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vircapio gale Sep 2012
so quick, so quick--
and it's over in appreciation's bloom
i run and kiss her- glad to be alive with you
adrenaline spread across
the slice of time i am
this life affirmed in downward rush
of vision    swallowing the whole
un    worded     awe
'i cannot be a poet now'

from reading on the drive there:
absurd psychology, it marvels at me
similizing downward flight    to that of two rakshasas thrown
from Angada's leap on Lanka
    palace tower kicked, another symbol falling
likened to Ravana's ego doomed,
ordering to **** that messenger
who revealing imminence alights the fate
of endings we all share,
how could i guess
i blindly follow orders--
the ten-headed ego writhes resistance
at the incapacity in me, the failure  
    to speak    meaningfully,
or trounce the message-bearer
routing through the speech
of others only    intoning at ten thousand feet:
om  earth   sky    cosmos
    contemplating that original love
perfect fullness     within and out
    let us realize our unity
om  peace   peace  peace

at the silence    in the noise
eudaimonic under breath as engine climbs
in moments    (i don't know how i got here)
i chant remembrance into time--
the solar warmth    a touch of ease
amid anticipation's quandary--
he has a helmet    unlike me  
    "Don't let those two mess with you,"
the camera-headed lady says to me before she jumps
her finger wagging    some distant familiarity
of jests to lighten fears    or twirl them in the air--
so cold the wind     and thin to singe the lungs--
his body hanging out the door     waiting for
her flight into his falling grasp    the plane rocks into the slamming door
the door...    is closed again for me to kneel beside
and think of next and after what has come before
    inching    'i love you' at the back of the plane
where crouched the one who whisked me here
in mystery to allow unveiling here today
from reading epic only--gazing down--"no signs" to give away
the open spaces felt and bright  treeless    vast
and getting out of car with closed eyes--
"surprise!" and there sits a plane or twenty over there
and "SKYDIVING" written on the door
which i am happy to dismiss as we walk the other way,
she wouldn't have the guts to surprise me with this--
but yes we turn around and here we are
with sky-crazies in pictures    peace and love on palms
strapped tandem     falling    living     back   still far from earth
we sign the papers under those smiles
faintly listen to the video  squawking 'court of law'
and 'choice of your own free will'
paid and signed away  we harness in and search for fear
windex for the goggles  (but how clearly will i see?)
my ***** are safe from straps or so i think
i'm conscious of the need to quip
and John and Paul--our parachutes--
become a double headed meet-your-maker Pope
for me to flatly joke about.
"Pain is good," says the pilot as
we learn the way to fall
and pile seven in a tiny cockpit,
we're off the ground before i know it
i 'woot' to sign my joy.   as much as to assent
conversations of little more than two lines
keep us feeling human as we swallow
popping in our ears,
--she'll have to keep her gum--
smoke stacks, mines, gray grids of residential scapes
seem to **** the green from curve of earth.
faintly i recall ecology, pulled into the sun
stumbling to cage the meaning of it all
a sentence forms into a trailing nonsense.
my breathing tests the press of straps on waist and chest
deafened, chanting. cease to chant.
the meaning overcome with wonderment beyond my mind.
am i missing something?
thank the pilot as a "Sir,"
"Door!!" "How long?!" "When!?!" --i hear the buckles faintly clicking,
the distance imperceptible a rush
of air i am infused with global letting be
the ball of tight electric fear
a nostril flare of otherworldly falsity--
i am here.
and tilting, instructions gibberish, shouting go! go!!
a kneeling fetal hop into the gust of void
so full the eyelash burns horizonal










.
the lines in italics constitute a paraphrase of the Gayatri Mantra
it was warm
for a winters eve
unusually warm
but damp very damp
birthing a persistent
midnight mist that
crawled over everything

avenging
halogen angels
flitted down from
streetlight perches
skidding through
bare limb bars
of broken trees
roped in by sagging
telephone wires

skulking
seraphs
joined
ebullient
neon auroras
laughingly
brake dancing,
jittering away on the
pock marked rims
of hip hop streets

the fine drizzle
descending from the
black urban heavens
splayed holy water
over the bodies
of anything
that moved; and
layered mounds
of transparent beads
on all inert things
chiding those yolked
to weighty burdens
to seek relief of
a much needed
breaking point

our
slouching city
mired in a cycle
of a prolonged
historical rut
beavers away
to lift the lid
on tomorrows
tipping point
in a desperate
labor to stop
tripping over
itself...

a dinged up
Sentra’s
flashing spinners
twisted round
our dark corner
nearly clipping
our troop

inside the
yakking low-riders
scuttled along,
their hidden ***** eyes
cruising the stoops
and cyclone alleys
scoping opportunities
for the next
jolly hustle
to feed
a growing
angry fix

tonight
Mother Nature was
running a *****
to the wall third shift,
manufacturing a
stationary low
of gagging precip
churning volumes
of Vulcan smoke
conjuring
convective spirits
from all the
dim places

emanations lit
the balmy January air
rising from
stubborn gray patches
of despoiled snow
and rancid ponds
organic gutter water
composting
in distilled pools
awaiting leakage
through flotsam
clogged sewage grids

Paterson’s
litter police
could close the
city’s budget deficit
if all infractions
were properly cited
and paid in this
neighborhood

this queer elixir of
rising vapors from
evaporating snow
escaping the cracks
lining the bowels of
mordant streets
joining descending
screens of billowing mists
blurs boundaries of light,
diffusing temporal time

people and things
lose precise definition
reducing sentient beings
to moving silhouettes of gray
photographic negatives
framed in dribbling palettes
of pastel hues

our
5th Ward mission
planted in the
hub of a neighborhood
still holding on...

Old WASP’s
of St. Paul’s
long ago
winged away
from this
princely
Episcopate
principality

the abandoned
conical nest, its
chambers filled with
the mud of 50 dead rectors
precariously clings
to its shivering
boulevard corner

its endowment depleted
its earthly treasure rusting
grandiose Tiffany windows
remain the last legacy of an
opulent faith now
shamefully rattling away
in moth eaten frames

once icons of
adulatory reverence
the final sparkling asset
of a distressed religion
begs to be monetized
by flummoxed vestrymen
yearning to extend
a stewardship
over a dissipating
ESL flock

distress in the hood
parades down Broadway
in all directions

a few blocks east
a shuttered
Barnert Hospital
transfigured into an
urban enterprise zone
for health-care privateers
working overtime to
extract federal
corporate welfare
rent subsidies
dutifully fulfilling
fine print obligations of
Obamacare legislation

Old Mayor Barnert’s
namesake synagogue
once hard by
City Hall
is long gone
its absent footprint
now centered by
a thriving
White Castle

near Broadway’s end
on the outskirts
of Eastside Park
Art Deco Emanuel Temple
the last anchor
for the city’s Judaism
lies vacant
awaiting a renewed
purpose

fraught with irony
a thriving Islamic Center
stands juxtaposed
across the street
from the old
Hebrew Temple

we wonder what
will emerge
from the
hallowed chrysalis
of decommissioned
Emanuel?

rumors of a
Great Falls Art Center
trickle like a leaking faucet
failure to secure a mortgage
in the post credit
bubble pop economy
dams the possibly
of a new centers
coming to fruition

will
the city’s
changing
demography of
reverent Muslim’s
genuflecting
across the street
take time away
from prayer to
patronize a venue
offering decadent
bourgeois jazz and
risqué reviews
of retro Borscht Belt
vaudeville?

when Constantinople
became Istanbul they
converted the Christian
churches into mosques

when the Inquisitioners
drove the Moors from
Granada they converted
the Grand Mosque to
the Cathedral of the
Incarnation

what incarnations
will this city’s
twilight bring?

As Byzantine
begets
Constantinople
begets
Istanbul
the links
in the Silk Road
spanned west
to the new world
of mechanized looms
powered by
Great Falls
raceway water
and a distribution
and procurement
chain anchored
by the Morris Canal

Capitalist
modernity
begets
our Silk City
it also bespeaks
its demise

in the courtyard
of St. Paul’s
a muffled chorus
trawls the thick air

a posse of pimps
done wrangling
their stables
of $5 ******
sing reveries to
the evening haul

midnight lullabies
of corner crooners
lift a Capella hosannas
from the dark armpit
of an alley behind
the Autozone

“i said
you say
what can make
me feel this way
my girl”

juiced pimps
cashin in
livin large on
a skanks
50 cent haul

the trade in flesh
of distressed
human capital
remains a
growth industry

Music Selection:  
Temptations, My Girl

jbm
3/1/13
Oakland
Part 1 of extended poem Silk City PIT.  PIT is an acronym for Point In Time.  PIT is an annual census American cities conduct to count the homeless population.  Paterson NJ is nick named The Silk City.
Heather Butler Mar 2012
The crochet needles are stuck
in my teeth.
The hooks settle in my throat,
dripping with
saliva and *****.

The calendar winds its way
through the winter months,
and it is still winter,
but it has been hot like spring(s).
The crochet lingers.
The white thread
consumes.

I love you, but that is all I ever say
anymore.
I miss you.
The blood drips down the alley
and God smokes a Cuban.

Death laughs. Death reds. Death dog.

Death to the death-heart, the dead-heart;
and I will ensnare your---
I will ensoul and be ensouled
because I am God.
I am God smoking a Cuban.

The wedding bells get caught
in the cilia,
and they are frozen.
I am deaf. I am death I am God without a Cuban cigar.

I'm sorry as I pick the dirt
from my fingernailed coffin tomb.
The abort-fetus clings to your ******.
You love your ******.
I never really liked mine.

The crochet grids lie in
woven embroidery dreams,
hot as fever,
cold as the call of the void.
Jump. Jump.
It is not autumn here.

But here, see, *I'm sorry.
virgil deckard Oct 2012
a sticky tongue
a sleeping arm

an urge to ***
a false alarm

oh lady sleep
terrific flirt

she's changed the locks
my key won't work
Stephen Leacock Aug 2018
Feels like slavery
With weight our shoulders
Havent We endured enough?
From One Bolder To The Next?
Like needles draining  our blood for energy
The White Gold of  Saturn
Using Led from congress
Our Spring Streams Have Run Dried
Directed into a Different lines and Process
Guarded by Projects With Capitalism at its finest
Racism and favoritism.
The Collective Body Shivers .
With stretch lines on her skin with her magnitude of her tears.
The stages of legions unleashed.
Souls in battle using a leash.
Things have been disowned and blown.
The Headdress will take its throne.
The Shield Into El-dorado that is known.
Grids awaken from the Amerindian parts of the jaguars tradition.
Collective religious cultures unleashed from its disposition.
The beauty that brings a new position.
Pat Broadbent Oct 2018
Clusters of lights like lilies,
Or like boiling craters in obsidian
The black is inky,
It could swallow me whole,
I'm thankful to be strapped in

The horizon scrolls back as the plane lilts
Like an image in an old slide projector
Suddenly the moon is below me
Icarus should have winged by night
I’d be god if I weren’t strapped in

Clusters of light like lilies
In this lolling pond we skim
Light strung like dew on spider silk
A flattened web to stretch the land
thankful not to be attached

Shimmering grids draw nearer
Enveloped in their seductive shimmer
thankful not to crash
Carlena Mar 2014
Dance like time has no meaning
In closed eyed ecstasy
A hair flipping fantasy
Metronome neck,
Salacious shoulders,
Locomotive arms,
Seesaw hips,
******* legs,
Made dizzy by the drink of the devil
Stilettos glide along slippery tiled grids
Eyes cast open with a flame, burnt bright with lust
Memory has no place here, trust
Akshi Hargoon Feb 2019
There once was light where I stand;
Now I'm unable to even see my hand.
A time of darkness has dawned upon us;
Just makes me want to scream and cuss.

Loadshedding is what they call it;
Unable to see I sometimes trip.
It happens at times when we are hard at work;
Or at home while making dessert.

It's something that's beyond control;
Or at least that's what we are told.
The energy grids struggle to take on the pressure;
Thus reducing our times of leisure.

It's something that drives us insane;
Yet there is nobody we can blame.
How long long will this dampen our spirit?
Even they don't know it.

What are we to do in this dire straights?
Well nothing, just sit and wait.
Loadshedding has once again dawned upon us. A huge inconvenience.
eleanor prince Aug 2018
windmills turn
slicing days
as prescribed

moving water
as they do
set troughs

can't complain
there is no point
cycles set in place

grids buckle
like we're
trapped

live chequered lives
without ourselves
on deck

though paths
with every step
trod blind

at close of day
did we not take
that road

for steering wheel
this hand
grabbed

let's harness Self
remove the screen
and see

in this precinct
or yonder place
we've opted for

we took a route
with outcome
flawed
so often it seems easier to remain the victim - we aren't really seeing we are ultimately responsible for what we think and do
Erin Melody Jun 2013
placing all our trust in
a little metal box tumbling through the air
looking down on
farmers' fields like checker pieces
huge rivers winding like sunken paths
through sandbox terrain
and glare from the sun shields
terrible mountains
slowly sinking back in jealousy
as we touch an even higher sky
layer upon layer of grey curtain
eventually folds back on itself
to reveal an even greater expanse
of tiny shiny buildings
grids upon grids of humanity
cutting through the planet's skin
leaving tattoos of asphalt
only the sky-dwellers can see
relying on cotton clouds
relying on the breath of the atmosphere
with a soft blow, we're pushed
straight across the sky
EC Pollick Jun 2012
Sad girl rock
Fills the room with hopeless longing.
Rootless dreams take off out of the open 2nd floor window.
Cold Coffee.
Ain’t nothing
To a Cold, Cold heart.

This isn’t how the story ends.
Cryogenic stasis.
A general lack of brain damage.
Neurological bliss.
Goosebumps when it’s 90 degrees.

If a tree falls in the woods….
Questions.

Paralysis in analysis.
I understood more before the literary critique.
Lost.
We’re all lost.
Thematic speeches
and character monologues.
Overbearing landscape descriptions.
It’s all so oppressive.

Characters who walk around and around.
Past street signs. Past Monuments. Past that same newsstand again.
Circles in grids. So squares, then.
The time of Ulysses is near
So we can all be thoroughly confused together.
James Joyce rocked my world in high school....can you tell?
courtney Mar 2019
I took myself from from city to city
To pursue my dreams as tall as skyscrapers
But with more freedom comes more precaution
And all the safety nets set around couldn’t catch me from the fall

Mom told me to not forget about the top lock of my door at night
Dad said to always tell a friend when I’m heading out
I’ve learned not to ride the subway alone after 5 pm
But I needed someone to tell me that I did the right thing

I navigated my nights through pavements and grids
I found myself in the Upper East side, the streets shifting beneath my feet
Bacardi dictating each of my steps, but making no difference when I danced
I was always told to never trust a back alley, but no one warned me about a dance floor

I stumble my way onto the street, change scattered all over 72nd
I count the pennies like I count sheep, usually I’m out by 30
Hailing a cab, with him right beside me
My head rests on his shoulder along with the thought of good intentions

His apartment had a remarkable view of the skyline, but I can’t look at it the same
The Empire State reminds me of bruises on my thighs and muffled screams
My night faded in and out from flickering kitchen lights and cold linoleum flooring
But the next morning clarity hit
Veiled with excuses
Confusion
Regret
Shame
They say the NYPD are the finest in the world
But I sit in this cold, stale building reflecting on the night before
My mascara still smeared and a rip in my tights

“Is this what you were wearing?”
“How much exactly did you have to drink”
“You agreed to go to his apartment though”
“How often do you go home with strangers?”

My throat is tight
Everything I say is taken and twisted
Eyes glaring at me with low-brows
And the smell of burnt coffee
Trust draining out my body as color drains from my face
I’m ripping through the safety nets, one by one

Unable to take their judgemental gaze, I look up at the ceiling
Answering questions
I think to myself, “Was this moment in a cold police station even worth the fight?”
Was this cry for help from one terrible night worth the trauma they’ve caused from doubt
It’s unbelievable that I would have to rationalize which event was worse

I just needed someone to tell me I did the right thing.

I can’t look at them
I still look up and answer questions
That time spent counting each tile on the ceiling until it was over,
when i should have been counting sheep,
hoping I can wake up and this was just a dream,
but I keep counting…

100, 200, 300..
I hope you get the justice you deserve.

Co-written with Dallas @stoopkid .
mEb Nov 2010
Lamentation; infelicity through neurotransmitters
Passing fleetly; swift but disturbed
Grids of brainwaves for the degraded
Overhead LED view is negroided

Chapter 1 Migraines;

A klaxon that grains into migraine
From there on out, strolling convulsion lane
Deriving from deception; antibodies start to lead loosely
Throe after throe I choose not to fuss
Laceration in hemikrania is conversing with the rest of my body,
Frequent as days turn nightly
I host the severe megrimly

Chapter 2 Vomiting;

A horendous bile builds up in my throat
Moaning like a ghoul; I banish the gloats
Disgorging from nothing, Heaving and heaving the dry
Although I force myself not, all the nosh turns into emit rye
Vital fluid very crimson soon came
From the cranium, I dislose, head pain
Frequent as the waves harsh blows
I host a ***** hose

Chapter 3 Tumor;

A neoplasm underneath I've found out
Unvisible but there; my flesh will start swelling undoubt
Below I feel like a mutant
All putant and disformed
Like globular liquids dripping from sewage waste
As long as I can still haste
Crescendo and surge won't ado
Frequent as traffic builds a rush hour
I host a cyst that is sour

Chapter 4 Deaf;

An absense of all frequencies
I daze everso daily;
Feeling like an earless statue; sound unaccompanied
Missing the wind's howls that ululate,
Clamors and bellows that spoliate
I can't sight the same verbiage
Without sonancy to inflicit, I see one big mirage
Frequent as birth enfolds
I host a soundless toll

Chapter 5 Brain Cancer;

A malignant fate told today
Disease spreading like a machine,
Programmed to enquire all it knows
A gruesome and hateful dose;
Withering casually away
Grown apart of, I'm the prey
As we hunt the beasts'
An invisible naked eye is poaching
Frequent as a house infested
I host a cancerous clothing

Chapter 6 Death;

A termination soon to unfold
I am as finished and ruined as story told
Biological function ending
Senescence through spending
User maat I haven't seen all wanted
Alas I am greatful for what has been daunted
Frequent as a death anew
I host a dissolution

*My evolution; through.
Amy Grindhouse Mar 2014
I painstakingly cut off my
fingertips
screaming as I dug out the
microprocessors
so we could live
free from their scanner
grids
The whir of drones
overhead
provide an ironically
soothing white noise
as we spend the night
huddled together in a ravine
The truth is
I'm not afraid of
them finding us
and launching
our firebomb execution
so much as I'm
afraid
you might want
at some point
to see other people
Francie Lynch Mar 2014
Zero One and modern blight
Travel at the speed of light.

We wondered on the Wandering Jew,
Or, in lieu,
Orthon, Urian or Lilitu.

We trepanned our empty skulls,
Searched our humours,
Were touched by Rulers!

Now troubling symptoms of want and need,
Have blighted growth of yesterseed.

Patient Zero left no lead.

East fingered West
(and vice versa)
Was Ireland really the cause of cholera?
Did Blacks languish in Tuskegee squalor?
We christened Mary, but drank the water.
Fracked Incubus and Succubus
From son and daughter.

Patient Zero left the slaughter.

We deprived women of their tea
To cure wandering womb hysteriae.
Deviances and leaking lesions
Were headwaters of women's *****.

Patient Zero has no season.

The barber sensed it might be smell,
So our widened streets became a sulfurous hell.
And wastelands swelled
Where curled cats dwelled.
(no talk of Michelangelo)

                                         II

Our children's blight has a techno name,
Like the rose, IT smells the same.
With zero tolerance I lay blame
On screens and phones and video games.

The world wide box stores flipped their lids,
Touching all who crawl the social grids;
From the base of Mammon's pyramid.

Now Jake believes he's a gangsta dude
Since posting whatever on You Tube.
Nothing to gain, nothing to lose:
No services rendered but expects what's due.

Inflated egos are a system symptom,
Clearing firewalls, reaching children.

Patient Zero is no phantom.

There is no tale of rat or flea
As cause of lost immunity.
There is no open sore to fester,
The Selfie is the X-ray picture.

Patient Zero is so much quicker.

In our gel of techno bliss,
On our elliptic petrie dish,
Bathed in more than we could wish,
Patient Zero will finish,
And with that whimper
All vanish.
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2023
those of us in the middle muddle,

do not know from sides, boundary lines,
drawn by others, right-sided, left-leaning,
mean nothing to us, who seek something solid
upon to rest, when the clarity others profess,
more than evades us, even escapes us, and
the muddles of life seem to require simplest,
middling answers that are unacceptably refused
by grail seekers whose cause for cause, means
cause to cost others regardless, for regard for
the middle is disdained, by two-sided posts,
the know nothings, and the know betters

irony of irony, the rigidity of imposition makes
me more adrift, more aimless, and the task of
meandering through seems almost holy, for the
obstacles of society, requirements of modern life,
are so damning, wild expectations superimposed,
truths not just hard to find, almost indiscernible,
so I lay my pen down hard, awaiting for the
whatever-while, for to return, to go walking with
only the simplest grids to guide, meanderings in
general directions, ahead, always ahead, keep moving,
keep touching and when optimism returns,

I shall be relieved
once more,
I shall be released
once again,

good words will be caught,
released, returned back
into the atmosphere so
they will grow in size by
the very act of sharing



undated
————————————————-


Everyone must leave something behind
when he dies, my grandfather said.
A child or a book or a painting or a house or
a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.
It doesn't matter what you do, he said,
  so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.  The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime. ~Ray Bradbury

(Book: Fahrenheit 451)
Rep Van Andrews Nov 2014
GOD
GOD

A bowl half full
a spoon for measure
dips into and takes
division for pleasure

The soups environment
both spoon and bowl
same as the universe
relatively so

Reality beckons
an environmental flaw
having never even existed
possibly at all

thoughts derived environment
like the grids on a map
take it all away
you’re left with the exact

Define then to me
if you found it to be
the environment fictitious
what that would mean

If reality is then all soup
the soup never divided
if then we are the soup

Why aren’t we reminded?
Zero the Lyric Jan 2013
I recall hearing that term once in high school,
"Urban forestry", a paradox, seemingly and yet,
That is exactly what it is.
Strips of land sanction to be aesthetically pleasing.
For whom, I have not a clue.
I would have preferred a lane or so,
Over the regular 8' by 1' square of trimmed trees.
I also grimace within the grace
Of those knotted furled fists toward a sky asking WHY!?
After a much calmer gardener had pondered the same word
Underneath his humming chainsaw
(Though probably for a more debatable material world)
Amongst other cuboid amputations.
Not to mention those solid soldiers
Whose attention is really standing dead in plain sight until
Wrinkled pavement is not enough ground to hold.
Then our hero makes local news in an inhumane, absolutely atrocious,
Final act of trespassing, vandalism, homicide, and suicide.
Of course nobody saw it coming.
Undetected and decayed for half a decade.
With so so many Ys it is easier to yelp for for those Xs
Crossing against our assumed perfect grids and parallels
To those stories of stacking passed from older cries
For HELP! Though those did not settle quite so well
So I proceed passing over a particularly loud leaf
Amidst this dry pondering
And snap out of the whats and whys and wheres
To take another look around at my illustrious
Urban Forest.
Unto a more practical pensive test,
Which side of that phrase,
Burdens the winning emphasis?

Well, still warblers and sparrows to inspire a song
For how this within time shall also pass along.
Wacsleftyy Jan 2016
we are grids and squares
some of us supporting figures
and the wires that make things work
we rely and we take
captivate and motivate
but are still unhappy with what we have
easily disheartened by the chances we get

live up to your expectations.
play your part.
credits to @broken.twisted.dark posted with permission of the author
Be my muse,
I'll translate you into binary
and back again.
Lying on the ground,
blue carpet between your ears,
synthesized sounds convey through spaghetti,
hearing aides grow old with us.
Child sized vowels fall off their bicycles,
from between your lips.
Keep me busy; when I'm comfortable, I get lazy.
Your shirts are overlaid grids,
the holes, coordinates.
17.43
Always a poet, only occasionally writing,
I hedge my bets and roll die
with insults open to interpretation.
I don't like your words,
I don't need your hyena smiles
I don't want your degrading remarks.
But I know your skeleton,
your tendons, cartilage and marrow filler.
I understand how you move,
the coconut oiling your joints.
Be a textbook reference,
help me cut apart the paperchain people I’ve made,
I want to portray them realistically.
Shade their features with scrawled adjectives,
resolving to care about typography.
White school glue takes too long to dry
to have hopes of staving off entropy.
Scribble highways into dusty prairies,
be the cartographer that misplaces my world.
emily webb Apr 2010
I am one of those people who collects bruises like old bottlecaps.
I count them from time to time, but I can never remember where
I got them.

Waiting for bread to toast, I slapped a knife against my thigh,
marveling in the way it rang like a tuning fork.  When the toast
popped up, I looked at my leg and saw there was a huge red welt
just starting to bruise.

They only hurt once I've discovered them.

You poked the knife-bruise and asked, "Who beat you up?" but didn't
wait long enough for me to summon the laughter to say that I'd done
it to myself.  You moved on to the next one, dragging your finger like
you were following some yellow brick road, playing Candyland and
winning.

A Pleiades's above my ankle, a crescent shape below my knee.

There was one small circle in the middle of my toe that you wondered
about, and neither of us could imagine how I'd done it, so you just
laughed at me and tickled my feet like some old husband.

Soon you get bored with the bruises and you move on to the tic-tac-
toe grids on my knees from the pool tiles.  You write your name in my
arm with your fingernail because of the way even light scratches
immediately become red and raised.  I made up a word for it and
you believe me like it was some sort of real medical condition.

Somehow my face hovers in between a real smile and an aching grimace,
so when you look up at me, you put my face in your hands and repeat
my name.

I must be your favorite curiosity.
Bullet Apr 2019
They don't want me too be the same
They want me to color them
But I would draw them in grey
Outline as deep as the shade of black
Light we see in deep color, we're high measured in
With all the paint
Curves filling in tight spaces
Eyes can determine purpose
I don't have to color me
I don't have to color me
I'm in the same
I'm in the same
Plane I was drawing on
Boxes connecting grids
Checks but with what in the ink
Green is looking a lot of funny
Given is a grade of dark yellow
To sit in the shade wallowing in an out
Enjoying bitter and sweetness
I'm in the same kind of mind
I'm in the same kind of mind
Color all on the walls
Vivid even in the void of the blind
Sketches of foot wears bringing buries
Tripping off baby blues takes us back to the distant
Life graduates into darker shades
Into falling from darker beings
Being neutral is normal
I'm insane
I'm insane

Still no Hue
How do they call you,
those who’ve passed through unmarked
twin doors for the shy
side of one century?

Is it as Nicholas
of Myra,
or of Bari,
or as an unlocated saint,
working wonders in
this home of trim white-stone
block, with three tiers of black-
arches, frowning up at
the merciless
grids behind?

Rows, rows, rows, they float on
glassy, steel-blue oceans,
and these oceans will fall in
violent, cascading, millennial
waves unlike any with foam
caps that once lapped
the rocky coast of lost Lycia--
your see
our maps don’t contain,
and our licit hosannas won’t reach.

Who are they
who pray here?
Bakers, sailors, bankers,
all whose sighs
rise with a torrent of immigrant chants
liaison rafters
fracture in echo-song,
the old coinage that plies your favor.

To which patron can they turn
when your cross crowns not
the work of masons
but one day’s
rubble,
a tongue without a bell,
the charred
relics of unnameable acts?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
in older days we were not fazed
to tarnish precious coins of time;
to drain the sea, to turn our cheek
with faith in opaque lies.

the mines were dug, the grids were plugged
in endlessly. we erased all thoughts of ends.
beyond our reach, the future breached
filthy seafoam; surely not the fault of men.

the warp & woof of history
met blades sharp with centuries
(inevitably).

there was laughter when we saw the tide -
now "..." grows where green has

died.
Sam Temple Jul 2014
50’s beach party
complete with twitchy go-go dancers
leather jackets
and old Plymouths
sand kicked in the faces of squares
as little Suzie Goodtime roller skates across the parking lot
picket fences shift from white to orange and pink
as they capture the sunset on a perfect American day –
free lovers swing signs
written in crayon
attempting to challenge the establishment
create world peace
through **** abuse and music in the park
subjugated and relegated to building a retirement platform
aged hipsters look at faded photographs
imagining a time they changed the all –
blown out coke head
bent on disco ***** and easy living
watches as Miami explodes
CIA operatives feeding high grade dope
to low rent projects
in an effort to funnel money and guns
into the Middle East –
gas wars and brokers as billionaires
death to glam rock and hairspray
the rise of bling and swag
selfies take center stage
unabashed introversion
as the skies are geometric grids
and the crops **** pollinators –
looking over a lifetime
of altering perception
and changing habits
the habitual nature of humanity
shines as a solid base from which all else stems
forced to recognize my own place in the septic tank
I stand as an observer and documenter
cleverly bending the woes
of the world
into words
for the lost –
David Bojay Jun 2014
gulping unprescribed vyvanse, to focus on material mind deceiving things on social media to see what all the fuss is about

social media is a place for the "malaventurados" locked in screens, purposely

why are they scared to explore the wilderness

be one with  nature, breathe the air people from a million years ago were breathing, breathe the same air dinosaurs were breathing if you believe in that prehistoric timeline

isn't it great?

we're jailed in technology, in "innovation", in "better solutions to meet new requirements"

we're walking on innovative grids thinking it's okay to cherish the unrealistic programmed websites made by those who weren't saved in time

exploring the internet, is like exploring ways to lose the key to freedom, to lose the key to the feel of soft grass on your feet, to lose the
to key to the feel of air brushing against your skin

be one with the air Adam breathed
be one with the good and evil
be one with the sun that looked over at Jesus Christ when he was being crucified
be one with the God you believe in that loves you as much as Cane hated Abel
be one with the earth, because today is a new chapter in the earths rotation
today's a new series of self made bibles for artists to grasp, and paint on a smooth textured canvas
today's a new TV show for poets to emulate in sentences along with metaphors, comparing love to pain

be one with what's been here for you all along, from the ocean that's plentiful with everything you need to be happy
wrote this on during my algebra 2 final exam, it was all scattered at first
William A Poppen Aug 2016
Entertainment comes in many forms
One without Nielson ratings
presents daily shows
below the garage gutter

Weathered leather shoestring
strains under the weight
of unfilled feeder
long exposed to wind
and air until
it's original surface
contains only flecks
of it's original varnish

When filled, squares of suet cakes
fitted between wire grids
entice chickadees
early in the day
before nuthatches, wren
and downy woodpeckers
peck and feed on the
nut, corn and protein
snack.  Bluejays struggle
without success to
hang sideways and gather
specks of nuts from the tallow.

Other large birds, cardinal
and red-bellied woodpecker
show-up the jay as they feed
with ease at the suet rack

Each day suet sinks
slowly descending until
little is found by
winged visitors

Begrudgingly he rises
from his chair, tramps to the
garage to find a new
insert for the feed box.
Hands, weathered like the
pine of the feeder
unpack the next cake
to refresh the lure
as the scenery of wild birds
return to their feeding
and refill his soul
a description of the scene out my backdoor window
The Mellon Oct 2016
Pluviophile
(n) a lover of rain;
someone who finds joy and peace of mind
during rainy days.

Its raining again, I smile
The shadows of the droplets
Flickering in the window are juxtaposed upon my face.

I watch the delicate lines run down along my skin

Two of them parallel with eachother form a tic-tac-toe board
Between the shadows and the scars along my wrist

I chuckle with the morbid humor of carving in my first move. X. Bottom right corner

It's a smart move. I can move many ways to leave my opponent helpless

Distracted, I look again out the window.
I think about how as a child I watched
Wide eyed with ecstasy as two drops
One right next to the other
Edging
Edging
Edging forward.
One racing the other

Both eager to reach the window pain where they will finally be free of my unforgiving gaze

Last time I watched two drops race like that they were red.
The poor wood floor was stained with their bitter victory

I think now about that race.
Breaking my trance my eyes shutter over to the throw rug that I hide my sins under

I walk over and stand upon it.
I can just barely see the window from this angle.

I see the cold white tongue of lighting
Flickering it's serpents tongue in the distance

I remember a cold tongue.
The same one that degraded me
Told me nasty things

I remember walking threw the halls of school and hearing people muttering being me
'Look at her!'
'Hey guys who let the cattle out the barn?'
'Does she even own a shower?'
I felt spit sting the side of my face.

The crack of thunder brings me back,
I'm dizzy with displeasure
My blood has gone colder than before
Colder than the knife that cut me.

The rain intensifies as if it sees what I'm doing
What chaos I'm bestowing on myself

The smooth grip of my Father's 44 fits elegantly in my hand,
It feels like it's just an extension of myself,
As if it belongs there as much as my fingers do.
The chrome lined rifling grids out the direction of my bronze freedom fighter to fly

I look at the back of the barrel,
It reminds me of a toy spyglass I had when I was young,
**** the hammer

The thunder rumbles over the screams of my family...
I wrote this is a memento to how horrible depression is. It's not sugar coated. The fact that people don't like it when it is is nessisary. Those who beleave that depression shouldent be dark in explanation are those who need this the most. Editing credit to Anonymous Freak
the leaden
wetness of an
October snowfall
cloaks branch
and bough
of woefully
laden
trees

the pressing
mass
a weighty
strain
prostrates
mighty
hardwoods
to autumns
cold ground

as a
truculent
Nor'Easter
claws its way
through
the uneasy
Mid-Atlantic
night,
the crash of
creaking
maples and
popping oaks
persistently
echo through
the black
woods of
this
trembling
evening

power flickers
perplexed grids
go down
extinguishing
the warmth of
suburban
house lights

the growing
aggregation
of crushing
pressure
on tensile
taxed
branches
snaps
the firmest
wood

an
incessant
barrage
of
thumps
and
dings
splatter
a­gainst
the
house

while the
shuddering
uncertainties
of frightened
children
rise
as each
limb
clatters
to
earth

our
cowering
bivouac
draws
the
inces­sant
fire
of a
harassing
fusillade
from
legions
of
invisible
snipers
as
swoopi­ng
gusts
threaten to
relieve more
arboreal
tension

praying
limbs
fail
to pierce
the safety
of thinly
tiled
roofs
our
abiding
hope
remains to
escape
the
next
random
blow
of fate

the
night of
falling trees
stirs our
sleepy
hamlet
from an
uneasy
midnight
slumber


10/29/11
Oakland
jbm
Leah Oct 2013
for Brendan,
because you asked me to,
I wrote a love poem for the machinery.
an ode to the efficiency,
of well scheduled maintenance.

they only hummed in response,
but I imagined it was in appreciation
so I continued,

I wrote sonnets concerning,
proper wiring configurations,
and stand alone power grids. 
things that seemed important,
to things that could never feel.

they only hummed in response, 
but I imagined it was in appreciation
so I continued,

I looked them over, and over again.
neat little rows of grey metal boxes
computers from the days of old.

I wanted to tell them about Sherman Alexie.
I wanted to tell them about Flannery O'Connor.
I wanted to tell them about Ray Bradbury.
Instead I cried, & tried to cut the building's power.

they only hummed in response.
Tony Luxton Mar 2016
An empty street succumbs to one
solitary walker, anonymous
in his raincoat, listening to his
own footsteps, and the camping holiday rain,
dripping. Pigeons mutter disapproval
at this inconsiderate interloper.

His stride shortens, pace quickens, feeling
discomfort at his isolation,
his cold wet feet spattering through puddles.

Grids gurgle, lace curtains tremble.
Mute unseen watchers focus on this
dark figure at the centre of the
taciturn invisible crowd.

Guessing his destination and
motives - a night worker
or burglar up to his tricks -
until his key opens number
twenty-six. Uncountable stealthy
spies retreat and sigh.
Pen Lux Mar 2011
where do I fit
in a place like this?

this is where I wake up:
the next morning
everything has changed.

I had to leave for inspiration:
that's where I practiced
mind expansion.

even there, I wondered,
with my head split open
to all sides of the city,
does he see the same love in me,
that I do in him?

I didn't ever want to leave.

"let's spend our time in here forever.
if not in love, in discovery of that love.
in the end: take it with us,"
I thought these things in grids
of hand prints stretched to the ocean,
for miles I thought, but never spoke.

it hurts to learn why
we dream in silence.
Brycical Jun 2014
Last night
starseeds planted electric grids
dancing faye and other spectres glided
alongside
dancing dusk painters. poets. speakers. seekers.
lovers. sages. mage. warrior. shamans. stories.

I witnessed miracles most ignore.
Two shimmering light birds ignited the midnight--
new moon skies.
Inner Outer space beings danced with the stars.

Those at the labyrinth table return.
We seven beings weave light.
We close spaces.
We honor One Tree Nation &/of Mother Earth.
We honor Sky Spirit Clouds &/of Father Sky.
We open our hearts & third-eyes simultaneously.

Our spirit guides dance together,
totem animals play.

I am in awe.
Warm gratitude tears trickle down
my face.
Here, with these beings,
I am safe.
We are safe.

We are love.
thank you.

— The End —