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Vidya  Sep 2013
niagara
Vidya Sep 2013
coyotes like
magenta-clad twentysomethings
screaming:
singing at the unearthly
hour when I
watched the desert
stars overhead and
now I wonder what else it is they’ve
killed

and maybe if I’d hung enough
dreamcatchers I would have
caught all the dreams that
pulled me past
you (step
into my parlor said the spider to the
fly

but what is it anyway that sticks between your eyelids when you
sleep when you
keep your eyes shut and your mouth
open does the sandman glue them
together to resign you to your own
blindness

be careful with your eyes sweetheart because
too many waterfalls leave
cataracts in their wake.
JM Romig Apr 2015
Across the court yard
The amorous twentysomethings
Open their window for the first time

They let the sun shine in -
They do not believe in curtains -
They let the sunshine in

He is Adonis
She is Mona Lisa
I hate them so much

It’s five in the morning
Our child screams us awake
Meanwhile, they sleep until noon

Passing by the window
I glimpse at the lovers entwined
“Not tonight” you yawn

Our friends are laughing
About what, we cannot tell
All we see is their love

He brings her breakfast in bed
Maybe it’s a birthday present? I suggest
Or he ******* up, bigtime - you reply cynically

They’ve become background noise
Only witnessed in passing
Or referenced in our idle conversation

A few weeks have passed
Their room is empty and still
We almost forget they were ever there

She sits on her bed and stares at nothing
She has not moved for hours –
A lonely still life

Adonis is waning
His eyes are sinking, and he’s losing hair
He’s become a walking skeleton

He does not move much these days
All of the time, she waits by his side
For whatever comes next

I keep telling you
That he will soon recover
I have to believe this

He's sitting up today
Telling jokes and laughing,
She's cracking that famous smile

The room is now full
With what must be family and friends
Saying their goodbyes

She is being cradled
by, I think, her mother – or aunt
We weep along

The guests are now long gone
The silence settles like dust
She holds his hand while he fades

Soon, it will be just her (and us)
Left in this quiet room
Alone
napowrimo2015  8/30
Liz Padalino Sep 2011
why do you talk like that?
like a schoolteacher
like your friends
like all the other twentysomethings

like you moved to a big city and here i am in a small town

i've known you your whole life
and now you tell me twice
you grabbed a drink last week

i could sense the tone as i read
it was not the you i knew

and i told you to get real

she said to me:
you've been reading too much of that guy
who wrote catcher in the rye


and i went silent and you were ****** right
Carl Velasco Aug 2017
When we lose
There comes to be a reversal process;
a rapid prototype souped into bitten rhythm.
And then you collide, like
light particles melting film to form
some replica of an inner war. What is it
about trying; what does attempt do –
Pacify? Resize? Boost the morale
of twentysomethings clinging
to past participles like the sting of a bee?
What can you do to stop the ache
of feeling like ****? What is there to grasp
when no light appears?
But then a day comes.
It’s all fine, with friends, with music, with
anything other than self-flagellation.
At which point I fight the fight not to stay
a mere summary.
The last prescient perspicacious politician,
who presided at the White House
ran out of office despite victorious landslide win
most Democrats gave their signed,
sealed, and delivered grudging approval,
but could not stem the crowdsourced
riptide of repudiation, a buzzfeeding,
and deafening chorus
of dyed in the wool rambunctious raconteur
Norwegian bachelor farmers
linkedin to radical reprobates,
hence subsequently our boy
from Scranton, Pennsylvania
found himself exiled to Uranus.

Tis now the time for
Forty sixth American president
to best relinquish figurative reins
as commander in chief
cognitive delays erupt frequently
fostering speculation
as to his wherewithal to serve
as oldest commander in chief
(since inception of North American republic)
being an octogenarian
launching a second administration,
I strongly encourage him
to harken back

circa nearly two hundred
and fifty years ago,
when founding fathers
took the global stage
surrendering mantle to Young Turk
such tapping qualified
representative of Generation X
Millennials or Generation
failing to forget at two score and four
constitutes average age of Founding Fathers
some less than 40 years ol in 1776
with several qualifying as founding teenagers
and twentysomethings.

Young Caucasian men all
most of the Founding Fathers genealogy
traced back thru English ancestry
many could attest family roots
extending across various regions
of the British Isles, including Scotland
Wales, and Ireland.

Fraternization among the wealthiest people
in the Colonies when they drafted
and signed the Constitution,
they pretty much expected vested gentry
to continue to guide the young nation.

None of the storied lives
of the newly formed patriarchal government
predicated upon The Articles of Confederation,
prepared by John Dickinson,
and the Declaration of Independence,
drafted by Thomas Jefferson,
both contain the phrase
"United States of America,"
which name officially adopted
by the second Continental Congress
on September 9, 1776.

Hard fought pitched battles would ensue
(and still spark fiery protestations)
eventually securing enfranchisement
for sidelined populations meaning
White Anglo Saxon Protestant men
no longer the exclusive voting bloc...

Unless das auld Don brooks
no Barron naked lady,
and by hook or by crook wins carpe momentum
snags, nabs, clinches, et cetera
courtesy political landscape gerrymandered
to twerk a Republican landslide,
⁦Tuesday, November 5, 2024⁩
choice for forty seventh commander in chief
(the 60th quadrennial presidential election)
securing the mantle of führer -
taking a page from Mein Kampf playbook.

Welcome to triumphant Trump land,
a webbed wide world demanding fidelity
courtesy his totalitarian crushing paws
wielding ineradicable, indestructible,
incontrovertible ******* *******,
whereat trampling colossal pachyderm
crushing into pulp
competitors, (especially contenders
braying, fearing, and opposing Donkeyhotey)
on the playing (né killing) ****** fields
little absolute zero vestige of democracy.

Existential nihilism of mine
would get ratcheted to the max,
cuz autocracy will punish as a crime
any nonestablishmentarian characteristics
diametrically divergent
from the credo declaring
fealty to the national socialism
(a form of nationalism
with socialist characteristics
sometimes referred to as nationalist socialism -

paving thee way for ******,
a form of German nationalism
and fascism promoted in Germany
by the **** Party de rigueur paradigm
guaranteeing for life self declared dictator
and his iron maiden,
who will hastily usher legislation
decreeing unquestionable obeisance
to the prophet (profit) of money
the twin principles

(with a twenty first century
twist and shout) eminent domain
and manifest destiny,
particularly within the realm
describing the outer limits
of the solar system, where dark shadows
witness colonization of the Earth's moon,
and other planets'
promising natural satellites.

Where yours truly predice dystopia
the cut throat machiavellian methodologies,
he (who luxuriates in the role of tyrant)
and his cronies will bleed the electorate dry
proving the maxim
you can't get blood out of a stone
totally false, and fueling, jump/
kickstarting, and orchestrating
(videre licet burning fossil fuels
at the expense of Gaia)
foisting horrendous impetus
on third rock from the sun
maximum destruction the name of the game
far from whatever loss of life and limb
concerning rendering extinct
multitudinous genus and species
constituting the biosphere.

Fast forward bajillion years
Terra Mater Prada raiment she wears.

— The End —