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 Feb 24 Bardo
Amanda Shelton
From the poet,
I bleed ink so you don't have to.

My pains are smeared across
this post, splattered shattered broken
and shredded, for all to see and
witness the choke.

Chained by society,
held down by anxiety,
depression thinks I'm a joke,
laughing in my face reminding me
of everything I lack.

My abuser is a shadow,
doesn't matter how far away
they are, their ghost is my enemy.

Suffering is my companion,
like a knife it stabs me to remind me
its never far behind me.

Though I struggle, I grow stronger,
I grew a thicker skin, my scars are
a reminder of where I've been.

From the poet,
I bleed ink so you don't have to,
I grow poems through my heartbreak
and strife. I became the knife and my
struggles are my scars.

Its my life.

©️ 2025 By Amanda Shelton
 Feb 18 Bardo
Nat Lipstadt
give me-the bowie knife of repartee,
nothing more satisfying than the
quick stabbing, a good blood letting,
in your genteel face, no hellish
moderated pace, the energetic plunge
of a quick lunge into the woebegone,
long after you count the meter tempo’d
use fingers and toes, but needing to hold
your nose, to include that extra
grace note, that belies denies the harmony
the tules and rules of calling order
to control the roost,  sine-one
is a victim of a
down and virtuous ***** verbal slashing!

count my syllables, never,
let my stanzas run free,
like an African tiger,
with the goat of format
mounted in between his teeth,
bloodied and dripping dead,
the squealing of hyper innocente,
silent after cries of, kind sir,
me thinks thou protest too much!

we can squish and twist our holy words,
into formal tuxedos of cantankerous
arrowed arrogance,
but know this,
roses are read, them
violets, blue, have
turned millions of children to avert their
eyes from anything thereafter that was classified, notarized, canonized, sanctified
as the write rules of poetry

peals of pearls are born with parentage
of a lousy
grain of sand,
the words etched in the
lines upon my hand,
are lifelines of sidewalk cracks,
discarded candy wrappers,
the twisted ends cigarette butts,
used as proof that ash and dust are the
genetic source material of uncommon
great composition, given to those who
love the common touch of leaves of grass,
thstbeneath the heat of the sun that
exposes the nothingness of bitterness

know no one can run from the golden
visibility, of a sun, talent in pursuit of
egoism is a long road to a short history

yeah.
(faster than a speeding bullet)
boring…
 Feb 18 Bardo
badwords
They will tell you there is a right way.
They will hand you a torch and call it the sun.
They will roll their words in raw linen and whisper:
"This is what poetry is meant to be."

And you will nod.
Because they have made it so that not nodding feels like blasphemy.

But listen—
the ink does not check your credentials.
The meter does not ask if your suffering is organic.
A line does not collapse because it was crafted instead of bled.

They will tell you a poem must be naked, barefoot, aching—
as if there is no beauty in a well-cut suit.
They will decry the temple and build a pulpit in its ruins,
preaching freedom in a voice that allows no dissent.

Good poets are cult leaders,
and the first rule of the cult
is that they are not one.

So write the sonnet, carve the sestina,
sculpt the page in iambic steel.
Or break it, shatter it, scatter its bones—
but let no one call your wreckage untrue.

And if they do,
smile.
Because poetry does not kneel to priests.
A counter-point mirrored in style to:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4983752/good-words-are-clickbait/

The morale of the story is:

try not to dictate creation and by extension freedoms.
i love it when it spring it warms the heart in me
lots of spring time flowers there for us to see
crocus and the daffodil and the snowdrops to
showing of there blooms in the morning dew

trees begin to bud to grow there leaves once more
now theres leaves again like there was  before
the robin on the fence sings morning song
bringing in the dawn as he bobs along

a lovely time of year with so much to view
mother natures beauty for every me and you
 Feb 17 Bardo
Agnes de Lods
Before, I didn’t want this silence
I struggled with an untamed aphasia
I thought if I no longer had voices,
hums, spinning chimes,
it would become nothingness,
the perfect cosmic vacuum.

Unfinished strands seeking new lands
trying to fill the jug
with the whispers of soul dust…
The fading echo defends itself
against absolute emptiness.

They keep talking,
they still try deforming a single atom
so as not to disappear.
But the polyphonic dimension of tones
is slowly dying down.
A breath of the universe's relief,
a pulsating consciousness rising
giving gentle, immense serenity.
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