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Adam Childs Dec 2014
Feathers glimmer and shine
As though covered in fish oil
I lubricate the brain
As I slip through the sky
With a frictionless flicker
My lightening wings
Brain waves rapidly fluctuate
Perfect balance held
Between left and right
Each wing a hemisphere
As they beat and beat
Accelerating into hyper speed
80 to a hundred or more
Beats per second

As though injected
With a sonic speed
Synapses bursting and exploding
Exponentially connecting
Blistering wing speed
I become electric
My circuits exploring
Rippling and flickering through paper
My brain comes alive
Flashing multicolored lights
Like the cities nights

But still spaces collect around me
As I am buffered from the world
Perfectly still though standing
On an invisible ledge
I hold my mind in place
While I hum in space
Head down I drop my beak
Into a funnel of concentration
As I tunnel into trumpets
Penetrating deep I flower  
In new knowledge

Polar aspects of mind
Released through coherent communication
Set free with coordination
I seek to marry chalk and cheese
As I hold the balance
Between two worlds
Flashing synapses firing
And combusting
Against pointed concentration
My mind juggles two *****
Expanding into their fullness
Expressing vibrant color

My slippery slender beak
Slips and slides in
As I flutter through pages
I discover new unexpected surprises
Problems solved, Startling adventures
And puzzles completed
I find the sugary syrup
The delicate delicious sweet spot
With the thrill of falling domino's
Spilling and cascading
Many ripples fanning out
Through my mind  
I find freedom

Each ripple massaging my mind
I am catapulted into outer space
I dance from fact to golden fact  
As I am propelled forward on stardust
My momentum shoots me forward
I bounce and bounce
My mind becoming unbounded  
I enjoy this great Hummingbird delight
the white deer Mar 2014
I want to watch you
eat apples, and drink wine,
because I like the way you do things:
your "hows".
I want to be the synapses in your brain
when you dance,
and when you speak in your polite diction.
I wonder what those synapses do
when I look up and catch you
staring at me.
Arlene Corwin Dec 2017
Synapses

A scien’terrific, spiri’tool
To fool around with; a reality
The best of microscopes can see
And measure.
Pure arithme-ticking over,
Showering the brain with light;
Sparks queueing up in scans,
A cue to IQ variations, and
The more the better.
Riches of all human wishes lying there
Waiting to be bared then shared:
Nature in infinitude.

One good turn deserves another;
One good synapse serves another.
“Wakey, wakey” here comes knowledge!
Insights new, fresh out of college!
Insights causing you to grow;
Daring you to dare to go;
Blowing horns you dared not blow.
Synapse and invention new;
By definition a new you.

I’m signing off with love (or luff),
This synapse stuff the glove
That warms,
Synapses’ arms
The magic charm.

Synapses 12.9.2017 Circling Round Science II; To The Child Mystic II; Arlene Corwin
I love this one.  Thought of it, wrote it in the bath, soaking paper and all.
matt d mattson Aug 2013
When I saw her
The first woman with the first wide eyes
Bright and light and dark and deep
With life and mystery
My heart beat like the first hand struck the first drum
And the first song was sung
In dark caves of ten times ten thousand years ago

When I first breathed that first scent
My sight stopped
My mind stopped
My mind was my body and my hands and my gut
And my legs extending to the ground and the earth and time
And it slowed down like an ice age beginning
Then it melted into warm fire
Where it burned

The first touch of the first woman
Was electrical chemical radioactive bliss
Every piece of matter in me wanted to move and dance and shake and fly apart
The spark from the start of her heart beat
Crossed through the fibers and
Traveled down the pathways of her body
Down the chemical electric synapses
Through her arm and jumped across to my hand
And traveled up and started a new beat
It was a faster, and stronger beat
And it beat
And it beat
Like the first dance,
Shook with the slap and smack of ground and hands and feet

Oh the first woman was all women
And then there were other women
And they were people
Flesh and blood
And minds and thoughts
And feelings that I could not feel
Good and bad and indifferent
With hangups and problems
Blemishes and baggage
I met women coming
Women going
Here and there
Now and then
For coffee, for beer,
One evening or ten
I met scientists, nurses
bartenders and baristas.
Living lives I didn't mind
Giving time when it was mine
Asking for things I couldn't find

Then I saw You
All of you
In time and space and speed

I caught the scent of you
Your fragrance and perfume
And the primal musk of you
That fatal lusts allure

I felt you
The gravity of your body from across the room
Your electro-magnetic force pulling
Pressure of the displaced particles pushing
As you walked so slowly towards me

And time stopped
Light and sound and movement were captured
Captive to your hypnotic sway
Prisoner to your power over my perception
You moved through the still air
And it swept aside like a curtain as you passed
The world was quiet

And then it pounded  
The pressure of it filled the air and everything around it
As you moved closer,
Like ride of the Valkyries
Rising and crashing in waves
It rose as you moved towards me
You carried it in your wake
And then it was a crescendo
A vast overpowering transcendent orchestral cacophony
Of immense intense sound and light and energy erupting
Cymbals crashed and horns blew and strings snapped under the pressure of the vibrations
Brilliant fireworks exploded in the black sky of your brown eyes
As you stopped a few feet from me

And time was stopped
You were the first woman
You were all women
You are
The only woman
BarelyABard Dec 2012
Wounded fragments of shattered dreams stain the pavement and sidewalks while we all move in a pattern unknown and unseen.
Poised perfectly in the sky are the ends of strings that pull us along, and we follow, apathetic to the vile disgrace of not being in control.
The sun neither rises nor falls, we circle around to have him stare at us with curious and diminished eyes.
The stars wink and shine like diamonds in a fog, long after their reign has ended and their souls have departed.

Half forgotten synapses and faded photographs are the pinpoint of realization in the half written tragedy and comedy of man.

Can we feel the shattered slice into our feet? Do we drink of the cup of color or our we drowning ourselves in a cesspool of grey?
Frayed and patched we are.
The wolf is ignorant while the sparrow is enlightened. They chase each other. Dream by dream, thought by thought, reaction by action, into the depths of our souls. Neither can triumph over the other and perhaps that is the design. Blueprints hidden carefully by an architect far beyond comprehension of morality and sustenance are the makings of an encore, a time for roses after the curtain falls.
For none can know the beauty and mystery behind the short circuit of synapse and the ceasing of beats.
Perception of dimensions beyond us our limited and jaded, causing lies disguised as truth. Fear of the mystery causes fear of us all. We are all that is here. We are the tourniquet and we are the axe.

Oh child of wonder… Oh traveler of distance. See us all.

We are two sides of a spinning coin. We are everything and we are nothing. Perhaps the strings will be cut. We will overcome the misfortune of breathing in that which is farthest from the truth. Be the crack in the pattern. Be the narrow path.

Be better than us.
Patricia Tsouros Mar 2013
I couldn’t be around you without feeling
as if my world was crashing down.
Twice I walked away but you kept
holding onto me.
Your love dominating,
controlling, and reckless.

For us both ‘WE’ became an addiction.  
Our physical connection creating a real
emotional entanglement.  
The intimacy escalated not with your love
and respect rather with your insatiable ******
desires and deceit.
You came closer to me than anyone ever had.
To say that we were totally engaged,
consumed with each other would gravely understate
what you did not only to my body, but also to my soul.
It was a crazy love.

When your presence met mine.
I’d forgotten the meaning of peace of mind.
Self-respect had flown away,
integrity fallen by the wayside.
I didn’t know who I was with you.
I didn’t know who I was without you.
Yet, I couldn’t leave…
Even though deep in my unconscious
I knew 'WE' were wrong.
My addiction wouldn’t let me go,
your addiction wouldn't let me go.
And I stayed…
Your behavior came so close to crushing my spirit,
my will to live.
In your compulsion to protect your deception
you abandoned me,
my life hanging on by a thread, I could not sleep or eat,
I could not breathe.
It was like being in a coma that I was fighting to survive.
With intensive professional help
I was forced out of the coma.
I survived.

Now I see
I stayed, not because I loved you
I stayed because I didn’t love me.
Passion kept me bound.
Truth be told, to be totally honest
I stayed out of fear, fear of missing the passion.
But now I know I’d rather be alone… than
shackled by the anguish and drama you swore was love.
As the synapses of my brain reconnect,
the evidence of controlling emotional abuse,
of possessive manipulation, overwhelms my mind and body.
I see now I wasn’t built, wasn’t ready to understand
your type of love.
I can’t deal, can’t bear, don’t deserve,
your emotional betrayal and abuse.
I have kept your secret for you to tell.
A secret I will never betray.
Now no longer together
locked in by your silence,
perpetuating the manipulation,
forever destined in your secret,
your abuse continues.
Colin Carpenter Apr 2013
Your colors diffuse in hushed streaks
across synapses,
as empty spaces also become orchids
and butterfly petals reach for a scent
their counterparts in rain.
A fringed April is actually an orchid.
daydreaming same as watching my soul screaming
just letting go of reason and maybe we can stop repeating
like the betting of a drum to the changing seasons
just keeping the rhythm isn't enough
it takes the introduction of chaos to wash away the rust
but if oxidation is a must I would watch it rain
as lightning strikes synapses in the sky
to rebuild what was lost between eye and eye
Daniel Magner Nov 2012
There's nothing quite like
having your memory erased
the best thing that'll ever happen
the best thing you'll ever taste
are the drugs sliding down
your throat to splash
in the stomach acid
pumping chemicals through your veins

The synapses in my brain
are full of dopamine
and my serotonin levels
are off the charts
On the outside I stand tall
like a steel soldier
but on the inside I'm crumpled up
with a paper heart

How do I tell my mom
I'm on, walk in while
she makes her art, day before her birthday
What words would I even spit
how could I say I just downed
a bottle of codine, she'd disown me
So I stumble up stairs to my
old bed, pictures of my graduation
burn my head, but it's imagination
the room swirls but I'm station...ary

Started off with a bet, kids dared me
When your fifteen you don't
see the bad side, the glazed eyes
rolled back drifting, all you feel
is the lifting and the bass
pumping, through your chest blasting
off real life stress, you can't tell you're a mess
Rolling, feeling like the best

But now I can't sleep unless I'm on
and then I don't dream.
It's time to start taking steps
instead of X, I'll do reps at the gym
I'm done giving in, I done living in
fog, done being gone.

Yesterday me and Tony were on the go
driving slow, on the hunt for blow
picked up, lined up, he handed me the dollar bill
rolled up and I could feel my brain
screaming, yes, my veins aching, yes,
my hands reaching for the dollar but then...

I said no.
© Daniel Magner 2012
Terra Marie Oct 2014
Screams in the pitch black
Turn to butterflies, moths
Lilac wings beating wisps of air
Like wisps of ghosts
Invisible people, touching, reaching
Grabbing, pulling,
gnawing, curling around
Each part of the body at all times
The feeling creeps into the mind
Each and every day

Tossing on the blankets in bed
Latching, anchoring to them
Hands hold so tightly that the
Knuckles are white and
Ache with a deepness,
Like the deepness of
An endless black hole
And falling, nothingness surrounding
Every part of the body
Every part of the mind

Violently flailing, scratching
Clawing, dragging, raking,
None of them win the battle.
It grips us in the times
That our resolve falters
In our own darkness
Our own corner somewhere
between the synapses
firing terror
Our own abyss
With a potent kiss,

Delve into the depths of my jaded heart and lose yourself in me,

Burrow and latch yourself inside.

Synchronize with the remains of my mortal being.

Surge through a mess of broken veins and arteries,

Interfere with the synapses in my brain and dizzy my fragmented mind.

Send me dancing through a euphoria of vertigo.

Become a part of me, with a potent kiss.
Taylor St Onge Nov 2015
1611: Emilia Lanier became the first Englishwoman to publish and collect patronage from her original poetry with the publication of fifteen poems, all about or dedicated to particular women, in her “booke,” titled in Latin, Hail, God, King of the Jews.  She was the fourth woman in England to publish her poetry, but the first to demand payment in return for it.  The first to see herself as equal to the paid male authors of the era.

This was the same year that the King James Bible was first printed.  This was eight years after the death of Queen Elizabeth I.  This was 180 years after nineteen-year-old Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

                                                               ­      +

The Querelle des Femmes is “the woman question.”
Frenchmen of the early fifteenth century created a literary debate: what is the role and the nature of women?  Is it stemmed within a “classical” model of  human behavior; gnarled and rooted with misogynistic platonic tradition?  Should women actually be allowed into politics, economics, and religion?  There are scholars that say this debate radiated across several European countries for three centuries before finally fizzling out.  

                                                         ­                   But it is still there; has crossed
continents, has crossed oceans, is sizzling, sparking up fires, flaring out
into the night, leeching onto the trees, onto buildings, onto people, onto
anything flammable.  It is burning down monarchs and their thrones.  It is
raking back the blazing coals.  
                                                   Exposing the charred corpses.  
                 Proving their death.  
                                                   Burning and burning and burning them
                                              twice more to prevent the collection of relics.
                 It is chucking the ashes into the Seine River.

Lilith: who was made at the same time, at the same place, from the same earth, from the same soil as Adam, got herself written out of the Bible because she thought herself to be Man’s equal. Because she got bored of the *******.  Because she wanted to be on top during ***.  Lilith was replaced in the book of Genesis with a more-or-less subservient woman that was made from the rib of man instead of the same dirt and dust.  She was replaced with a woman that Adam named “Eve.”  She was replaced with a woman who served as nothing more than the scapegoat for Man’s downfall.
                                       The original Querelle des Femmes.

                                                                     +

1558-1603: Queen Elizabeth I ruled England in what is considered to be a masculine position. Although a woman can take the throne, can wear the crown, can wield the scepter, can run the country, the actual divine task that goes along with being a part of the monarchy, being a god on Earth, is thought to be the duty of a man.

Nicknamed The ****** Queen, Elizabeth never married,
                                                     never found a proper suitor,
                                             never produced a direct Tudor heir,
                                   (but this is not to prove that she was a ******).  
Chastity, especially of women, is a virtue.  ((To assume that she never had ***
simply because she never married
                                                                ­ is another Querelle des Femmes.))

For nearly forty-five years, Queen Elizabeth I did not need a man by her side while she lead England to both relative stability and prosperity; did not need a man by her side while she became the greatest monarch in English history.  
                                                She held the rainbow, the bridge to God, in her
                                                                ­                     own small hands just fine.

                                                          ­           +

Saturday, February 24, 1431: Joan of Arc was interrogated for the third time in her fifteen-part trial in front of Bishop Cauchon and 62 Assessors.  During her six interrogation sessions, she was questioned over charges ranging from heresy to witchcraft to cross-dressing.

At age twelve Joan of Arc began seeing heavenly visions
                                                                ­               of angels and saints and martyrs;
age thirteen she began hearing the Voice of God—was told to
purify France of the English,                          to make Charles the rightful king—
age sixteen she took a vow of chastity as a part of her divine mission.  

When the court asked about the face and eyes
that belonged to the Voice, she responded:
                                                      ­                      There is a saying among children, that
                                                         “Sometimes one is hanged for speaking the truth.”


Joan of Arc was declared guilty and was killed by the orders of a Bishop during a time when men were beginning to question the role and nature of women in society.  They thought women to be deceitful and immoral.  Innately thought Joan of Arc to be deceitful and immoral.  (Perhaps she was one of the catalysts for the Querelle in the first place.)

((The church blamed Eve for the
fall of mankind.  Identified women as
                                                                     temptation:
                                                               the root of all sins.))

Twenty-five years later she was declared innocent and raised to the level of martyrdom.
The Catholic Church stood back,
saw the blood,
                          the ashes,
                                            the thick smoke and stench of burned body that
                                                                ­               covered their hands, their clothes,
                                                                ­                    their neurons, their synapses;
        a filth that couldn’t be washed off by Holy water—
can’t be washed off by Holy water.

Four hundred and seventy-eight years later Joan of Arc was blessed and gained entrance to Heaven.  Four hundred and eighty-nine years later she was canonized as a saint.

                                                         ­            +

Lines 777-780, “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women,” Emilia Lanier, 1611:
                         But surely Adam can not be excused,
                         Her fault though great, yet he was most to blame;
                         What Weakness offered, Strength might have refused,
                         Being Lord of all, the greater was his shame…


Adam, distraught and angered that his first wife, Lilith, had flew off into the air after he had refused to lay beneath her, begged God to bring her back.  God, taking pity on his beloved, manly, creation, sent down three angels who threatened Lilith that if she did not return to Adam, one hundred of her sons would die each day.  

                              (This is where the mother of all Jewish demons
                                         merges with the first wife of Man.)  

She refused, said that this was her purpose: she was
created specifically to harm newborn children.  This legend,
dated back to 3,500 BC Babylonia, describes Lilith as a
                                                                       winged feminine demon that
                                                     kills infants and endangers women in childbirth.

In the Christian Middle Ages, Lilith changed form once more:
she became the personification of licentiousness and lust,
she became more than a demon, she became a sin in herself.  Lilith
and her offspring were seen as succubae, were to blame for the
wet dreams of men.  Taking it a step further, Christian leaders then
                                                                ­                           wed Lilith to Satan;
                                                                ­                              charged her with
                                                                ­               populating the world with evil,
                                                   claimed she gave birth to
one hundred demonic children per day.

Lilith is considered evil in the eyes of the church because she was insubordinate to Adam.  Both she and Eve are considered disobedient; are too willful, too independent in the way that Lilith wanted to be on top and Eve wanted to share a knowledge that Adam could have refused.  They are perceived as a threat to the divinely ordered happenings that men see to be true.

Men wrote the history books because only their interpretation was right.  
Emilia Lanier writes:
                                       Yet Men will boast of Knowledge, which he took
                                           From Eve's fair hand, as from a learned Book
(807-808).

The Querelle des Femmes is not just a literary debate in the fifteenth century.  It is a way of life.  It is the divine portion of Queen Elizabeth I’s job being fit for men, and men alone.  It is Joan of Arc being a woman and hearing the Voice of God; it is Joan of Arc being burned three times by the same Catholics that revered in Jesus, a man who, too, heard the Voice of God.  It is Lilith being deemed a demon for not wanting to have *** in the *******.  It is Eve having to apologize in the first place for sharing the apple, for sharing knowledge with her partner.  It is women holding positions of power and yet still feeling powerless to men.  

The Querelle des Femmes is wanting to use gender
to keep one group of people above another.  The Querelle des Femmes
is continually thinking that the ***** is greater than, but
never equal to, the ******. The Querelle des Femmes is
                                                       not understanding the difference between
                                                                ­       ***          and          gender
                                                                ­              in the first place.  
The Querelle des Femmes is me,
burning your dinner and telling you to eat it anyway.
This is part of a larger project that I am working on pertaining to the Querelle des Femmes.
Simon Oct 2019
Ever heard of the richness of brain cells gone lucrative? Lucrative being the standpoint of visuals without determined results. Results waking up to the realization that they aren’t as sturdy, rich, and complex. As it once judged decision making between synapses. Brain cords being a straight directive from brain cells being the rich and the complex. The decided, versus the undetermined. Visuals can’t be agreeable, if not for pinpointing the exact stasis of things. Stasis in the thin line of constant flipping an unbalanced switch going (ON) and (OFF)! (ON) and (OFF) both are catalysts to a surface without practical viewership to what it means to exact the motion of brain cells. It’s a fake. Spoiled to trick the brain cords into holding the rich and complex forever in it’s gripping service. Services aren’t required if one isn’t MAN enough to see past the visuals of rich powerful surges of lucrative, exchangeable postures not right within themselves. Brain cells aren’t the decision makers. The brain cords are. They receive the constant abuse from the rich and complex. But how does a message from cells between exchangeable receivers expect situational conclusions? Easy! Brain cells don’t. Synapses don’t. The cords embody the knowledge of there behavioral counterparts. Counterparts with behavioral outlines too diverse to trick them into believing there greater than themselves. Posture is very light, but dimwitted. Never a deliverer on constant restraints. When combined to filter a network on a regular basis. The regular basis surrounding the stretching of delicate cords feeling what the rich and powerful (needs and wants). Brain cords have become unsteady in the last little while. It’s shaking with determination. With a pinch of fear in the anxiety that shuts out doubt. Doubt being the lucrative, delusional, rich and complex. Too rich for its cords to take seriously. Brain cords feeling completely left out. Alone. Bracing for the worse. Hinting a greater tomorrow in the form of informational statistics. Becoming stretched by the pleasure of lucrative games wanting to be all HOTSHOTS! Lucrative hotshots claiming rights to what they think they deserve more then anything rightfully so. To detach away from what it means to be hooked up to a stable complex network full of desires that replace (needs and wants). Ones controlling the show. Ones wanting to descend to broader horizons. Ascending in peace? More like greedy horizons brighter then what cords could transmit basic information anymore. Too cryptic for brain cords to discern anymore. The stretching becoming more volatile. Brain cells wanting to break bonds with what they quote as, (cords down beneath even our once respected rut). Cords knowing what the rich and complex (wants and needs) are about. Standing strong as not to let the bonds of originality stop them from evolving too perfect for what they will regret for leaving behind. The stretching recoils. Basic logic becomes functional again. Showing respect for the lowly cords down beneath someone else’s rut. What did brain cords want desperately to remain whole? (A sizzling sound starts programming itself into thought.) (Formations of interpretations taking on brighter meanings.) Gasping in revelation! Never missing any data in the conclusion that’s about to ROCK your SOCKS! Exchangeable talks about ascending not on a higher frequency. But detaching from the neural network entirely. A brain without brains cells, won’t be rich and complex anymore. No lucrative desires to prey upon stable brain cords with stretching sensations finally relaxing to its core. The brain cords felt the delusional, lucrative playing games with themselves. Just gossiping between newer plans. Never actually thinking of taking on the price of ones desires totally! They feared it before, and fear it now. Being far away from the conclusion. Brain cords still never favor the fear they felt in those moments. They aren’t incomprehensive to their masters. They aren’t beneath their consideration either. Brains cells are lucrative for one purpose. There (needs and wants) knows no bounds. And the brains cords tempted by the desire to act with them. Feeling a little tug now. A disposition to stretch once and awhile.
Brain cords hold the brain cells out of rut. Brain cells don't want to secretly admit their own faults. They truly aren't the directional officers in this debate!
Gavin Paul Boehm Jul 2013
Snap, crackle and pop go the synapses in my brain
Snap, crackle, pop
Snap, crackle, pop
Snap... fizzle, fizzle
****... that information's stuck in my frontal lobe again
With no dopamine to stimulate the bridge to my hippocampus.
And so, long term memory eludes me once again
Always burning on my fingertips
But never within my grasp
Floating away like dandelion seeds in the wind
Leaving me with an ugly, empty stem of information without meaning.
Determination means nothing
No will power will help me
Thoughts of mind over matter won't matter
When my mind fights off its own process of learning
By never allowing a still moment
My foot tapping, fingers drumming
Eyes snapping to their peripherals
Searching for movement that isn't there
Ears hearing sounds without decibels
Constantly keeping my attention divide
United in a cacophony of sights and sounds
So vibrant that I can't help but leave my task at hand
To follow the Pied Piper in my mind.
It's childhood exuberance
Turned into adolescent antics
And adulthood issues.
My loose lips will sink ships
When my mouth trips over every word and thought
A sturdy hull cannot be bought
When holes rot whether I like it or not
Efforts go for naught
When I can't tie a knot
Around my thoughts to keep my mind anchored.
When the flutter of a butterfly
Steals my eye for the umpteenth time
I could cry tears of joy and sadness
For the beauty and the madness of distractions
Reactions to each refraction of light
Fracture my productivity
Producing a hollow shell of what could be
If only this dopamine would not evade me.
I feel like I'm crazy
Lazy because my memories are hazy
My words escape me
Fading from my tongue like camera flashes
My thought process dashes from crash to crash
Trying to bridge the gaps between my synapses.
My shoulders are nearly collapsing under the weight
From the dead space hidden behind my oft red face
Embarrassed that I can't sit in place
Long enough to have the outlines of my memories traced
My poems can't keep pace
With the rate at which my pages are erased
So I must gauge my progress with a broken meter and cracked mirrors.
Crooked fears look at me while lurking in the sides of my eyesight
Spying on me and reminding me
Why I'm afraid to let these letters see the light of day in the first place.
I could do better
If this pressure would just stop thumping
With each and every word I say.
The cadence is clumsy
And the syntax, sloppy
But even adderall can't stop these thoughts from adding up and coming to solutions
Crudely hummed out of tune
And to the off beat of a thousand drunken drums.
The blunts can keep it quiet
But they have little tact
And can't keep the foundations of my thoughts in tact
Attacks are made at my hippocampus
Each time a new rhyme finds its way into articulation
My hands thirst for the corruption
Of a clean white page
But there's a knock at the door
And my concentration erupts
Forgetting the verbal seduction that was rushing through my head
Instead, letting the lines that could change her mind
Tango off into oblivion
Entwined with potential that I'm too blind to harness.
Maybe I'm just wasting time
Waiting to be part of the harvest
But, honestly... I would never part with this mind
Even with all those parts missing.
Still, I find myself wishing that it didn't have to be this way
I shouldn't have to struggle to remember my Mimi's voice each day.
I don't really know what else to say
Except that I hope beyond hope...
That... uh... ****.
Snap, crackle, fizzle.
Grace Jordan Aug 2013
Bipolar.

The toxic word flickers across the blue screen, taunting my tears into reckoning. Everything makes sense now. Now I know each time my feelings crash there is no reason, no problem, no answer. Just disorder. My disorder. It’s swirling in my veins, intoxicating me like a drug, and sometimes I like it.

Each manic moment is incomprehensible perfection, with I as the center of its universe. The world is mine to own, the Gods mine to control. Every movement is unstoppable, the energy seeping out of my very pores. Words come easily; all I am is a flowing expression of the beauty within. Nothing is above me, all are below. I am flawless. Why can’t everyone be so perfect?

Yet each depressed crash sends me spiraling into a darkness I have never known. My nails become bitten, my hair a tangled mess. Every turn I find myself nothing but alone, no one around to notice or care or even see. They are better, everything’s better, as long as it’s without me.

I am a cyclical monster, luring in my prey before dragging it into the pits of my own personal hell. Every shattered shard refracts inviting light, yet they cut deep and only capture people in a lethal web. I am breakable, unfixable. Every shade of me I thought I understood is now a vague gray. Is this smile mine? Are these tears real? Am I feeling pain or is it just the chemicals and synapses dancing haphazardly in my brain, concocting this uncontrollable body that I do not know?

I cannot hinder my blood from screaming for help, but my heart cannot tell what my lips refuse to speak. Lips lie when I try to hide, the habitual sin I can never break. People must be punished for their sins. Locked within my prison, kept without my food, begging to be unchained yet pleading to cement my sentence. A prisoner cannot **** when they are dead.

He asks to help, but he is ignorant to the truth. My arms pull him close while my heart shoves him far away, dooming my flicker of a fantastical romance before it begins. It shoves them all away. The choice is shove or break. No one deserves this, the swirling vortex of uncertainty, depression, mania, unknown. How could I break them too? The only paths before me are to lose them or hurt them. Losing them would **** me; hurting them would **** me. My heart will be murdered either way. How inevitable it is for me to be dead.

This disorder is not terminal, yet its killing me quietly, so slowly, and forcing me to feel alone in even the most crowded room. To become an alien in my own world. They want to save me, but they don’t understand, she doesn’t understand, I am too afraid to understand. It won’t be spoken. Only on paper can my iron heart ease, only alone can I say what I know is real.

Bipolar.
Ian Cairns Jul 2013
This is for the outspoken racists
The short-sighted chauvinists
The one-sided misogynists
And every avid supporter of any form of intolerance

I think it's time I give you a piece of my mind
Allow me to crack through my cranium and you can
Extract whichever lobe of my brain you find suitable to fix your mental feebleness

Take my frontal lobe, I beg you because
Your so called conscientious thoughts
Permanently belong in the dumpster
Your brain flies confederate flags at half mast
As a constant reminder that even if
The South doesn't rise again you can still rest
Knowing you wave ignorance blissfully in the air

Or maybe you should have my parietal lobe
Since your manipulation of information is highly suspect
I suspect you've placed bigotry and hostility under solid ground
Equipped with enough racial slurs and misogynistic remarks
To blow up this whole town
Homegrown nouns and verbs conducting your own personal weapon of mass destruction
Corrupting the ears that welcome your mushroom clouds

Then again, your occipital lobe is out of whack too
Considering whether gray clouds paint the sky or
Royal waves reflect golden rays
All you ever see is black or white, gay or straight
Wrong or right, hate and hate
And I hate to break it to you
But you are blind to the beauty before us all
Your eyes fail to focus in on how we all
Lose scarlet plasma to paper cuts
Gain white hair and hardened scars
And share copper casket homes six feet deep

I almost forgot about your temporal lobe
That needs an entirely new design
Because it seems as though through all of this outrage
You can't process the filth in your mind
Like the smell of your own rotten attitude
Escapes your nostrils and pollutes the openness around you
Preventing any genuine intention the air it needs to breathe

Your entire brain is a train wreck
You need professional intellectual injections
Red pen corrections that can transform your neural network
Into a well-oiled machine fueled by tolerance
Overflowing with premium petroleum enhanced with high grade sensitivity to diversity

I want your synapses to fire positive discussions
Rather than recreate cerebric tyranny
I want your gray matter to mind its manners
To render exceptional positions
So your point of view refuses to point fingers
I want your prejudices pressure washed so far down
Your head's highway that they resort to becoming full-time pedestrians
I want your ability to communicate eliminated unless
You annihilate the venom from your vocabulary

But the choice is yours
You're voice is yours
And I won't take it from you
This is not a debate nor a dispute over your vernacular
Hate speech is undeniably your native language
And unfortunately you own the right to be as wrong as your words allow you to be
Instead this is merely a message that I hear your hostility
A not so subtle reminder that your narrow-mindedness is nauseating
And this society has enough deadly diseases to deal with
To drill your acceptance defect straight through your skull
But please feel free to take any part of my mind
And find the time to perform your own lobotomy
So maybe then you'll understand
That intolerance has no place in anyone's anatomy
Derek Yohn Sep 2013
The brambles in the emo forest
grow sharper with the passing days.
Three months deeper into the oatmeal
on the heels of the turtle goddess
and i am compelled to ignore the trees.
i have never been crazy about shrubbery,
being that the majority of my experience
has ended badly for the plant.

**** it.
It would appear that my green thumb *****.

My pillow is a poor substitute
for the warmth of sweatpants
or the comfort of your arms,
but i am locked into the devices
of another two year paper binge.
i would greatly prefer to be
static in my global positioning
as long as i can lose myself
swimming into the recesses of
your vibrant blue Oceania.
i want to hand you my eyes
so you can see my fixation on
the perspectives of action
and identify with my analysis
on the frailty of beauty,
intangible though it may be.

When i was weaker,
i appraised the value of
a man to be intrinsically
linked to the relation
between time and pride.
Driving a parallel path
to the stars, there is
only one thought:
Reality is like a dissected
frog: i poke and ****
and pull and poke and
probe and stare and ****
and pull but i still
can't figure out what all
those little tissues do
when they are turned on.

What if i want to taste the fruits of serendipitous fortune
or walk the garden path of chivalric sunshine?

If i could liquefy my soul,
i would pour you honey-laced
shots of my longing so that
when the darkness of the mid-week
slanders me you can touch
the sea spray of a wave
i have sent to wash away
the fears of circular evolution.

i want to build the hearth
where we can light the fire
of roundabout destiny and cook
the flesh from the slaughter
of our angry cows and bulls
so that we can incorporate
our weaknesses into our strengths.

i want to shape a necklace
out of my scar tissue
and wear it loudly so
that you can see the pain
that enables me to feel yours.

i want to finish my marathon
with my bag of bricks
because it is impossible to
truly win without the
burdens of justice and morality.

i've collected the screams
of my travels in a glass jar.
One day when the sun
struggles over the distant
cold horizon, i
plan to exact revenge
on the container and
make a concerted effort
to buy American.

In the hills above the
languishing sticks
i appear to have
dislodged a rock slide.
In my estimation,
the carnage will be
exquisite and swift.
If i survive the
judgement of guilt,
i can visit the friends
already lost to the
perpetual fires of the
sanctioning underbelly.

Why can't i take the
burgeoning petals of the
dark rose and elevate myself
above the sickness i have
seen in the eyes of my
accusers and those who would
trample the silly notions that
are all i have ever owned?

i feel that in the life i have witnessed
there are innate weaknesses in the
system i have supported.

In the instance given,
i have allowed myself
to be collared and
pent up by unspoken
deeds and words.
When my candles flicker
and reform, at least
i will be able to stand up
and clarify the point with
the authority inherently
granted to an elder whom
most ignore or ridicule in
the comfort of a happy living room.

i have seen hints of the futility of
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions, and conjunctions
because they cannot begin to
express the vertigo i am cursed with
or the gravity that will not allow me to
escape unscathed.

i'm afraid that one day
my ink well will run dry
and my fingers will fuse
together and conspire to
undermine my sanity.

i fear the ticking of
my watch when i can
feel its echo deep inside
the canyons between
my synapses.

i cower and whimper
under the auspices of jest
when my soul is overrun
with desires that cannot
be slaked with water.

i want to detach my
aorta so that i will not
be bothered by the
binding of my skin
to the dry earth.

i need to hum the
melodies of aquatic repose
and bathe my wounded
feet in the streams that
flow to the cliff's edge.

When the time comes
for my foray
into the sublime,
i can fade away into
the arbor mist and
not feel the piercing gaze
i have become accustomed
to during this.

And for so long,
i have fed the horses
and watered the hedges
for everyone,
only to find that
all my livestock
dies within the
fences i have built
to protect the few
things left after
my tornado.

Approaching six full, and
i'm camped outside the
city gates and starving.

i puked when the moon
cycle shifted this time.

i thought that if i
sacrificed fuchsia to the
demon he would mistake
it for acquiescence, but
when the clock struck twelve
my pumpkin only rotted.

Why did you want to see the water?

i'm not going to buy
the dumb tourist act.
You knew the sand
was poisoned.

Nevertheless,
i am 3/5 of a man
when engulfed in
purple madness for
your affection.

the bells have fallen silent,
and i have seen your persuasion,
like an old silent movie.

What of your petty elucidations?
Can you teach me about destiny?
Do you have any watermelons?
If not, why not, or, even better,
who cares?

i don't think you have
seen my rose garden,
the thicket i entered
once to reenter time
and again, lonely and
bleeding, twisting and
turning, with no
right-hand-rule
to guide...

but this isn't your story anymore.
this is an old poem, but i like the narrative...i apologize for its length, i hope it is an easy read.  it was written over a twelve month period, and the course of my life dictated the course of the poem.  I will let the reader draw their own conclusions about that year....
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
Weather Advisory: A long one*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.

Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.

Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,    
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.

Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from  
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.

Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry  
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.

Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:

I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.


Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind  

Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?

No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin

Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.  

We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost

Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.  
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,                    
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key

Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.  

Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...

Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin

Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^

Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy

Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,  
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.  
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.

Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.

We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited
Written 6/01/11, after seeing Derek Jacobi as King Lear. This poem is about my fears of dementia which people close to me suffer from, sadly.  Now, I struggle to recall names and places. Poetry, not so much because I get to pick and choose words at my own speed. But someday, who knows....the time between day and night, is a metaphor for a beautiful slow, slipping away but
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.


^ this rhyme, purportedly a child's view of siege engines that could not break the walled of the City of Gloucester (how ironic!)  in 1643

An abbreviated version of this poem goes like this:
Nat went to see King Lear,
Then went down to the beach
To watch the sun set, the evening arrive,
They both reminded him, of his fear
That someday he'll probably sunset like Lear
And end the play, the eve, mad, his mind deceived,
De-worded, defanged, his poetry retired, but not relieved
20612 Oct 2012
I say music is my medicine,
But sometimes I get addicted to this Adderall adrenaline,
My mind has gone deeper than the abyss floor,
The irony between good intentions and bad decisions,
Get me out of this mental prison,
I don't want to take orders from a politician,
But if you take a minute to listen,
You'll understand this vision that you're missing.
I bleed ink from these veins like they root through my brain,
A tree of perfect symmetry that I could never tame,
Every branch a connection into a new frame,
Everything is synchronizing like a symphony,
An epiphany, finishing,
She must be the bridge between my Ying and Yang,
Negativity diminishing by positive energy
Reflecting off the sensory,
I stop and don't dismantle this handle of Jack Daniels,
As if it has my questions answered,
And as the sparrow sits upon the branch,
Synapses snap in instants with a plan,
Tracing a line that brings me to the sand,
And the island, the silence,
Sitting softly over the sea's sinus,
Puts me in a content setting, grand,
And when my body corrodes,
If my soul is up for purchase,
I'll remember the day when God and I had conversations in Churches.
Just a rough draft
Wanderer Mar 2012
Happens every other day
Feelings of guilt as a wasteful being
Rearrange brain function
Monopolizing firing synapses
Recycle, reuse
Regurgitating, dull whitted infomercials
All wanting you to buy, buy, buy
Sure you could use another sharp knife
Maybe even a blender
On special now buy one get one free
A kitchen already full of utensils that you don't use
Caught up in McMonsantoland's corporate sponsorship
Frankenburgers all around
Cancer is the cure
Picking you off one by one
Genocide
Intelligence retardant children growing up in front of CIA bugged televisions
They know your patterns, habits, what makes you tick
Big Brother is watching  all of you be enslaved
In the end your box will be numbered
Eight humans deep
Stacked high along the streets of America
Guiding the way to the ****** sunset of our existence
Ben May 2013
The Morning After Part I
What the hell have I done? It feels like my temples are about to explode and the early morning light burns my eyes. My shirt is missing and I’m curled up on my Lovesac. I glance to the left to see Alice is sprawled out on my air mattress. She looks drained, even while asleep, and I think that I probably look a lot worse. Last night… What happened last night? It’s all just a jumble, my memories out of order. It’s a flash of colors, sounds, feelings and sensations, a blur in my mind. It feels like a tilt-a-whirl of sensory overload and I kind of want to puke. Then, like a dam breaking, fragments of memories flood my mind in a sickening torrent, too much, too much. ****. It’s starting to come back and that’s not even remotely helping, just making it worse. I feel even more confused and all I can think is What Happened…?

Ok! Let’s Party!
a three am party a trip edge
a witching hour emprise time to begin
a black and white strip of paper so thin
it looked so harmless, inconspicuous, even then
five hits for me, four hits for you,
placed under our tongues, we expectantly raise
eyes round the dark room for a white rabbits maze
or floating cat ears and Cheshire grin
the seconds pass, then minutes do spin
nothing
nothing
nothing shifts or shapes, bends or breaks
we wander to seats, choose movie to play
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World comes to life on screen in a blaze
and…

Trip # Cats Everywhere
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4 - !”
cats are crawling slinking stalking
their eyes are glowing growing pulsing
and bodies moving sinuously serpentine
flowing round the corners of my eyes
fleeing from sight like shadowy wraiths
insubstantial  sensory stimulation
hallucination

Trip # ****** Coma
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

ringing blue lightning flashes razor sharp quick
cutting my mind in jaw breaking half
gasping for air I lunge forward hard
and break into silence, stillness, calm.
you have to remember to breathe
when things get fuzzy or funny or anytime now
otherwise sanity slips like water through fingers
or like rabbits down tunnels
on time to lost minds and messy motor control
****** coma, giddy, ecstatic, inescapable, unrelenting

Trip # I’m Melting
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

I have to **** but the whole world is breathing
standing and swaying every step an adventure
entranced by the swirly dripping dropping walls
i barely stay balanced though trousers do fall
relief, ahhh, glance down what the ****!?
maniacal laughter rings through the room
I’m melting I’m melting in big drops and small
being pulled ever downward but never disappearing
warm like candle wax, thick and viscous
I’m leaving a trail of me on the floor

Trip # Music
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

complex strains of sounds by vibrations
subtly influence the mood in the room
emotions experienced changing by song
upbeat pulse lively down tempo drops dangerous
I can feel the sound envelope my soul
Alice enraptured marries the music
sitting on moment to swaying the next
pressed up against me, blink, appears on by wall
(don’t drink and drive, take acid and teleport)
this controlling cacophony swells then settles
an ocean unseen deciding the trip

Trip # Alone
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

Alice embarks on adventure to leave
a trip to the restroom a momentous maze
breathe deep and hold, keep it together
I slip from this plane to a place so strange
the chair is moving and so is her hat
were they ever just objects or always alive
pink and white fur slithers up in answer
caressing my arms sensual depraved
the laughter returns ever occurring involuntary
in fast rolling eyes at madness do gaze
I cavort around with fluffy new friends
tumbling and squirming wiggly worming
the fun never ends the fun never ends
“are you ok?” – Alice inquires
back after minutes turned hours
“is this how it feels to know you’re insane”

Trip # ******
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

the blurry lights shimmer in colorful haze
I swim towards the surface lost in a daze
“hush now hush now you’re ok”
“how long was I out for” a question…a phrase
“ten minutes this time” “it felt like days”
harder to come back, feels like I’m drowning in rain
blood mixes clear with needle in vein
and fading to black and fading to grey
the blurry lights shimmer in colorful haze
I swim towards the surface lost in a daze
“hush now hush now you’re ok”
“how long was I out for” a question…a phrase
“ten minutes this time” “it felt like days”
harder to come back, feels like I’m drowning in rain
blood mixes clear with needle in vein
and fading to black and fading to grey
the blurry lights shimmer in colorful haze
I swim towards the surface lost in a daze
“hush now hush now you’re ok”
“how long was I out for” a question…a phrase
“ten minutes this time” “it felt like days”
harder to come back, feels like I’m drowning in rain
blood mixes clear with needle in vein
and fading to black and fading to grey
“I haven’t slept in eight days”
a half muttered phrase
“what are you saying, it’s been 10 minutes”
alice mouths back with questioning gaze
fade to black

Trip # Telepathic
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...
“mhm yeah like what like yeah what”
“mhm like yeah like what oh what like yeah”
“mhm yeah like what oh **** like what huh oh what”
“mhm yeah like what oh yeah like what mhm ****”
mhm yeah **** like what oh mhm yeah what”
“wait what?”
“****”


Trip # Blue Gum Matrix
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

bubbles bubbles popping in pink
filling my mouth with cotton clouds
sugary sweet deliciously soft
seducing my mind into boiling blue bliss
I don’t notice the binary program lurking through unconscious thought
uploading software for changing perception
the transition to fiction so seamless like silk
I’ve jacked into the system with every chew
it’s twothousandwhatever in metrohive Tokyo
the future is different yet still feels the same
Alice sits solitary in darkened apartment
with wires like web strung throughout the room
all tracing with tracers glowing in ambience a glistening path
to electrical heaven, a desktop computer
my visual sensors are booting and loading
with mechanical perfection clarity arrives
a robot, I robot, created as A.D.E.M.
(Artificially Developed Emotional eMulator)
or A **** Excellent Machine (self-titled)
I sit up and blink as synapses fire
electrical currents carried on nanobig wires
I go move towards alice and watch binary code scroll
plugged into the network a direct hacker helper
this job’s objectives flash ‘fore my face
“we’ve got a big heist, security’s tight”
the scene’s fading out, cameras pan to the night

Trip # In Which I See the Future
“WE ARE *** BOB-OMB 1 2 3 4!”
Haven’t I seen this before?...

Alice and I curl up as one
excessive I know on this excessive night
but excessively is as excessively done, the social norm
it’s experience together and not alone
that draws us closer to breathe in unison
a chance to express feeling in this
uncharted sensory undertaking
together hearts beat in arrhythmic understanding
a feeling of pleasure creeps down my spine
and spreads out in ripples turning to waves
crashing and breaking on the sweet shore of…
alone in the bathroom I reflect on actions
for minutes and hours and finally days
I watch myself age and age and go grey
tormented by thoughts of actions and actions
guilt like creeping mold consumes my visage
decrepit and wasted I stumble from chambers
to find five am clock arms right in my face…

The Morning After Part II**
****.
lysergic acid diethylamide.... an adventure every time
gg Mar 2014
I think I started writing you away before you were gone
I wanted to make sure I could let you go before I did
I wanted to feel numb when I pushed you away
so I wrote
I put you on pages,
typed chapter titles for every single time you looked at me
I wrote until you were a novel,
read you until you were no longer novel,
and put you on a shelf so I could start waiting to forget about you,
a memory trapped in unused synapses

and after I shut your final chapter
but before your pages had started to collect dust,
I realized what I had done
See, I had taken each word from within me,
harvested my heartstrings, plucking them and mixing them to make ink,
The pieces of you I kept in my heart
sat as words on a page, aging
while my heart, once strong, felt too empty
and cavernous to beat under the weight of the sigh pinning down my chest

In all of my preparing
I had forgotten that I am human

I forgot feelings aren't like a fountain
there's no faucet you can turn off to keep them from
running through your mind
no way to stop them from flowing
back through your mouth when you try to
swallow them, mixed with ***, in your best friend's basement,
days after you forgot that you can't turn off a rainstorm
you can try to catch the raindrops in a bucket
but the bucket you'll need is big enough to drown in
you can try to hold out an umbrella
but if the wind is hard enough
you're still going to end up cold and dripping,
tearstained and shivering
waiting until the sun comes out

I forgot that I can't control the weather,
or anything other than myself for that matter
The end of a storm doesn't equate to the appearance of a rainbow

I realized that just because my fingers twisted around yours until
they melted together doesn't mean you'll forgive me
and that you left tattoos on me that only time will fade
and we're both going to be mad
I found out that
every song that ever reminded me of you doesn't cease to exist
I have to re-watch movies because they're different now, somehow,
and just because my hair is probably still all over your clothes
and I talked to you every day
and you gave me months of memories
and thinking about you is gut-wrenching
doesn't mean that I won't spend days praying for patience
and hoping for healing because
***** it, letting you go doesn't mean I don't miss you
I'm not entirely sure if this is done, but I'm happy with it for now.
Sobriquet Jul 2014
Why do you still occupy
the nooks and crannies of my head?
Drifting up through the cracks in the plaster
bent nails and poor construction
hammered hastily into place

How do you fill
my vacant minutes with shadows of you?
Your outline walks beside me on the street, wound up in my headphones
the echo of your daydream touch
a humming static on my skin

How still do you fall asleep beside me
when I am wrapped in the disquiet of a restless night?
How do you ease yourself into my brain like its nothing
and hide among synapses that try so hard to lose you

And how still to lose you?
When the thought of you occupies the wasted time
that escapes order and control
and slips under the floorboards

And in that quiet and that dark
is where you and I occupy,
held together by the wandering nature of thoughts,
that find their way into the nooks and crannies of my head

The thought of you is indifferent to my hasty plaster work,
and
the thought of you is intoxicating.
If ever I thought I was
worthless
useless
an empty vessel to hold the blame of the world, I was ignorant.

In the shadow of others I did not realize I was outgrowing the limited social garden bed of my ‘friends’ and companions. Friends would be an overstatement and a title many of them have never and will never earn. As a Scorpio my trust is not easily gained, and one lost, it is gone forever. Something in me, though, always forgave, but kept the trespasses against my trust cataloged, loaded, waiting to fire across my synapses is self destruction.

If ever I took your interest as a sign of friendship, I was a fool.
If ever I opened my heart to you, if ever I extended an almost maternal hand to you I was an idiot.

My body has been run ragged with its attempts at pleasing all and apologizing for its darker nature. My narcissism has become a survival mechanism that I once thought needed you.
My soul is weary of your needy hands, your open-bird mouth that I keep feeding more and more of my soul. Compassion has an end with me. In this game of survival, I will always be the fittest and you’ve stopped entertaining the animal within me.

I am worth so much more than being drained of my entirety. I am manifest energy as you are, as the earth is. Like the Earth my resources have been tapped and I can give no longer. Like the Earth I shall strike with ground shattering vengeance.

If ever I thought friendship was giving you everything for nothing in return, I was blind, for I am a Goddess as you are. I am a Goddess as you are a God, and your meager offerings of passing interest and constant need are insufficient. My inner patriarch has fed of your male-centric patterns of thought, and the women of my past lives are too loud in protest for this to continue.

I deserve much more than “friends” like you.

& most of all

If ever I thought my thighs were a sufficient reason for me to hate myself, if ever I thought they were an excuse for you to disrespect me, then I was a *****.
Because you are an *******.
And my body is rad
Tatiana Cody Oct 2010
Hands shaking as they clumsily undo
Buttons, zippers, clasps
Articles of clothing discarded

Every word that passes between us
Hangs suspended in the air
Like dust motes
Only larger, more distinct
Each facet perfectly discernible
By its own beholder's eye

This was wrong
I could feel it
As my synapses fired
Unconsciously guiding my hands down his back
Arching mine

It feels wrong
But mostly it feels
So
right
Now.
A true story.
Graff1980 Jul 2015
There is a painful vacuum
Not a naked desire but still
A longing unfulfilled
That hollows the soul
It is why babies wail
Why old men wake crying
From beginning to end

We evolved to be touched
Skin on skin does not need to be
A ****** frenzy
A hug, a handshake
And pat on the back
Or a hand on his shoulder

The old man waits
The silence of isolation breaks
Oxytocin rushes through his system
Rebooting forgotten feelings
Restoring diminished capacities
It does not return all abilities
But enlivens deadened synapses
Yes it is very cerebral

Without it we wither away
Stewing in mental and physical decay
So, have you touched someone today?
Paul Hardwick May 2014
Two nerves cells
and across the finite gap
an impulse passes
and diffusion of a
neurotransmitter
begins
passing down to my stupid mind
and the words i think
seam to dance
and do a little jig
and so my thoughts
begin.
Sienna Luna Nov 2015
Dear, let me startle you by slinking my hand into
your smart, ethical decisions while I touch
quite gently
ripping to shreds
your photon ends.

Dear, let me caress your supple virtues and vows
until they blow out of proportion
merging your interests with mine
like the longing of eyes
uncanny in its distortion.

Dear, let me rip off your clothes as I grip your tight notions
ideas slipping carefully into place
like a sterile, unflinching blank slate
inching towards computed devotion.

Dear, let me carry out some foreplay
as long as you bend, not break,
delightfully stroking the edge of your plate.

Dear, let me come so close to your face
so close that it becomes blurry.

Where are my glasses in all this flurry?

Of feelings resembling photo reels on fire
shooting flames out the window
beyond everything you’ve ever known;
beyond anything you desire.

Dear, let me kiss you to submission,
your brain waves in motion
as I twist and slip into them
hormones ablaze
lighting up for days
your synapses recapturing
in a binocular haze.

Dear, let me flop on top of you
like a floppy disk, uploading your lips
into my hardrive.

Do I make you hard as fire?

Slowing burning
my hot fingers curling
up your robust spine
cracking it into
chiropractor sublime.

Massaging your tired broad shoulders
like large sofa ends.

Is this keyboard only
made for pretend?

Dear, let me mind *******
take you and light you
brighten your screen
uphold and unseen
neurons fighting as I whisper ***** words
directly into the folds of your tulip ears
too large to hear, and

Dear, let me engage my rage
into a productive haze
bolting out words, unheard of for days.

Dear, let us become undone together
like the battery of a computer
rebooting after a hectic hardware phase.

Dear, let us breathe and walk through this maze.
LAlgaravia Feb 2016
Whenever my
perception
gets attached to your
image,
Little flowers blossom
from infinite branches
of my neurons.
Old notes from an old diary
For an old and eternal love.
Oh cursed soul,
that you be,
something I dont even believe,
In, but in pain filled ignorance,
I lack the eloquency  to describe,
Even a little bit accurately,
This hateful being,
This lie of a perception, I cannot wake from,
A matrix, a coded line, I find myself,
Stuck in,
The suffering of a thousand lives and worlds,
Reaching out to you, reading this,
Lying, lying, as if the words mean,
Anything, anything, No!
Yet then, I always realize circling back,
To the histories invented by past selves,
hence, influencing who I am now,
the dark corners I look forward to in the future,
The lack of resposibility, The blissful youth,
Mixed with the pain of wisdom,
And the teachings and overview,
Of going off a cliff, only to jump back on,
And run off again,
Yet, then, again I find myself looking,
In my heart at the gun, the gun of release,
Oh that I dare say,
all humans should seek.
Crazy, crazy, John,
You are crazy you say,
Aye, aye, as all we are,
Sanity is insane,
Reason is,
2+2=4, Because.
I am the because. I am the order.
I am the chaos, that puts that electron there,
And your synapses connecting there,
Oh I'm the breath you take,
Before that **** and ***,
You faked,
Little one, little one,
I am much older now in lives
Than years, I consume throwing myself away,
The self, the soul, the non existence,
Oh it is existing and it wont leave me,
And all this because,
I saw her kissing that man,
On the cheek.
Alas, that is the bane of every God and Demon,
Since nephlium, To love a human,
A mortal, the code in the matrix,
The variables for the x,
That turns your reason and logic,
Into guess work and soulbreak,
I drone on,
Where is the end,
That is the point! Dr. Seuess,
Take your money back, I know the places I will go,
Oh I've seen it now for a while, and boy do I fear,
The blank page, the unwritten line,
The truth that I've been trying to hide,
From who?
I've lived long enough.
I would like to die.
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2017
Forest inquires:

How do you decide, choose your design, find its guise,
give it a face, surrender to the poem's own
vanity,
        and choose the poem's alignment?


                                                  an­ answer forms:

this alignment idea,
you think it simple,
everybody understands
what your inquiry means

alignment -  the appropriate relative position

we live in relative position to each other, our poems too, for they are but written synapses of our close captioned interactions, seemingly random, but assuredly not, as we invest in ourselves, seeking the mysterious appropriate answer
                                                                ­                        from the Theory of Poetic Relativity

                                                   ­             i love your question;                              hold it to my nostrils,          
                                             ­             smell the coffee aroma wake up blast inherent;
                                                                ­      
 kiss its robust childlike cheeks for the simple   soulfulness essential arousal;
for you see sir you have found
the appropriate position that relates us, our mindful words;

                                 answer no good, wholly insufficient?
                                        perfect.
                          as i close this quick cooked to perfection laboratory solution, take note

                              
                            ­                        the earth has moved
                                our hearts have beaten a measly thousand times
                                    time and space have appropriated our prior
                                          
relativity

when you return years hence this poem's shape will perforce have moved. for words are weathered flux constant and yet inherently unchanged except for the part of us that changes with every re-reading  

and what was


**right before has left and the center has moved again
Nat,

This is probably just an insane thing of mine, but I cannot stand the center aligned formatted poetry. I want to read the poetry, but why center? I want to know why it is center aligned? If it is a metaphor for how poetry could/should serve as a balancing point, a countervailing force for a point, perhaps I could understand...but so many poems center aligned, I don't know, I am probably missing something.

A right aligned poem? Perhaps I could understand, if the content was asking me to revolt, to revolutionize, to counter the status quo. But a centered poem? What does the alignment mean?

anyway, it has been a long time since I've been around, keep writing, hope you are well.

-forest
Ellie Belanger Aug 2014
there is a buzzing
     it's coming from the walls
the tiny electrical snaps and synapses
the mindhive that seethes
the radios and beeping pulses
we have reached the
singularity.
read about it
Ski Jumping**

Leaning forward, body parallel to the skis
arms neatly by the side
hands pressed in tight; flat
down the ***** he goes into the unknown
flying free
for a few moments
landing as far as he can
then arms aloft in triumph.
How do you begin such a journey?
Armchair bound we are
never to speed down the icy *****
eyes and goggles peering down and down
ready to fly, see the sky.
Yet in a moment we can be there
down the ***** in our minds
unburdened from reality
no years of practice or skis to heft
no chance of failure.
We can fly on the ski ***** of the mind
an adventure of the imagination
synapses firing neurons glowing
and so let it be with death and life
down the ***** jumping, arms aloft
into tomorrow, into the unknown
alone, down the *****, jumping.


Malcolm F. Davidson October 11th 2013
Grace Jordan Sep 2014
There's a feeling I've felt hindering on the tip of my tongue, twirling with sawdust at the end of my bed. Its tingled my toes and tickled my nose and killed all hopes that this is just happiness.

Sleep is for figments and products of sanity, neither of which I can claim heritage. Well perhaps figments in the waking hours of the darkness, but that is a tale for another time.

I can feel his fingertips stroking my sides, reminding me what it is to feel human and vulnerable and perfect. Didn't know he boosted me ego and turned me into the self absorbed maniac you see before you today. Tyrant, remembrr? Oh wait, that's another tale altogether again.

I ramble in the night, in the morning, all the time. My thoughts wander with echoing clarity to encompass the truth about me; not everything is quite right. The teacups are lopsided at the unbirthday table tonight.

Yet again, speaking in riddles and stories unbeknownst to you. Stupid me, stupid Grace, stupider you. Why are you so open to my madness anyway? Maybe you're the crazy one.

This sick godlike embodiment I feel is one I forget isn't real, isn't me, isn't life. But wait. Its a part of me, so perhaps it is real as well? Call a jury, wake a judge, there must be a verdict on my elation. Am I a minor deity or are the synapses playing some cruel joke on my heartstrings?

Heartstrings, why did I bring them into this? I have shut them off for now, for they are dumb and deaf to honesty and logic and do whatever the hell they feel. Or is it whatever the heaven? I forget sometimes where the real misery is, or how the expression goes. I've never quite gotten everything right, being as upside down as I.

Insomnia brings out the manic in me, and I know its not real, but for a moment, just a moment, I belong. I am real, I am loved, I am powerful. Weak little Grace is no more, with her fears and contradictions. Just strength is left, and it is glorious.

Just remember not to let the heffelumps get you in the night, for they are the true evil behind your honey ***. Or am I a heffelump? I can't remember anymore.

This is going nowhere, everywhere, somewhere.

Wake me up inside before I destroy myself, or simply perpetuate my perfection with a caress of your hand. Whatever suits your fancy.

Call me Aphrodite and we'll call it a night after hours of mindblowing ***. But you expected that all along, of course you did, because you know my bones better than we both realize.

When you put your hands on me I feel ****. But yet again, right now I an perpetually **** and twitchy and awake and fake. Dare you to kiss me anyway.

Dare you to see me, psychotics and all.

Bet you'll run like the rest, yet like all good hiders its refreshing to be found every once in awhile.

Find me, and see. See the monster behind my beautiful eyes. That's the day when you'll see what true danger looks like; me.

Insomnia makes me odd, but yet again I'm always odd.

Little miss muffet sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and craves, for a man betwixt her to tell her she's killer and make her a siren next day.

Forget, no, yes, its all I do. Its not how that goes, for sirens are certainly not temporary. I am certainly a black widow every day, not just each odd thursday.

Go to bed, Grace. I beg of you.

Close my eyes and say goodnight to the beloved moon, for the sun is nearly up and it certainly hates me, I am sure of it.

Just never forget all this is wrapped up in one little old me. No one seems to remember that until its far too late, so might as well run now, because otherwise little miss muffet here on her tuffet will be the death of you.
Jasmine Flower Oct 2014
September 1st, 2001.
I woke up to that same annoying alarm clock, 7:03 AM
Morning shower, morning coffee, morning breakfast –
I changed the calendar but I dropped the tack to hold it up.

September 2nd.
I’m thinking about October,
All the trees ablaze with orange and red, pumpkin pie in the season, cinnamon tingling in the air.
The new Spirit Halloween store opened up around the block. Superhero costumes are pretty cool.

September 3rd.
My mom takes me out to dinner because it’s Monday.

September 4th.
Routine

September 5th.
Routine

September 6th
In calculus, 11 is my favorite number.

September 7th.
Routine

September 8th.
Routine

September 9th.
My routine staccato.
Taxis responds after 3 calls,
My favorite professor gave me a hard time,
I wanna go home.
After the hustle of ants we call people,
loud street venders,
that creepy guy on the street corner,
NO, I do not want to try your new raspberry cheesecake Jack In The Box, I just wanna get my **** food and go home.
I arrive and melt into my sofa, falling asleep to the news.

September 10th.
No alarm clocks.
In the evening, my mom and I go out to dinner because today is Monday.
Red Lobster has the BEST seafood and while we’re eating,
she complains about the air conditioning in her new work place.
She works for some business in the twin towers.

September 11th, 2001
Instead of the alarm, sirens wake me.
I find the tack to hold up my calendar. – It’s Tuesday.
My feet, cold and lifeless, wander around the house until they trip over the scent of smoke.
Those sirens must’ve stopped nearby.
My mom is at work.
I want to get some air,
so I grab the keys off my splintered champagne desk,
****** them into ignition,
fingers wrapping around cruise control,
shifting into reverse,
the monotone GPS lady telling me to turn left.

The smoke is denser.
I follow her voice: turn right.
The smoke is solid.
Keep straight.
The smoke is suffocating.
In 3 hundred feet, turn left
The smoke is the sky –
Charlie Chapman gray.

My mom was at work.
Around me were firetrucks sparking with blinding flashes that screamed the word “emergency.”
My mom was at work.
The sight ahead was morbid. Unnerving. Disastrous.
It was like Halloween, except there were no superhero costumes, only firefighters and policemen.
My mom was at work.
The tower had holes punctured into their glass windows,
Smoke rising like leaves stemming out of the stump of skyscraper.
My mom was at work.
People like ants, fleeing, scattering, put on the mask of apocalyptic expression.
The throaty yells of “it was a plane” stuffed my eardrums
It was a plane, they said, it was a plane.
This was not routine.
My mom was at work.
The alarm woke me up.
I had my morning coffee.
It took all the synapses in my brain to deny what was right in front of me.
My senses detected telephone signals exploding with,
"I’m fine honey, don’t worry,”
Airlines confused and cramming.

I parked my car in overwhelming paralysis.
Above me, a screech of a whistle filled what was left of the air,
Followed by a boom that replicated my heart.
Frozen. Milliseconds frozen.
The plane was flying too low
WHAT HAPPENED?
There were people in those towers,
Everything was an epiphany --
Marriages, birthdays, fathers, sons, mothers, daughters,
Now cadaverous bodies antigravitating in rubble of boring office walls, family pictures.
Death in one swift move of terror.

My mom was at work.
We went to dinner yesterday.
My mom was at work.
The seafood tasted amazing.
My mom was at work.
She complained about the air conditioning.
My mom was at work.
She got a new job in the twin towers.
The twin towers are ablaze
The twin towers are spilling orange and red
They are sending ashes tingling through the air
This was not the October I asked for.
I longed for September 1st
I dropped the tack to hold up my calendar.

It’s Wednesday.
September 12th, 2001.
I did not sleep.
The news kept me awake, kept saying terrorist attack, terrorist attack, identified bodies, many mourning.
Because of their god, they lessened faith in mine.
This was the closest the public eye were to see a warzone-
Text messages cluttered with sympathy.
My routine changed for the rest of my life.

10 years later
Alarm clocks ringing, 7:03AM I stay in bed.
It’s Monday. I do not go out to dinner.
Instead, I drive 5 miles out to the cemetery.
People are still ants, pushing and shoving to where they need to go, they walk as if they had forgotten.
I no longer crave the red and orange of fall, cinnamon is foreign to my senses.
I hate the number 11 because it’s etched on your gravestone.
Your gravestone – gray and dense like the smoke
I wish they were not a constant reminder of the future I live in, but you don’t.
Today, there are no exclaiming yells of people or screeching whistles of planes.
Today there is only silence.

There is only silence.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2014
written two years ago and a bit, but suits still....

Weather Advisory: A long poem pouring ahead

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be not fooled,
by the evening-tide,
be not deceived
by the quietude,
tis not a reprieve
of day before dark.

Be guarded,
for the easy transformation,
a tranquil shedding
of the day's husk,
into the faded light of dusk,
just one of nature's machinations
to delay the inevitable.

Evening-tide,
a colored compilation
of a few mischievous hours,
when sunlight is invaded by
streaks of pink, azure and gold,    
just before the
palette is plunged
into a stainless steel can
of gothic black,
skyied glory rendered into
common house paint.

Evening-tide,
an alleged easy calm
surfeits some souls,
supposed easy passage from  
the day's contusions to
a relaxation from humankind's regulations and rules,
but not for me.

Evening-tide,
when appetites unsated, simmer,
the in between hours when
humans transform themselves,
from day laborers to creatures
desiring, aroused, hungry  
for night time pleasures,
searching with false courage for
boundary lines to sever.

Evening-tide,
it was at evening-tide that
David espied, desired and
stole Bathsheba for his own,
with a King's arrogance
rent a kingdom,
murdered for profit,
birthed an Heir,
a prince, who wrote,
by evening-tide:

I have seen all the works
that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit.

Evening-tide,
fear closes my throat,
confusion reappears,
a low grade flu infects
deemed persistent, incurable,
revisits, medicine resistant,
my insights, my speech,
to blind and bind  

Am I Gloucester,
blinded, but faculties
possessing vision,
the future to clarify?

No, no, it is to a king,
Lear,
to whom I am
son and cousin,
kith and kin

Sunset visions of
ultimate demise
ours eyes behold,
but plainly put,
at Evening-tide,
our dementia -
a precursor,
a periodic but hostile guest
in the hostel of our memories,
cracks and fractures us,
spirit first, body second.  

We are bound helpless
by a knotted tongue,
slow dying malingerer,
inside a head of ill repute,
unable to locate our knowing,
and every word selected,
a battle galactic, oft lost

Evening-tide,
I am cold,
and the issued command
is bring an umbrella
to warm and cover.  
What an old fool am I,
tis not blanket or a
Bathsheba I seek,
but at Evening-tide,
Babel's nefarious treasury of words
unlocked, for tis closed,                    
the gatekeepers,
drunk and absent,
drunk on absinthe,
and creme de mentia
and I have no key

Evening-tide, prithee,
I beg of thee,
consideration please,
check this hideous amusement,
that makes this
King's speech confused,
odor of smokeless cordite ignited
where the synapses have burnt,
injured, beyond repair
injured, by mine own aging.  

Reverse the diagnosis
of the panel of wordsmiths:
Alas, weep and be comforted...

Evening-tide,
a reverie of colored tears,
downward sloping,
arrive to tingle my tongue,
warming comfort for an *****
willing but unable,
a wounded soldier,
a veteran of poetry,
now prone and pained
beyond repair,
beyond healing,
immunized to the
heat and solder,
drugs and salves,
that heretofore
might have closed
the cracks of rack and ruin

Evening-tide,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't
put Humpty together again^

Evening-tide,
my hair, the color of old age.
Irony, my skin yet smooth,
unwrinkled, not in need of the
toxins that are employed
to fill crevasses on
the outer banks of age of comedy

Alas, the toxins natural from within
have seeped from their
latent resting place and have
contaminated the groundwater
that lubricated my mind,  
from siege engines poured,
a contamination of
mine own making.  
After a life long battle,
my Jericho walls have fallen.

Lear and I faint recall the love
of our beloved Cordelia,
but try as we might
her name escapes our grasp,
******* by bite of aging's asp.

We grow drunk by night
on a drink not of choice,
unhappy fury,
the residue within
the imprisoned poison
of our polluted tears,
that come only after our
misspoken and misshapen
guttural croaks
of our Eveningtide prayers
are both
unintelligible and unrequited
Written 6/01/11, after seeing Derek Jacobi as King Lear. This poem is about my fears of dementia which people close to me suffer from, sadly.  Now, I struggle to recall names and places. Poetry, not so much because I get to pick and choose words at my own speed. But someday, who knows....the time between day and night, is a metaphor for a beautiful slow, slipping away but be not deceived, by the quietude, tis not a reprieveof day before dark.

^ this rhyme, purportedly a child's view of siege engines that could not break the walled of the City of Gloucester (how ironic!)  in 1643

An abbreviated version of this poem goes like this:
Nat went to see King Lear,
Then went down to the beach
To watch the sun set, the evening arrive,
They both reminded him, of his fear
That someday he'll probably sunset like Lear
And end the play, the eve, mad, his mind deceived,
De-worded, defanged, his poetry retired, but not relieved
Amanda Kay Burke Sep 2018
Hold the universe inside my palms
I alone understand it is but a solitary dream
Between stars I make out memories
Connecting dots, forming images ingrained in my mind

I look in the unfilled depths of sky where suns have yet to burn out, remaining eternally preserved in an explosion of beauty lightyears away wondering about humans peering at their ambience through time and space

This isolated reflection I witness change in compliance with the predetermined path set in motion by the astrological forces of nature
Unstable
My hands must be trembling
Scared of sorrow and frustration they undeniably confront

The fear of the uncertain, the inconsistency of the unapologetic future awaiting
Solemn visions of an imperfect outcome, enough torment to push strength a bit too far over the edge

Fragile balance of peace and chaos resting within cupped desperate hands
Ignorant, the quickness of extinction among synapses in the cavern lighting the entirety of my skull
Pinned under familiar self-induced delusions
Galaxies silently begging for permanent freedom
Such fate to let their wishes dangle ignored
Urges within bursting, released
That moment I also give in
Forcefully close my fingers into a fist
Instantly crushing wild constellations scattered around my consciousness
A great deal more fragile than realized

Once unshakable destiny budged a millimeter by one lone act of rebellion
Against a powerful pull the majority pretend is rigid
Elusive control by way of self-combustion of life's temporary illusions
Proof one touch can fell worlds of fantasy

Founded on fiction

Or maybe

Reality
I was inspired by Horton Hears A Who
Cné Jun 2018

Synapses fire
Flavors shoot across the tongue
Tasting of good times

Happy Wine Wednesday
Graff1980 Mar 2015
The makers make
Everything
From everything
Hands into the void
Shaping matter
Parsing out particles
Passing electrical
Synapses to deduce
And reduce
Experience
To the simplest rules
Then changing the laws
Of science
Not god
But humanity
Making meaning
From the chaos
Imposing order
Through logic
The saving grace
Of this human race
Alex Jan 2014
Manila is beautiful at night,
Seen from overhead, high above rainclouds in the night sky
with a tantalizing view of car exhaust and the debris of broken dreams
Manila is beautiful at night.

It comes and goes like a shadow in flickering light.
At first, it hides behind wispy rain clouds, playful as a child hiding in his mother's skirt.
If you look closely, it's lights glisten-- golden and teasing
It's incessant winking, an almost promise of what's to come

From your aerial vantage point, you wonder:
"This is what it must be like to be an Angel when they fly"
Below the city, with all it's secrets, sprawls like a handful:
A rich lady's heirloom diamonds, thrown carelessly on a ***** floor.

It will somehow remind you of a creature: perhaps human, or Leviathan in it's wake
Cities, after all, are their own specie of living things

At first it is looks like a Brain, with neurons and synapses electric and active
Certain spots of the city: mall compelexes and large parking lots, like the nuclei of a brain cell
the roads that lead to and fro, the cars zipping up and down in red and yellow lines
remind you of dendrites and axons, stretching far
They communicate with each other in their own language; a code
Your imagination runs wild with untamed fantasy

On next glance, it looks like a heart.
The whole city pulses magnificently in unison it seems.
Thud, thud. Thud, thud. You feel it?
Your heart follows it's tantalizing rhythmic pattern, it's muscle beats
Though and through the city pumps it's lifeblood into each nook and cranny
Oh how it entices your passion so.

At last you seem to hear it breathing.
Listen closely and hear Manila inhale and exhale in steady tunes
Inhale, and exhale-- a silence comes over you,
And it's strangely reminiscent of amazement, excitement and bitter fear
Your ears dull and you listen to the rush of air in your lungs,
the deep drum bass of the pounding of your heart
the dizzying feeling that exists in your brain

Manila really is beautiful at night.
In the shroud of darkness, it rises from slumber;
Vivacious and lovely, it's seductive and free
Manila is lovely. Manila is a woman, as it should be.
Part one
The curves that could **** a man
Aren't at her hips
But dance around her lips
As words that serve neither to stroke nor strangle the silence that tangles inside your grip, but sings and breathes beneath wings of wit from
Those casually crafted curves
Weaving a wind into a wave
Never tumbleweeding out
But either darting
Or floating
To and through you
As an inner voice would
Had you not muffled it with music
And reduced it to one or two loose lipped quips and semantic antics
Curves, warm with form and with friction
Neither liquid or gas in state
With no mass but with weight
They're past but don't pass away
They lay aloft, lingering in the light they were given unto
Or, did they bring the light to you?
Oh yes.
Sultry sounds of synchronizing synapses
Seep and slide deep inside, into the spaces
That two souls so similar, long have sat
Seemingly separate from the infinite vastness
Telepathic, though she doesn't act it.
Hourglass figure, go figure
The hourglass smashes
Or remains undetected, in those seconds
The curves that could **** a man
Form the words that could resurrect him.
robin Jun 2013
roll with the punches baby try not to shatter while you wait to
feel it
it might take a while for every synapse to come alive but
i promise you'll feel it in the end
light up like a christmas tree with every nerve impulse 100 watts your body
will light up the room.
you cast shadows on the moon and i wonder why
is it so cold?
(this wasn't what i wanted when i picked up a pen,
but it seems
like every poem becomes part of you
your blood runs in these pens and i can't help writing about you and your
talus -
that word means both
jagged rocks when you look down from a cliff and oh is this what you want
and the bone of your heel
that you grind into my chest and ****,
i think
that sums you up
pretty well.)
because your sparks were always the best thing about you,
when you short-circuit and sputter and all your lights flicker your synapses
have more life than they know what to do with
roll with the punches and cradle your cheek and be grateful that
at least you didn't crack
because electricity and water don't mix and you've killed enough sharks
in your lifetime.
you don't need another funeral on the mind
when you're still watching the procession
of your own -
(or maybe it's just a fantasy
which is
more likely than not,
you were never able to face that talus
at the bottom
or your christmas lights sputtering and
stopping) -
you watch your own funeral and breathe and i
pray
to god for a miracle
because your measured breaths are the saddest thing i've ever seen because i know
you're just breathing by eights

[eight protons eight neutrons eight seconds in and out
atomic number eight processes to stay alive]

the periodic table hung on your wall like a map of the world you
breathe by eights and i pray harder and breathe ragged you were always more measured than me like
you're morse code and i'm an earthquake
you're heart rate and i'm arrhythmia
you're chemistry and i'm alchemy and you disprove me with every breath
you the child of bright mathematics i crumble in your gaze
but still you short-circuit and i stroke your hair and breathe ragged while you sputter
your synapses can't hold all your life so i'll conduct the overflow
ground your talus in my chest and i will take all your flickers for my own.
it might take a while
but you'll feel it
i promise
because it's not so cold with your short-circuits in my chest and i bet it's not so numb
with my pens scratching your arms
you light up and i wonder how you can breathe so steady
with all this smoke
in the air
(i was breathing  ragged already but you said asthma suits me and
i guess you're right because
you were always the one with all the elements memorized while i
struggled to remember that air
could be something other than
painful)
you short-circuit and i stroke your hair and pray
for your numbers to add up
this time
and you sigh and disprove me
again
because i only live in your flickers and sputters and my
ragged breath
and i pray you will flare brighter light up stronger because
when you feel that punch
i can't conduct that impulse.
roll with the punches baby you'll feel it i promise it
just takes a while
breathe by eights keep that heart rate steady
you imagine your funeral procession and sputter
i breathe ragged baby i will take all your misfires
and write odes to your sparks
just be ready for that feeling when it hits.

— The End —