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WS Warner Nov 2013
Part One
Nascent Craving

The insular heart unsealed; pearled eyes
Breach parapets of stone— periled shield,
The sweetest ****—
A threatening wonder and irrefragable synergy,
Nervous routes of cognition  
In this nascent, amorous craving.
Locked and abased,
Dissonance lends pathos — euphoric and onerous,
Disconsolate cries curb sublimation,
The regnant bleed diffusing — fervid lust
Fondled, tactile surfaces in throbbing anticipation.

Sullen, aft a veil of laughter,
Visceral aftermath, out of
The ardent ash,
Burns a thirst;
Insuperable numbness and ache.
Efflorescent intimacy,
Table for two
Enraptured in new alliance,
Élan vital (psyche);
Urgent dialect petitions
Equivocation, jocularity blending
Provocation with indecision,
Noted lilt of descending inhibition.

Adrift, the incessant Now;
As occasion inexorably diminished;
Resonant simpatico tending,
Numinous amity;
Heard conversant, cognitive idioms—
Lassitude, time-eaten pangs of the unhinged heart,
Wounds axiomatic,
In disquieting synergy,
Nibbling, the circumference—
Misery’s permeating truth;
None immune, all trundle incongruously past,
Facing intrepid savages.

Licitly felt, reverberations of Amor
Whence the heart behaves;
Measured cadence, pulse elevating—
Treasured lover, contemplative muse;
Undulating clasp, inflated bone of absence;
Incarnation — a woman,
Beyond prosaic;
Ineffable adoration pours in certitudes of verse,
Elenita, enclothed —virtue unvarnished;
Reservoir intrinsic, poised advocate of the innocent:
The crooked lines of insolence,
Brazen culture of neglected youth.
Perceptive blue stare, sensitized tears—
Plaintively, evincing her injustice ago.

Part Two
Tendered Senses

Siren silence, eruptive blush, ampler between phrases
In dulcet tones — stirring discourse;
Foments rebellion, the strife beneath— his ****,
Out of its vast reserve,
Penetrate the narrowed ambit, vaguely announced.
Groping hands, migrating the sensual member
Stern faces grimacing— mirror in abrasion,
Under the blind surf of consent;
Burrowing ambiguity, emerging torsion,
Plunge, enlisted and content in the sea;
Subsumed in the nonverbal cue,
Persuasion’s plea,
Quelled in the post cerebral assent.

Piercing eyes parallel crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe.

An untouched portion of his awareness remains aloof,
Palpable in the subsequential quiet,
Obsequious and febrile, they sinned on sofas;
Peregrine predilections quenched and viscid—
Serenely requited, the room breathes her presence,
Limp, figures *******, mantled in adolescent torpor.

Erudition in bloom, trust undoubted,
Illuminating, satiating; tempest calm—
Under canvas
Terrain soaked and sodden,
Postliminary — rains of invalidation.
Allowance and permission
Recalibrate, salivate, shortly only—
Initiate, obliged consecration, appraising
Curvatures of the spine,
Stuns him obeisant, her femenine pulchritude,
Propinquity inciting vigor,
Emergent allure, the updriven
Tower of wood sprung from the blanket.


Suffused in ether, purring streams of remembrance
Vaginal honeyed dew, sung into
Orchids, remnants of remember;
Drenched down the cynosure of devotion;
Succulent view, diaphanous pantied bottom;
Halcyon mist, saporous wine — compliance of the will,
Freed fires wander,
Pliable rind, twin plums dripping,
Abject confession, dispatching doubt
In tendered senses,
Pivotal tree, lavender Jacaranda holds the key,
Unfurled, cindered vulnerability.

Half-denuded skin invites confessional savor
Acutely bubbled rear, fleshly furnished denim;
Sultry visit, San Ramon Valley in the fall,
Strewed limbs splendid, flowing filmy;
Imagination yields—
Bursting silk congealed
Across deft thighs, ambrosial thong draping ankles,
Grazing ascension, the curvaceous trajectory
Nose inflamed with fragrance,
Inhaling, climb of acquiescence,
The ****** weal, amid the globed fruit,
Focal intention — ploughed lance thrusting,
Absconding, the ancillary perfume of essence.

Perceiving avid validation,
Swimmingly, amid the monstrous gaze.
  
Humid skies simper dank, set swell the incense of Eros,
Surge of poetry engorged
The flame levened shaft,
Nimble ******* flounce, spill the harboring mouth;
Moist hands merging, unfettered,
Weave in supplication,
Vicinity voicing, enmeshed diversion;
Supple and spherical behind
Posterior arch, milky-skin against the lip—
Ripeness jostling their complacency;
Lapped the mooring, ridden decisively;
Recapitulating— spumed forth, bellied over hips warmth.
Abandon the dirge of self-pity
Late under ego’s trance.
  
Part Three
Present Tenses

Tempting trespass across sacred gardens,
Flowering, scandal set luminous: attachment—
Consensual, their corresponsive fear;
Protean manifestations— evocative, perpetual
Unutterable contention in a fictive resolve,
Deliberating the merits of their widely disparate tastes in coffee,
Amorously touring wine, let’s drowse through the gnarled vine.
Sundry deficiencies pale, once contrasted;
The beatific vision—
Material substance unaccompanied,
Imperceptible, tear-streamed cheeks in synch,
Ventral kiss, peak of carnal perfection,
Reminiscence— flesh violent with Love.

Fiction knew to meander the innominate rift,
A tincture of irony soften misdeeds
Immense as the sea.
Insolvent beast stippled with sapience—
Unmasked, the fabric of delusion;
Dependence smothering the disciplined heart
Resentment put up for release.

Waste of residual years
Fate’s apportion, scars bleakly observed;
Chastened by heartache, engulfing fervor
Too faint to recapture.
Vague glimpses dry—
Hypervigilant his defenses,
Veritable suspensions, embers lit linger;
Slender walls of solidity, the horizoned self,
Faith and reason in concert — stone levels of elucidation.

Fractured bones of distance, emanate a rigid salience,
Another ponderous night of absence—
Lingering, cauldron of dearth as indifference ushers,
The quotidian coil of contrition.
Tearful pallor, sequestered —ciphering time and solitude;
The unkissed mouth, his restive brow;
Suspend in the approximate span.
                      
After Lucid alliterations are spoken
Devoid of her face, his lover’s nudge—
The man nurtures his hurt.

Anxious as seldom unscarred,  
Venus’s susurrations,
In present tenses,
Kissed by her serenades of integration—
Notwithstanding metaphysic intrusion,
No chain stays unbroken,
Postponed drifts of deferment left unspoken,
Reverberations of amor.

© 2013 W. S. Warner
To Eileen
neth jones Mar 2022
gallows on the rooftop
where window washers go
                            to suspend
metal gibbet
            quick hinge, raise and lock
secure against the weather

whipped                                
  combed and packed snow
    ice crusted dunes
strain the winds over the buildings roofing
                                 an extreme combing exposure
                                
doubtlessly
they'll be no labor done today

On the seventh floor
i watch from behind
              an environment sealed window
              wolfing my lunch on a short break
                                in the warm fire escape

i watch
a solitary worker is ejected from a hatch in the exterior wall
                                      cuffed by a spasm of wind
he descends a short bolted ladder
              and makes a geared approach
crouching
his weight against the wind  
          he drags a heavy kit
            mummified in protective clothing
              passing my spot and he then heads outward
                    towards the bounds of the rooftop
he mends a stable stance
one foot close to the edge
the rest of him
in a low defensive pose
clips his harness to the gallows
stands to take a confident beating
            of the breath stealing
                      brawling winter gale
he radios for the gantry to be raised
10/11/21
BellonasBride May 2016
They said
Don’t wear leggings
Or a shirt that shows your cleavage
Because you need to be covered up
You’re a distraction

They said
Don’t use your period as an excuse
For male teachers to let you go to the bathroom
Because you’re not fooling anybody

They said
Don’t shave your head
Boys can
You can’t and don’t
And won’t because we’ll suspend you

They said
Watch the length of your skirt
The colour of your hair
The shoes and makeup
The piercings
And they call that fair

They said
Come to us if something is wrong
if you’re feeling bullied
if you feel unsafe
I guess they don’t remember asking my friend and I
if we heard of anyone in our year with suicidal tendencies
They asked us because
We were the sensible ones
The bright ones
We couldn't have been depressed.
I guess they didn’t see my panic
and my hand squeezing my wrist.


Because school
Is not a place
Where you can express who you are
School is not the place where you feel safe
It's a battle ground on the outside of your comfort zone.

School isn’t about education
Its a challenge, competition
Its a measurement of your capabilities  

But what if you don't excel?
You’re called out for not being good enough
You're humiliated. Mocked.

You get looked down on
Judged
Embarrassed
And you don’t get your
Degree

As if a degree explains who you are
What you’ve been through
How much you’re worth

As if a degree
Measures the capacity
Of your heart
And your knowledge

And a teacher can share your grade
Make a joke and smirk
Cause they think you’re not worth it

And they can laugh and yell and call your parents
Who don’t think you’re any better.

Because year after year they’ve been led to believe
that you’re easily distracted
that you don’t do what you’re told
that you’re rebellious

Because even if you showed respect to the hypocrisy
That you can't help but notice,
They still won’t understand that you're just fighting
for what you believe is right, for mutual respect.

Because that’s not what you were thought.
You were thought to raise your hand when you want to speak.
And even if you made a valid point
You would still get lectured on putting your hand up when you want to speak.
Discipline put first.

**And that is my definition of school
Mystic904 Sep 2017
See, you hear this word and shiver
While some of us get problems of the liver
yup! Exams are what I'm talking about
The reason pupils start howling about

Oh exams! What do we do with you

As it approaches, students be like
A reaction no one ever seen like
In our dreams like a monster sneaks up
Within our soul like Death creaps up

Oh exams! What do we do with you

That one night before exam burden
Reminds me of the war of verdun
Only if had books borrowed or lend
All night were the eyes to suspend

Oh exams! What do we do with you

That, to be murdered day arrived
Of peaceful sleep were we deprived
When the exam hall were we to enter
Shot a bullet shrapnel in the center

Dead were we when we turned the paper
Those questions turned us into vapor
Students like us had two or three attempted
Handed over those 2 sheets and left all exempted

Oh exams! What do we do with you
You're welcome, now to hell with you
Exams, exams, exams! Student problems.
People are afraid of demons sneaking under their beds while Students fear exams sneaking to show up anytime.lol ;)
The Iron Horse can still saddle this Coach,
Whose Extract nourishes the Children he trains:
One the Golden Girl; The Other a Hodge,
Transpose to the Miracle-Boy remains
Two-Scores-and-Four his Dedication baits,
Like Tunes based to emasculate them both
Here in the Pillow-Jungle Success does wait
Bending limbs into Sport; Then promotes their Growth
What Circus! Said the Lame Artist envine
Yet in Prayer begs him to join the Fray
He looked at his Pearls; And saw that they Shine
Which, suspend, trained his Boon-Dogs to obey.
Hence, to Devotion his Shoes retire
Partner and Career; In Big Thanks suspire.
#andybanksdive
Josie Sep 2016
I am the girl that hides behind smiles
I'm as bloodthirsty as a sarcophile
             I'll laugh and giggle at your jokes
                I honestly want you to choke
                       I hate the way you look at me
                                  I'm not asking for your empathy
                                    I can't wait for this to end
                                                    Find me a rope and I'll suspend
Emanuel Martinez Jun 2011
Don't ruin the moment
We have a whole semester
To dismantle this ticking bomb
Surely we wont let it explode

Just smile at me and feel at ease
Don't occupy yourself with breaking my heart
There is plenty of time left to take jabs

Look at my eyes and for a moment
See the love in my soul
Don't deny me your warmth just yet
There is plenty of time to refuse my hugs

I know you'll soon be leaving my side
Is not you,is not me, its destiny tearing us apart
Even if you still loved me then
We'll be far apart

Its killing me inside
I want to be selfish for your love
Though I got to come to terms

I must let you go
But dont let me down so hard so soon
We have plenty of time to fall

Please give me
The best months of my life
And then you can leave
Make it seem like a dream
And then we can wake

Why end it so soon
When you know we'll be seeing each other
For a few months more

If we were meant to be
Than we will make it, far or near
But for now, can we please live in this happiness
Let us suspend it in time
January 8, 2011
K Balachandran Feb 2014
Inebriated blue cloud,
I know you well enough
libertine ways you have
make you a lover of
deep thunder and meek rainbow
and also a chit of a lark
that loses itself in a song
be it is in grief or mirth.

Strange is the ways of my heart,
how much I long to fall in love with you
and proclaim this to the world scheming
to disrupt the pleasures one seeks
without any reason at all
"Look! love has no limits, no reason even
the lovely cloud, softness personified
caresses my foliage with sensuous abandon
kisses me with her wispy lips of moisture"

I know you understand, though unmindful of
my unbridled passion
making breaches in the limits,
I have no illusion about our improbable union.
True, how can we live
happily ever after?
I envy your gift of wings
though you have none visible,
you borrow it from the wayward wind,
too willing to carry your sweet load around.

I stood on the hill top,
wistfully thinking
that you will come and
take me within your soft folds
though I am a tree with deep running roots
that has become a restraining thing.

Freedom without any limit
gets you inebriated every minute,
your love for love,  makes you desirable
you live in the present, suspend thoughts on time to come
as it is hypothetical, you say.
You are in a hurry to roam
wherever lovers lead you one after the other
do you have an urge to dissolve and pour-
as water, without any remorse?

Do you know my  penitence for your love
on this hilltop is a true sacrifice?
My love for you doesn't bring anything
except my wilting hour after hour.
Let me be on your blue breast for moments
when my boiling love will seek
your shining center that melts, melts
we'd freeze as one, how long my darling?
Time would simply stand still
to a distance, i'd be transported,
where tree or cloud means nothing
we are an incessant rain lasting for ever.
Amanda Kay Burke Mar 2018
Fill the hollow crevice of my existence
With light, show me a warmer way
Stop numbness from taking over
I am slipping further0 into dismay.

Down the senseless pit of despair
My direction is out of control
Darkness paralyzes my mind
Strangling thoughts that crawl and roll

Constricting my body until I give up
I kick the air but cannot land a blow
The empty space will never stop resisting
The sound of my own scream has become my foe.

The endless void swallows my voice
Here the tears I cry fall forever
The lies I have told mean nothing now
I knew my will was always meant to sever.

Faced with nothingness all around
This is my life; a ******* hole
It's slowly shoving me outwards
Little by little, pain taking over my soul.

Chaos has reality gripped
In a tight but unsure grasp
Confusing the mass of color
And motion contained in its clasp

Bullied by the tidal wave of isolation
Head above water though it is strong
Giving up the ability to move
Surviving by the current floating me along.

My consciousness is traveling lethargically
I no longer feel my torso or limbs
Attempt to wiggle a finger but it won't budge
It takes all my strength to speak and part dry lips.

This is where existence ceases
Where time's beginning meets its end
An unending loop of monotonous emotions displayed
A breif instant in which Eternity life does suspend
This started as how I felt when I was crippled by heartache and doubt but switched lanes kinda. It's random I suppose. But it sounds pretty.
Jack Lucid Sep 2014
Shroud me in charcoal clouds
and let the frigid autumn wind caress my skin
suspend me in a womb of hidden truths
and bury me sweetly in  a hallowed and nihilistic tomb*
So why are you astonished
in this world of rot and *****
  when our child-like elations become  extinguished by adult realizations  
and innocence is *****
So Shroud me in charcoal clouds
and let the frigid autumn wind caress my skin
suspend me in a womb of hidden truths
and bury me sweetly in  a hallowed and nihilistic tomb


when fear consumes you from the inside out
and all the walls are closing in
I will be your friend
Who can you trust and where do you go,
When you feel so ******* hollow.
When you've bitten off much more than you can swallow
and you watch your dreams slither down the drain
What will keep you sane?
*So Shroud me in charcoal clouds
and let the frigid autumn wind caress my skin
suspend me in a womb of hidden truths
and bury me sweetly in  a hallowed and nihilistic tomb
I need honest opinions?!?
Sara L Russell Sep 2009
Ch. 1.

1.

Behold, thou art dark and comely, my love;
richly hath the sun favoured thee,
delighting in thy presence.
Let me savour thy kisses of wine;
for in the gardens of the temple
the lotus furls open,
wild bees fall asleep on her face.


2.

Lilies and jasmine bloom
in the garden of my love;
falls of wisteria,
carpets of thyme.
Let us lie in the shade of the olives
to gaze on the sky.


3.

For many hours my love slept
  beneath the cedars,
couched on cool swathes of linen,
like the Lord of Midnight enthroned on a cloud.
Long tresses of willows shivered to cool his face.
I called his name but he heard me not,
being entranced in slumber,
deep in the thrall of dreams;
therefore I shall let him awaken when he please.




Ch. 2.

4.

A warm breath of nard is my master, my king,
A great golden deity haloed with stars.
Behold, the noble bearing of a king,
the finely-wrought body of a man.
In my dearest dreams he standeth before me
out of my reach, gesturing for me to follow,
calling unto me like the very embodiment of love.


5.

Night comes softly, o daughters of Jerusalem,
My king's desirous eyes have grown heavy with sleep.
His black hair ripples about his face
  like curtains of smoke,
gold bracelets entice my gaze to
the sinews of his arms.
Like roses unfurling, so open the lips of my love,
  I burn for their flavour,
yet awaken him not till he please.





Ch. 3.

6.

Out of the forest I came, with my
maidens and minions;
with carpets of hibiscus strewn at my feet.
Columns of frankincense curved into the air,
burning from lamps of copper and gold.
From the broad slopes of Edom
my soul's love stopped to observe us.
I felt his warm gaze upon me,
so soft a look as touched like caresses of hands.
I am weary with desire, my lord and king,
Bring me the looks of thine eyes, dark as midnight,
That regard me with touches of silk.


7.

Though I may stand with my legion before thee,
an army behind me,
The west wind roars to my left,
the east to my right,
a million strong with all my banners, warriors
and standard-bearers,
still my delight were only to serve thee,
see how I tremble with awe by thy side.


8.

Behold, my ladies, the noble bearing of a king,
the finely-wrought body of a man.
My king is a custodian of the sanctity of love,
see those arms with the strength to smite
yet full of the will to embrace.
Nightly cometh he to my chambers,
whispering of love,
with the stealth of a lion,
as meek as a lamb.




Ch. 4.

9.

Preparing for my beloved,
I have put on my mantle of midnight sky
garlanded with stars.
My black locks are hung with beads of gold,
my neck is anointed with sandalwood and rose.
Come, my ladies,
Bring me my white chargers,
my sedan lined with silks from Lebanon,
my heralds and cavalcades of guards;
My beloved king awaits my pleasure.






10.

When I am in the embrace of my beloved,
He is worlds of landscapes of desire,
he is all the earth, air and sky to me.
His eyes shineth as my sun and moon,
his broad chest becometh as the
cool desert dunes by night,
where I may rest my head.
Go safely in thy dreams, beloved king,
with sentinel angels, to roost with the doves.




Ch. 5.

11.

Such a turmoil of a dream
hath troubled me, my sisters,
I dreamed that my love approached my window,
Calling unto me through the
rosewood trefoils of the lattice.
Forgetful of our tryst I answered him not,
all oils and fine trappings were put away,
mine eyes were full of slumber.
When finally I rose from my bed
   he had gone.


12.

Overwrought and afraid,
I went out in the streets,
  calling unto my beloved,
receiving no answer and calling again.
  The night watchmen came and found me,
they smote me and denounced me as pagan,
calling me harlot and worshipper of false idols,
harshly they beat me with flails
and threw me into the darkest cellars
of the palace of Solomon.


13.

Awakening at last,
I felt a warm breeze,
It was my love's breath upon my face.
Let all the world suspend in time,
let hate, rage and darkness flee as a shadow,
otherwise let me die here in the arms of my king.
There is but this one hour, one place,
in one lingering moment,
When my soul's love and I are conjoined
in the petals of love.




Ch. 6.

14.

Midnight has fallen in the gardens
  of the temple of Solomon.
The moon communes with her sister in the lake,
painting the magnolias with mother-of-pearl,
turning her buds into silver doves.
Passion and beauty intertwine in my love's garden,
Like the twisted trunks of the fig trees of Judea.
Behold, my beloved,
thou art more comely even than the moon.
Come and walk with me
in the balmy air of night.


15.

Only through the love of another may
a soul come to know of itself.
My king is mine and I am his;
The sun and moon each taketh their
turn in the sky,
the shepherds go sure-footed
over their hills and valleys,
the merchants go their ways in the
spice markets of Lebanon,
while he and I are lost in one another's eyes.




Ch. 7.

16.

Love's weariness hath overcome me,
beloved lord and king.
Bring me thy pleasant fruits, thy tender words,
Lie betwixt my *******; my hair shall
be thy curtain,
these arms shall be as thy cocoon.
Let the tides cease their turning
and the winds give pause to hold their breath.
Awaken not my dearest love, until he please.


17.

Even in sleep,
such beautiful eyes hath my beloved;
his eyelashes rest upon his cheek
like the feet of a butterfly on a lily.
Come, my sisters, we shall make him
a bed of hemp and poppies,
with fruit of the lotus,
that he may languish beside me
for many days and nights.




Ch. 8.

18.

Filling my days and dreams,
here is a man with the grace of a young hart,
whose honeyed voice speaketh mantras of desire.
Arise and follow me, beloved, for my vineyards
are ripe with luscious fruits,
the doves beat their wings and fly from the cots.
Emerging from the amber of sunrise,
with a swirling of veils,
summer dances into the season of our love.


19.

Lying amid the twisting vines
My love and I are deep in each other's embrace
and his lips taste of roses heavy with dew.
I am a queen of the Red Sea,
an orchid from a sacred garden,
and my kingdom reacheth to the farthest hills.
None but my love shall pass the boundary
where my vines bear the sweetest fruit,
nor taste their heady wine.


20.

The gates of my vineyard are wrought of
iron clad with gold,
taller than cedars, decorated with
the royal insignia,
guarded by three score watchmen,
by day and night.
While other men are kept without
and the foxes are driven back by dogs,
see how swiftly they open for thee.




Ch. 9.

21.

Behold, the noble stature of a king,
the finely-wrought body of a man.
In the sanctity of love
we may walk in the realm of paradise,
undisturbed by the foibles of men.
Come beloved, awaken,
the new dawn opens as wide and fresh
as infant eyes.
Come run with me through the spice hills
  and gardens of Lebanon.
Umi Mar 2018
The last judgement shall not hold mercy on the servants, but it shall not wrong them in their deeds either, it is the final decision to make,
The end of a long journey which births the desire to see you again,
Your reflection cast on a mirror in a sea of pure lunacy shall clear it all
It will open your heart and reveal all of your sinning impurities cast away by words of falsities, triggered by a simple yet small lie,
Heartfelt dream scapes shape the mirror; In a world so dark that the stars will blind ones sensitive, mortal eyes within seconds to come,
Experience of past events suspend memories from the future's dawn.
I will not show you any sad dreams, I'd like to heal your wounds if you have striven for righteousness and purity such as patience,
If you however have striven for corruption then you should know,
There's unending punishment and darkness awaiting your arrival,
Here we do have unlimitted time after all, unlimited cruelty and fear,
Love comes in misery, ends unexpectedly yet you won't see, will you?
Time ticks on, goes by and follows it's clear path in this devil's world which I am lurking over, ruling, which you have intruded tonight,
Take my hand oh all you pure souls, the love of light is for all to bear!

~ Umi
Bob B Oct 2016
Most of us know the tale of Cinderella,
But do you know the original German story?
It’s different from the version that I grew up with.
It’s called “Aschenputtel,” and it’s gory.
 
Cinderella’s stepmom and two stepsisters
Are nasty, ornery, bossy, ******, and mean.
They’re very good at belittling Cinderella;
And the sisters vie for the role of future queen.
 
Cinderella wants to attend a ball,
But her stepmom gives her some difficult tasks, and so
When some birds help the girl complete them,
The woman STILL refuses to let her go.
 
Here no fairy godmother comes to help.
Cinderella goes to the grave of her mother
Where she'd planted a branch that grew to a tree,
Which miraculously gives her a gown like no other.
 
When Cinderella goes to the King’s fancy ball,
She makes a tremendous impression on the prince.
Of course, no one’s able to recognize her,
And the competition makes the stepsisters wince.
 
For two nights in a row the same thing happens.
Cinderella must be in excellent shape,
For each night the prince attempts to pursue her,
Yet each night she makes a clean escape.
 
On the THIRD night he has a bright idea:
“Aha!” he says. “Someone, bring me some tar.
If I spread goop all over the steps of the palace,
That gorgeous sneak won’t manage to get very far.”
 
(Here you have to suspend even more belief.)
As Cinderella hurries to flee from her beaux,
She leaves behind one slipper in the tar.
(WHY more slippers aren’t stuck there, I do not know.)
 
On finding the slipper, the prince yells, “Piece of cake!
Now I’ll find the owner of this dainty shoe.”
When he arrives at the home of the nasty stepsisters,
The poor guy bites off more than he can chew.
 
The first sister chops off her obtrusive big toe
So that her foot can fit inside the slipper.
You see, the slipper’s not made of the kind of material
That stretches, and, of course, it has no zipper.
 
The prince starts to leave with his bride-to-be
But notices that her slipper is filled with blood.
“I don’t think that this is my future wife,”
He says and nips that nightmare in the bud.
 
In order to make her foot fit in the slipper,
The second stepsister cuts off part of her heel.
Imagine how much blood gushes forth from that.
Shaking his head, the prince says, “This is unreal.”
 
Finally, Cinderella takes her turn.
And what do you know? The slipper’s a perfect fit!
The prince—eager to exit that crazy scene—
Takes Cinderella and leaves lickety split.
 
(I hope the prince kept his wits about him.
You’d think he would, for he’s a thoughtful fella.
Certainly, he washed out all the blood
Before giving the slipper to Cinderella!)
 
Early on I told you about some birds
That helped Cinderella when she was down and out
By completing her tasks and delivering her gown and slippers.
They knew what the stepsisters were all about.
 
Well, the stepsisters come on the day of the wedding,
To mooch off Cinderella—as you can surmise.
As they amble along with the wedding couple,
The birds fly down and peck out both of their eyes.
 
Such is the fate of the mean and bossy stepsisters,
Who were deceitful and cruel, as you recall.
Call it karma, their just deserts, or comeuppance,
But let it be a lesson for us all.

- by Bob B
To touch her nakedness with my own
was to take our most human moment
and suspend it higher than the stars
where human beings had no right to be.

To kiss her while we met in bareness
was to transcend our humanity
and in our most ****** pleasure
feel totally unconfined freedom.

To make love with nothing between us
was to make humans’ humanity
and have the two come alive as one
where life itself is understatement.
Instagram @insightshurt
Blogging at www.insightshurt.com
Buy “Insights Hurt: Bringing Healing Thoughts To Life” at store.bookbaby.com/book/insights-hurt
kayla morrison Mar 2014
People say they want to live in a small town,
but when I look out my window
all I see is
Zero.

I look out my left window,
Zero.

I glance out my right window,
Zero.

The daily routines,
an Act Without Words.

We go through the motions in a small town,
get up, smile at people we hate,
hope for something more,
repeat.

In a small town
you bite your tongue,
just to keep the peace.
Did you bleed today?

There’s no point in asking
how someone is
because we already know.

Each new piece of gossip
strings us along,
Beckons
teases.


The small town will hold
anything over your head.
It will dangle a divorce
suspend a separation
and hang up a hook up.

In a small town,
the space between people’s teeth
revealed by their fake smiles
serve as cre-
Nells

People rave about the
fields of grass, and the trees.
In each patch of green
lies un lucky Clov-
ers
The fresh air is fetid.
The stink of the town’s
***** laundry is
enough to make
any argument for the town Null.
Zero.
It’s almost genetic,
the little Nagg-
lings in the school yard,
slicing, dividing, cutting
people like cake.

Settling for small town life,
is a fate worse than Hamm-
lets think about it.

No excitement.
No privacy.
No trust.
Zero.
Chapter XXI
Hegira to Patmos

They dropped their moorings from Cala Cogone early, when the tide seemed to be separated from the waters like a head distanced from its body. On a lavish and romantic day they went to Genoa, to continue the logistics of the trip to Piacenza. During the trip Etréstles was stretched out in the bow under a Sun that seemed to be fearsome as it was a digestive task that would make him ingest his own dream, which perhaps he aspired to be more than a journey. While he slept, at the helm Etréstles dressed in a black robe and the comrades also sleeping with dreams that they painted with sign gestures on their faces.

Dream of Etréstles: "With the memory off-center ..., I was still in Izzana, dancing by the clouds on gray tulles of the layers of the sky that tried to stop being a Kingdom without a Crown and Sword". They glimpsed the stones melting and turning into gauze juxtaposed to the aerosolites that unfolded from the Sorcery, landing on the hands and heads of Vernarth and Himself. As he continued his dreamy journey, he dialogued with the auxiliary legate of his own dream. “He tells her that he sees them beyond where their liturgies collide. They cross eroding the vanished and itinerant reason”. He gets up and takes the moorings of the ship and ties them to his neck. Then everyone cooperates to walk along the edge of the ship, which all moved barefoot. This is how I would wake up!

Vernarth tries to wake him up, shakes him, but doesn't wake up. And when he tried to avoid him from sleep, he saw that he had the moorings around his neck, along with two Unicorns who were escorting him and were looking towards infinity, auspicious that Genoa was already coming in front of their horns. The others began to wake up and ate reclining, almost as if without any desire to get up from the deck full of self-sliding linen, which allowed everyone to pass their own meals, including those that were semi-consumed rolling on the deck. Etréstles,  transferred the dream to Vernarth, once he went to his bedroom to rest before they touched the roadstead at the foot of the homonymous promontory, 36 km from Genoa.  Portofino, close to the hydro form of the Portofino Regional Natural Park.  Being able to find different entrance doors through S. Rocco, Portofino Vetta and Nozaregoino  that led you to paths with different levels of accessibility and landscape. On the route of the path that traveled from Northwest to Southwest on the same promontory, he received the full beauty of the Mediterranean vegetation, with its beautiful pines, bluish and clean waters of the Mediterranean, which filled his lungs and especially his stem, which silenced of peace to those who accompany you through this interesting and beautiful Natural Park with deep blue eyes.
Vernarth is wrapped with two layers of linen and stands in between eclipsing each of the Unicorns. They pass her horn through her pectoral, as if wanting to insinuate affection. But her propitiated gesture was to crown her with the Power of her phalanx, the impetus in Gaugamela, an Onyx Crown, to lighten the burden of sleep and wake up before reaching the shores of Genoa.
Calling in Genoa, they all descend in a separate part and say goodbye from afar, gesturing with their hands. Their ramblings revealed multi-level radiographs of the resolved aura that invited them to an enclave hostel, to re-enter the world of their daily chores. The Unicorns who would return back to Sardinia stayed on the ship that was in the blue bay. They positioned themselves at the bow one and at the stern the other, to lighten the sails and return to Izzana.

Vernarth and Etréstles walked with their bags, letting go of their feet towards La Via ** Settembre, they travel in an east-west direction, next to Corso Italia, the promenade that runs along the promenade, which is one of the favorite places to reform the destination of Piacenza. From this road they moved near the adjacent carriage station to the Caruggio neighborhood in Sottoripa. Here they entered an inn to eat and drink liqueurs made from natural herbal recipes and sweet citrus, some fish with bread, sauce and Genovés sourdough. to satisfy their hunger.
They had dinner and opened the exit to the terminal. Before, they went to the Ponte Monumentale where the church dedicated to Santa Rita is, called Iglesia de la Consolación, whose entrance, at the level of the old streets, is slightly lower than the current street. They pass a porch and enter. "Almost like a grand cloister sensation they perceived during their stay, as if centuries had passed, but which never ended in the wanderings of any secular period. It was the impression once entered and soaked on this road, which still remains active. From this original cloister, the invocation of images on the sides placed towards the church towards Via ** Settembre, as well as the closed portal in the market access plaza on Via Galata, recur, while the other two sides are they completed attractions to admire when the eastern market in Genoa appeared before them ”.

When they entered, the masks were passed over the bones of their faces, indulgent towards both faces of the visitors, under a freshness of gravitational atmospheric fragrance, perhaps from the connected baptismal font or the lateral nave or the three naves separated by square pillars illuminating them. This is where Vernarth places his right hand on his forehead and his mouth, as a sign of catechesis detached from The Vault, the central nave and the counter-facade that were painted in fresco in 1874 by Giuseppe Isola, after reading about the intertextual verifying thus Vernarth. (Visioni dell'Apocalisse, Gloria di Nostra Signora della Consolazione and Giuditta rientra trionfante in Betulia), while Etréstles frenziedly admitted the frescoes through the side aisles that are the work of Giovanni Quinzio at an angle close to him. Observing everything, he was already indoctrinating to reprint new vigor to enter Piacenza triumphantly and head to the Region of Patmos. Giuseppe Isola's fresco was the great motive that struck his reason for being where he was to continue the threads upon threads of his lineage as the great Commander of the troops of Gaugamela and his Phalanges. Here is the church in its first tune with the duty of limitlessness before its steps to dominions that will make it recover their powers, from where they were first seen dressing in the clothes of an innocent child.


In the apse, there was the choir singing baroque pieces, and followed by elaborate wooden stalls from the 17th century. In the Altars on the left, on the Fifth Altar, Etréstles, captures a simultaneous vision. From that moment when it was the disappearance of this Santa Maria della Pace church, which could have been one structure on top of the other, perhaps in ruins but if the columns could go further from where their originals are born. Until then both had separated from each other, and they would meet again here in the apse, where they never lose sight of each other again, to turn towards the exit that required them to leave the sacred precinct. In the terminal, a grayish float awaited them, with silver trim on the edges of the structure, at the top of the front roof it said "Where you must never go and be". It was just the transport of an allegorical float. They were theatrical traveling artists, who had places available for travelers to Piacenza. The one that they just approached to move to the home, where they had to register at their own will and rejoin this excellent session "Parapsychological Regression".The Trebbia valley, a few kilometers from Piacenza. Vernarth noted that a shaft of the chariot made a strange sound. To which he notified the driver, telling him what he caught on the rear axle of the carriage. They go down to inspect all; not being able to detect anything that it would suppose would be an anomaly of filming of the instrumental east. Etréstles sees that some steeds were grazing on some meadows and he tells them all. Vernarth warns him and immediately heads to them. It reaches only a sorrel that was running its tongue over its hoof. The others flee. Vernarth approaches, and notices that he had a wound in his left hoof, noticing that in the center there was a strip of Green color, He takes his leg, and examines it. He takes out his dagger and begins to remove the stake that was inserted into his damaged leg. The others were gone, restarting the trip to Piacenza. Etréstles managed to climb a steed, and followed him - The float remained without them supposedly to arrive safely at Piacenza. But at 5 km, before reaching the city they are struck by a lightning bolt from a sudden storm. What misdirects his route - the passengers were left intact, only fatally suffered the loss of the driver. (It was verified by Vernarth when he arrived at his home in Piacenza).   As  Vernarth rode fast in the storm, trying to catch up with the carriage. Stress them towards the same to reach their brother. They rode propagating the pastures that passed near the forests of Val Trebbia. When the storm intensified instantly, it was wise to take refuge and wait for the flood to decrease. They were always close to each other. Etréstles about 18 km from Vernarth, they did not know it, but the horses sensed each other. They already distinguished, that they were close to each other, but it was necessary to take care of the horse, and have to check its hoof again. He checks it and notices that it had a green stripe in the four parts, like a pigment already placed concentrically in the middle of each hoof.


Ellipses Gaugamela - Final War
Vernarth bids farewells farewell. Once the Achaemenides are surrendered, he prepares to review them. Walk with Alikanto across the ****** plain. Reviewing his five hundred dead and three thousand wounded, he goes to recirculate in the footsteps of the attack, manages to see lead as a sentinel gathered wounded horses, but not serious. He approaches him and says Khaire; asking what unit they came from. He tells them of the Hosts of the command of Hefestion. The sentinel tells him, that he was enraptured by the fact before his eyes to see that all the horses of the line of Hefestion, Alexander the Great and Vernarth, to fascinate him that they had a green stripe on his left hoof. Wedge riders are formed, lining up the stable, towards the court of the guards and Macedonian monarchs. She dismounts from Alikanto and checks the chestnut trees, managing to insinuate that it could be Medea's ploy of the smiling charm towards her Hetairoi dancers, whose elite had bracelets on each leg on each chestnut. Also with the offensive weapon, they acted as the Macedonian's personal guard. Vernarth recalled that, before starting the offensive, with his blessed Xifos he inflicted light wounds on the left foot of his Phalanges in the act of "overtaking them before being stained by the enemy"

Vernarth says: Here is the cavalry that has received so much praise for «hammer» in the strategies, because it crushed the enemy units retained by the «anvil» or the «phalanx» that I had to command and lead the charge, intoning the riders. And even more the circumcisions that he gave them before entering combat. With the Hetairoi I was organizing squadrons of 200 to 300 soldiers, while they were checking the chestnut trees. In the campaign, they would ride the best horses, ******* or on the blanket, they were awarded the best weapons available. Each carried his long throwing spear Xyston, accompanied by a Kopis sword, for hand-to-hand combat, which in the interlude would defend his flax and bronze breastplate, with respective protective armbands and helmet, before lightly tackling his aggression . The horses were also partially protected, but not their hooves! I gave them the final instruction by decree to take them to the altarpieces and attend to them, so that they check their left hoof.Thus giving signs of great concern about the green stripe on each of its left hooves. Sentinel Hetairoi, with some of his servants, gather the animals and transport them where they have been ordered to tend and examine them. As the designs collapse over the night in gloomy litanies, Medea bursts into a great green outfit saying:

Medea: Vernarth, rancid are on my memory the potions and designs of those who want to talk about me or offer me in their lust.Where the zeal of anxiety deceives the wishful arms that welcome the victorious pleasure. Hooves are my skeptics and famous decisions, because I am weak in will but not in character. Green is the pouring of my converted powers into the veins of the horses. They were carriers in their eloquent ferocity. Instead of blood, I had sap from the magic vessels that I transferred to them so as not to doubt the doubts. Their object is that a green band was encased in their hooves as a sign of the Hipnos promontory through their Son Clovis, to plunge all the forests of the raging underworld, towards the heart of each "Valiant Hetairoi".


Outside ellipsis / near Piacenza
Vernarth and Etréstles in a post-storm clearing, a soft breeze greets them and they meet again, they greet Khaire! And together they reroute to the empty pastures, which would gradually begin to venture them through the farthest forests of the Val Trebbia. On some brown plains with poor colors that visited him falling as they faded on his mirage. From this unusual crossroads they will supremely perceive the closeness of Piacenza in their breathing.
Now they are in the vicinity of the Cimitero de Piaceza. Then they will have to go home on the Via Giovanni Codagnello, on the calendar of January 2020. The Parapsychological Regression continues.


Piacenza Cemetery, January 20, 2020
Vernarth and Etréstles entered the necropolis long before sunset. They were carrying a cake to celebrate Vernarth's birthday. Night Patrol joined the visit. In particular, they followed a night watch service that was active, trusting their guide Piacenza or the surrounding area, with 3 internal night patrol passages 365 days a year, for the rest of lives beyond all material life, perhaps turned into marble statues.
They hired a special service dedicated to the approved service for 2 people .; They were active during the caretaker's office opening hours (the same opening hours as the cemetery). With this service they overcame difficulties to walk after so much traveling. They leave the green-hoofed horses, now turned into statues. They request authorization from the entrance cemetery offices, to honor their belonging and to please those who visit them on their behalf. In Genoa, after having passed through the exterior without entering, they were ecstatic with the Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa (the most monumental in Italy).But if they enter the Piacenza, where the sanitary monumentality passed through the real function of such an enclosure in the contingency. It was commented by the neighboring offices that the migration of corpses from Bergamos were moved to Modena, Acqui Terme, Domodossola, Parma, Piacenza to carry out the respective ceremonies. Due to the great Viral Pandemic that decimated a great majority of Italian citizens in these areas. Vernarth became aware of the current reality, saw how a gravedigger conversed with the crowds, there was a nurse, a doctor and a prodigal man who concentrated on uploading moods to those who were there, almost like a caster, to relieve them of this transitory despite humanity.
They continue past the pyramidal pines, to the central pavilion. They sit on the edge of some flagstones, and take the cake to celebrate their birthday. They sing a hymn and they both enjoy it lovingly. Etréstles saw that he had a little cream left on his nose and cheekbone, running his hand to remove it. In the instant, the guard calls them; it was time to go because it was time to close the compound. They say goodbye with a monumental hug paying tribute to their brother!


Etréstles says: Honors Vernarth, for your immeasurable Valor! It is a great contribution that we divide our work and commitments. From here I go to the Messolonghi Cemetery. I will only wait for the crescent moon to meet the Charioteer, then leave with him and my beloved Drestnia. My Xifos Sword in my right hand and the head that I cut off in my left hand, in Gaugamela before that rugged fate! Khaire, My honors Commander Etréstles!. It remains in the shadow of some pyramidal pine trees of this sublime night, and then they distance themselves. Vernarth leaves the compound heading towards his house relatively close to the cemetery, on the Via Giovanni Codagnello.


Final session in Vía Codagnello, Piacenza:
Vernarth enters opens the door and everyone is waiting for him. Huge groups of friends, work colleagues, family, their pets, and especially the Parapsychologist, who had commanded this whole great session. They all approach her and in the instant, Vernarth awakes abruptly from the parapsychological session. They stabilize it and check your vital signs. There were many days of this odyssey. His awakening was mediatic, since they were attentive to him to question him and confess everything, but he was clear that his purpose would lead him to the confines of Patmos along with Raeder and Petrobus. It remained only to wait for the tenuity of a simple immortal warrior to assist in the services of John the Evangelist. The parapsychologist says you have to wake up, you can no longer be AND stay here in this temporary tube!
Once he has refused to wake up, he takes the itinerary to return to Macedonia. The visibly worn and stunned parapsychologist demands that he give up and obey his command. The effort was unproductive, only letting himself be carried by the grip of his right hand, taking his other with great vigor to remove it from shamelessness, from whom he does not suppress his pride to who still remains wounded by the swords that bleed his soul in Gaugamela. "Everyone is amazed and resigned !, pointing out that he must have always been in the surroundings of his beloved Macedonia, cutting the bursts of succulent insolence on the same temperate cliffs, where some variation of the sounds of the wind would make him saddle his Alikanto to acclaim the gods who came looking for him ”

Vernarth is engulfed in ambivalence, almost celebrating his birthday and waking up from his parapsychological journey. Both will take place, but the session will continue irrevocably. After a few days close to the first day of the crescent moon, he greeted him from a privileged place on his house Etréstles de Kalavrita who was with the Charioteer in his car and Drestnia, they went in that masterful car to join the chores of the Koumetrium Messolonghi (Editorial Palibrio - USA) .So returning to Messolonghi, to meet his disciples and essences of the foundation of his naturalness.


Hegira to Patmos
On a gray day in July 1820. Piacenza slept under the ambush of the revolution, in Italy there was a situation similar to that of another European nation. Vernarth was preparing his last details with the parapsychologist, to undertake his Hegira to Patmos, since he was a revolutionary and this was of great motivation to emigrate from this constant stage of Wars and sociopolitical processes. Manage to be a participant in this revolt in the Piedmont area. Its ideological axes were liberalism and nationalism. Given that the most affected countries were those of southern Europe (episodes from other areas, such as Germany or France, were much less important), with Spain as epicenter of a movement that extended to Italy and Portugal, and on the other hand Greece; It has been called the Mediterranean cycle as opposed to the Atlantic cycle that had preceded it in the previous generation (the first liberal revolutions or bourgeois revolutions, produced on both sides of the ocean: the Independence of the United States -1776- and the French Revolution -1789- ). As compromised great principalities of much of Europe were banned, it participates in great dissolution of collisions and invasions that involved it. In this way he would liberate his Homeland, especially his province of Piacenza.

Although the "Kingdom of Italy" as such did not exist, there were two great kingdoms that participated in the Revolutions of 1820: the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Piedmont. However, most of the revolutionary movements were driven by secret societies, such as coal. The Kingdom of Piedmont was also one of the most affected, since it was at the epicenter of Italian nationalism. It was controlled by Víctor Manuel I, member of the House of Savoy and defender of the Old Regime. The monarch had only been on the throne for 6 years, since he returned to Turin in 1814 due to the defeat of Napoleon. Since his return, various factions within the country advocated for a unification of all the Italian kingdoms. The unstable situation of its neighbor, the Kingdom of Naples, caused the carbonarians within Piedmont to revolt in March 1821.

Conclusive Hegira ellipsis to Patmos:
After this great conflict, he orders his parapsychologist to resume his final session in Patmos; he begins the procedure for the era that he had to trespass anachronistically, returning to the era of the Macedonian Empire. The parapsychologist asks him time, place, dates, clothing, customs, and manages to meet his request. He enters the portal, and in the backwaters of Messolonghi he meets Raeder and Petrobus. They were close to this heroic land, Messolonghi in the Gulf of Patras, the capital of Aetolia-Acarnania. Nothing less than in the land of his Brother Etréstles "Koumeterium Messolonghi".


"They all approach the vicinity, pray three times to heaven, and manage to be abducted to the underworld of Messolonghi. When they were snooping through the catacombs, they make out the surroundings of a luminous vault, thus distinguishing a woman passing by with others. It was the beautiful nymph Eurydice inaugurating The Constitution of a new Government”.
Eurydice and the gravediggers worked for the new government to be instituted. They were reviewing the last ground plans that converged on the tenth cemetery.
Eurydice ...: with the absence of Etréstles and Drestnia we will make her awakening continue, whose awakening phase closely relates to her wife.
Grave ...: Where do we start?
Eurydice ...: by the southwestern statue of Ashurbanipal, to pay tribute to Botsaris. Then, we will go up to receive the cordoned off tomb of Bramante and Ghiberti, so that the latter can advise us regarding the work to be erected.
They climb the northeast pavilion to the foundations of a mausoleum. They approach the slab of Ghiberti, who was loosening his fingers, sitting on the shore of a Pyramid-shaped cypress. Bramante vanished into the gray beams of light...

Ghiberti ...: I already know your mission. I am summoned to the Council on the day of the sailors' return. To start, they went to the mines to look for precious stones, stones to build Markos Botsaris.
Eurydice ...: Good! Well, in nine moons and nine suns they will return from the coasts of Morocco, the last docking point, so that they can then return. At the moment they are already warned.
Just back, there was a Lover with her right hand holding her chin.

Inamorada In Love ...: Five centuries ago I awaited my awakening, my lover promised to return ... with these verses...:
"I want to be different,
I want to take you my love...
and tell you that by missing you
there is no greater sadness than not seeing you ...
Forgive me for not coming back...
before my absence caused your death,
Wait for me ... I'm going to tell you ... how I miss you
Along with my immortality of feeling...!  How I miss you...!!

... He still tells me this, but from here, under the embankment of the cemetery I feel that he is far away and I can do nothing. Also, I have it in my memory and one day we will meet here. The Enamorada continues to sit and watch armies of soldiers being thrown into graves, their bodies severed. As she continues; ... there is more life here than on the surface, and the trenches replace the concave wombs, as vessels! As everything here lives, even the flowing and hallucinatory invocations are perceived from the Poets, Alchemists and Astronomers. They make the invisible go in a formidable adventure to the site of their magical hallucinations.
Eurydice ...: Stay on your stone, with your chiffon dress; here you will see the arrival of Etréstles. He will bring news from other lands to answer you. Now dispense if we delay, sadness will fall on the other beings who are being buried and transhumated. The Enamorada remained on the stone with her knees resting on her chest. Eurydice and her assistants went to their rooms. "
All this they manage to witness, and then go in search of Etréstles on the same tenth cemetery floor. Raeder and Petrobus were laughing and at the same time they were impressed, as if wanting to remember him when they have to leave directly from Messolonghi to Patmos, towards the Dodecanese region. In the meantime Vernarth was searching for his brother in all the nearby areas of the catacombs flashing penetrating light, unable to find him. He arrives at the ninth cemetery and is fascinated by a feminine image that would seem like a phantasmagorical chimera ..., it was Drestnia moistening some ferns on some crypts making gestures to see them already grown, even if they had just been planted...!

They approach her intimacy and ask her greetings, Drestnia answers them abstractedly that Etréstles traveled to Patmos to applaud the maiden ceremonies that would be wed in the spring in the nearby meadows. Being able to settle in The Monastery of Zoodochos Pigi, and who later went to the hills of Castelli, as it has been known that everything has been celebrated on a hill that many hundreds of years ago has sheltered our historical fragrances in the unity of the ethereal until the present. Such ruins among some works as well as the Temple of Apollo that will continue to survive with its prevailing mystery not revealed.
Etréstles gives them their congratulations and wraps his arms around Drestnia. They evacuate the cemetery, remaining abstracted in the internal darkness of the catacombs with fewer lights than a feasible twilight of darkness, as if immediately leaving Etréstles to be with him in the spring, shedding light on herself taking them to the Castelli hills, which they would figure in the sweetened exaltation of the pollinations of the nymphs on the maternal and ****** maidens.

They go out and spread their impulses over the promontory of the Koumeterium of Messolonghi with Raeder and Petrobus on Raeder's shoulders. Vernarth invoked the north with her staff where Alikanto would appear with her hooves with greenish stripes.

Raeder says:  Let's go. On those warm currents to follow we will not unite you Vernarth. Smiling, the fantastic boy danced, forming figures that enlivened him to hold on to the legs of Petrobus. They both stared at Vernarth and raised high above the warm clouds. Beneath the Messolonghi miniature, she had Vernarth's sights on them; she was putting reins and her Hoplite tunic, to mount Alikanto. He looks around and makes a big sign to Raeder to follow him to where he was, they suspend themselves and manage to go back to the highest mass of misty airs that would take them against the clock towards Patmos to meet Saint John and Etréstles.
HEGIRA TO PATMOS  /  COPYRIGHT
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2016
the only shame i feel: muslims hold a single book to be synonymous of a library.

apologies, this is why i wasn't fully integrated,
i hold enough respect for the English ethnicity to keep
the reins on my Slavic origin, and its ancient history,
i want to see the Graeae cauldron
of multiple-ethnicity and culturalism:
what with former slaves learning
rap to topple the slavish shackles?
no one ever heard my story under
the Germans, Russians and Austro-Hungarians,
all those to topple Israel already toppled me
to migrate and leave my mother *******
toward an an export: until the black gold runs
out you sand-******... until the oil runs out...
until the oil runs out...
you're the one abusing it because you have it...
until the oil runs out sand-******...
you gonna take the slang out of me?
what is it now? global or feminist tactic?
Chine ain't about to give Dagenham back,
like they're not giving Ostrowiec Św.:
first division in 1997.. extra-class...
yummie piggies at the trough:
money was created to pacify and let
rich boy girls' spend...
      Lwów / Lvov was still in poker hands
of Roosevelt... so much for ******* H'america...
     biker-clan-glandular-rhaps (or plural of odes):
****! i hate belonging to come or some thing...
i always thought about comedy prone enlarged *******
for the geography between left ****** antarctic and
right ****** arctic in tune with the jiggly fatty-bergs..
no... factual-bergs...
but you'd never disintegrate into a 0a.d.
given the colonial history narrative that doesn't
involve the old testament and ***-kissers and
hefty conservative ***-pleasers like the book
of Antioch proposed... made that up...
got mixed up thinking on the necromancer of
the year that was actually 1997-8
17th *KSZO Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski
, tablature
pld.     pts.        w.   d.     l.    f.      a.
         34      24    6   6 22 24 47...
piggie piggie: got the giddy giggly ***** ****-a-doodle-do...
and i know i would too...
small town Polish town, a big Russian
would-be clever-pincer attracted to ******-pinching,
and all the milky drools, down the Nile toward
Cairo, so long as you wife is an Oasis of hamburgers and
strobe-berry epileptics, i.e.: blink 182's what's my age again?
i speak the ******* sprechen and i don't even belong
here... it's like i'm apologising for something that
was coming... thankfully i'm resolved to integrate cognitively
but in the domestic realm have nothing to do with
this language...
     i don't want to speak it to my mother,
i don't want to speak it to my father,
i can't afford to rent a house and prolong a university
bachelor lifestyle, the arabs and nigerians bought
all the flats out and are renting them out...
hopefully to Somalian pirates for: essex tan orange
sake in terms of: if i figured my tongue was an
axe in the first place... i'd lace my life with
many more people applauding...
i never understood this desire to integrate without
having the right to censor what i'm about to
embrace... a contract, much of smallprint readied
on the fidgety hand...
       it's not that i suddenly chose to
ethnically suspend my origins for a need to respect,
i kept my mother tongue for times such as these,
when i can't be approached as white and as inheritor
of colonialism... if i say i'm German they'll *******
clap, i remember once they asked me as if i were
going to do an app. for the caliphate asking me:
you German? no... Polish... huh? what's that?
somewhere in between Germany and Russia...
now i can't claim the ethnicity that my's right hand
of use with tongue... and now i can't claim the
tongue that isn't the ethnicity but is otherwise my
limb-for-limb... 5p.m. tea 100 years later is
a hijab on the streets of Birmingham...
no secret... i just see why i need to be involved like
some James Dean "wannabe" schizoid spice...
there will be no news from Poland concerning
the migrant crisis, no talk of a Muslim takeover...
ironically, as Monty Python would have said:
everyone was expecting a Polish Inquisition,
or as the crowds chanted: Evangelism! not the Quran!
happily are those: seeing America involve
itself in this slogan... me? as ever, the Pontius Pilate:
i said it once, i'll say it again:
panic is worse than fascism...
   panic is worse than fascism...
you don't expect panic, hence the beasts' stampede
in urban areas... fascism? you know it's
coming, and you know it's not good...
             fascism is panic realised too late,
fascism is panic organised... you knew it was coming
and you did nothing to prevent it...
  the only thing that could have prevented Trump
winning the presidency was acknowledging an unequivocal
membership of the union... Cracow wasn't built in
one day... trigger ******* happy panic button: press!
press! oppress! that special relationship of yours?
yeah... ye'ha! rear 'em in with that quiff of yours, cowboy!
ye'ha!
please don't get me involved, i know how to
impale a turk on a rotten wooden stump, rather than
crucify a Syrian on a geometric of mahogany
amid sacred words: so descended onto a mosque's minaret
and the hippy-hair-debate, and no hair and the hajj.
i know, people are apprehensive you're not a businessman
employing 100 slave Mongolians enlisted to blowing
up 1000 helium filled balloons an hour for birthday
party contracts... and none of them are properly trained
in ventriloquist's chipmunk!
              james dean was the original schizophrenic...
who treated society as an asylum,
and the asylum as a garden of Eden...
                                       lucky him: mono-linguistic...
   i sometimes wish i had that luxury on inherent
cleansing of ethnicity, so i could be left with only
a culinary boasting akin to the Persian quote on
falafel... but then you never know who's side you're
gonna be on...
i might as well quote him akin to j. franco post-doppelganger:
you're tearing me apart!
                                   and they say people think...
nonetheless: whether thinking or not,
they are... a welcome aversion in finding pleasure in
zoos; esp. the times when they're sweating like sardines
stashed in vulvas on underground trains: ventriloquists'
suggestion? moans: foetal moans... get me out of here...
otherwise groaned? harder... mm... deeper...
make your pelvis kiss my pelvis! mmm... baby!
first your read the Marquis to get a hard-on,
then you ****-off that hard-on...
and then you do a hand-job to someone else
and pass on the Oxfam motto to some other "hungry" Afrikaan.
Robert C Howard Feb 2019
Morning Rainbow

Myriad prismatic crystals,
     refract the morning sun-streams -
painting layers of spectral arches
     across the misted horizon.

Eyes turned to the western skies,
     we suspend our meteorological selves  
acquiescing to miracles unveiled before us -
     un-beckoned and scarcely earned,
proffering thanks for the radiant epistle
     of healing, hope and promise,
artfully encoded in transfigured light.

Synthetic Refractions

A luminary ballet takes center stage
    when synthetic refractors come to play:
crystal pendants bathe our foyers
      with dazzling swaths of color.
Hazy coronas encircle streetlamps
      discovered by headlights through the fog.
A science class prism slices light rays
     into pre-ordered spectral strata.

If the sky denies us a rainbow,
     we can always fashion one of our own
and we do!



Spectral Sound

Before there was music,
     bird songs brushed our souls
and the murmur of woodland streams
     held us captive by their banks.

Soon we learned to sing and tint the air
    With prisms of wood and wire and metal
and to color soundscapes in our spirits
     With songs of wonder, joy and longing.

Before there was music,
     bird songs brushed our souls.

Robert Charles Howard, 2019
This is a rewrite and expansion of a prior poem called Morning Rainbow. The poems are design to go with an original piece for solo flute also called Prisms.
vircapio gale Jul 2012
the story went as though
she'd always known the sea
and trusted in its depth
to mellow any ill, caress her
open lovingkind as in a dream.
and dream she would upon the waves,
having settled into floating reverie.
she'd close her eyes and inhale being
there among herself caressing only
ocean, only breath, all sunlit space
to draw her earthly trials gently out.
softened beachside noise would fade
and let alone her ears to hear
the water oneness dipping clear
and deeper in the troughs, for distance
from the stranded holidays,
the beachy noise of seaside frills
and bear her boyancy to rest
in lilting motion, peaceful cresting sleep
atop an intercontinental,
earthsize water bed.
her trust profoundly spanned
the trans-atlantic rift
and any rift to set apart her undulating
ancient ocean mastery. moon
and sun were kneading vastly where
her snores were lost in starfish whispers balancing
the tidal volume set
to always fill and keep afloat,
or otherwise to wake in
sputters and a salty throat.
her body settles into swinging comfort
napping over waves so deep the shore recedes...
... what bright, kind, clarity cascaded in your dreams?
what heart you had, embracing open quiddity,
never sinking nowness breath alert in lucid sleep
and water surface mystic skyward shallow course?
to merfolk gazing up in wonderment
you limply crossed their bouncing sky,
just another flight of fancy in a world of mystery?
did you dream you were a whalesong
sphering out to carry sadness sonorously? did you
school the many impulse-thoughts to clump and flee
the jaws of time? did you bask in light
and find a shining womb of self
to nurture once again and labor out anew?
did gravity make sense to you?
i float sometimes and live that question true.
sleeping far you drifted out and out and in and out of view
and whistles drowned in gathered drama fear
'my grandma! my grandma!'
screamed my cousin at the lifeguard
sweating ******* and leaping over stroke to spash
into your side a breathless shouting mess for you to calm
and ask 'what's wrong?' and angle slowly back to shore
in fits of giggles, bubble laughter at commotion's reach.
they blink in crowds, standing herdlike on the beach.

and now you swim your last,
another summer day.
like any other i awoke
and fed you eggs, so soft
     (at first it wrinkled my nose),
but taste is strange, and slimy works
just fine sometimes,
like in the absence of teeth.
she never liked her dentures,
     (she said she couldn't taste her food)
and gummed her frozen dinner meals with a smile,
like it was the greatest thing in the world.
     (in fact she'd often say, 'that was the best meal i had ever had',
     and with a force that made me happy to suspend my doubt)
and who am i, judging
that which you select? your pills,
your diapers and your vote,
your shows, your nursery rhymes,
your crown manipulation,
your age?
i use abjection well,
as something not unlike a whetstone for denial.
performing daily rituals i abhor
i retrain and edit, revising social eyes:
dilapidated fictions, safer norms
and mores tailored to a loan
with interest from the self.

she didn't call herself a 'nudist,'
though she lived beyond the fence
living **** for decades saying
'i'll never leave, i love my home.'
we played dominoes 'til noon
'another kind of indoor game, one on a side'
her interpretation of my being there
changed soon, like my aversion
for the liquid yoke she buttered with a spoon.
our neighbors loved her and i,
and to meander down our path,
lay their towels and sit
like all there was to do was visit.
lunched,
she hobbles from her plants back to the sink,
and filling the cat dish, stands
century-old arms akimbo
in the doorway, with a sigh to wake the sun.
being of caretaking was never so fun.
holding hands i help her over roots,
around the rocky sections, through
the easy path and level now
she hobbles sure, the cane a decoration
for her pride at being old and young
at heart and quick at stories overtold
in grooves to satisfy the sense of time.
greetings shower us with beaming smiles,
inching to the sandy edge. denuding,
joining everyone, we stand engulfed
in air. modern digambar to don
a vaster cloth of letting be.
skinny dipping grandma, and me.
the water slips around
her fraglile skin, human driftwood
knotted with a smile.
a grand mother slipping through akashic cracks
to undiscover friends their seeing core.
they wonder at the shore
of hoary plight
and wonder on, once we're gone.
1
Flood-Tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face
   to face.

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious
   you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning
   home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more
   to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the
   day,
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every
   one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,
The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on
   the walk in the street and the passage over the river,
The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,
The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to
   shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the
   heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half
   an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others
   will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the
   falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

3
It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many
   generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the
   bright flow, I was refresh’d,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift
   current, I stood yet was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the
   thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,
Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air
   floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left
   the rest in strong shadow,
Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the
   south,
Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my
   head in the sunlit water,
Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at
   anchor,
The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender
   serpentine pennants,
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their
   pilothouses,

The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the
   wheels,
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the
   frolic-some crests and glistening,
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the
   granite storehouses by the docks,
On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on
   each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning
   high and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow
   light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of
   streets.

4
These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
The men and women I saw were all near to me,
Others the same-others who look back on me because I look’d forward
   to them,
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

5
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails
   not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the
   waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon
   me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had receiv’d identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I
   should be of my body.

6
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also,

The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality
   meagre?
Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me.
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not
   wanting,

Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these
   wanting,
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as
   they saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of
   their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet
   never told them a word,
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing,
   sleeping,
Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we
   like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

7
Closer yet I approach you,
What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my
   stores in advance,
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you
   now, for all you cannot see me?

8
Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than
   mast-hemm’d Manhattan?
River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide?
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the
   twilight, and the belated lighter?

What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with
   voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as
   approach?
What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that
   looks in my face?
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?

We understand then do we not?
What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not
   accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not?

9
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the
   men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of
   Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public
   assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my
   nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or
   actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one
   makes it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be
   looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet
   haste with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in
   the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all
   downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any
   one’s head, in the sunlit water!
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d
   schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at
   nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!

Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest
   aromas,
Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and
   sufficient rivers,
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate
   henceforward,
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves
   from us,
We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently
   within us,
We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,
You furnish your parts toward eternity,
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
Wanderer Jul 2012
Waking up startled, to battering wind and rain.
Tide marks surging to great gasping heights.
Catching breaths stolen by the wind.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Watching idly by while pieces of you dissolve into the shadows.
I want those clouds weaving through my fingertips.
Their curious renderings like powdered ***** sugar.
Taste it and they fall heavy with gloom like **** death in the aftermath of such storm.

Counting the miles to the storm.
Ticking, tocking, and clicking.
The clock waiting in anticipation for the next thunderous sound.
Cold shivers up my spine like a thousand Carolina insults.
Your ghost still haunts and seeps into my pores lastly at night.
I taste defeat in the way you love.
It's like weaving clouds between my fingertips
Trying to grasp and hold onto every flowing motion of you pulling away from me

My cold, cracked walls are surged.
Towered over in their crumbling decay.
I want to taste your rain.
Your lips gently sink into mine.
Crushed velvet smooth and warm waking up the army of dead hearts ready for battle.
I am no warrior but there's blood painted across my sky.
Red sky in the morning, sailors warning, as I float on out into your turbulent seas.
Looking back on shore I realize that I'm finally home.

These seas roll uneasy.
Queasy.
Watching thru the mist towards our lighthouse that guided us to these depths
Trembling away like an afterthought.
The land has disappeared into the mouth of the shark.
Digested in the belly of a whale of angels.
Our sorrow holds us here, anchoring us to the tumultuous waves.
We battle our sea sickness with kisses of death lingering.
The soft pull of our exile turned oblivion.

Navigating with open wounds the silky expanse of midnight unwinding above us, within us.
Knowing us through and through.
An island of quivering vulnerability breaks the static horizon.
Lights, smog beginning to choke the sea air in my lungs.
Too long you've been left unkempt, grown comfortable.
That will change with new currents,
North winds bringing the frigid breath of winter.

Licking the sun off of the salty expanse of our sunburned red flesh.
The ****** of desperation lingers thru our moaning fingers
Feeling and pleading for our SOS call to be heard by anyone’s ears but ours.
The shores of this icy water leave my mind beneath the dredges of polar sleep.
We've grown strained, frost bitten, and distant in the few feet we are able to part.
The growling of hunger satiates our parched thirst.

I am rendered speechless adrift without you.
Hurricanes a coming.
Stand fast.
Secure the riggings.
Solaris brightens to light the way into calmer seas.
Those tepid shores of wonder and new beginnings fade into the horizon.
It's just you and me left to face the swelling tide.
Hang on.
The water is rising.
No one left to pull us saturated and insatiable from these waters of shadow and secrets.

The siren's song will bring us to our sharp shore end.
Resist the silky flow of nocturnal snakes wrapped around chilled flesh
Pulling closer to our aquatic hearts.
Hades and Persephone bond.
Glowing abysmal rage.
Holy grail veins.
Bleeding back into the orange crush dawn.
Night gives way to hollow rebirth
But once again we are inside one another.
Infinite.

These waves crash on overboard.
Trying to drag us back into the frigid depths with each ebb and flow.
With each crash of wave I can feel our resolve growing weaker.
The sensation of just letting go and giving in.
Should we let go and just give in?
Leave ourselves at the mercy of shipwrecks.
This hurricane dance we've perfected on the endless depthless ocean
Left us weak and willing to pull ourselves apart.
To taste our insides on the outsides.
How many times I've wondered have you noticed my stare.
The lustful licking of my sun blistered lips.
I want to taste the way you think and feel the warmth of your life to keep me alive.
The oceans call, I have heard, brings out the worst in sailors.
Always searching for the elusive siren to sing us a song.
A song from the depths of mythology to lullaby us away from our status adrift.

Our bodies collide in the tide once more.
Salted skin heated and torn
Latching on to something greater than just depths of starless prose.
You were a wicker man, weaved strong and whole.
I was a water girl, slipping straight through your bowl.
Wishes flow to and fro on tepid air laced with promises.
Our fingertips will never lose grip again,
the melody writhing between us like staccato heartbeats
Seeking solace on the endless seas.*

These waves rock us to shoreline.
Rock strewn and littered with the ribcages of whales
And the bows and sterns of shipwrecks long ago.
We pick up these pieces and hold them closest to our chest
Realizing the possibilities of a new home and a new start to this oceanic life we've drifted into.
We build a fire to warm our hearts and suspend our thoughts
Cradled and nestled in the crook of each others arms we leave our sea and our island
Soaring high into the clouds and the sleep we’ve begged for with our parched lips and swollen tongues.
Our dreams at night are the call of the sea begging to be drowned in our sand encrusted lungs,
To be one with us and our failures
The bequeathing cry of the seagull wakes us dully from our slumber
We peer out with sea salted eyes and realize it was all just a dream
We shout for help with all the voice we can muster
Letting in lungs full of icy ocean and dead crustaceans
Filling our bodies like bags of sand immobile
We’ve been sleeping with our anchors held closely
Down in the depths of the endless ocean rolling.
Plain text BK Barnes
Italicised text Brook Ilges
Marshal Gebbie Jul 2010
Catch the motes of dust in light
To feel the threads of time suspend,
In serenade of life’s allure
Where precious moments never end.

Silver tears run down the cheek
In swift departures curled embrace,
Poingnancy for moments few
Of entwined limbs and whiskered face.

Separations loneliness
In gnawing of the very soul,
The wish for time to dissipate
To make the separate halves a whole.

Anticipation’s rawness now
Throws arrowed light to early shroud,
The eagerness to touch and kiss
Brings clear blue sky to morning cloud.

Rationalize the wonderment
Of slender fingers through your hair,
In fantasy of sheer delight
Her silhouette reflected there.

Hold the tantalizing heat
Of tender fires of passion bound
In throngs of longing, deeply felt,
Within the belly’s tufted mound

Exhaustion in the tangled sheet
As bands of sunlight kiss your hair,
Gently now, in drifted sleep
And gales of pleasure fill the air.

Catch the motes of dust in light
To feel the threads of time suspend
In serenade of life’s allure
Where precious moments never end.


Marshalg
Victoria Park tunnel
Auckland
24 July 2010
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
Many years ago
When I was bored
I would set afire
A glob of hand soap
On the counter
And above it
I would suspend
A penny
And wait

Nothing at first
Patience was key
But then
A ripple
Then nothing
Then a violent tear
And from it
True color
Would escape
That copper facade
Like a tiny T-1000
And fall

Through the air

Shining
Morphing
Adapting
Impacting
Freezing
Frozen
Still
Science!
Brandon Jul 2012
Waking up startled, to battering wind and rain.
Tide marks surging to great gasping heights.
Catching breaths stolen by the wind.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Watching idly by while pieces of you dissolve into the shadows.
I want those clouds weaving through my fingertips.
Their curious renderings like powdered ***** sugar.
Taste it and they fall heavy with gloom like **** death in the aftermath of such storm.

Counting the miles to the storm.
Ticking, tocking, and clicking.
The clock waiting in anticipation for the next thunderous sound.
Cold shivers up my spine like a thousand Carolina insults.
Your ghost still haunts and seeps into my pores lastly at night.
I taste defeat in the way you love.
It's like weaving clouds between my fingertips
Trying to grasp and hold onto every flowing motion of you pulling away from me


My cold, cracked walls are surged.
Towered over in their crumbling decay.
I want to taste your rain.
Your lips gently sink into mine.
Crushed velvet smooth and warm waking up the army of dead hearts ready for battle.
I am no warrior but there's blood painted across my sky.
Red sky in the morning, sailors warning, as I float on out into your turbulent seas.
Looking back on shore I realize that I'm finally home.

These seas roll uneasy.
Queasy.
Watching thru the mist towards our lighthouse that guided us to these depths
Trembling away like an afterthought.
The land has disappeared into the mouth of the shark.
Digested in the belly of a whale of angels.
Our sorrow holds us here, anchoring us to the tumultuous waves.
We battle our sea sickness with kisses of death lingering.
The soft pull of our exile turned oblivion.


Navigating with open wounds the silky expanse of midnight unwinding above us, within us.
Knowing us through and through.
An island of quivering vulnerability breaks the static horizon.
Lights, smog beginning to choke the sea air in my lungs.
Too long you've been left unkempt, grown comfortable.
That will change with new currents,
North winds bringing the frigid breath of winter.

Licking the sun off of the salty expanse of our sunburned red flesh.
The ****** of desperation lingers thru our moaning fingers
Feeling and pleading for our SOS call to be heard by anyone’s ears but ours.
The shores of this icy water leave my mind beneath the dredges of polar sleep.
We've grown strained, frost bitten, and distant in the few feet we are able to part.
The growling of hunger satiates our parched thirst.


I am rendered speechless adrift without you.
Hurricanes a coming.
Stand fast.
Secure the riggings.
Solaris brightens to light the way into calmer seas.
Those tepid shores of wonder and new beginnings fade into the horizon.
It's just you and me left to face the swelling tide.
Hang on.
The water is rising.
No one left to pull us saturated and insatiable from these waters of shadow and secrets.

The siren's song will bring us to our sharp shore end.
Resist the silky flow of nocturnal snakes wrapped around chilled flesh
Pulling closer to our aquatic hearts.
Hades and Persephone bond.
Glowing abysmal rage.
Holy grail veins.
Bleeding back into the orange crush dawn.
Night gives way to hollow rebirth
But once again we are inside one another.
Infinite.


These waves crash on overboard.
Trying to drag us back into the frigid depths with each ebb and flow.
With each crash of wave I can feel our resolve growing weaker.
The sensation of just letting go and giving in.
Should we let go and just give in?
Leave ourselves at the mercy of shipwrecks.
This hurricane dance we've perfected on the endless depthless ocean
Left us weak and willing to pull ourselves apart.
To taste our insides on the outsides.
How many times I've wondered have you noticed my stare.
The lustful licking of my sun blistered lips.
I want to taste the way you think and feel the warmth of your life to keep me alive.
The oceans call, I have heard, brings out the worst in sailors.
Always searching for the elusive siren to sing us a song.
A song from the depths of mythology to lullaby us away from our status adrift.


Our bodies collide in the tide once more.
Salted skin heated and torn
Latching on to something greater than just depths of starless prose.
You were a wicker man, weaved strong and whole.
I was a water girl, slipping straight through your bowl.
Wishes flow to and fro on tepid air laced with promises.
Our fingertips will never lose grip again,
the melody writhing between us like staccato heartbeats
Seeking solace on the endless seas.

*These waves rock us to shoreline.
Rock strewn and littered with the ribcages of whales
And the bows and sterns of shipwrecks long ago.
We pick up these pieces and hold them closest to our chest
Realizing the possibilities of a new home and a new start to this oceanic life we've drifted into.
We build a fire to warm our hearts and suspend our thoughts
Cradled and nestled in the crook of each others arms we leave our sea and our island
Soaring high into the clouds and the sleep we’ve begged for with our parched lips and swollen tongues.
Our dreams at night are the call of the sea begging to be drowned in our sand encrusted lungs,
To be one with us and our failures
The bequeathing cry of the seagull wakes us dully from our slumber
We peer out with sea salted eyes and realize it was all just a dream
We shout for help with all the voice we can muster
Letting in lungs full of icy ocean and dead crustaceans
Filling our bodies like bags of sand immobile
We’ve been sleeping with our anchors held closely
Down in the depths of the endless ocean rolling.
Normal text: Brook Ilges [http://hellopoetry.com/-brook-ilges]
Italicized text: B K Barnes [you're already here]
Bold text: Written by Brook, Edited by B K.
Steve Page Oct 2016
I don't believe you,
That I can't change the past.
I believe that I only need
The right level of access.
I'll live in the past with my friend regret
Refusing to venture further future.
I'll cling to hope misplaced long ago 
With almost enough rope to hang
With more than enough to secure
Familiar safe harbour.
Or perhaps to suspend belief from high hopes
Long enough to cast adrift
With just the ever present wind to give direction.

Draft #2
I don't believe you,
That I can't change the past.
I believe that I only need
To dwell on it a little more.
I'll harbour in the past with my friend, regret,
Refusing to venture further future.
I'll cling to hope misplaced long ago 
With almost enough rope to hang,
With more than enough to fasten
To that familiar safe haven
And one day I'll suspend my belief from high hopes,
Forlorn and cast adrift
With a tried and true ill wind to give direction
And find safe pasture.

Draft #3
I don't believe you,
That I can't change my past.
I believe that I only need
To dwell on it a little more
And so prise it open.
I'll shelter with my old friend,
Regret,
Refusing to venture further future.
I'll cling to a hope that I misplaced long ago 
With almost enough rope to hang from,
With more than enough to fasten myself
To that familiar safe haven.
And one day I'll suspend my belief
From high hopes, forlorn and cast adrift,
With my tried and tested ill wind
That will direct me and will find me
a well worn safe past and safe pasture.
Why is the future so scary?
I've added redrafts.  Curious as to whether you consider the redrafting adds value.
Conor Oberst Apr 2013
Well morning came and it dressed the sky
in a lovely yellow gown.
Now the shops, they are all opening
in that narrow hallway of downtown;
filled with people who are shopping for
their lovers and their friends
so they won't ever be lonely again.

Well, a forrest bench becomes backyards,
like songs are born from sound.
And the apple fell and it taught us all
that we are chained here to the ground.
So here we go, but there ain't no escape.
Yeah, these streets are just dead ends
so I will never be happy again.

Well it seems you too see a painful blue
when you stare at the sky.
You could never understand
the motion of a hand waving you goodbye.
"Bye bye."
But as the story goes, or it is often told,
a new day will arise and all the dance halls
will be full of skeletons.
They are coming back to life and on a grassy hill.
The lion will lay down with the lamb
and I won't ever be lonely again.

But until that time I think had better find
some disbelief to suspend,
because I don't want to feel like this again.
Atoosa Jun 2018
Even before our first date
You make sure we have The Conversation  
Heaven forbid I should mistake you for a man of honor
That I should have any expectation....
That you know how to treat me
As a friend .....or a lover
As a woman of substance
A lady not a *****


Your immaturity doesn’t surprise me
But until that moment that you showed your hand
I was willing to suspend my disbelief
To give you the benefit of the doubt
To let you set the bar higher
But you succeeded in lowering my expectations
Even further
Seeking a REAL MAN. Open heart, available future, ready for something true and awesome. Players and half-hearted daters need not apply. Bring the fire or go elsewhere looking for your fun cuddle bunny.....not to sound jaded. I'm not bitter. I'm just NOT wasting my time on manboys because I believe REAL MEN are out there and I want to find mine.
Tie a satin ribbon around a perfect crystal tear
Gently suspend it from your moon
Hold my loving heart sweetly in your own
Knowing, I will return to you soon

Kiss your radiant stars goodnight from me
Beaming in your peaceful skies
Wish upon the ones flying to the earth and see
All the love I hold, here in my eyes

When you close your eyes to sleep at night
Missing me, so terribly
Know your satin ribbon holds back your tears
So you will never cry for me

My loving heart is always held sweetly in your own
Glowing from your perfect moon
******* goodnight kisses into your starry skies
Knowing, I will return to you soon
Copyright *Neva Flores @2010
www.changefulstorm.blogspot.com
www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/Changefulstorm- From Hand of the Muse
alexis hill May 2016
Find. Find the nearest ledge you say
Step. Step up to the plate you say
Suspend. Suspend you say
Hang again lonely you say
Again you say
End. End it all you say to ME
I plead for escape please save me
No one will love me you say. No one.
I want nothing more than to feel free
Sweet crying sky I want to survive...
Try you say. Try to stay
My headaches to medicate it, but until
I'm ready to tread this road safely then
Call me crazy. Crazy you say. Crazy.
Insane you say. Insane.
Weak and worthless you say.
You say- No! Go away I SAY.
I am... I... I am worthy of living, loving and I am not going to give up. I am not. I say.
Emily Grace Oct 2012
Planks, splintering in solidity
Together twined in tedium
Curving cords of mated metal
Lost in ludicrous loops
Twines of tetanus protrude
Danger danger
Rising flying roaring floating
Above the stillborn trains
Arching acrid aerial arms
Lazy concrete spiral, neighbor snail
Inverse slide with railings
Rumble rumble try and grumble
Jitter in jumpy juxtaposition
Guts of grotesque giants
Flayed flawed under flaming flight
Blink away oblivion
Orange and omnificent, opaque concern
Useful hangnail, table scraps
Rise above
Shocked stillness soon stumbling
Ornamental oasis for the oracles
Unseen unheard untasted unsmelled
Unfeeling unused to understanding
Carry me across
Fly me over
Lift me beyond
Suspend.
Glimpse the unparalleled phenomenon
Ribs of steel, rain has parted
Seeping to the soul
Buzzing through the boards
Immobile, cradle in the wind
Twist
Take off your sunglasses
Be sure to look around as you pass through
EJ Aghassi Jan 2014
in some sort of twisted way
i've missed having someone make me spit

that wondrous insignificance that comes
with letting somebody under your skin

every word out of their mouth an attack
& every action they take purposely meant to exclude you
to tease you
to please them
to watch you squirm

letting somebody in

it's even worse when they sneak through
a window
without you noticing

& then it's over

they tighten their grip
around your rationale
your compassion
your free will
and suddenly

everything is about them
and everything brings you to your knees
and you want to cry out
and scream

but you wouldn't want to disturb them

it's been a while since i've jumped through hoops

but light them on fire
suspend them over impossible heights
and foolishly my heart will guide me towards
doom grounded in absolute certainty

but fight
cry
struggle
laugh
dissect yourself
as her every breath magnifies every
insecurity you thought you had completely buried

yes
in some sick way
i've missed being made so sick with care

with worry
that i don't stand tall enough in the eyes of
some inconceivable creature

an inexorably important
omnipotent mind-numbing
force
in complete control

in short,
i am ******

i've missed being ******
neth jones Apr 13
i enter the river
later the woods
tour natures suicide spots
snub them for a man made bridge
snub the bridge
    because i find life pretty today
    too pretty to bend deaths ear
                             and suspend
26/02/23 : date of earliest version
notes -
you go to the woods to end your life
to bend deaths ear and suspend
mending your feedback of strife
Intimidated by political thugs
Prone to insert in one's mouth
The nose of a loaded gun
Or suspend a plastic bottle full of water
On males' reproductive *****,
Devoid of freedom of expression
Also denied  to his right and
Deplorable condition drawing attention
Shunning his God chosen land,
What is more a bright and warm country
Under the sun ,a journalist dreaming began
Fighting all odds between
The deep blue sea and the angry Satan
To migrate to a better place,
Where for democracy
Avowedly there is a better space,
Inhabited by civilized people,
Averse to discrimination based on race!

Burning his boat,
Crossing desserts,
Crammed with other refugees,
Packed with him in a boat
Some trying  to reverse
Their economic lot,
Surfing uncharted waters
Seeking a paradise on earth
He headed to the country he sought
Though some their lives
At the hand of brutal traffickers lost
Beaten and thrown out of the boat,
Also at a port
Suspected of a terrorist bent
Many migrants to prisons were sent.

After a humiliating acid test
Why for a dreamland his country he left
As migrants' bane
They placed him at the foot
Of an ice-clad mountain.
“I will never see
My country again,
You are trying my patience in vain!"
He vowed
Despite the razor-sharp cold untold.

Then they took him up higher
An epitome to a cold fire!
Once more
He put his foot down
Putting on more clothes and
Changing attire.

They placed him
At the mountain's helm
As hell dark
Where the angel of death
Is seen stark.

Then in his head
Something began to bark
“*You rather choose
the better evil
If both your assailants and hosts
Are no two different devil! *"

Seeing first hand
Those with cold shoulder
Assylem seekers adore to attack
Though there are
Few not off humanity's track
At last he decided to return back
And under his country's sun bask
Mum for his rights to ask
Killing his journalistic knack!
About refugees mostly heading from Africa to Scandinavian countries Europe Arab countries and America.I want your feedback before I send it for group publication
Nathalie Anna Jun 2014
I saw you on the news again, aiming lies at civilians
You work like a serf to abhor the herd, which was merged by Lords to bore and encore, like a trap door in a dungeon.
What you earth and managed has got me famished, like the dense or pretentious, the meek and the senseless
And type endings to the finest that cry less, the winos that digress, or the shyest who digest
The plate which was purchased, paid to feed liars by the loudest were poisoned by us rebels running incense to the proudest.
Violently passive when distracted, these masses wreck havoc to have their heads handed to them
Sullen sweet to deter, you lure and reserve what is versed or inferred or implied or implored
Like the goodbyed or complied or the ladies waiting with lunacy lining their luxury gowns
Your disheveled and neat demanding appearance has me locked down with pirates and principle pilots
Dulled sick, they spy less, echo with insist, enlist and exist
As terrorists and presidents
Marked with malice making misfits that were mocked and disgraced, maced or laced by daydreams and magicians to assist beggars behind blueprints constructing islands
Which make slaves in to riots that capture journalists under wide tense
To suspend or impend doom sent hell bent by your priestess
You conduct chaos with fast hints, but quit slow when engaged with your conscience
Touched by divine tricks
Decided and destined, best in business
Prince of the wise man
Captain of the compassionate
Comrades with the crack heads singing anthems in kingdoms
We are heartbreakers painting bad graffiti
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2013
Preface:
Even old poets can forget new tricks,
So when toe stubbed and ah ha benedicted,
Causes you to remember what you once knew,
It feels even better, like being crazy
Once in awhile,
Or wearing an untrimmed chest Jason smile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Eons ago converted to a new religion,
The Church of Free Verse.

If life be variable,
Usually unrhymed
A pencil sketch of crisscrossed lines,
No fixed metrical pattern assigned,
Than even more so, my poetry.

Once I regretted that the children,
Crack addicted to rhyming,^
Used nickel bags and ******* lines
At the starting gate where all
Our associative poetry journey begins.

Perhaps, a tad arrogant, that diktat,
Nonetheless, unashamedly, nothing to recant.
Words have utility creative, souls innovative,
Free them guised as global explorers,
Make them up, then unleash them
Upon us, yourself, as detectives investigative.

Unchained myself like Houdini,
From water chambers and locks constraini.
What care I for poetic rules and regulations,^^
Got so many points, they tried to suspend
My government-issued poetic license.

Had myself forgot,
That a poem needs a
Frame of jungle gym sounds,
An aural aura resonance unbound.
Purposed to make the heart lift
Your ears say:

Say what!

It needs a tune,
An internal music,
It needs a lilt!
A cadence, that both
Marches and swings,
Even when'd urgent dirge
grief pours forth.

Yes my darling young ones,
Your writ of screams, like Bob Dylan's occasional schemes,
Celebrations of agonized lives of the criminally-pained,
Songs and cants of victims, love-cancer stained,
Require a whining, singsong beat.

{Poems so rad-sad that it makes this Jew
Genuflect and crisscross himself,
That he was blessed with a few good happy years,
In his reincarnated life of
A few centuries long.}


Learn 'em to sing their cries,
Harmonize the internality of love,
Or, even the infernal loss and lack thereof,
For it is the lilt
That makes, transforms a cry into a
Poem.

Even I on death's last stairway step,
When was called by the name of
Nate Hale,
My dying poem lilted, lifted and metered
"I only regret,
that I have
but one life,
to lose,
for my country."

Now you're thinking he is lost it all,
But you would be incorrect for sure.

He found it.

The lilt of life that makes him rise
And greet each morn,
Even some sorry starless nights
With a First Poem of the Day.

I lilt you, one and all.
If you think this mis-wrote,
My auto correct mentally broke,
Meant to type I love you,
You'd be
Right but wrong,
I just lilt you.
^ "People, Stop Rhyming..."


^^The Rubiyat is not where I'm at,
The Acrostic, amusing, but let it be
Someone else's cross to bear.
That the Cinquain rhymes with pain,
No accident, and Tritina is but half of a Sestina,
But twice as hard, you could look it up.
The Quatorzain another French device inane.
Shakespeare's sonnets, nonpareil,
But, refrained, quatrained, by Iambic pentameter.
Ok! Maybe the meter makes the poem lilt sweeter!

This poem Lilt of Life, I commenced, on June 10th,  when  K Balachandran, Poet Extraordinaire
Wrote me about another poem: Three poems were walking down the street."

"I dig the title, not only the lilt, it sounds esoteric..something more hidden in it,unintentionally!"

I put the word Lilt in a Poem title file, wrote a line or two, then it aged till July 11th, when it just wrote itself. So today Bala corresponded as follows:
"creative instinct, particularly poetic surge has roots in imbalance (though i really don't believe) of the mind. Yes, during the moments poetic urge becomes a sort of agitation,
this may seem true, how can one deny it.."
This agitatation of which he writes, we are all familiar with, I am sure. We emote, we wrote.  Guilty as anyone.  But it took a month of silent, back room, hidden from me,
cogitation,
to complete the poem, when it emerged from gestation period in a few minutes.  I share this with you as a public reminder/chastisement to myself that writing is both push and pull, agitation and reflection, a process,. By way of humor, I wrote Po-hymn, in 20 minutes, threw it out here instantaneously, and then did minor tinkering.  Why? I wrote it with tears in my eyes, agitated, and the only way to stop the emotive upheaval, was share it with the people here ASAP!  So it goes both ways, but net net, write it, then let it age a day or mores, then let it go, give it up, after some:
cogitation
— noun
concerted thought or reflection; meditation; contemplation: After hours of cogitation he came up with a new proposal.

Rambling the point of which is to properly thank him in view of all for reminding me
all poems, must possess some kind of lilt and being the inspiration for this baby.




7/11/2013
Cunning Linguist Apr 2015
Dissipate into oblivion
To become the nether
To lapse in consciousness

To enter the void
Flow to omniscience
Live without measure
To float through the meshwork

To drift through space-time
& Become the needle
To weave my percipience
& Teeter on the precipice

To transcend ascension
Ameliorate the ethereal
To glitch beyond boundaries
Defragment my surroundings

To eclipse the sun
In perpetual rapturing
Suspend reality
Be one with the everlasting
Dark Jewel May 2016
The words hurt,
The heart hurts.
My mind is clouded..

I love him,
He's so dear to me.
Like a fire that burns brightly..

Now..
All I see,
Is a dimming light.

Repercussions he says,
Overboard on decision.
To him,
It's just another day without me.

I love you..
I am sorry.
If the repercussions become poison..
Then it ends..

As Valkyrie,
I suspend my feelings.
The bond of wolf and mate.

To go over..
Everything..

To think this decision through.
To plea for sanity,
Would just give you pleasure.
No cope,
No way out.

You are on your own..
My love...
Sometimes you have to detach and watch from the sidelines how things go.. no matter how painful it may be...

— The End —