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 Aug 18 Ken Pepiton
dude
war, war, war, war
a taste of blood
a whiff of cash
left em hooked
they need more

war, war, war, war
everyone waves a flag
until the theater’s
outside your front door

actors, red and blue ties
behind doors, clink glasses
blood sacrifices leave
rubble, dirt, dust, ashes

Generations
Hatred’s Echo
Administrations come
Administrations go
I still feel his frozen naive heartbeat in me
One disappointment ago, old version of me
The one whose last drop of hope was stolen without a warning
Cycles are there for repeating, but his lost brooch for love won't be returning
Verse

See the crone that comes
through the thorn-walk and the breaks,
with a ribbon for the coffin key
and a dead-scroll curled with snakes,

she will never die.
she will never die.
roll her bones through the catacombs--
she hasn't the grace to die.

Inverse

My eyes were tired, so I set them soft
in the cotton-bedded heart of a pale red box;
deep under the earth with the coldsong quick,
was nothing--and nothing--I reveled in it.

Verse

Hear the crone who lies
with a dead tongue, poison-sweet,
words chopped blind with a kitchen knife
tourniquet-wrapped and awfully neat.

her teeth in the flesh
her teeth in the flesh
slips gangrene dreams through the finest screens
making rot-milk sold as fresh.

Inverse

My soul was sick, so I intertwined
its feminine face with androgyne,
to speak itself twice in a language of thorns
to bleed--to bear--where vermilion's born.

Verse

Bury the crone who's filled
with a paste of hate in her hollow bones,
a candle kept in the bag of her gut
to wax the devil a hag-head stone.

she will never die.
she will never die.
resurrected, insane, infected,
she hasn't the grace to die.
__
"And the older I get, the more I'm sure
That more by itself never was a cure
Some days I've got nothing to show for except
Walking the dog and walking the floor"
Mary Chapin Carpenter
<><><>
it's been twenty years plus
who can remember exact,
the last time I had a full-time four-legged
companion to share my bed, greet my head with
wagging tail, and joy incessantly, overflowing and drowning me
with face lickings and hugs of a topsy turvy twisty body,
and smiles and curdling yowls of deep throated
cries of obvious joy and the
first thing I'll do when the nectar of next
life's staging begins to commence will be me to get
such a dog as heretofore I remember as an unadulterated purest joy,

I'll still walk the floor,
long walks, yup, outdoors, early morn,
and late afternoon day settling setting endings,
dog and me, freshly bathed, settling in to watch
some British crime and ****** mysteries sleuthed and
solved by folks I'll never meet, but whose company enjoyed
over the distance of an atlantic sea and about seven feet,
and maybe dog  curls up next to me, by my pillowed
head, or between my happy to snuggle legs,
don't matter much, dog & me,
will discuss an alternating
rotation satisfying our
mutuality,

and even when I  still walk the floor, which be a task for evermore,
he can walk beside me if he chooses, cause choice is
what's it all about

with a true companion


nml
Girl and Her Dog
Song by Mary Chapin Carpenter ‧ 2025



Everyone asks when you're growing up
"Who do you want to be?"
I never had an answer, couldn't figure out
Why I couldn't see myself as some future other
No one's partner, no one's mother
No one's answer, no one's lover
Nobody but me
But the older I get, the more I see
That more by itself never worked for me
Keeping it simple as it can be
Walking along, just him and me
Mornings here with a coffee cup
Songs in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off, we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway
A long time ago, I got married once
It didn't take long to find
That the words I heard coming out of his mouth
Were not the truthful kind
I thought about moving to LA
Maybe upstate or the UK
Anywhere as long as it's far away
From what I left behind
And the older I get, the more I'm sure
That more by itself never was a cure
Some days I've got nothing to show for except
Walking the dog and walking the floor
Mornings here with a coffee cup
Stories in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off, we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway
In summer, neighbors leave tomatoes
In fall, dust coats your tires
Spring greens up every shadow
In December, we lay a fire
I figure I'm finally old enough
To know who I want to be when I grow up
A girl and her dog riding in the truck
Wave as we're going by
Now the older I get, the less I need
Just a good old dog underneath the trees
Keeping it simple as it can be
Fitting together like a puzzle piece
Mornings here with a coffee cup
Whistling for him while I'm looking up
If the rain holds off, we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway
We're lucky anyway

<>
1147am mon aug 8 twenty five nml hat lipstadt
CHOCOLATE EXPLANATIONS

“Right...! ”
I try to explain it
with chocolates
that she(girlishly)
keeps trying to eat.

I pick a luscious
dark chocolate seahorse
And I say “Now this is...”
(and she finishes my sentence for me)

“...your hippocampus! ”
She squeals... delighted with herself.
“That’s correct! ”
I praise her
“...it’s shaped like this seahorse! ”

“And it controls
your memories of you
your “who you are”

your “how your self assembles
its sense of self
...with all its past and future mysteries! ”

“Yes...yes...that’s it!
She claps her hands
thrilled to bits

by the familiar telling
the reassurance of sounds.
And this twisted twirl of almond
with a real almond in the centre of it
“... is your amygdala! ”
She blurts out before me.
“You got it”
I smile.

“Everyone’s got one!
a seahorse & an almond
one on each side of our brain.”

“Now the almond tells you how
to respond to the things
that you’ve assembled
into a sense of self

...with the proper emotion
...the right feeling.
...whether you just like
or love it”

“Oh, I love it...I love it! ”
She almost sings.
“Now, explain it to me again! ”
I give her the finished explanations
and she eats them

with much exaggerated
mmmmming & ohhhhhing.
“I love your explanations
about what’s wrong with my thingy”
She knocks upon her head
like it was a door
to a self that she had
locked herself outside of.

Most times
she doesn’t even know
her name
or who
or what
she is.
But she loves this story of
HIPPOCAMPUS AND ITS FAITHFUL AMYGDALA

She loves
each sound
each word
each letter
each pause
of the chocolate
explanation.
What does wind think of the camp on North 7th as it moves
under the overpass- bright blue nylon riffled,

work shirts on a rope, the entry flap breathing,
an old man’s head bent over chessboard, a rook tipping over?

What does wind know? Easy to say - nothing,
to say it knows nothing sweeping the day’s trash

down the avenue. The crawl says: fires in the West;
men with AR-15s; a mother and child face-down in the river;

children in cages, says the rise of this, the fall of that.
We say the wind knows nothing as it drives fire like a blowtorch

across the land. We blame the grid - the lineman, the line -
though we know better. We say the rain inside the wind

knows nothing, as mud swallows houses, houses fall to sea,
floods push through cities, the ocean takes back land.

We say wind and rain know nothing. We say there’s nothing
to do. The wind tussles our hair and goes on.

A tarp snaps. A rook tips. The old man uprights it.
The wind takes its turn.
Witchcraft and wine
it comes so naturally,
and now that you’re mine
I’m going to actually
try my best not to lose it.
If there’s a bomb then I will defuse it.
If there’s an offer I’ll just refuse it.
If there’s a card to play I’m going to use it.
Because you’ve got me under

Your blanket of stars and mysteries,
connecting our scars and histories.
In parked cars both sighing mystically
and back to the park where I was to shy to try anything.

Sorcery and scotch
you put me in a trance.
If you took it down a notch,
I just might stand a chance
that I’m not going to lose my head,
even with my cheeks burning red
getting brighter as you quietly said
“I’ll meet you tonight in our bed.”
Depriving me of slumber

With your healing touch and cosmic skin,
I’m within your clutch and freely giving in.
It’s too much and you have yet to begin,
removing my crutch and cleansing me of each sin.

I was warned of street magicians
and cautioned with tales of gateway drugs.
To not take my eyes off no matter the conditions,
because that’s when they tend to pull rugs.
“If you fall for one,
you’ll fall for them all.”
But this time I’m done,
I think it’s last call.

With your witchcraft and wine,
you make it look so divine.
This one poured out like a rose,
within minutes cause I had so much to say.
 Aug 15 Ken Pepiton
irinia
it's difficult to grasp the glory of madness
red carpets are deceiving but they match red ties
monochrome minds cast the shadow of empires
over our gluten free days
no wonder we are so allergic to silence, to steps shaped by loss
a thinking without thinking destroys the becoming of words
a tired public is trapped in the structure of hope,
the show  must go on
let's see if money speak louder than guns
Rain falls softly on the purple flower as it swings to and fro
in a field where everything blooms according to nature's will
Steadfast and strong the morning sun rises in the East  
upon a lush carpet of grass soft as the ancient winds of time

Light piano keys caress my mind as I close my eyes and enter
into a reverie as bright as the orange tulips that seize me
Ferns and chanterelles bathed in beams of pure light  
I am part of and whole of, this amazing greenish forest ...

Rivulets of quiet waters glide through the sun kissed earth
aerial slides from eagles and other winglet creatures of sky
Loyal and faithful mother earth is constant with her affection
in this solitary paradise made of homosapiens of every kind

Stunned into silence I inhale the chirp of the dancing bird
exhaling into the pinery the offspring of my very soul
I cup my  hands and drink from the river, a thirsty fish
longing to finish the journey I begun, ...centuries ago.
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