Tuesday 20 November 2018

Sunday 26 August 2018

Not Choosing; Chosen

Although I strut like a bright plumed bird
I do not choose-
As a man, I am chosen.
I noted your face first I thought
but it was you who
selected mine. You
who arranged our first well-considered
copulation, who washed and aired
the sheets two days before-
You who arranged the hour.
I who complied.


Sunday 19 August 2018

GONE

I loved you for a moment, then
that moment was gone-
where once was life again,
now there is none.

I should have held on
to the flicker of light
that briefly flared like winter sun
passionate and bright.

I should have held onto your hand
in case I strayed
but I couldn't then understand
the price to be paid.


I couldn't understand that love
is not necessarily scheduled to arrive,
not stapled to a plan, that kind of stuff,
not an adjunct to being alive.

I knew only not to renew,
something I casually dispensed with;
I know when something is through,
when remembered with grief-

I said goodbye to what might have been
to quiet walks, caresses and days in bed,
I said goodbye to a beautiful thing
half remembered, once alive, full of wonder, now dead.

Thursday 9 August 2018

When the Rose's bloom darkens

When the rose’s bloom darkens
When the mountains sink,
When the desert overcomes starkness
And life comes to a brink, 
When shade is clarified by light
And rain returns to cloud,
When day exonerates the night
And silence is too loud
And voices become deaf;
Then that’s when thankfully
Life replaces death
And what is, is no longer what is to be
And tears grow kinder
The air flows more gently
And gods grow ever blinder
And land returns to sea.

Friday 29 June 2018

Saturday 26 May 2018

DESTINY

Destiny

written by: Seorin Kae
@SeorinKae

did you abandon me?
your letters but a cliché
confirming my assumptions
did you forget me?
the sadness in your voice
the worry in your tone
tinted with oblivion to my pain
my sleepless nights
were in vain
~little birds lost in the sky
never reaching their destination
every hour spent waiting
~spilling crystal clear water
drowning the fragrance of unity
you were lost
already lost
forever lost
your name was a myth to me
as my heart was a ghost to you
there was never a "u"
in "us"
"universe"
"unforgettable"
we were never driven apart
we were just not meant to be
me next to you
you next to me
forever separated by Destiny

Monday 21 May 2018

By dspoetry------ my dog wouldn't have liked you


I wish that the first time I spoke to you,
I had one hand wrapped around the leather strap
tethered to my dog's collar,
instead of leaving her home to worry
and allowing my hands the 
freedom to tear myself apart in 
front of you
because finally tearing myself down
felt like a wonderful thing to do.

I wish I'd had her with me
because she has always been 
the one more likely to trust her gut
and warn people like you to stay away.

I wish I'd had her with me,
because I know that she would not
have let you take a single step towards me
even if I wanted to let you close. 

I still remember the way you would 
sweat nervously
at the thought of my hanging around with
my friends who did not like you.
If you were so worried about them,
I am sure you would have been all the more
terrified of her.
Not because she would bite you,
not because she is dangerous.
But because she is not fooled as easily as me.
She would have sensed the danger,
pulling me farther away
than was comfortable for you to imagine.

I say this not to be cruel,
but rather to speak out loud 
a thought which has
fluttered through my mind all day,
the corners of my lips curved
in my own quiet amusement.

My dog wouldn't have liked you very much.

Sunday 20 May 2018

Illusions by Dimitris P. Kraniotis

noiseless wrinkles
on our forehead
the frontiers of history,
shed oblique glances
at Homer’s verses.
Illusions
full of guilt
redeem
wounded whispers
that became echoes
in lighted caves
of the fools and the innocent.

An Open Letter To Myself by JB Nuique


by JB Nuique

To my ever dearest self,
I know a lot of things about you,
Though I still do not know you.
You are one of the weakest creatures
And that makes you really strong.
It's true! You're the most beautiful thing
That God ever created.
You're totally worthy to be kept,
Loved, and understood in depth.
On some days you are a monstrous beast;
Or a crazy, lovely piece
Of a puzzle that baffles each mind.
You're loved and one of a kind.
You are not just a woman. You're, well—
Just a storm with a body.
You're the seasons inside of Beauty.
You care and love very much,
And hurt and bleed when you strongly clutch.
Yet it's okay. So okay.
Being dramatic is a given
For a woman—worth keepin'.
Don't worry if Sir The One won't come.
You are already complete,
Strong and independent. You can live.
Forever yours and always,
Your other wand'ring and caring self.

Saturday 19 May 2018

TRUE LOVE


I kissed my true love
Beneath the gurning sun,
I caressed my true love,
Until the sun was gone.
I planted seeds in my true love’s garden,
Employed my eager spade all day long,
I dug and dug in my true love’s garden
Until the planting was done.
Each seed became a flower,
Each flower became a sigh,
Pressed into her languid bower
As the night drifted slowly by.
In the morning, refreshed by the new sun,
In my true love’s garden bright
My work was finally done,
And I left with a horticulturlists delight.

Tuesday 15 May 2018

MONSTER


Before him the monster grew
In the stippled light
Dappled blue
It was an interesting sight.

A wondrous uncompromising
Dark hue
Its features had a disconcerting
Temporary feel. Nose and ears fixed by glue

And where his mouth should have
Been was a blue suede shoe,
And in place of eyes grave-
Stones inscribed with the names of no one I knew.

Still, he was very polite
For such a badly-hewn
Creature of the night.
Crafted as if from ancient stone

In the half-light, he quietly broke my neck
With a pleasant-enough smile
And I heard it crack
Dying, deeply impressed by his style.

Monday 23 April 2018

And if you are to love. Jasleen Kalra

Jasleen kalra
And if you are to love.

And if you are to love,
Love as the moon loves.
It doesn't steal the night,
It only unveils the beauty of the dark.

And if you are to love,
Love as the rain loves.
It doesn't wet the bodies,
It only washes the sad dirt of the souls.

And it you are to love,
Love as the wind loves.
It doesn't drift away,
It only cleanse you to the core by invading through each pore.

And if you are to love,
Love as the sun loves.
It doesn't radiates heat,
It only pours its warmth on you to enlighten your way.

And if you are to love,
Love as the star loves.
It doesn't delightfully twinkles,
It only reminds you that not even death can separate two hearts.

And so forth,
if you are to love
Love as the whole universe
& not just a part of it.

Saturday 10 March 2018

GOLDEN TEARS

My golden tears flow, flow quickly
like flames in a drought-
spreading in gathering fury.
Sinking like rainbows in the sea.
My golden tears last a lifetime,
but bring no wealth to me.

I grabbed gold from the sun
one day and concealed
it in my brain. its 
light created ectasy and made 
me insane.

I took it out periodically
and admired it, lying supine
in my hand, the gold
would spin around both
shrink and expand,

but the gold although it glistened brightly
brought no love to me,
dripping like shimmering lava
circling and encircling
it hardened before my sight
growing harder as it cooled
it only revealed the night.

I loved it like sculpture, like beautiful paintings
on my wall,
I touched it as it shone,
as it took me for a fool. 
I wiped my eyes with its fury
my eyes resembled tears,
golden tears that flow so quickly
down, down the empty years.

PRETTY BOY

I crept into my soul in the profoundest night:
where spectral owls honked and hooted in fickle fright
and tongues rasped out sihouettes-
deepening shadows crawled from dirty mouths,
and love slunk around tattered skirts
in imitation of fungi growths:
paper covered me from head to shin
when I let the shadows thin fingers in!
words assembled like building blocks
men in high-heels/boys in frocks.   
                         In the morning, the sun
scoured my skin. I leant on the devil, standing alone,
                          he flipped me a coin
like he'd just tossed me a biscuit and a blood-red bone,
               as I whimpered into the mirror's torn
shimmering shafts of innocence, where beauty assaulted the black-eyed crone
for salutory afternoon tea,
the pretty boy charging the ugly boy an extortionate fee. 

and the devil sang in the metronomic gloom
of departed joys.
I returned to my room, 
playing with the boys-
coming intensely as the ice displayed
the solitary if fashionable route to Hades.

Sunday 4 March 2018

medicine

idk
medications

I stopped writing.
Not because I fell out of love with it...
My emotions just seemed to disappear.

I started a new medication.
The doctor said it would help my panic disorder, and it did.
I took that pill, like my mother talks to God (every morning).

When I went back to the doctor she said we had to up the dosage because apparently having 2 panic attacks a week still isn't okay.
I told her that when I woke up this morning I got out of bed without crying, but she didn't consider that as much of a victory as I did.

When I was put on a higher dosage, my emotions shut down.
After a few weeks I stopped crying, my OCD got better, my panic attacks were gone, and I could even go into the student union of my college campus without my heart trying to win a race against my thoughts.

I could breathe.

But, I also stopped having fun.
I felt like a stranger in my own body.
My emotions found the exit on the plane and jumped, never to be found again.

Since when did being able to breathe require me to feel like this?

Saturday 3 March 2018

screaming sheep

The day is done, the flowers have folded, the light faded
the screaming sheep are jumping across the corpse
the trees are lurching........................................................

the creeper pees into the stream, his leer
harder than stone, his fingers
touching captive flesh.....................................................


capriciously he crawls into the sea
dragging his poisoned soul like a shattered vase
his mind locked into darkness........................................


his captive looks into his blood-boiled eyes
and smiles, his reflected reddened
sockets his own...............................................................

OLD MAN


The old man looked up
into the rain-swollen, cloud-broken, time-tossed
sky. 
Sitting down again on the park bench
smoothed by a million previous 
lonely, plump backsides-smoking a joint,
thinking of a riotous past he stared
at his memories-

a jocund boy, a quiet teenager privately lusting,
years like trailing smoke-
a husband, family man his worries growing into 
deep-set wrinkles fashioned on nothing-
the sun leaning on him, the moon smiling cynically,
as he dwindled into dust.

Who did he make love to? Why did he? Why did
he bother? the thick bloated flames of fickle loins
and trophies for his mind. 
Nothing in the shaded recess, nothing looms,
in his pirate's, crow's, magpie's soul-
an old man in his final hour
beating around for husks.

Wednesday 28 February 2018

Burnt Fingers

written by: Hannah England
@workinglife2016

My fingers are burnt. I saw their tips blaze white, then watched in fascination as the red halos began to circle the tissue that had been healthy until minutes ago. The smell was confusingly unmistakable; when had I ever smelled human flesh burning before?
The warning signs had been there, mine to ignore. I had climbed onto that rollercoaster and pulled the faulty restraint down over me, knowing that it could never protect me from the impact. I could see that I was heading for disaster, yet I did not want to get off before the ride began.
My mother had told me he was no good; too old, too rough, too free, for me. But I thought I knew what I was doing. He loved me and that was all the proof I needed to know that we were right for each other. He lived alone in a grotty bedsit, and here I fed off his freedom and bathed in the lack of rules. I borrowed his wings and flew beyond the barriers of my horizon. I befriended his friends who were fascinating and terrifying at the same time; watched as they drank, smoked and found release in each other. I saw the emptiness in the girls’ eyes, and the darkness in the men’s. I felt safe for a while and then saw the edges of the cliff begin to crumble beneath my feet. If I faltered just slightly I knew that I would fall a hundred feet to the foaming waves below. I pictured my matted hair and bloodied body crashing against the rocks at the will of the ocean, and wondered who would find me.
And although I had been willing to risk it, I didn’t slip or tumble from that cliff face. Within three months, he was gone from my life. He had found what he needed in the expressionless eyes of another girl, his own becoming darker and glazed. His veins coursed with chemicals that my own body would never know, and he began to inhabit a different world to me.
I walked back into my teenage bedroom, and tried to fit back into a life that had once been mine. It now seemed childish and boring, and I could not see how I had once been content with it. I heard what they were saying about me; the writing was on the wall, of course it would end in tears, no surprise she got hurt. But I have been without him for as long as I was with him, and my mind is still raw. My heart had beat only for him. So as I brought my finger tips down on the hot ceramic plate, I wondered if the pain could restart my broken heart.

Saturday 24 February 2018

atom

We are such            clever creatures to divide
Most everything             into its different sides
With chaos versus             order, dark and light 
The stark duality of         wrong and right
We even split the very        world in two
With human versus human,       we and you
But still no matter how much      we divide
Each thing has infinitely many      sides

Death came to stay...

I was asleep that day when Death knocked
on my door
just wanting to pass the time-as you do.
he left a message,
nicely written it was
full of lovely words.
After reading I put it in my drawer
for safe keeping
determined to be out when he called again.

I don't mind Death,
I'm not prejudiced,
but once is enough-
and I'd rather he kept it at that.

I heard on the grapevine that he
was busy with my neighbours-
from that point on had little spare time as it were,
his hands full with administering to the sick,
taking succour to the old
and generally being a guardian angel to everyone.


Its was years before he returned,
this time when he knocked I opened the door and invited
him in. I had tea and biscuits ready,
a jam sandwich or two.
I let him sit on my most comfortable chair
and turned on the TV.
I watched him die. It was a good death.
I threw his bones into a black bag and left it
the following morning by my dustbin,
said a prayer over his remains
and walked slowly towards eternity.

Saturday 17 February 2018

Do you still love me?



do you still love me
do you still love m
do you still love
do you still lov
do you still lo
do you still l
do you still
do you stil
do you sti
do you st
do you s
do you
do yo
do y
do
d
di
did
did y
did yo
did you
did you e
did you ev
did you eve
did you ever
did you ever l
did you ever lo
did you ever lov
did you ever love
did you ever love m
did you ever love me

Friday 16 February 2018

GOD AND SON

High he rode, high above,
no one to hate
in the clouds, no one to love,
lost in thin, ensnaring fate,
he fitted heaven, hand in glove.

From his perch, 
at YHWH's ponderous side,
he would lurch
like the morning tide,
reaching out to clutch.

sullen of face,
mesmerised by YHWH's poignant glare
he failed to trace
in the ancient one, infinite fear,
The old one with infinite grace.

They played chess under Sirius
drank wine near the sun
becoming delirious 
when YHWH called him his son.
He yelled back: 'You can't be seious!'

But now, in his failure,
the two rarely speak,
for god he's now a blur
a loser, hopeless and weak,
a blunderer and cur.

'Dad', he says quietly,
'there's plenty of planets around
i can visit each nightly
with one hop, and one bound.'
God acknowledged him but slightly.

God nods in the sunshine,
not listening it seems,
now senile, snorting a line
the ancient one dreams.
It will, he thinks vaguely, all be fine!

Sunday 4 February 2018

Scraped Up

Scraped up from life
torn between shame and lust,
body-fixated
body-dimmed
we are the cattle in the stranger's mouth
the broken eyes in the valley
watching time break away.

Friday 2 February 2018

A son who is not a son

A son who is not a son,
A child who is not a child,
Thats how the genes run
Some to glow, others to deride;
Grasping to his arcane breast
The small town spawn
Failing every loving test
Failing each savage dawn.

In memory, you lived
A beautiful boy,
In memory we grieved
Now darkness, before joy./sans

Thursday 1 February 2018

Between knickers and bra

Yeah, I stand on highheels
looking for sunlight:
a man caught between knickers and bra
thinking of my feminine side
in a rush of tearing biceps,
oh death
where is thy sword-
up my arse?

I stood there like a working girl
waiting for punters
my highheels shining red and gold,
I looked a thousand dollars
I thought.
But hey, I'm 7 feet
I looked like an over made-up lamp post
suffering from powder burns,
a trans with a big cock
and maybe, just maybe, a real bad, bad attitude.

AMERICA: ALLEN GINSBERG

America

by Allen Ginsberg

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
Max after he came over from Russia.
I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
individual as his automobiles more so they're
all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and
sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
cere you have no idea what a good thing the
party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.