to here,"Your drink."

"What should we drink too?" She asked and raised her glass, the light above them reflecting in the ice-cubes and thick glass of the high-ball.

"Conversation," he said proudly and with a smile, "And the danger that it brings."

They clinked their glasses together, their eyes never leaving one another, and they both took a long drink.

"I'm not here with anybody and I'm not expecting anybody tonight either," the woman said.

"What's your name?"

"Why?"

"I want to be able to tell my friends I met a very interesting woman, but they won't believe me if I don't give them a name."

"I'm standing right here, silly. Go and tell them you met the most interesting woman in your entire life, look over at me when they ask you what my name is, then point over to me and I'll wave."

"You'll be here?"

"I'll be here."

"Promise?"

"Go, go, go," she repeated, pushing him back toward his table, "You bought me a drink, didn't you? The least I can do is wave to your drunken college friends."

The man walked back to his table, glancing quickly over his shoulder, trying to hide it, before he reached the table. He arrived to all of them drunk, beer spilt on the table and an ashtray full of punched out cigarettes and ground up cigars. Every one of them were rocking back and forth with each other, their arms sloppily hung around their neighbor's shoulders, their eyes blood shot with their mouth half-cracked open barely breathing in the smoky, beer smelling air. The man struggled to wedge his way into the circle, and when he did, he tried to get the groups attention by screaming an
Jonny Angel May 2014
Spilt milk
flooded
the skies above us
as we splashed
in natural ways,
displaying thermals
in radiance,
your eyes captured
the sunshine of a billion suns.

Between the bubbles,
I found your sweet spot,
a deep valley
way below the surface
& we screamed primal
as I got drunk
on your effervescence,
under the spilt milk
of heaven.

I felt it.
Joshua Mahoney Apr 2018
Take me as you want me
Take till i am empty
Feelings hit the table like spilt milk
I walk away leaving you with the mess that is
Me
Myself
And i
Puddles of white color the floor around your feet
My life is not so neat as i make it seem
I wear my heart on my sleeve like it's going out of style
Threads coming loose at the seams
Eventually i am left sleeveless
Standing on the table now
Holding my heart in one hand
An empty glass in the other
I start to run
Run from
Spilt milk.
This is how i feel my feelings are when i have someone important in my life but am trying not to scar them away
Jeff Raheb Aug 2014
Havana, I arrive
in the sweaty thickness of July
caliente y picante
steamy sidewalks, steamy women
chocolate brown, tan and
black against the lemon-yellow walls
strolling through La Plaza de Armas
slurping thick café through weathered lips
in La Plaza de Francisco de Asis
dancing on the pregnant gray stones in La Plaza Vieja
timba, rumba, salsa and son
Cristo, Maria, Yemaya and Obatalá

Havana, I arrive
in the intoxication of your breath
between the acrid fumes
of insecticides and 1957 Chevy's
stepping past the dark grime of your slums
streets plush with tight round bodies
beautiful and sensuously swaying

I arrive snaking past the converted palaces
con las turistas ricos
and the buy-me-a-dress-and-a-ring ******
with their enchanting full-tooth smiles
and undulating earthquake-tremor hips
I hear your beat
the machine-gun laughter of your feet
on the hot cobblestones
with the jinateros and street musicians
chants of Santería drifting from pane-less windows

Havana, I smell your heat
under salty faded sheets
smell the long, tobacco-stained nights
with your hips swaying
to the pale drops of ***
spilt from red lips
and the red drops of blood
spilt from your revolutionaries
spilt from the gorging of Machado and Baptista
and 500 years of foreign dominion

In Paseo de Marti
banners of Che Guevara
flapping in the moist tear-laden breeze
Fidel, cigar in hand
tirelessly raging in black and white
on a Russian 1960's TV

Cuba, I can see the green in your eyes
the peeling-paint bedroom dreams and
dirt-poor joy of your richness
laughing out the despair and desperation
dancing out the oppression and the paucity
the aching of your past
the battles of Castillo De Los Tres Santos
of  the revolution
of living
and as I stand on the steps of El Capitolio
looking out at the decaying grandeur
I understand why
I will be back
James LR Jul 2018
Spilt upon the breathing tide
The shadows of our former pride
Stained with gilded, rusty gore

Songs upon the breeze still scream
From barren bog and skylit sea
Once were sung but nevermore

Clouds cry crimson in the lake
The moons and stars the sky forsakes
As darkness falls on ****** shores
Mitchell Nov 2011
Not in the way I
Look through these eyes
which water but instead
Of sadness entranced upset
Near to death love
making where though and
Design laugh at their own
Gluttony and ill usage and
away from me i say no not here and
away from itself i hear nothing for you
are here within me but away
Comet and the see to hear blues with
Everything to give but nothing to lose
And the far off sights are much too bright
And inside you hear yourself crying
Not to mtters or mold your soul
With what your parents said to you
Ordered you to be bold and
The aftermath of your own tightened slack
Makes you wonder if growing up was an actual
Choice in the matter of the batter which is
The family foundation were games are played
For keeps and children weep as they keep
Toiling on as adults just for bigger and better things
Come into the waves of a brain malfunctioning
No face for ye' faith meand nodding to the higher
Ones whose noses are broken and the lips cracked
The spinning brain of hurts doughnuts and Americana
Rip offs selling the flag by the millions to turn a profit
For the moronic billionaires who think no one is watching.
Watching with their hats turned sideways and trying to
Escape old age and grey hair and sagging ball sacks and
Poor english and worser bread, stale with their mother's
Ghost hovering on the shoulder of their pouting diamond
Drenched wife as if madness grew a larger pair **** within the
Hilarity of connection of concoction of happiness and
Satisfaction and a longing to burn the entire ******* down
Just to rebuild it the way you see and you do see it and the way
You feel it used to be and perhaps, maybe, could be and where
Experimentation is now a center fold for the dock workers and the
Laborers of the world to spit and ******* and cry over in their
Twisted and rusty beds for inside their pea brains and melted
Mouths filled with colgate and beer, they slobber over the excess
And humiliation and celluoid dreams of **** and *** and spreads
That would make any grandmother of 37 weep and Mozart meander
On the veranda, contemplating smooth jazz and the way he would like
Not to be buried with the hat trick hockey nick who swore he saw
You fall in love before and that sobriety was the touch of the Christian
Way of life and ye' far out and tormented young ones meant nothing
By what they said at the rally and they do believe in the good of the
White government and we are headed toward a technological maelstrom
Of the golden age of the HUMAN RACE but alas I hope I decipher I pray to
No God but whoever has the ears and eyes and arm fat to listen with their
Splintered consciousness and their painted red toenails and girlfriends who
Whisper they have always loved another and how TRUE UNTRUTH IS and
How vindictive we rant on and read on and hope and believe that the end
Is the end but it is only the end for you and their will be new blood and new eyes
And new minds and we will grow old but the rivers water will be recycled, as we
Will be recycled into the dust and the mud and the rubble to further build the streets
As the street makers and the bread winners will smile as they think they are the
First ones to think up such a crafty, inventive invention but hierarchies are on the horizon
And I remember I was born with a name that I never grew to know or fall in love with
Or defend or keep close to my heart for the heart is weary hunter and it ventures on
With or without the body.
Note to self.
Recall the last rite before you begin on to the next one.
History has spilt its blood and its fair share of orange juice, try not to remember the numbers but remember the amount of burned chairs.
Note to self, returned.
The heaters on and the soul is not dancing but jiving like icing on a three year olds birthday cake.
Submission time to the chief, submission time
To those other guys, whose faces I've never smelt, but who are there waiting and whining that the times are no longer a changing.
Keep up the smiles, keep out the frowns.
Negativity is the attribute of the terrorist. Don't be a terrorist.
All fine men and women have once in their life been truly scared.
One ten till the train leaves.


Good night major split hairs.

On the second of the fort
Nights beckoned a call dim
Lit by ill fated mechanisms that
Were men and women and
Children and the forgotten dream of
What was meant long ago and was is
Meant now but not followed through.

With heaven comes hell and hell fire and
Clouds of white with shelling from
Wars not of this world or the next or
The one's thereafter and lingering history,
With its bells and trinkets and tombstones,
That have been weathered but are still not gone.

Memory not mourning, pictures in a frame lit
From the inside out and drinks were there
When we were not meant to be there like a
Kiss on a flower you picked at an age where
Life was not known and death was even
Farther away for it existed not in the eyes of yours
But in everyone else around you, except for the
Other children of course but oh' of course.

If your trying to get the part of the stuff
That makes you recall the upstairs of the
Idiocies of the room romance that restricts but
Contains life and halters life and stifles life with
That one must recall a past life where tears
Mean nothing when you produce them too often.

Can of the hypocritical malice of mis-informed family
Foundations and we break into the minds of the way
It should be and the way it shouldn't be and yet here
When we gaze out across the wide spread of the world
And its many ways it spells out with a God's own language
The morning of the ear who listens and speaks when not spoken
To breaking every single rule of the word and smiling
Throughout the whole ****** thing.

Canons of repetition where life winces and the wife begins to wheeze
And fall, her dress is now clear and her eyes just don't seem to be
Where we are now I believe that money is the root of this soon to be dead
Tree and streets are now empty as the moon casts its silver glaze and
The breeze is now naked with her bra on the floor cast in straw while
The wizards write their spells and comb their hair and draw out plans
For the next great fall but watch the fireworks and the way they hail and
Crawl throughout the entire bawl and Ol' Ezra P. mass amounts of rage
To bring to the stage but here ye' O great one this place is for us all.

Here in the house of the not that is shared but all is seen here
Where the wind blows to no east and no west and no south and
No other way that you believe to get headed to the world of
The no names and experience makes you wise and yet old
And remembered for the drinks you paid for but especially for
The ones you forgot to pay for but that is what friends are for.

Omnivores in latitudes that matter not to the public eye but
To the ear of the Lord that is not everyone's savior but
Chosen just for the right eye so within that decree of mastery
We entrance the light and shovel up the leaves leaving the last
Way of things to be the first way of things when the lights
Are quickly turned off and on and off and on again and again;
Stars are naked until the sun rises in your hometown and the radio
Turns on.

And the background music chimes with a willingness of a cockroach but
Holds the beauty of a **** statue found in the under toe of a lost
Beach in a lost land forgotten in time but embraced by eternity and
Though does not dwindle its numerous names or its many ways
Of being for the hour does shackle us all but here in high array of
None other then eight times the way through the cobbled up in the
Attic of the fiercest neanderthal dictator with ideas holding truths upon
Truths that in the end mean nothing  for advancement is not determined
But continued upon as long as we forget the past and look to the future hymn
Of the childless winged' beasts that were once forgotten but now embraced
Angels.

Not of this world but of the entirety of the reality of banality
Breathing back and forth inhaling and exhaling releasing the
Mind of the mares of the wandering rewinds of infinite space
And inside the eyes of the highest levee which has broken but
Has not yet spilt holding back its power for the remainder of the
Year and catacombs upon catacombs of forgotten text of never
Forgotten men recalling their former lives and their former passions
And the hastiness of their possession of the word and the avoidance
Of the death touch the death mark the black spot upon us all.

Dog on a hill cloud high in the sky nut on the ground no not a sound
Frost on your fingertips toe of the boot covered a steel dull mud
Suds from a water rushing miles away nodding branches of a dead tree
Wind through the high grass birds in the sky that fly but not chirp
Sun in the sky rice fields burn brown crickets rub their thighs together
Not here but in the corn stocks and pig stocks brown in the reverse order
Platters of pinch salt and pepper underneath the floor boards creek for
Creak and dollar for dollar we make the rounds and we do not frown.

And the meet of the neat make their rapid conversations in dual order
Where they tell themselves this but I hear that and you make what you want
Unless you ain't got the stuff but if your lucky and if your smart you'll
Grab the oven and bake that **** but in case you don't see the sunset and
Your buried without your toes look for your voice because that's the only
Way you'll get to know the stars in the sky or the dirt on the ground for
The fun is growing but the lurkers are smirking for they got the pennies and
They got the nickels and these streets are breaking so you gotta' start thinking
Of a way to get outta' this place and FAST or else you'll be staring down the
Barrel of a 33 to ONE typing and writing and peeping around the corner of
Your dear old ***** that hasn't found in a home in years but don't look too
Down because one day that ONE will come around either by taxi or by train
Or by some kind of war and if you've got the gut and the money and the honey to
Keep her tight and alright and flying that lovers kite then your bound to keep
Yourself from the giggles and nearer to the harmony of the way things ought to
Be but may not really be but perhaps can be if you will it around and swill it with
Your will making sure your lies and that white or ain't that black or ain't that real
Or you ain't lying at all but stay truer to the truth with the water resolution of the
Insipid insecurity of the first love you thought you knew but now see that it was
The one three or four later and how right I am in knowing nothing and knowing
Everything and letting the mind skip and play and register new friends in the new
Cities and the new alleys and the smiles that break across the ice like a crack of of a
Whip and counting the days ones gone blowing through the high valley and the low
Trenches of war I do not wish to go to but may be forced too because this man believes
Just what he says.
Carson Hurley Apr 2017
The spilt milk soured,
it happened almost as quick
as when the glass first fell.

You looked at me
denigrating my insolence,
pitying my pathetic attempt
at being smooth.

The only thing smooth
in this room was the
milk bleeding across the floor,
like clouded glass
I could see my
horrified face
in the reflection.

All I felt was shame
unequivocal shame
fujimountain Feb 2015
Vivid thoughts of you keep revealing themselves as expeditious memories.

How idiotic of me not to appreciate the time shared because I assumed the pleasure was in your company not for your presence but how the thought of your imminent arrival forced a smile before you even entered the building.  

How seconds were lifetimes yet minutes briskly swept by.

Time was our birthright and our only luxury, it was also a curse we couldn't shake off like a birthmark at the centre of my forehead.

Please believe me when I say I recite your name daily yet I find myself cursing at the sky because no matter how valiant my effort. I feel it slowly taking away the little I still have of you.
Joe Cole Dec 2013
Syria oh Syria why do you bleed?
Brother fights brother without thought or need
Ruled by a tyrant for so many years
And now the spilt blood is washed away by tears

Democracy by debate you tried and you failed
Now the wives and mothers they cry and they wail
Democracy now sought at the point of a gun
Your country in turmoil, lives being undone

I sympathise and weep at your terrible plight
Your people are dying, no end in sight
Can man ever undo the chaos he's wrought?
Going to war without reason or thought

Syria oh Syria your bloods being drained
By those who would seek political gain
When the killing is done will you be better off?
Is what you might gain worth all the loss?

Your economy gone so how will you live?
The worlds in recession, no money to give
Families destroyed and homes are no more
All destroyed by a political war
Months of stale, cigarette smoke
and spilt **** water pleasantly
offset the stench of cheap cologne
and ratty, abused furniture.
    
Fictitious stories occupy this tiny, dim
apartment, birthed on the lips of
rebellious juveniles whose tongues
pierce the ears of our elders.

In a forsaken corner, Jeremy lounges
awkwardly on a grubby-plaid sofa that
suitably complements his button-down shirt.  
I join him.

Behind his right ear rests a lonely cigarette, while
another sits snug between his lips, set ablaze
by the 1968 Slim Model Zippo he inherited from
his beloved grandfather.

His transparent sense of self-worth emanates
from his grubby, grease-stained hands, scuffed boots,
blotchy-checkered flannels, and faded blue jeans
that are completely obliterated with holes.

I look into his pale blue eyes, the depth of which
often goes unrecognized.  Jeremy is a soft-hearted,
pudgy youngster with the kind of chunky cheeks
that all grandparents love to torture.  

But his marred, acne-ridden face betrays the transition
that has been forced upon him.  Slowly, his trademark
grin appears across his face – subtle, mischievous, and
typically without reason.  But this time it appears justified.

Jeremy takes a moment’s break from his cigarette to drop two
hits of acid.  A new drug for him, he hopes to find relief from
his seething anxiety, evidenced now by the wide expansion of his
chest as he takes another, more lengthy and powerful pull from his cigarette.

The mundane chatter that fills the room continues, a seeming
necessity to offset any potential awkward silence. I feel as if
this noise is closing in around us.  But just as suddenly as I
feel overwhelmed by this sensation, the noise stops.

I look around, noticing everyone’s eyes staring in my
direction.  Jeremy is still next to me, now giggling
like a little school girl.
I begin to feel sick.

Jeremy swiftly leans forward, giving his
cigarette a premature but honorable
death, eliminating its glow as he smashes
the cherry into tiny bits against the ashtray.

As he sits back against the couch, I can see that
his eyes are now indifferent. Foreign.  With a perplexed
and fascinated stare, he watches the pearly-white smoke
slowly slither upwards towards the ceiling.

There’s no question in my mind that his
soul has fled. Jeremy sinks further into the
couch, turning his vacant eyes in my direction.
I want to *****.

His high-pitched giggle has now subsided into a
low whimper.  Gradually extending his left arm into
the air, he tilts it from side-to-side, examining it as if
an infant discovering his genitals for the first time.  

Bike wheels appear in the corners of the room.
Entertained, his eyes rapidly zigzag from the
corners of the walls to his hands. He asks me
if I can see the wheels. I don’t respond.

Intervals of psychotic emotion begin to cycle. Jeremy’s eyes
fill with tears as he tries to understand the hallucinations
engulfing him.  The expression on his face betrays the reality that
he has stepped onto the never-ending theme-park ride from hell.  

Together we leave and walk to the bus station, Jeremy
walking slowly and whimsically. The bus arrives,
and I hand him a few crumpled, single-dollar
bills as I attempt to instruct him where to get off.  

All I can envision is his mother’s first reaction to her son’s arrival.  
Would she collapse at her son’s knees, crying like a mother whose boy
has come home from war?  Would he forever be an awkward guest
at the dinner table? Would she disown him?  Would he become a feral child?






I no longer know what day it is. I am surrounded by lockers
and students, trapped in a tunnel of shadowy walls.  As I stand
alone, I find myself entranced by the blinding, January sunlight
that floods through the double doors a mile away.

My vision is unexpectedly blocked by a figure
standing in front of me. Clothed in little but jeans
and a bright, white t-shirt, Jeremy stares at me, his eyes
mirroring the emptiness I now feel.  

“Do you have a lighter?”  My hands pointlessly search my pockets for
what I already know is not there. “No, man. Sorry.” A look of confusion
spreads over his face, and I suddenly cannot help but notice the sick irony
of the scene in front of me - Jeremy flooded in light as if born again.  

My thoughts linger here too long, and just as swiftly as Jeremy
appeared, he is a mile away sauntering out through those double
doors. Estranged, I continue to stand here, hoping with
futility that this isn’t the last time I have looked upon him.
Year: 1995
Susan O'Reilly Jun 2013
Stolen kisses

just delicious

swollen lips

straight to hips

Wandering hands

my heart brands

whispered phonecalls

my soul falls

Commit infidelity

I’m paying penalty

my stomach growing

you, not knowing

Consumed by guilt

lust was spilt

can’t look you in the eye

kissing sanity goodbye
Paul Oct 2010
I feel like a friend-- a true friend,
is more than a profile on a website.

And peace is more than a handshake agreement
brought by the outcome of a gruesome fight.

I know that self worth is more than someone's opinion,
and in no other dominion but mine own to foster and care for.  

And I can see that happiness is more than having money, sure,
cause most of us laugh everyday here, and come on, we're dirt poor.

And I pray the human soul is more than Casper's counterpart,
somewhere between the heart and the pancreas.

And God, faith is so much more than cryin' and dyin'
over spilt milk between religions.

And in case you were confused, "I love you", is more than
pet names, bed games, and ***.

Music is more than pimps, hoes, and MTV Shows, and T-Pain singin through a computer.

Believe that life is more than grades and degrees,
or drugs and disease,
or the 'ABCs' of success that some old man wrote a thousand years ago.

This poem has to be more than words strewn together
to voice my discontent at the status-quo..

Hell, the word "more" itself is more than a one-syllable statment
that what we lack in the present
is just a larger quantity of the **** "we already have",
and no!

The power of your silent agreement is more than that
of my voice alone, so...

What is "more"?

In many ways, "more" is the friend you never had.
More peace in the world would end all the mindless bloodshed.
More respect and selfworth would bring beauty back to youth,

especially to the women in the world,
that sell their unique souls to look like the cover of Cosmo.

More faith, that grants serenity in the times of hardship,
will be the soothing hand of an Angel on our shoulders as
we say, "I love you" to our enemies, martyrs for a better world.

More positive music will inspire us,
to be the change we want to see in the world, today,
instead of, "Waitin' on the World to Change "♫ ♪ ♫♪

So ladies and gentlemen, make a decision: if you want to be
critics and vipers,
war mongers and hope-snipers,
ignore my intention, and live with more division.

But, if any of you are artists starving for meaning and inspiration,
if you envision a world of more than... THIS...

Then let a word change a feeling,
change a thought, change a meaning,
change your mind...
And get more out of life.
Copyright Paul Langdon October 2010
Matt Feb 2015
1 million Afghans and 15,000 Soviet conscripts died
Fought with American guns

Foreign nations had tried for centuries to conquer Afghanistan
In the 1970's it became a focus for the superpowers

To Moscow, a friendly Afghanistan was important

Afghanistan's new leader looked to the Soviet Union for support
The Soviet Union sent advisors to advance socialism

Land was taken from large owners
And handed to the peasants who worked it

Women were encouraged to stop wearing veils
And were put into literacy classes with men

The reforms were seen to threaten ancient customs
And the authority of the Mullahs

The Mullah says,
"God has decided who is rich and who is poor,
It can't be changed by communists."

Opponents of the reforms
Burned down schools and universities
Resistant grew throughout the country

Iranians joined in
Calling for a Jihad
Against the communists

The U.S. thought
That the Soviets might use the Afghan crisis
To move south
And seize the oil of the Persian Gulf

Meanwhile the Shah of Iran was overthrown
The U.S. lost its most important ally in the region
The U.S. considered the possibility of a Soviet controlled Iran

Carter sent the Mujahideen equipment,
Mostly communication equipment
They were mostly peasants

Recruits for the Jihad walked for days
Across the mountains to reach the fighting

Soviet trained Afghan army
Thousands of men deserted
Kabul requested Soviet troops

Afghan president met with Soviet leader

The Soviets feared the spread of Islamic fundamentalism
Into Afghanistan from Iran
The Soviets felt they had to send troops to stabilize the region
Moscow hoped they could complete their mission in weeks

Moscow had Amin assassinated
They didn't like him talking with the Americans

At the United Nations
The invasion of the Soviet Union was condemned

The Soviets began with large sweeps
Their approach was a disaster
Mujahideen remained in the villages
Guerilla fighters remained in the mountains

Reagan stepped up aid to the Mujahideen

The Mujahideen were spilt along tribal lines
They sometimes fought each other

A war fought with our gold
And their blood
According to CIA man

The U.S. viewed the conflict in Afghanistan as an internal
Cold War struggle
The U.S. provided assistance to anti-Soviet forces
Through the Pakistani intelligent services

The Red Army changed tactics
And took to the air
Soviet commandos
Dropped in by helicopters

Soviet aircraft bombing indiscriminantly
Village after village pummeled into oblivion
Then overrun by Soviet troops
The village men who refused to join the Afghan army were murdered

Thousands of civilians killed in Soviet atrocities

The mujahideen attacked Soviet convoys
2,000 Soviets died each year
The war seemed pointless to the Soviet soldiers

The mujahideen favored sabotage operations and assassinations
The Stinger missiles were effective for them as well

Reagan said,
"To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters
Battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom."

The war lasted almost a decade
The early foundations of al-Qaeda
Were allegedly built on relationships
And weaponry that came from billions
Of dollars in U.S. support for the Mujahideen

Scholars have argued that Bin laden was outside
Of CIA eyesight
And that there is no support for the claim
That the CIA funded Bin Laden
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3m95FosmTw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan
Anthony Williams Jul 2014
I knew the orange on the orange tree
you had an ache in your shoulders
uncomfortable in an unnatural way
yesterday I passed you talking to flowers
you hadn't moved you hadn't strayed
but hiding in the leaves was a forced disguise

the omens told me something quiet and unceasing
reminding me of a slumbering domesticated cat
dreaming of cutting yourself loose from truncated ease
dropping down from the branch with panther steps
licking fruit lips ripe with revealed acidic petals
riddled with a past you revelled mixing in with zest

shocking chances stepped in for the next dance
sleep taken aback by wings cut from a dark sky
the sidewalk pitted and cracked beneath the pounce
relief escaped the twigs with a spring like waking prey
pressing into night foliage shaken from a nice balance
as I saw you take control with nothing to mask your face

on the surface too smooth for violence
was laughter of glowing gloom to embarrass
and deter such rebellious arrogance
with a twist struggling from a lame curse
its flavours sharp against your sweetened perfume muscle
expecting you to build a limestone shed for tears
rather than take on the night with a mind to wrestle

the outside aches for your physical attraction
gaining courage from the purpose in your eyes
tense as the tightness of your dress' intention
demanding that my hands draw from such lines
the sinuous heat of pulsing flesh's invitation
curved upon seeds not chaste but not quite refined
which I try not loving with some cool disambiguation

you left me the taste of syrup of grenadine
too reputable to ripple vain red tipple eyed
on a table spilt with pink gin and mandarin
sharp teeth tingling a tartness into my hand
sliding slowly at a tilt like drops of sweat on skin
focus dwindling into the clasp of an escaping shade
wrapped carefully under soft rice paper and then
tucked under a heel with a pointed kick like a blade
only to feel you relent and burst open
soft in appeal again and again
by Anthony Williams
Maura Feb 2015
There goes my Ramen
oh
no.
there it goes
it drops to the ground
on a fresh patch of snows

There goes my Ramen
oh
no
I see it start to sizzle
tears roll down my eyes
and slowly start to drizzle

It wasn't the Ramen I was upset about
it was life!
it just added to the things that I could doubt
about myself, and thats what made me shout:
***** YOU RAMEN
I JUST WANTED TO EAT YOU
AND NOW ID LIKE TO EAT YOU
ABOUT AS MUCH AS A PILE OF POO
'CUZ NOW YOU LAY ON THE GROUND IN A PILE OF SNOW STEW

Ally looked at me and began to laugh
"Oh Maura take a chill pill or go take a bath.
you need to calm down and really relax
If stress got you down I just want you to know
people cut off their ear because of stress like Van Gogh
so if the stress is too much you should really just go
and get out of here, go home and lay low"
This story really escalated quickly.
Those digits that touched against yours now adorn,
sweet gold I've longed for since times of fun,
A time I lay dead with overpowering tasks,
of work and life alone you yielded to run.


Brushing hairs left soft in moisture and skin,
bleeding souls quake through times and states,
A smile that lights a stirring heart to fair,
leading those broken to a heavens locked gates.


Piece by piece and kiss by kiss you take,
a child and turn him to man no longer alone,
For he needs nothing but your hand in his,
you seated him against odds and ends throne.


Feel free to mock those happier than you,
a past screams that I join your bitter ilk,
A kin to state the present and never to us,
no point in crying over a little spilt milk.
A look at those that live

— The End —