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Archive 12
June, 2014


From Diana Matisz, "Street Lamp Child"

PictureDiana Matisz

Street Lamp Child

12:38 am.
Tell me child,
how did you get here?
How did you find yourself
lying in an alley on your back
blows raining down on you
from the fists of other children.

Ragged freeze-frame images
of angry little faces
baby fat of childhood
clinging to sharp angles
of impending adulthood
your dark eyes
staring up in fear
haloed by a street lamp.

Children dying
world imploding
and yet,
in the safety of a quiet town
they fight and scream
kick and pummel
and for what?
Jealousies and slurs
or the unforgivable:
lack of love?

Sirens shatter
what's left of night's peace
as twenty children scatter
in a game of hide-and-seek
no longer an innocent race.
I watch as you stumble away
to a home where no one cares
and hope you sleep well, child.
I won’t.

Read the poetry of Diana Matisz
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New Bilingual Poems From Poet Milenko Županović

PictureMilenko Županović







Poems in English and Croatian

                    Birth
                     A spark of faith
                          mother's body
                          the secret of the universe
                          God smiles
                           in the eyes of a child. 

              Rođenje
  
           Iskra vjere
              tijelo majke
              tajna kosmosa
              osmjeh Boga
              u očima djeteta.

                ❧

                 Stone Graves

                        Cult of the Dead
                              unclear symbols
                              carved in stone
                              sank into the ground
                              eternal sleepers
                              forgotten secrets.

  
           Kameni grobovi   
 
              Kult mrtvih
              nejasni simboli
              uklesani u kamenu
              otonuli u zemlju
              vječni spavači
              zaboravljene tajne. 


Read the poetry of Milenko Županović
Read a profile of Milenko Županović



Two Short Lyrics From Shloka Shankar 

PictureShioka Shankar







Lock and Key

A gentle breeze sets
the curtains aflutter
and the door begins
to close in on itself

the lights in the hallway
are turned off and the narrow
gap below my door licks
the darkness clean

howling in the next street,
a dog doggedly looks for its scent
while I curl deeper under the covers

ruminating about the shadows
lurking behind my soul,
calling out to me stealthily,
inviting me to join them
as I parade my sporadic
strains of madness
kept under lock and key.


Five Line Poem

The river meanders
seemingly unaware
of its current...
never looking back
all the while.

Read the poetry of Shloka Shankar
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Poet jacob erin-cilberto Sets A Lyric In Motion

Picturejacob erin-cilberto






Set in Motion

a Coney Island boy
riding a youthful Ferris wheel
seeing the bottom and the top all at once---
feeling the pinnacle of the world in a night breeze
but getting let out where the inner city ground
hits so hard,
the penniless travelers on a NY tributary
that bleeds into back alleys and side streets
of gold teeth, and pockets full of back seat sex
boosting egos for all of an hour

i looked out that five story window
at what my life could be
but was always too afraid of heights
to challenge the world,
and i always kept checking to make sure
the safety bar was in place
so i wouldn't fall out of my dreams
in case i ever did make it to the top
where fantasies would rock my will
trying to scare me into inertia

and i would teeter
between poverty and riches
feeling as close to that hour's honest ride
as some hooker who winked at my adolescence
when my dad made a wrong turn
and we ended up in a part of town
i wasn't meant to grow up in.


Read the poetry of jacob erin-cilberto
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Rowan Taw Gives Us A New Lyric: "When" (With Audio)

PictureRowan Taw






When  ☊

When love is at an end,
I turn to the dead again;
they can’t falter from my projection,
nor suffer me rejection.
When love is at an end,
I turn to the dead again.

When love is at its start,
I walk from them apart,
caught in such fanciful delight
that is attachment’s plight.
When love is at its start,
I walk from them apart.

When love is at an end,

I turn to the dead again. 

Read the poetry of Rowan Taw
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We Welcome Poet Jillian Parker to VerseWrights

PictureJillian Parker






White Night

Because the night has swallowed the moon,
in the glare of its milk-white teeth,
the moon-daughter waits in shadow,
in the tangled mane of a weeping birch.

Is it her song that stirs the leaves,
or is it the fingers of the wind,
lunar servants, silken
reminders of silver rays?

She steps out with blind eyes,
shivering, testing her footing on
each mossy root and rock ledge,
until she finds the place in her memory,

further on and up, into a clearing
fringed with lingon-berry leaves,
where the last few star-flowers cling
to the edge of a sandstone cliff,

where she holds a twilight vigil, waiting
for the midnight sun to fade into moonlight.


Read the poetry of Jillian Parker
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New: "The Surrendering," From Poet William Fraker

PictureWilliam Fraker







The Surrendering

April forsythia surrenders yellow to backyard breezes.
The expected and unexpected gnaws, 
as I return to work and adult children depart.
Mother was ninety-one.

Nothing goes as planned, despite preparations.
The burial plot needs readjustment to receive remains.
Insurance policies require legal advice.
My brother orders twenty death certificates. 
Pictures, never noticed before, get culled and shared.
Stillness marks each next unseen step.

Cookies and cheese cover church tables. 
I hear condolences, and yet do not.
My ears brim with silence -
early morning breaths stretching 
and fading into the dark. 

Read the poetry of William Fraker
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"Dark Photograph," From Poet Eleanor Swanson

PictureEleanor Swanson







Dark Photograph

She finds the photograph, 5 x 7,
black and white and gray, depicting
three figures in complete silhouette.
Not a detail of their faces, their
features or their clothing can be
made out, though the one in the middle
a bit shorter than the other can be seen
to have long wavy hair, and the one
on the left, hands on hips, elbows
forming triangles the crepuscular
light shows through, wears a cap,
bill turned sideways.  Little can
be known of the one on the right,
round alien-shaped head melded
with the top of what might be
a spruce tree.  Above a faint horizon
line, a gray background can be seen,
suggesting mountains or smoke
from a fire billowing out of control.
Who are these people and what
happened when the fire, if it was a
fire, drew closer?  Even studying
the photograph deeply, under
magnification, reveals no more
than this. Three people, outdoors,
whose lives are in danger

Read the poetry of Eleanor Swanson
Read a profile of Eleanor Swanson



All New Haiku and Tanka From Chen-ou Liu

PictureChen-ou Liu






Haiku and Tanka

autumn twilight
a crow's cry filling the spaces
between his words

                ❧
I scribble down
today's first line
memories
rising like bubbles
from the mud of my mind

      ❧

summer moonlight
on One Thousand and One Nights
mother's smell

        ❧

my muse drones
on and on
in a monotone voice
snowflakes drifting
on this hazy spring day

Read the poetry of Chen-ou Liu
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Michele Shaw And A Sense Of "Liquid"

PictureMichele Shaw





Liquid

it’s a dream in liquid chaos
slippery
and delightful
and off balance
and filling
that shiny bubble
nesting in a burnt haystack
glinting a flash
I only half believe
and only in silent pitch
I am drawn and drawing
it’s dawning further away
slicking my sinewed lasso
graying my grip
with doubt
lovely pain and maybes
double-knot and propel me
into should I and almosts
causing a part, a vortex, a leak
freeing a wispy drop
enough to dew my palm
enough to shake my soul
enough to keep me reaching
and kicking
and swimming
in a dream of liquid chaos


Read the poetry of Michele Shaw
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Two Short Poems From The Pen Of Kathleen Rogers

PictureKathleen Rogers







daddy's girl

hail! a new birth
another mouth to feed
such a
reckless breed
no time for pictures
or carving initials
on the twisted family tree
my father delighted
with a girl
until i could ask
why?


Thoughts on turning 44

 i’ve been a boy
             a girl
 i’ve been on top of things
             and people
all with a head
              full of madness
a heart filled
              with gladness
is combustible 

Read the poetry of Kathleen Rogers
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An Autumnal Poem From Poet Juliet Wilson

PictureJuliet Wilson







Time to leave

When the artist's magical light seems to last all day
.....a warm glow slanting with a chill at its heart 

when rowan berries shine like jewels 
.....and the robin sings its sadder song

when the gold of August fields fades away to brown
.....and green becomes yellow above our heads 

then swallows and martins chatter and flutter
gather in crowds on telephone wires
and wait for the northerly wind to blow them
south—its time to go, they know

Read the poetry of Juliet Wilson
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Poet Rosa Saba Pulls An "all-nighter"

PictureRosa Saba







all-nighter

sweet crunch of dry snow
below my heels, toes cracking
as i breathe in through the soles of my feet
and inhale winter at its finest
at its latest, midnight now
and when the sun breaks
i'll be inside
and will this chill still be with me?
tonight, i told myself
i am going to find out

two hours of sleep
dangle above me, a sharp hook
that i refuse to take
because tonight is not a night
for oblivion
i've got words in me
sharp ones protruding from my spine
and soft ones whispering
saying, you'll be fine
and i don't know who to believe anymore
since i cannot believe myself
and so i look to midnight, to one in the morning
and every hour after
just give me the answer, i ask
and i'll go gently into the day

it's just days like this
when something falls into place
and i, oblivious
don't notice
until some clairvoyant seventh sense
reads me like a book, and i am opened wide
and the time it takes 
to close back up again
is a lifetime within a nighttime
and so days like this
turn into nights like these

sweet crunch of dry snow
click my heels, three times
and i'm home
and i stayed up all night 
for the first time in my life
because 
i was thinking of you

Read the poetry of Rosa Saba
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"Job's Sapling," A New Poem From Marie Anzalone

PictureMarie Anzalone







Job's Sapling

But I tell you, this tree planting
is awful patient work
and it all seems provisionary,
at best-
considerations for terrain
and inclination
nourishment without and within
energy transfer
the stubbornness of some roots
and fragility of others.
there is a community
waiting to define all limits.

and I, I circle warily, measuring:
projected branch spread, depths,
tapping straight lines into crooked fields
addressing property rights
the wants of children,
anticipating.
Then, revelation.
A job, hard under best circumstances;
infinitely more frustrating
if one does not even know
what kind of tree one is
invited to plant
in the first place.

Read the poetry of Marie Anzalone
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A New Poem From Poet Danielle Favorite

PictureDanielle Favorite







summer's end lake

The sun is almost empty.
The last of its honey-light
slowly drips into the linear crack
in-between lake and sky.

The embers in my heart
that keep me alive
are fading from the cold
air I breathe in

as I stand on a grass-stubbled 
sand dune, watching
the sun dry out and the lake
wrestle with its grey self,
           spewing angry white froth.

The wind is so sharp
if you were to shout secrets in my ear
I couldn't keep them--
           sand fills the air instead.

Read the poetry of Danielle Favorite
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Poet Tim Gardiner Fights "The Cold War"

PictureTim Gardiner







The Cold War

The flippant practitioner said to me
‘Bipolar disorder is terribly trendy.’
‘That’s wonderful news old chum,
I’m having a whale of a time!’                          
Depression is the must have disease
More mood stabilisers doctor, please.
Destroyer of marriages and families
Tainting every single day’s activities.
Inappropriate behaviour and language
Suicidal thoughts; the clock was my gauge.
Seconds seem like hours, days like years
Unable to shift up the mental gears.
Walking ten miles in an evening storm
Writing a book in weeks is the norm.
Burning out while you feel so high
You know this can’t last, the fall is nigh.
Lacking the energy to pull myself together
Moods change daily with the weather.
Head over heels in love at first sight
Before the Wall is erected pre-flight.
Growing more distant day by day
Hiding aching body and soul away.
To prevent the Cold War’s rejection
Safety is in the loneliest isolation.
But manic depression does have virtue 
Without it, I wouldn’t have written to you.

Read the poetry of Tim Gardiner
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"Squib," Paul Sands' Latest Poem, with Audio

PicturePaul Sands






Squib  ☊

Rigid truths and squared guaranteesTexture this boy
His morseled fantasies
The graceless torrent of impotent gods
Wary as the wasp on the chameleon's
Trapeze tongue
For even as the microscope remains
Boxed, in cotton, in woollen peace
Rags may still record
Fidelity's soiled tapestry
Once stung, the swollen speech
Of reason's soured and thickened song
Bastards the condensed apprenticeship
Fields a howling, childish drove where
Dreams so quickly cloud to sheep
I could so easily...shhhh
You shall not impeach me for the rhymes
That I decline


Read the poetry of Paul Sands
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Angie Werren's Latest Poem, A Pantoum

PictureAngie Werren







a roll of film pantoum

everything I’ve lost is here
the world inside this roll of film 
your child-face screams through each frame
a crushing weight of birdsong in the air
 
the world inside this roll of film
these pink walls and old bedroom doors
a crushing weight of birdsong in the air
I close my eyes hoping it can fly away
 
these pink walls and old bedroom doors
this place is not where I want you to be
I close my eyes hoping it can fly away
I find a downy woodpecker — soft, on the sidewalk
 
this place is not where I want you to be
your child-face screams through each frame
I find a downy woodpecker — soft, on the sidewalk
everything I’ve lost is here

Read the poetry of Angie Werren
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VerseWrights Welcomes Poet Naki Akrobettoe

PictureNaki Akrobettoe


A Poem That Healed  ☊
      --for my aunt Pandora, a.k.a. Precious P    

100 percent of me believe that I possess the cure to cancer- call me crazy, that I very well may be. Truth is, I cried for seven days straight when they told me my Aunt Pan had three months to live…My tears reached towards the heavens and my heart ached just to give her more of what we consider time because I deemed her to the most valuable gift that life could bring and if I could wish upon a million stars I would wish just to sing her peace. The melody would start off with a little bit of humming followed by a sweet symphony of brass, bass, and cello. I promise you have never met an angel with a sweeter hello- she was my everything. She was to me, what Michael Jackson was to the world and we made a pact when I was just a young little girl, that I would never stop dreaming in color, or outside the four corners of a box, even if I was living life at the bottom my heart would always put me at the top. My aunt could never hurt a fly and the moment she bowed out gracefully, I never questioned why because I told myself big girls don’t cry- we shower blessings and after the cancer therein lied the lesson that all I ever asked God for was the strength to see her through her last days. Morphine was not enough to erase our past away. I can still smell her baked fish and broccoli casserole. I’m smiling toward the heavens because the angels will never know a dish tastier or a hug never worth trading; this woman taught me about dating, first kisses, and heartbreaks. I would be rude if I did not reciprocate, so with all the God within me, I vowed to write her a poem a day, just to create a fantasy where she could stay, just a little while longer so I could find her a remedy that could erase her pain away gently. If only peace came in an IV or a bottle I would go bankrupt just so she could swallow or break bread, even take communion. Never again would she have to be tube fed, because I was poetry at her bedside; a peace that will never subside. Not even after the last syllable was written, not even after her eyelids closed- simply because I wrote this just so she would know that she made a difference. I will recite this, live this, and breathe this in her remembrance.

Read the poetry of Naki Akrobettoe
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"Threshold," A New Poem From Cheryl Snell

PictureCheryl Snell






Threshold

Leaning on cut-out sky, the warped window
twists like an arthritic hip. Better off untouched,
we decide, and leave it embedded in decades of dirt.

That house had good bones; made it hard to move.
We imagined French doors thrown open on guests
lined up to the horizon, shimmering in fancy dress
at the seam of earth and sky.

Such dreaming exhausted us. To steady our nerves,
we plucked at the piano’s guts, summoned singsongs
already gone sharp or flat.  Silence curdled the light
slapped against sun-bleached walls.

We’d never have chosen that color if we’d known
how it would fade, or that we’d have to live with it
so long.

Read the poetry of Cheryl Snell
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Three Short Poems From Poet Bethany Rohde

PictureBethany Rohde







Three Short Poems

silent blossoms fall
one lands in wet eyelashes
at her father’s grave

   ❧

how many more
huddles in the doorway with-
out your goodbye?
Alone, I press a chipped mug
to my cheek, and warm it

                ❧

open air cracked
as he shook out the rug
–Whiplashed
I’m returned 
to the floor 

Read the poetry of Bethany Rohde
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Two Short Lyrics From Poet Mark Windham

PictureMark Windham







A Table for Two


I requested a table
for two – something quiet,
intimate – where we
could be alone … with each other.
The mood was right
the lighting perfect
the food excellent
the service superb
Her eyes swirled like
the spoon stirring her
coffee, and never met
my own.
I requested a table
for two, but at no point
were we ever alone...
with each other.

Ripples and Reflections

It is fitting my time should end
in this place and this season,
with the waters calm
and the colors fading.
Spare me the musty embrace
of earth’s last grasp,
or the ashy kiss of a final fire.
Instead, place me in a boat
and push me from the shore
beneath an afternoon sun,
so that I may float among
the reflected leaves
until nighttime falls.
May the ripples of my passing
bring more joy than those
of my life.


Read the poetry of Mark Windham
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Tim Buck, Our Newest Poet, Shares A Poem And Reading 

PictureTim Buck







situation  ☊

In this gentle plunging wildness,
mountain trees grow into spring.
Blossoms are fragrant with hope
of death coming later in the year.

I could build a nice philosophy
out of this Yin-Yang paradox.
Instead I'll simply sit becalmed,
refusing my brush and paper.

Springtime can be a bad time
for those who fall prey to it,
for those who think of desires
as auguries of good fortune.

And spring is like a memory
before something happened. Ha!...
I laugh straight into the riddle.
I laugh so hard that four tears
trickle down to my crooked lips.

This cool morning wine is good.
Why wait for evening's permission?
Blossoms now dim to unknown colors,
a song is coming from their scattering.
Or...is that the lazy breeze whispering
a poem that could never be written?

I think this old mind is calming down.
Passion seems so absurd these days.
Who could love a hermit, anyway?

Tomorrow I might again dip my brush
into ink and try to make words dance.
If someone 'dances' to their rhythm,
I would take it as a quiet form of love.

That fog of branch-torn blossoms
now falls onto clear brook water.
And it complements another riddle:

how so much wine has made me sober.


Read the poetry of Tim Buck
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Archive 12
June, 2014

We Welcome Poet Elizabeth Howard To VerseWrights

PictureElizabeth Howard






Bamboo

All the soldiers boys wanted to
Dance with you. So lonely in the sway
Their replaying the pounding 
Meteorite strikes to the beat;
They have to 
Deposit their horror somewhere. You 
With your whisper 
Smiles: your silence 
Could take it, could take the
Weight, could bend under their
Need, and you, being
Weed to your own yet
Exotic in this soil:
Flourish.

Etta crackles under the needle,
A stuffed uniform lays across you.
You don't relent yet give in.
The boy brings you home and
A love affair grows
Stranger. Native women can't 
Hate you. They want to be you:
A lithe figure bending
At the clothesline. Over coffee
You remind them
Bamboo is just another prairie grass
And anyway, didn't we
All have our orders
To prop them up?

Read the poetry of Elizabeth Howard
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Edjo Frank Brings His Poetry to VerseWrights

Picture

Deep Blue Eyes

in your eyes
that deep bluish
cleaved with small fish-bone hair
in shivering flesh
as a numb mackerel
the smoked skin fretted
with drained yellowy urine
discloses the emptiness of the end
no, that direction is not mine
in your eyes
that deep bluish
with black brindles
there in that deepest deep
I wish to sink
unto the bottom of the ocean
where no mackerels can live
where no light penetrates
into the soul of your past
where the stars in the sky
do not shine
where the stars of the sea
float motionless
the firmament of memories
absorbed in the black hole
the nucleus, the uterus
where your deep blue eyes
lack the warmth
that my blood wished to give
so let me sink
sink, sink
into the still saltiness of the water
into the sea of consolatory end
unto the cold nothingness
of your deep blue eyes 

Read the poetry of Edjo Frank
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The Haiku Of Ernesto P. Santiago

PictureErnesto P. Santiago






Selected Haiku...

     baby's breath
      the scent of a river
      Still in me
                                    ❧
        male woodpecker
        attracting its mate~
        no sleeping in
                         ❧
                              don't pad
                              your words to love~
                              red rose

               ❧
        shelling the nuts
        of dad's old stories keeps me
        close to life

Read the poetry of Ernesto P. Santiago
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Companion Poems From Laura Madeline Wiseman

PictureLaura Madeline Wiseman







Against Science

Unlike their mostly extinct spineless kin, the mermaids lack an exoskeleton, pinchers, the shielded face of the trilobite. No skull like the dunkleosteus, no plated skin, no wing-like head. No crested horn of the pterosaurs. They can’t fly like the triassic lizard or glide like the draco. No bizarre beaks, bumps, knobs, or tusks. No, mermaids are just plain old mermaids, half-fish, half-man.


Ocean is Bluer

It’s everywhere. The mermaids breathe it. It presses in from all sides—jets of heat from the coasts, rivers of cold that drive from the currents, belts, undertows. It’s more dense than ice, why bergs float. It has no true color, like the wings of jays, the hue absorbs and reflects but does not broadcast. That’s why storytellers love it, all moods become it—whitecaps, storms, vortex, surf. Without it, the mermaids wouldn’t move—combers, rollers, breakers, surge—fish bodied and female with scales of blue-green. They need it, even if they sometimes wish for any other thing on which to sustain.

Read the poetry of Laure Madeline Wiseman
Read a profile of Laura Madeline Wiseman



A New Poem From Mikels Skele: "Serpentine"

PictureMikels Skele







Serpentine

The salt of sailing bruises the blood
And infects the ordinary with wonder.

Drink up!
It may be only swill
But it quenches well enough.

We take stock of barriers, boundaries,
Of stops,
But it’s the continuants that carry meaning
Through years, around days, hours.

A life seems to grow more tail as it winds slowly,
Hauntingly, toward oblivion,
Or so it seems.

This meander, this immense detour
Charts what passes between us,
So ephemeral, wight-like

Those threads of love grow thin,
But strong as spider silk.

Read the poetry of Mikels Skele
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L.L. Barkat's Poem "The Watching," With Audio

PictureL.L. Barkat






The Watching  ☊

If memories were sparrows,
mine would gather behind
a house half finished aluminum

sided against the landscape, windows
glazed from the inside out with smoke
of cigarette and venison burning. 

They would crowd in lavender lilac, 
above the intersection where each year
a robin laid impossible blue eggs,

one of which it seems would always 
break, sully the perfect roundness 
of a mother's mud-patched efforts 

to prevent a deadly cracking. Sparrow
memories would rock limbs, tremble 
leaves, blot out the threat of rain

while brown haired girls peered over
rim of tight worked straw to watch 
a miracle of twin eggs coming to birth.


Read the poetry of L.L. Barkat
Read a profile of L.L. Barkat


Two New Poems From Poet Eusebeia Philos

PictureEusebeia Philos






Let It Go

    I walk over the sound of hate,
lives small in the weed thistle,
crunching in the melting snow,
along with bones breaking
in the dry forest tree,
sap crystallized
under the
bark.
   Won't the ivy climb 
anyway,
hand placed above the other,
over and over?
   I can't look up anymore
without losing my place,
hearing the moans
below me.


Freedom

Forward
she swings
smiling

kicks her legs back
in reverse

once more
she dives
then up

arcs into a cloud

empty seat returns
spins wild
chains clatter


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