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 Oct 2014 404
JDK
Tragic Beauty
 Oct 2014 404
JDK
The artist fell asleep after he leaked tears on her arm.
She held him tight while full knowing that he's held them in for so long.
Together,
they both dreamed of healing their wrongs.
A picturesque scene of two broken souls moving on.

How rare to find another person with the same gleam in their eye.
She became his muse,
and he was her guy.

They never again questioned their fate.
They stopped asking why.
Oh, the things they did create while they both felt so alive!

But time went on,
and the colors did fade.
They began to pull apart -
growing separate ways.

The artist came to think he did his best work alone.
His queen found herself uncomfortable atop her lofty throne.

They both gave in,
and chalked it up to something neither could define.

She never again would fall for a broken man,
and he spent no more days crying.
 Oct 2014 404
Raj Arumugam
so I brought my writer wife
(prominently pregnant)
to the hospital
and on her bed, she screamed:
"weren't" "hasn't" "couldn't" "shan't"
"aint" "hadn't" "you're" "isn't"
"aren't" "didn't" "wasn't"
"who's?" "what's?" "he's" "she's"


The doctors were confounded
and they turned to me and they said:
"What the hell is she doing?"

And I replied with double speed
and a violent sense of urgency:
*"Don't you know?
She's having contractions -
she's a writer"
 Oct 2014 404
susan
tag along
 Oct 2014 404
susan
accepting the unacceptable
to accept
while trying to be accepted

believing the unbelievable
so to believe
in something

tolerating the unethical
to hide weakness
and deny decency

following the wicked
because of vulnerability and hopelessness

never comprehending truth
because of rejecting it for so long.
 Sep 2014 404
Spencer Dennison
Break me completely!

My shards will still cut your hands,

trying to fix me.
 Sep 2014 404
MBishop
This Sadness
 Sep 2014 404
MBishop
This sadness, this numb
It is not poetic.
I cannot write about galaxy ridden veins
or fire seared eyes

This sadness, this emptiness
It is not beautiful
There will be no heroic sweeping away of broken princesses by
princes with cigarette clenched teeth
or ***** laced lips

This sadness, this gut-wrenching pain
Will not be daises in Marlboro boxes
It can't be unraveled threads sewed back
by an infinite but dysfunctional love

No, no.

This sadness isn't any of that.

This sadness, it's raw
It hurts to look at but it's torture to bear
People look away from this type of sadness
Because it sure as hell ain't pretty.
But what it is is real
This is the sadness that, once moved past, is never forgotten

It's worn like armor in battle
Like a coat of arms

This sadness makes you a **soldier
 Sep 2014 404
Spencer Dennison
We are monuments.
Every one of us.
I see before me,
men, women and children
and each one of us is a pillar
upon which entire worlds were built.
Too often do I find this innate sense of guilt,
that stems from not becoming
what we should have been.
I've seen opera singers sell their vocal chords
and take up vows of silence.
I've seen warriors give up the art of violence
and become holy men.
I suppose everything will fall in doubt,
now and then.
But we are pillars,
built to hold up things bigger than ourselves.
If any single one of us fails,
our whole house grows weaker.

This is the place we have been given,
to walk upon and live in.
Each one of it's valleys and peaks
and ditches and creeks
has heard the voice that speaks
of humanity.
Our impact upon this land is timeless.
Yet it seems that yesterday's graveyards,
will become today's sandboxes
until they are tomorrow's graveyards.

We are the pillars that hold up the sky,
we will all stand and we will all fall,
without really knowing why,
but the morale of every story
is hidden behind the words
like the forest behind the trees.
I know we all have memories
but these,
these are for you.
Even if all they ever do
is get you through this one day
then that have paved the way
for tomorrow.
That's all you can ask for, really,
is tomorrow.
One day, we will be denied.
 Sep 2014 404
Tim Eichhorn
With regards to Thomas Sayers Ellis*

Look at the
    Lucent lava lamps,
Dark craters
    Hiring hands.
We walked,
    Mimicking magma.
Hot, why is
    This heat?
Forget Vulcan
    And his illusion
Of kaleidoscopes,
    A rip tide
On the shore
    Of our conscious minds.
We held fire,
    Pretending to swim
Underground,
    But only out
Of pure respect.
    Some had boots
Made with
    The clippings
Of funky tripwire,
    Others wore suits
With goggles
    Clamped to their faces,
Gripping like
    Bay Area earthquakes.
One-by-one,
    Jang-strangs were
Attached to us and
    Hurled into the Pit
With rhythmic rituals,
    Waves of S and P
Flailed away
    Like flags.
One nation
    Under a new.
No one looked away
    From the fiery daze.
No one wept.
 Sep 2014 404
Spencer Dennison
Your voice, it still does

reach me through these twisted halls

though I'm long since deaf.
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