Human Kind

My eyelids sag like melting wax,

I can’t remember the last time we slept,

just the two of us, without any stress.

I listen to you struggling the whole night

and in your head I reckon there are battalions

ready to fire at the first sign of peace.

–

I am acquainted with departure.

From the ether I pull another thread

and cut it to the quick

with the hope that it will later calcify.

Nostalgia demands that I

surrender my blood in pursuit.

–

I am intimate with betrayal.

My heart is more bone than flesh.

For every truth I have told

there is a lie just as big.

I kick at stones with a broken shoe.

I wonder if I’ll die prematurely

and I wonder if there ever comes

a time when through is through.

–

The street is lined with my castoffs,

Masks for the weekends,

uniforms for the week.

There are more revenants here

than there are graves to express.

–

The world is always

10 steps ahead.

I take a cleansing breath

it stutters on the way out

like a dream that won’t relent.

How can I go on day after day

being human when I’ve lost my taste for it?

Wordle #186 “Photons”

Brenda Warren

I arrange roses in a Mason jar

That smells of strawberry jam.

A throat full of birds seizing

The songs caged in my heart.

I will always remember

My first suicide and how I failed

Even to summon death.

–

I wipe the mud from my boots.

The crocuses jitter in the breeze

A shamanic fervor, a crossroads

Whenever I see the color blue

I unravel my girth and head south.

The shine of one derelict star

Promising to encompass everything.

–

Owls skulk in the dead of night

Soundless, invasive, their talons

Set like thorns into a spastic frame.

I thread moonlight

Through my xenophobic veins

An inferential lobotomy

A triumph of photons over provisionals.

TALE WEAVER’S PROMPT #24 – PARABOLE

Lisa Falzon

The sun enters as a swarm

Each shaft, exultant in paroxysm

I hasten the veil over glass eyes

And sink beneath the duvet

As in a pool to escape the sting

Of another hysterical morning

 

Let me dream if perchance

To find a reality beneath

This ambulatory facade

Let me wake fully if perchance

To find a boon superior to honey

And if my wishes should go

Uncollected do not give up

On me for I shall still manage

*

Well I have gotten sick again, Sam as well, Isadora was first and has recovered now but since she didn’t have a sore throat I am worried it might be something new

Submission for: Tale Weavers

Until

Elle Moss

Teeth and cuticles cracked

I clutch my journal

As if a delivery notice

Free me this state of being

These imperfect nooses

That subdue without collapse

 

At what point does the graphite

Fade from venal sapphire to necrotic ash?

I am only audible when I write

Otherwise the heart in my mouth

Serves a distinctive gag.

Lips hugging pillars of ivory

A mute martyred tongue defaming

I don’t have enough saliva

To exonerate my shame

 

There is blood beneath my nails

From tasting too much of your flesh

Anger is a luxury not afforded in exile

The brass latch is soft and intractable

Face down in a pile of newspaper clippings

I applaud only my anonymity

There is freedom in “no one”

That “some one” cannot gather

An audience changes everything

Even gestation

 

Opportunity is not bred in isolation

A handful of pomegranate seeds

Will assure safe passage

If I seek oneness in matrimony

How long death!

Death accepts me as no other

Whether rich or poor

Whether beautiful or curious

He shall wait a lifetime

To embrace my strangeness

For I will not surrender until

*

Yesterday I had writer’s block and I felt today would be the same because I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday physically, mentally in every conceivable way but I was able to create something longer and more sensible and it just happened to be relevant to prompt

Banished

free online wallpaper

Guilt predates my experience of failure

I is worthless even when chanted in unison

There’s no excusing oneself from the universe

Even in death we surreptitiously return

Birds passing from one landscape

Into the hormonal flush of a nascent sky

*

I am in dire need of alternative

A lattice work trellis poised for admission

Yet all I find are locked casements

That shelter abandoned rooms

Not worth the risk of trespass

*

I’ve banished hope

In order to override denial

The dragons are free

The hero being

Just another vandal

Distributing loveless letters

To passing strangers

Pleading for that which she

Most fears, freedom

*

Today’s poem is very personal

Limbo

The thread that defends

Against an immutable collapse

Is the same one embracing

My wind pipe

*

I cannot afford my weakness

Not even in disclosure

To believe my madness

Is to become that which I fear

*

Idleness is prognostic of death

Indeed are they not synonymous?

There is no remedy forthcoming

No hand or heart to cushion

Only a Tiffany blue sky

Painted clandestinely

Over an omnivorous maw

*

We are alone

In a universe that consumes

Alone in limbo

Hell is envious

And heaven chained

*

There is no greater vulgarity

Than a dying man

Who can neither fight nor fall

Dandelion

Dandelion puffs consolidate

On tempestuous currents

These charlatan clouds

Dispensing expectation

*

Dangerous are the angles

That disengage flight

One must remain round

To sustain buoyancy

*

My wings are tender

From too much sunshine

The intimidation of fame

Can be hard to overcome

Will I remain intact?

Are do the best dreams

Harbor the darkest days?

Only Better

You have stolen every thread

Of my sanctimonious cocoon

*

Too much blood and incense

Sacrifices made on good faith

Arrest the heart

*

My prayers

Are based on abstractions

Invasive appeals

That stagger on admission

*

I want to be myself

Only better

I’ve acknowledged my faults

I’d like to collect now

On my virtues

*

In a world where all wealth is quantifiable

Is my soul worth the burden imposed?

*

I watch your lips wrestling with the tides

Arms thrashing in indelible terror

*

Survival is adverse to life

It requires a stoicism achieved

Only by the meticulous placement

Of eyelids across the field of vision

*

I don’t ask for much

Only to be so beautiful

That my presence ordains

Instantaneous merit

*

I don’t want to fight for every inch

Only to realize I’ve fallen by the wayside

*

I want to be adored

In a way that crushes bones

And exhumes hearts

Previously thought dead

*

Behold a necromancer is in our midst

Sentiment cannot be revoked

You loved me once and it’s to that vow

That I attach all my subsequent years

*

Another poem from the swarming gelatinous monstrosity that is my subconscious mind

The Death Of Me

Doves fall

From the firmament

Hematic eyes

Staining

Angelic vestments

Can I be saved

Once trodden?

*

I rescind

This masquerade

When the threads

Of pretension

Are too frayed

To conceal the heart

On which they feast

*

I disown the self

Rising petulant from

A dystopian mindscape

With whose delusions

Do I consort?

*

My bones

Are too heavy

My lying flesh

Too loose to gather

An angular womb

Suffocates truth

Whose

Chalk-drawn smile

Do I lament?

The death of Caricature

Or Singularity?

–

This is about the fear of self and paradoxically disguise, the struggle with identity and finding the balance between truth and drama. My writing is still suffering from the lack of thought cohesion. I can’t even say I am uninspired because I feel like there are ideas knocking around I just can’t catch on to any of them!

Sisyphus

An anathema,

I slide downhill

Into the dust

From which I was

Wrought

To be human

Is an exercise

In futility

The same

Ponderous stone

Infinitesimal

When cast

Into a star-laden sea