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Mural In The GlassFall once fell in colors here,Mural In The Glass4 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
you could hear the rust whistle
on playgrounds,
merry go rounds
still spinning,
swings
still swinging from the hurried departure.
But they are sounds of another time.
Today
my reflection
is lost in the grey
as rain falls
a heavy patter, a baby's bare feet tapping--
I see the mud tracks fade on the kitc
In Search of an Old RecipeDown a wintry lane, where streetlampsIn Search of an Old Recipe7 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
rise from dimly lit snow hills and the
town is lightly covered in frost,
I pass an old neighbor’s house and
a village café. The gurgling noises
of a brewing pot and the sugary smells
of rising dough
always met with long conversations
or quiet contemplations, an old friend
or a new friend and a hint of the past.
Something that started the day and
ended the day with company and
a dash of hope
that time can always be paused
and people can always gather.
And behind the rising steam of
tightly gripped mugs, you can always
find laughter, stirring its warmth around
ta
ShadowsShadows7 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
Their lullaby is the guttered water
falling into sewer drains;
drip
drip
drip.
Their fragmented dreams are
of tumbling leaves and taillights,
disappearing into the nighttime hues.
They wake to the stampede of suits and briefcases,
Shivering.
Their blankets have blown away.
Drifting in the wind with yesterday's news.
The woman with the garish...The slugs chewed jagged crownsThe woman with the garish...2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
out of brand new ecru tulips,
and the rain filled them up
like teacups
until they drooped,
made lazy by the weather.
But Spring blew smoke
like the woman on the park bench
smoking a Pall Mall
and whispering into a black cell phone,
her bright red boots toe-deep in water.
Her umbrella, spine flicking drops
into the flower beds,
irrigating daffodils
yet to bloom,
made the park look gothic
and lonesome.
But when she left,
her breath steam
against the air,
boot heels clicking
against the stone –
The flowers peered up,
Blinking against the rain.
distinctionThis is what I cannot understand.distinction2 years ago in Philosophical More Like This
There is an understanding that nothing is ever black and white. Good can be achieved through bad means, what's wrong can sometimes be right, and if you turn right for long enough, you eventually go left. Boys can be girls who fall in love with girls who sometimes think they are boys and the lines between everything end up irreversibly blurred.
Or so I've always thought.
But this is a line that cannot be blurred. This is the only remaining clear-cut line that separates black from white as perfectly as a color wheel. And that is the fact that everything is until it isn't. We are until we aren't. We breathe u
BorderlineI dreamed once that I saw your face inBorderline2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
my mirror, rippling prolifically like
water on glass on my face,
and then I was drowning, and I
fell,
fell,
fell
too fast into your watery eyes.
Without imagination, prosaically as you
could, you told me you
�
snowbonesholding my hands over the kettlesnowbones2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
the skin on my fingertips peels back,
like dated wallpaper,
like flowers blooming.
they're burning from the inside out,
nails turning to varnish, turning to steam,
bones click-clacking their way out;
spreading like wildfire.
the whistling stops, and
blink
and my fingers are just fingers,
ink stained, bitten nails.
sunlight streams across the kitchen,
my fingers warm and
slightly damp, i trace patterns on
steamed-up windows.
Forever NightShe didn't look back, she couldn't bear to. Back there, there was too much pain, and hurt and hate. No, instead she looked forward, but there was nothing there either, just an endless stretch of road, ribboning on forever into the distance. Infront of her was her future, behind her, her past; she was torn between two worlds. But she couldn't go back, not now she knew what she did. She took one step out onto the road, out of the safety of the light, into the darkness and cold. The light behind her flickered out and the night engulfed her. She felt a breeze blow her hair, as if taunting her, reminding her of what she'd done. A scream sounded anForever Night9 years ago in Mystery & Suspense More Like This
OrchardYour fingers are guillotines,Orchard2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
purely purposeful machines.
You pluck the apple,
and carve it clean,
find the core,
suck out the seeds.
Take a life
and taste the power,
it's arsenic
and sugar sweet.
You thank God and the devil
with a crooked smile
that the day is young,
and so are they,
and just ripe enough
for you to eat.
Remnants Of A ChildRemnants Of A Child9 years ago in Scraps More Like This
Remnants Of A Child
It just seemed too soon
When her dolls were thrown away
While I was forced to face the world
Someone still wanted to play....
The remnants of a child, that had not yet grown
Her arrested youth, now carved in stone
She sees the world through the same wide eyes
That found wonderment in midnight skies
The only difference, the only thing lost
Is the will to fight back at any cost
That carefree spirit, that danced circles around fountains
That dreamed of growing up and moving mountains
She was in a foggy bliss
With all the dreams she had to live for
When she had no clue, that someday
There would be no more
She
things i've yet to tell you.i. last night i woke up just in timethings i've yet to tell you.3 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
to pronounce myself dead.
i figured, at the very least
i deserve to say it first.
i figure i've earned that much.
instant death- or
death in an instant-
allegedly painless.
they try to tell you
earnestly
"she never felt a thing"
ii. ryan,
remember that
your heart beats until it doe
ScrutinyAnd when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,Scrutiny5 years ago in Open More Like This
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin…
~ T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
I am going through the keyless gate
to watch and wait,
to wander here and there among the proud,
among the white and old whose wisdom rots, repressed, untold:
the soporific royals wreathed in leaves of gold.
And to them I shall read aloud from the Book,
read of the sins their lips have took
and upon me they shall look and patiently reflect…
“I am lost in my own depth,” I will say
in a slight, impartial way
(for I lack violets and an antic prin
All the Little ThingsAll the Little Things8 years ago in Scraps More Like This
Happiness was going to take me through parks,
stroll with me along shores,
and picnic with me atop hills,
but it never counted on the rain.
Then happiness was going to be the rainbow darting across the sky,
captured in a prism, reflecting on the grayness of my day,
but as I approached it disappeared.
And I was reminded of all the things that happiness could have been, but
never planned, like the pelting rain; the moments that conspired and all the
trivial things that led to today; that like the rainbow, at an angle, should
just as easily have disappeared.
Three Things I Do Not Like toThree Things I Do Not Like to AdmitThree Things I Do Not Like to3 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
Lately, I wake up with the shape of your name
bent across my tongue. You live on coffee and
cigarettes, and I find this endearing. (I once
dated another man, years ago, who also lived on
coffee and cigarettes. I did not find him endearing.)
Perhaps it's because you are so recently a used-to-be that
I think of you this way: torso like a startled scarecrow,
your hair some bemused Batesian mimicry, mottled eyes,
clumps of copper. I wake up with the shape of your name
bent across my tongue, and I do not like to admit this.
I fancy leaving my notebook in your truck to see if you
will
illuminate my heartSeptember falls outside his window and the two-story house feels June. Time tilts here, the days canted to the left like the apple tree their grandchildren planted sometime last winter. It hasn't grown much since then, a few leaves on dry branches but no blooming flowers when spring arrived.illuminate my heart2 years ago in Short Stories More Like This
Today his fifty years seem like thirty. Sitting up in bed is easier. He doesn't feel as weak as before. The Pacific breeze touches his hair, chills his pale face and he thinks, Maybe Anna and I could drive down to the beachfront today.
He rolls to his side. She's burrowed under the covers, a blue blanketed lump, white hair poking out over dark blue pill
She who destroys the lightfirst seedShe who destroys the light3 years ago in Urban & Spoken Word More Like This
Darling, you and I both know
in a better world I could be your Lethe
wrap around you, drown you
erode everything
that ever tried to bring your fate down on you.
Still if I picked up the pieces
I'd hear their soft hum—
the one shells moan for the sea—
for even then there would be places in you
still not free.
second seed
Surely women must have learned by now
never to trust fruit.
A garden is a prison earned
and there is nothing satanic, nothing sacred
about hunger.
Yet when your body curls in on itself
seduced by not-seeds that need only thirst to root
you find your lips wet
and what might be blood or j
The Opus Of The Everythingthe ocean floor, the twisted sea andThe Opus Of The Everything2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
all the flying jacket bees, and all
the flying birds and he, the one who
caught the glint of spring, who laid
it on the downy dew, the crispy green
of May fescue, who saw the plans of built
up lights that burn to light a thousand
pools of dripping rain and puddles lay
on any given night or day, the brick by
brick, the mortar spread, the snap of sugar
sweetly felt, the brine that made it
through the cloud, the opus of the
everything, the great and wide, the heat
of flame, the sun in cold but sunny sky,
the sound of when a child laughs,
the opus of the everything
On Ariadnethe loom of lust:On Ariadne2 years ago in Songs & Lyrics More Like This
In the heart of your ears,
and till your outstretched feet
the spinner of mad red has corrupted,
her fingers like dragonflies threading
bark and twined grass into your hair
around your sure wrists, your angled feet
'this is love, my shining bride-to be,' you whisper,
and disappear with her among billowing black sails.
the abandonment of Ariadne:
He wooed you in a labyrinth of spinners,
and wed you in black sails, beneath jealous skies.
'Sleep and tomorrow you shall be Queen of Athens,'
Ariadne, sleep, tomorrow the sun will shine,
and the sea will ebb sympathetic away from
these deserted sands.
the death, or descent:
Spin,
Dogma: a sestinaDogma:Dogma: a sestina5 years ago in Traditional Fixed Forms More Like This
So we began, as was the world, from air,
So too, in the beginning, was the word.
We met as strangers, as in some ancient idyll,
Caught among an unexpected course:
Lives lighted with those soft, celestial rays
Our eyes, our lips, our tongues a hymn of praise.
And what cannot be thought enough in praise,
Those words oft-said, but spoken with an air
With which the mountains crumble; angels raise
Their voices from the veil, or Holy Word
Echoes from its pages, lauds its course
Unstable though it be, but seldom idle.
Then falling from your grace, my love, my idol
To whom this lonely soul kneels down and prays,
My soul, my hear
Jones Gap, JulyIt will have been estimation mostly: my return to youJones Gap, July2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
this way, just this: like the decline of a body,
all dolled up—smiling, anyway, of course smiling—
and full of something: you can tell; when I am addressing you,
I can tell: you feel a yellowness in me, a kind of hope: an envy.
I watch you when you are eating, when you are watching me
prove myself in eating: how you manage your silver; where, when
I have finished, I fold my napkin. I suspect
something will be put to death here, soon, and then dinner,
plated and served—that these will be the years of two mutes
between us, our organization of hands in the air silentl
summer poemyou used to say it wassummer poem2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
the only time of year
that actually deserved to be called a
season,
when the
sweat on our faces shone like
sticky cellophane, and we
ran through sprinklers if
no one was looking.
with damp undershirts and
ice-clinking glasses and
asphalt smoking heat
and dust - you said
everyone's eyes were a little bit brighter,
like we were
borrowing something [life]
from the sun.
you walked around your little apartment, smiling
in thongs you changed twice a day, when you could -
laughing
about how funny
the AC chose right now to break,
and you'd look outside and smirk at
tired people
crossing the street just to wal
Chin UpAnd sometimes, coated and layeredChin Up2 years ago in Free Verse More Like This
with tens of scores of others' eyes
we forget the word 'lonely' -
so when it flings ashes
we blink, and are blinded.
Why the Willow WeepsToday I asked a willowWhy the Willow Weeps6 years ago in Traditional Fixed Forms More Like This
The reason why she wept.
She spoke to me so mournfully:
'I weep because he left.'
I listened while she told her tale,
Her branches bent in woe.
She'd been the oak tree's bride-to-be;
The lovers were betrothed.
Willow was so devoted,
She stood up straight and tall,
Had eyes for him and he for her,
'Til Birch Tree came to call.
She was so slim and clothed in white,
She caught the oak tree's eye.
He left his willow lass behind
With no decent 'goodbye.'
Her true love left but she is strong,
And so she did not die,
But rather bent her head in pain,
All out of tears to cry.
~Alex Cherrysnot~ All Rights Res
Sta.sh
