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Glistening Bright IslandsGlistening Bright Islands4 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
Now is the time for bitter
angry words,
accusations,
recriminations,
to fade into dust
and shadows of dust.
Now is the time
for the good memories,
the laughter and jokes
over meals shared,
for every good thing
to rise.
To rise like islands
from the sea
you loved so much,
to rise and glisten,
like bright islands
in the sun.
Le Brain My brain has the regrettable habit of sitting in my skull, resting his chin on some plates of bone over my eyes and mouth, and dozing dimly off. When he ought be firing some chemical weaponry to combat a restless well of anxiety or the inky clouds of despair, he drools out the corner of his mouth and leaves me helpless.Le Brain1 year ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
I have a friend inside my head, but she's the kind of friend you hate being around when she gets too drunk and starts hugging strangers. The kind of friend you happily anticipate dancing on tables, but who curls up under the kitchen table and gets dust and toast crumbs in her hair. You like her company when things are
SUBtletyThe teacher speaks with such concern,SUBtlety1 year ago in Concrete Poetry More Like This
but her words strike no chord within;
her recycled message demeaningly learned,
nothing more than a blanching whim.
What right does the teacher have
to tell me that I am lost?
Who is she to anoint me in bloodbath
and henna my feet with the Holocaust?
No, I know where my ancestors sleep.
I walk on their bones and could
look out over their coils heaped
at the blazing vista of greater good.
But I choose to bury my dead
and revel in the glory left behind,
to think of future bliss and tears shed:
the true inheritance of mankind.
Fried MeatThe Priestess, laughing, took me by the handFried Meat2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
and led me deep into her labyrinth,
down stairs and through alleys
until the belly of the earth grew warm
and shadows flickered on the walls.
Around us danced noises strange and terrible.
She sat me at a table
and looking of a box of flaming charcoal,
gazed at me, bemused.
She put a grill over the charcoal
and with tongs carefully placed flesh on the grill,
teaching me the name of each piece:
Tongue of cow, heart of pig, liver of chicken.
The meats crackled, popped, and dripping oil and blood
as offerings, drew the fire from its box
eager to lap at the bars and offer secret wisdoms
TyphoonToday I saw the magicians.Typhoon2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
They met me at the gates
and guided me
through their street-lamp lit world.
At the temple they donned their robes
and I fell silent before their ritual.
They spoke in strange tongues
and their hands controlled the flow of the world.
First they rejoiced
and fed me their laughter as cake.
Next they lamented
and bade me drink their tears from a bowl.
From the sky they drew the rain
and directed the movements of the hidden stars.
From the Earth, they conjured spirits
and a bygone era surrounded us.
Before I knew it I was their assistant,
playing instruments and preparing the altar.
The sun rose and
Humanity BlankI found myself surroundedHumanity Blank2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
by bipedal primates
fiddling with this or that,
coughing or displaying their teeth.
A sneaking suspicion sunk in me:
that I too had become an ape
when I had stopped paying attention.
Perhaps on a summer evening
when I fell to dozing in a field
with the thrumming of insects all around
and an incomparable lightness
filling my being.
But I was there and I was helpless.
Rattling through space
at a clip the ape-body thought was fast,
but I knew to be soul-crushingly slow.
Rain was falling and the air was heavy,
the inky sky crawling down to the Earth.
On the sidewalk I saw a small patch of feathers
a
A Speaker ErrantThe sound of my own voice reminds meA Speaker Errant2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
how intolerable I am as a being.
I am not the presence I am in my head,
I cannot imagine how I appear in the heads of others.
I lisp and I drawl and I have no control of my pitch,
but I still bother to sing and learn different tongues.
Inside my head I am lyrical and brooding,
I am quiet and subtle;
But reality reminds me of cats
or how a salmon would speak if it had lips.
There are waves inside me crashing harder now,
slamming into my sandstone walls
and dragging infinitesimal pieces away.
Soon sheets of stone will fall into the water
and the nests of burrowing mammals
and cave-dwelling b
ShowersRain in its evening splendor is falling,Showers2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
dressing up the town in esoteric robes
and re-introducing the Sky to the Earth.
It sings a quiet, lilting song.
A chill descends from the dark sky
and tonight the world will learn
how it feels to be entombed in Venice.
The air smells of moss, wine, and laughter.
PersimmonsToday's unseasonable warmthPersimmons2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
makes my bones scream for autumn.
The wind, flirtatiously crisp, paints
a scene so different from this reality
of oppressive cloud cover and impotent humidity.
The sun hasn't been free for days,
but still it rages down.
Summer should die!
Die with finality, die with pride,
instead of carrying on in its death throes
like a child refusing to come inside
from a day of play.
So today, perhaps, I shall buy persimmons.
Like little November stars upon my desk,
I'll wait impatiently for them to ripen and sing
with the hues of a sleeping forest.
Then I'll retreat into their sad sweetness.
Their resplenden
The Hydra I have many personalities throughout a cigarette. In my green robe I am Vivian, an eater of apples and a drinker of gin. Impatient for my cigarette to start ashing, I am eager for another drink, another dance, another brush with madness. The acrid sting in my nostrils makes me imagine cocaine and late nights of discussion with coffee and whiskey, sprawled out on the couch with a peculiar felinity. I am in love with myself and the world spins wildly on to hear me sing and watch me dance. When it takes me down with it, I'll go like a sunset, imperceptibly fading until a decisive end.The Hydra2 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
I speak French, I speak German, and my Spanish need
BlasphemyHanging ten on the sea of galileaBlasphemy2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
My name is J to the sus ya see
I got my own brand of sandals
call em fishy sneakers
strollin with my 12 homies
blastin psalms from mah speakers
Ain't got a wooden cross
on mah back
Instead got a gold one
chained to my neck
My father's almighty
you better testify
Cause if ya don't ya be burning
in the eternal hellfire
Another One of Those Things Eventually one of us is going to crack. I'm guessing it will be me first, because I manage to make cracking look good. Not physically - I don't make anything look good physically, despite your insistence otherwise - but morally. I make cracking just fine, just another one of those things.Another One of Those Things2 years ago in Emotional More Like This
It's all part of growing up, which I may have already done and am afraid I will never do. It's all part of the process, which I adhere to with fervor and swear I never follow. And why not think of it as just another one of those things? It's all part of dying, anyway. You come to terms with it and supposedly, it gives you peace.
When Grandpa
Grandpa I used to want to hear stories. I'd never ask, because asking was prodding and prodding the Battle of the Bulge is never a good idea. But still, I would lie under your two wool gingham army-issue blankets, scratching my legs and wondering how many nights you'd lined up your boots by them, bound them to the mattress like a drum head again in the morning. You never talked about it, but now you live in it.Grandpa2 years ago in Emotional More Like This
You grew up on a chicken farm and things were often that simple. The only complex things were molecules and the lace bridges stretching before your eyes, thinking, I did that?
And now you're living it again. You remember Grand
mollytongue between teeth you aremolly2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
five pinches of winning smiles and
two-quarter gallon of
best wishes
you are open windows in the rain,
the smell of old books
and you crack under my clumsy fingers like
parchment, like
you wear your face like the heart you
sewed onto your sleeve, blanket-stitch, neat
and tidy and a victim of
grey skies and sharp words
my love comes in letters but you wear letters
like spun gold to keep you warm;
i wear my words like knives and you -
you are much too beautiful to touch something like me
i would make sallow-skinned cuts
like mirror shards that twist and break and tear
a damp cloth on the light tha
annabelwhen she sings each note is the sameannabel2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
a breathy, off-key murmur
like wind or a particularly bad headache
her hair falls in tangles and knots
like seaweed it bunches and lumps and slimes
across her head and into her eyes
red-rimmed, she pulls her sleeves down low
and her face is puffy from crying
you just want to put her out of her misery
head-to-toe, a million tiny little pinpricks
a scratch for ever pore and a pore for every time she
stood behind him like a shadow and felt worthless
she chews toothpicks and every morning
with last night's late-night lullaby ringing in her mouth
she coughs his name in blood and whiskey
The Rapture Came And WentThe Rapture Came and WentThe Rapture Came And Went2 years ago in Philosophical More Like This
Armageddon didn't happen today. Don't be so disappointed. The Son of Man did not retrieve the souls of the righteous and ascend them to heaven on a plush, furry escalator that effortlessly glides the transcendent from Terra Firma to the Celestials. The Beast did not appear—for all we know he may have been stuck inside trying to get past level five of Halo 2. The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse stayed out to graze and the wicked and deviant went horribly, terribly unsmited—yet again.
No reason to be down in the dumps. A lot of good came out of the delay of Judgment Day. Perhaps you sold your car and all o
the blacknessas the stars are a myth to the blind and the dead,the blackness2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
wind your fingers into mine
heels hard to the pavement we go;
flying
we are like sunrise,
wooden birds, splinter wings
the light in our eyes does not go out.
to fall into fire, for love -
is there a greater end,
when nothing truly does?
you can hide but you can't runand all we were holding on for were memoriesyou can hide but you can't run2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
i think that we
ended that night, and the rest was make-belive
i think that when your wristband broke
it signified the end of this dream
the watch stopped ticking and our times was up
i have a PhD in judging your relationship, and
in my professional opinion she's a whore and you
should love me instead
and this is where the sun sets in
the part where you realise you made a mistake
in loving her instead of me,
and your eyes sink into my skin like bright light
in a basement, and you hold me and
i wake up, stuck to dirty sheets
heralded by the mating call of the cop car
when in the corn
Told Over CoffeeShe asked for a storyTold Over Coffee2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
so I began one, as all good stories begin,
with a description of the weather:
It was raining,
vicious thunderheads greedily consuming the sky
and spitting the hungry ferric acids of the time.
Lightning jumped down into pools of lava
or dove through thirsty chasms.
Occasionally, a shooting star
might make a mad, fiery sprint
into the same inhospitable cauldron, the pride of the Sisters Wyrd.
There was an eye-watering, nose-burning, sulfuric fog
creeping heavily across the acrid landscape
in lavish, lugubrious swathes of yellow,
about the same color as your bra.
This story has a happy ending.
But before t
How Imperfect We Areriding a motorcycle made of sloth and lustHow Imperfect We Are2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
the dust of aeons under one spur
one long road expanding
tracks;
her hair like gold coins underwater
his hands on silver handlebars
metal in his veins and back as his soundtrack
he whispers through desert towns
chasing the soft clanging noise
of her tiny jade feet on the velvet skies
of his destiny
she cries
because gold-coin hair and the scent of
peppermint on his pillow can't catch you up
to a motorbike, or
the past
she waltzes over his
conscience
like a freight train
made of glitter and shit
he's shuffling feathers,
dealing flight and fight and
two wrongs make a right, but
Happy New Year The night feels lost somehow this evening. The sun has barely set, the sky behind the gray clouds is the tired turquoise I imagine you see when you can't sleep and stare at the blood vessel nerve ending fireworks in your eyelids. All the snow is gone, unseasonable warmth and acid rain washing away the blanket over cigarette butts and birds who stopped to take a last, little siesta. Their feathered skeletons are unnerving.Happy New Year2 years ago in Short Stories More Like This
It smells like more rain, but not quite. The wind seems to be blowing in another cold front, but it ends with a warmth that smells like orchids. I almost want to shiver as it blows, but I can't. That last bit of the
MantraWhat passes between us, when we exchange those long standing confessions, those forms of words that we have shared so often throughout the years of our companionship, words that transport us beyond separation?Mantra2 years ago in Haiku & Eastern More Like This
You say "I love you", as though the fact was still beyond your comprehension.
I reply using the same well worn words, that seem so deeply to stir us both.
reciprocity,
dichotomy's breath of life.
the wheels still turning.
Destruction's In The AirAll over Europe the lights went outDestruction's In The Air2 years ago in Haiku & Eastern More Like This
Young men in their millions volunteered for slaughter
Russian peasants mobilised for rout
The massing armies would give no quarter
Young men in their millions volunteered for slaughter
The war will be over by the end of the year
The massing armies would give no quarter
The Christmas season will provide no cheer
The war will be over by the end of the year
Russian peasants mobilised for rout
The Christmas season will provide no cheer
All over Europe the lights went out
Take a Seat.Welcome to my mal de vivreTake a Seat.3 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
the marvelous mouth of my miscontent.
Come. Sit with the paper dolls
in a room where the days hang
thick as curtains and hot breath
Sit. Find yourself
staring at a jaw bone,
wondering at its three dimensions
Wonder. Is anyone silent?
Wonder why you look at things that
no one else could love.
Welcome to the shadows,
to campfires and the colder side.
Listen. Everything sounds
like ceiling fans.
Look. There's nothing to hold to in
any of these faces.
Face yourself.
(idly,
painfully):
How many others suffer
this impatient, impossible wrong
that cradles your hips with its long fingers?
Well no
Sta.sh
