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 May 2021
Sappho
It was you, Atthis, who said

"Sappho, if you will not get
up and let us look at you
I shall never love you again!

"Get up, unleash your suppleness,
lift off your Chian nightdress
and, like a lily leaning into

"a spring, bathe in the water.
Cleis is bringing your best
purple frock and the yellow

"tunic down from the clothes chest;
you will have a cloak thrown over
you and flowers crowning your hair...

"Praxinoa, my child, will you please
roast nuts for our breakfast? One
of the gods is being good to us:

"today we are going at last
into Mitylene, our favorite
city, with Sappho, loveliest

"of its women; she will walk
among us like a mother with
all her daughters around her

"when she comes home from exile..."

But you forget everything
 Apr 2021
Sudzedrebel
i am on a disk
and the pale, blue dot
is paler than ever before
above me
is more blue
a simulated sky
and a basin we've come to call
our shores

uncoupled
untethered and undeterred

there's a tree in my yard
whose roots reach
the barriers of our world
they long to touch
that void
that would see the waves
we tide
frozen still
 Mar 2021
Acme
I'm 72 and I'm not you.
Now I know I'm not me.
I'm just an afterthought
created with no purpose.
I'm a troubadour to amuse
the royal court confuse
the drunk King his *****
leaves him wanting more.
I write his sordid story
lies about false glory.
We watch as the stars
all fall from the sky
and we smell hell and
finally all just die.
tethered to
the beast
for life,
bird's wagon
blazed a trail
of pretty notes
like cherries in
a dry martini.

his poisoned beauty
led;
we followed.

from harlem to
tunisia and bop,
bird blew his top
past duke and louis  
in d-minor streams.

but  the beast
kept pulling him back
to the frantic snow
of his diatonic dreams.

and like fire
he burned.

and like fire
he burned.

~ p
...for charlie p.
 Mar 2021
The Boy
If only you knew the heights to which I would let myself float.
Each time the thought of you crossed my mind, it quickly became a recurring daydream;
Supplying me with my fix of euphoric, fantastic escape from this otherwise insipid conscious loop.

You wouldn't blame me if you knew how I would reach those very heights before I had you;
The fierce clambering on my ice cold wings made of stone and lead,
and the almost instant plummet that always followed
clamoring on and inside my head.

Yet somehow you'd managed to get me up there all on your own;
almost as though your breath pumped novacaine into my every cell, while your smile melted down gravity's grip on each and every one of my bones.

... and there I go again, claiming you as my own.
I suppose I always did let you make me feel so much less alone.

If only you knew my excitement each time your name would flash up on my phone;
Now it just hurts.
Even more so because I know how and why,
and God knows the mere thought of you still gets me so high.

But... what if you knew?
It would be mighty presumptuous of me to even consider that you'd think of me as I do you.
Truth is, I really never let myself slip
as you can see how ridiculously hard I always seem to take that plunge.

So you see,
Since it seems I am fated to crash and burn either way,
still
I'd rather fall where I know I might find you

someday....
"and Karma said: you will fall in love with someone who does not love you, for not loving someone who did"
 Mar 2021
neth jones
I discharge ;
   a laugh without kindle
(not from the origin of tune
         and mastication)  
from an orifice of wound

a hack of mushroomy dry fleck :
the taste touches the back of the airways
  and takes to the brain in an ail

    ideas slurry
my actions blur
I fumble about my living space
my balance
        pained ears
fall to floor
      an ug at the back my throat
I laugh from all fours
    vision reddens
unhinged at the jaw
      my neck
shoulder muscles punting
my logged and leaden head lolling
   a laugh of hurt
a ******* of saliva
        detonates on the carpet
is there blood in that  ?
sickness on the verge
                 of being brutally provided

"So dramatic !"
my wife passes me a glass of fruit juice
                             and an aspirin
         preventing the transformation
                a gentle chiding
original version ....

[a laugh without kindle
from a wound not an orifice
a mastication of ills and soothes
a not quite mushroom smell
pained ears
an ug at the back of the throat]
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