Literature DD Roundup- June 2013

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Hello all!

We’re scarily already halfway through the year! Next month sees another round of camp NaNoWrimo as well as the glorious Flash Fiction Month. We hope to see lots of involvement and good writing come out of those!

Us CVs are really keen to see some diversity in our DD choices each month. We’re keen to see pieces that are a little different, or broach genres/themes that perhaps are not as common as others. If you do see anything out there which meets those and are fabulously written, please do send in your DD suggestions to any of us!

Here is the roundup for June



:iconbeccajs:
Features by BeccaJS



Shades
Shades
Each day's ebb and flow
Fills and empties sculpted space.
At dusk shadows grow,
suggesting those mysteries
enclosed in hearts long since stilled.
for all intensive purposesi am accused of being
a category five--
    but i will not excuse the way my skin aches.  
i want storms.
    i remember the way Katrina screamed &
    if you press your ear to my chest you will hear the same.  
the moan turning into a pitch, the pitch
screaming until the throat is too raw to be
more than a whimper.  
the way it stops
and pauses,
silently racked until it bursts forth once more.  
i will not apologize for being demolition.  
scars exist on every woman
too powerful to contain herself. 
Tribute to MemoryThe old woman next door played her depressing version of Happy Birthday to You on her piano again, and Lisa couldn’t study.
The music wasn’t loud, but it seeped through into her apartment with its slow pace and low notes and bothered her, even though it was ignorable and she was comfortable in good company.
“There she goes again with the sleepy music.” Mark placed his Calculus book on the coffee table, leant back into the couch, and yawned. “What’s this, the eighth time this year?”
“The first time,” Lisa said. “And how’s it sleepy music?”
“It’s making me drowsy.”
“I think it’s sad.” Lisa stretched against her boyfriend and closed her eyes. She thought of her own mother, grey and unhappy when she last saw her, and now gone. “I think she’s sad. Doesn’t she always play it like this around this time?”
“I think so,” he said. “And if she

How Not to Tell a StoryAfter being on DeviantArt for a few years now, I've noticed patterns in people's stories. Patterns, that I can't say I've ever seen until I started using the internet. I believe that's because these kind of patterns are thoroughly unprofessional. The pattern in short is this:
Character = victim
Plot = bad things happening to said victim
Maybe this sounds harsh. It's not if you understand that is ALL there is to these stories. They take any character, hurl them into a tragedy and that's it.
Let's get this straight: We do not know your character well enough to care about them yet. No matter how bloody and gutty their injuries are, no matter how many of their family members are deceased, no matter what their boyfriend did to them, no matter what kind of disease they have, WE. DO. NOT. CARE!!!!!
These kind of things are sad in themselves, but WHO is this person we're supposed to feel so horrible for? Establish THAT. It should be your absolute FIRST priority: no exceptions.
No more pasting
Choose Your Name“John Brant,” I whispered, and a dashing British gentleman appeared in my mind, arrogant and suave as the slim-fitting Italian suit he wore. He sounded classy, not overly pompous. But there was just something about him. He could be the cool confident charmer I was looking for. But he could just as well be a stiff stocky soldier with his pride shoved far up his ass.
“John Chase,” The name rolled smoothly off my tongue. Another man took form, both the same and different from the first. He was just as charming, perhaps a little lower in class with a bolder tongue. And was that a little mischief I saw in his eyes? Undoubtedly, he was smoother than the latter. He could work. A common name for a common man. Maybe a little too common. But he could work.
“John Davies,” I frowned, my eyes still closed as I wrinkled my brow. This man was full of question marks. Unlike the previous two, I couldn’t picture him quite as clearly. And I wasn’t su
mountain-womanmountain woman, mountain woman,
won't you come down to the river?
where bears sing falsetto groans and wolves stripe their fur in cranberry;
you are bare-footed climbing the grandfather trees, wild-bird paint in your
eyes, prickles under your toenails, and thunder drowns in water below.
raccoon-children with their mischief-hands sleep in your hair and crawl
down your slate-rock nose; skeleton-men along your gorge beneath your
upper lip where sirens would ride their horses along your jawline,
and grey is your wisdom with empty caverns. mountain-man paws his
gravels, sits against the lightning where war-husbands eagle themselves.
you are an eastern fire; lonely stags occupying themselves in harpsichords,
their antlers resting on your breasts until wind moves them down meters
below your abdomen.
but you are a falconer owl with ancient eyes. whisper winds in your fingers
dance along deer-legs and hoof; you whither the moon under your eyelids,
where the wolfman barricades himself in your in
The Poetic Mind as a MuscleThe Poetic Mind as a Muscle
As a poet at any given skill level, you might ponder different ways to advance your mastery of the craft. You might spend weeks dissecting famous and not so famous poets. You might read countless articles on poetic technique. You might just plow through any and every collection you can get your hands on, track all of the most well-know journals, follow all of the contemporaries. All of these things add up to a knowledgeable poet. However, does this necessarily make you a better poet?
No. The reason is that most of us equivocate poetic skill with divinely gifted talent. We often think of poetry as a latent ability that we merely possess or do not. This leads to certain diseases within the mind, whether it be the idea that our words are beyond reproach because they are "self expression," or we decide that words come out and that's all there is to it. Other times we are stricken by the undeniable flaws of our work, even t

A Poet's RomanceShe was the quiet sort,
tsunamis tucked
within her eyes,
anxieties pinned
to pottery skin;
she would mold herself
into moonlight butterflies
and glist'ning calla lilies,
pure and white and
beautiful.
and when night cast
itself upon her in
heated, hard'ning flames,
she’d smash herself
upon the rocks
and in morning start
again.

Sword SwallowerSix seasons.
  Seventy-seven weeks.
    Seventeen and one half months.
      Nineteen and one quarter lunar cycles.
        Five hundred thirty four days and nights.
          Seven hundred sixty-eight thousand nine hundred
and 60 seconds.
We spent every one of these units of time together.
Spring
In the shadow of the oncoming storm, a tree shudders within, dropping its' fruit. 
Tides rush before the storm carrying generations to a land with wounded soil where they perish. 
Summer
Numbers are not real. I count them 3..5..23..88, 89, 90, 91..98, 99..115..Habit. See it. Sum it. Submit. 
Pulling, pounding, pushing, breathing, the song of the new cicadas. 
In harmony a steady nightly rhythm.  (701)
Fall
Soaked in an ocean of soiled linen, daring desires, pheromones, swollen lips and coliseum kisses. 
Your spasmodic shell satiated, separates, splinters, shatters, sails straight South.
Winter
Through the long nights I've been cinched t
SorrowbirdI watched him flap helplessly between the teeth of a barbwire fence, screeching for help.
"Papa, look Papa! A boy!"
My papa stood dazed for a moment, dust billowing at his legs, his eyes teetering along the field. It wasn't until later that evening he told me he hadn't understood what I had seen. What he had seen.
With grass tickling the backsides of my legs, I bounded toward the boy, "What are you doing? Are you okay?"
As I approached him, I felt his skittish eyes rake across my every movement. With his ten-year-old arms slung inside the gaping maw of a fence and darkened feathers pasted along the creases of his face; he looked squarely at me. I could hear his bird-bones quaking at my voice, he pushed harder against the fence. I winced for him.
"Hold still, we'll get you out," I turned back to my papa who stood alongside the road, "Papa," I pleaded, "Please! Help him!"
Reaching out, I touched his shoulder, "Don't be afraid. We're going to help you."
He didn't pull away from me. I thou
Drunk Ramblings...Have I ever told you about my brush with the Giant Gorilla People of Kenya? Nine feet tall! Chests as wide as bureau cases. That's what bureaus are shipped in, you know.
We were walking through the jungle. And came upon a vast clearing. 60 feet across. Fearing the dangers of the dark jungle, I decided to lead the team into the clearing to make our camp.  We reached the center and began to pitch our tents. Mind you it was pitch black, but for our lanterns. Dead of night with barely a sliver of moon.
Never truly relaxed, I still felt a certain degree of reassurance. I felt this place would be safe. It wasn't until we got the fire going that I felt something watching us. I kept stealing glances into the murky darkness of the jungle that surrounded us. Under our chatter and the clatter of pots, I could hear a dark murmuring. As the meal came to a close, I put my back to the fire. When my colleagues asked why, I bluffed them. I told them my back was cold and I wished to warm it be
the theatreit is a Tuesday afternoon
and I observe
the proscenium arch
of your spine.
I am separated from you
by several degrees,
a world and a half,
the ornate, sweeping divide
between watcher and watched
(and you've never cared
to break the fourth wall)

BlessingMy father strangled a bird
quietly, calm as gravity,
there in the garden. He bent
as if praying to the torqued wing
reddening his hand.
The night hunkered down on the screaming
wildness, on the kicking legs, the abrupt
and awe-filled silence. I watched him
watch the beak open, close,
like rippling lake water.
I loved him, the mercy
of his heavy knuckles, the kindly
indifferent expression.
He closed the beak like a priest
closes the eyes.



:iconneurotype-on-discord:
Features by neurotype-on-discord




Mature Content

Everybody knows this is nowhereSorting second hand cars
it was just a robot,
as we flicked off the radio,
sick of the hard rock
we'd been bouncing to for miles.
Joe was playing with his lighter,
a nice piece, skull-shaped.
We got out, circled it.  
When he moved in, a little dust
was blowing up off the ground.
Its body suit caught quickly.
We watched it striding away
across the desert, flame-
swept, a dwindling candle.
We were kids. Just kids.
The Wailing: TeaserPart I: The Sirens
The sound of the sirens is what has stayed with me. I remember the explosions, the engines of the Messerschmitts, the screams of men trapped beneath the rubble. Of course I do. But it is the wail of the sirens that yet haunts my dreams, settles that same cold sickness in my gut, that same cold slickness on my palms. It is the banshee shriek of coming death.
The night was cold and clear when that sound prickled along my arms like so many icy fingers reaching out from behind the drapes.
Rowan stilled her hands at the typewriter and ripped the sheet from the machine, lest some unscrupulous eye should take advantage of her temporary absence. She snatched up a grey cardigan, a torch, and the requisite gas mask, and had nearly gotten to the door before she turned back to look at me. Her dark eyes were as empty as ever.
‘Are you coming?’ she asked as she stuck one arm into a cardigan sleeve.
‘I’ll follow later,’ I said. ‘
Conversation"I am driving in a Hummer. I am on a two lane highway. I was listening to Counting Crows before panic threatened to cut off my air supply. Air supply is a band. I have no idea what they sing. I'm pretty sure they were a clue on Jeopardy once. I…I…have to pull over so I can breathe."
Omar put on his blinker and steered the over-compensation-mobile to the shoulder of the road. He fumbled with the lock on the door and his heart felt like it was going to burst through his chest when he tried to get out of the car and couldn't. Seatbelt. It was just the seatbelt. His hands were slick with cold sweat by the time the belt whizzed cheerfully back into its place and he managed to slide out onto the shoulder of the road.
He was glad it was so late and glad that the highway was so deserted. He was trembling so hard that the change in his pockets rattled and he never would have been able to speak if someone had pulled up and offered to help. He hated for people to witness his panic.

Bringing Down SweeneyI asked him who he was, and he said, "I'm Sweeney," and I believed him. I probably shouldn't have, except that it was true. I can always tell when people are telling the truth.
Mum and Dad were still in the last battles of the divorce, so I was trying to keep myself out of their hair as much as possible. This was why I had packed two cornmeal pancakes and an old plastic dish of syrup and was heading out into nowhere, where I wasn't necessarily wanted but sure as hell wasn't unwelcome. Not that I was resentful about it or anything. Nobody wants to fight in an amphitheater. Well, nobody but gladiators, but you don't see a lot of those around these days. Goes to show you.
So out I went, with my book and my pair of half-crumbling pancakes and my yellow wellies and an old, oatmeal-colored jumper that had holes in the elbows. "Get a new one, Linnie," everybody was always saying. The truth was I had gotten used to it, and now it felt weird not to have my elbows out in the wind like that. Out
:thumb349837300: :thumb358702347: mushroom cloud                                    "an explosion", she said
                 I turned to ask her what she was talking about when I
       caught sight of the tv screen, and for the tiniest of moments I caught
    myself thinking that there's something beautiful about that much energy and
 so much destruction; energy - would it wipe me off my feet? maybe melt the skin
right off of my bones? heat, death and poison, I don't believe there's much you or I
would be able to feel dying in those flames, and I should probably be ashamed that I
                          

Wizard of OzWomen fighting over red shoes -- predictable. Crossing ArielYour wedding;
you spoke your way toward it
one prospect at a time;
having not been
the cripple or whore,
you settled for
singularity, no future or past,
just announcement and umbra, joy in shade,
soft smiting breath.
How though did you put your children away?
Mylar-eyed,
squinting toward dawn.
If your days had been counted
purposefully,
perhaps you would have gone off
fatter, sated as a rook scavenging
in the quiet
instead of blindly staring out bread crumbs
like a gassed canary.
The shine of your boy's hungry mouth
did not dissuade your long whim;
to any call of loneliness
the answer was a towel,
clean and wet
and a ration of cold milk.
Did any irony strike you
like a bell hammer?
Aimlessly you once doodled
cast-off shoes;
no small feet wiggling
toe-ward to fill them.
Gentle prophecy of
water-filled mouth,
immortal effigy for the beauty of drowning.
The flaxen-haired siren
counting out pins from her hair,
swallowing them slowly to armor her heart,
a myth of eaters
and sadness consumed
Character - Fortune AdjusterCome in, boy, come in. No, I will call you boy. The carnival manager is Boy to me too, do not think yourself so high and mighty. Come in, you want your fortune told by the old circus hag, yes? Come in, sit here, let me peer at you in the shade. You want your future told? A simple task, for I have already seen it in my inner eye. But more than simply tell, I will change. In truth I am not a teller of fortunes, but an adjuster.
The youth of today, worried about the future, ha! The future happens over and over, will happen just as it has happened. All I need are your anchors, the things deciding your future. For example, that pretty little thing you left outside, she is no anchor. She will change you, yes, she will eat up your pocketbook! I saw her, I saw her jewelry and fake breasts. No, look at me, not at her. You did not bring her into the tent, you do not see her as part of your future, yes? She is a fun little fling, am I right? Oh, you think it shameful for me to speak of such thing
Goodnight Enigmatic SongShe was the song you hear and, at first blush, don't like. 
Well, you don't know how you feel about it so you keep listening in an attempt to discover how exactly you feel and then you reach the end of the song and you realize, you don't like it; you love it. 
That was Grace.
She was my coworker and she was my friend.
We carpooled together, I drove and she slept most of the way.
"Don't get much sleep at night, do you?" I asked her, catching those drooping lids mid-descent.
"Insomnia, love."
She looked out the window streaked with rain; it spoke in percussive touches filling the car with quiet overcast conversation.
I felt the warmth of her smile in the corner of my eye. The blur of her hand reached at the window to feel the cold of the droplets.
"When I was a girl, I used to race these. I thought it was funny the fat ones always won," she giggled and I imagined her as a little girl in the passenger seat then, legs too short to reach so kicking, and hair messed in the bac

Brain WaspsBrain Wasps
by kenny
I am on the verge of tears. Why is this so hard? I think furiously, twirling the cylinder of Chapstick around in my fingers. I shut my eyes tight and try again.
I reach out to set the Chapstick on the nightstand beside my bed, but seconds after I release the tube I have to grab it again. Wrong, the brain wasps tell me, you have to get it just right.
I briefly consider hurling the thing across the room, but I know that I’ll just have to get out of bed to pick it up again. I am trapped in my own compulsions.
I know it’s stupid, and that’s part of what’s bothering me so much. Why can’t I just put the Chapstick down? It’s a simple mindless task, but as I look at the clock it’s taken me a full five minutes. As soon as I put it down, I have this need to pick it back up again and move it, almost as if two pieces of a puzzle don’t fit quite right with each other and I have to try again. And again. And again. And again until i
ForesightDebra Mae was an astonishingly good programmer.  
Her code always worked correctly the first time, and she never missed a deadline.  Her workspace was immaculate, but curiously devoid of personal effects.  No framed pictures, no toys, just her small collection of pens lined up according to color and an inbox for the occasional old-school paper input.
Her computer was equally immaculate.  Nothing extra on her desktop, no stray icons.  If one peeked at her browser history there’d be nothing there but work-related google searches and company stuff.
She dressed neatly but very plainly.  I suspected she had four dresses in her wardrobe and rotated them daily.  On casual Fridays she wore jeans and a plain white top, unlike her shaggy coworkers who went in for clever t-shirts or flannel.
Her space was so depersonalized that visiting salespeople often mistook her desk as vacant, setting up shop for the day.  The first time that happened Debra Mae simply drifted to an absent co-worker
Autumn AutopsyAs lovers,
we were reckless;
Children
chasing fireflies
in a field of mines.
We traded kisses
and carefree caresses
for shrapnel
and blackened skin.
Short moments
stolen pawned
at the cost
of darker afternoons,
the twilight
of the dying season;
We didn't ask,
we never questioned
the interest
of our expenditures.
I shed my skin
in the Autumn of youth,
peeled back
the viscera and
bared the bone --
Rising up,
a scarecrow of worms
and raw meat,
amongst the stalks
of reddened corn.
Tonight
she clings
to dusty artifacts,
shelved trinkets
and
wrinkled sheets
laden with memories
of decaying potency;
The wisps
rising from the cooling wick
will never be
as sweet as
when the flame
burned brightest.
The Ghost of Emily WhiteThe cemetery never changed, or at least not very much.  The trees and hedges were trimmed every few years, and when Scott was six, they started turning off the water butts in the winter because the pipes froze, and so did the streams that the local boys used to make by overfilling the water butt at the top of the part that sloped.  The weather changed, of course, and the plants and the animals with it.  Sometimes a new grave was added.  When Scott was ten, his grandmother was buried there.
Sometimes he popped in to see her on the way home from school, just as he always used to.  He missed being able to see and hear her, but it wasn’t so bad, because he was sure he could feel her there.  He had always felt that way about the cemetery’s ghosts, ever since he could remember.
When he was learning to read, Scott used to like deciphering the names on the headstones.  When he fully understood how the system of years worked, he liked looking at the dates as well, the older the bett

the wateri almost drowned a few years back that december.
you were making waves before i even hit the water
on a hill in hartford and elsewhere out east.
it's crazy to think we never would meet if it weren't for me
losing my cool and now i can't kick it, but fuck it.
it's as if it we're meant to be and you were meant for me;
both broken, we push it, and smile, and bullshit.
sometimes i skip rocks and she sings songs.
the tide turned sometime when you hit a different dialect,
a different tongue, my stomach turned, lines blurred,
i wanted to run or at least push myself into the pool.
sink or swim, crash and burn,
it's all the same, i live and learn,
but what's there to gain when the mistake isn't mine
and i'm still doing time staring at the water,
staring at the water,
staring at the water, i remember
i almost drowned a few years back.



:iconnichrysalis:
Features by Nichrysalis



paper hearts.        There’s a crevice in the wall where she hides her little baby girl, all plastic smiles and mechanical giggles. She cuddles it like it has a soul and speaks to it like it has a name. Its soft rubber skin has been covered with paper hearts and marker stars, and its little plastic ears have been filled with whispers of adoration and love. Its wiry blonde hair has been crossed into braids, twisted up above its head, and she has pulled a dress onto its synthetic body with the brightest little smile. She reminds it that it’s beautiful, even though it can’t hear. She fastens it tight into the beaten pink stroller and skips behind it as it rolls across the pavement, dancing in the sun like there is no tomorrow and yesterday is only a dream.
        And maybe she's only six years old, but she knows how babies are made. Not the ones you buy in the store, the ones you have to tear out of the cru
Waking dead.If Death be sweet saviour and remorse
    a psychopomp, midwife to the passing,
Thanatos, Ankou, Yama, Memitim, Hypnos,
save me to rest and to sleep
take me in deep
in soft, make this all in my head
   to where my friends and my
   family, my father
reside
     "sweet death, you are the only god
Who comes as a servant when he is called"

So here I am, a lullaby leaving my lips in
the form of a cry of a whistle
in hopes an answer of
sweet serenity will greet
my prayers.
Literal Futurist FeministEvery so often, humans make an innovation which changes their world forever. Fire, steel and computers are obvious examples of technological innovations. Equally important to technology are ideas which innovate people socially. Galileo's idea that the earth revolved around the sun or the American Founding Fathers' ideas about how government should be run are among numerous other examples. These ideas, often controversial and even revolutionary for their time, tended to require groups of people or movements to keep such ideas from being destroyed before they could be shared. The feminist movement has been both praised and scorned for their efforts to preserve and share numerous ideas to varying degrees. In particular, in her "Feminist Manifesto," Mina Loy helped to share the idea that gender roles were highly constrictive on both sexes with a rather remarkable insight for how things ultimately turned out.
According to Loy, traditional gender roles are no longer valid in modern society.

LunacyThings that make people insane,
According to etymology:
   1. The moon.
   2. Owning a uterus.
Love and Eighth-Grade ScienceMy love
is like white light,
intense,
comprised of the entire color spectrum,
but for now it has been diffused into its original components
by the prism you have set forth.
The colors are brilliant but aimless,
mere echoes between empty walls.
My love
is like potential energy, waiting
to be converted to kinetic energy,
at top speed and with incredible momentum.
but first, you have to push.
ToddThere was a big fanfare when Todd came back.  Even a couple of newspaper reporters showed up.  It was only right I guess, what with him being dead for a year.  At least I think it was a year.  I mean, he was gone for eight and I'm pretty sure if a person is missing for seven years the government declares them dead or something.  I know that his parents bought a tombstone from the place on First Street a while ago.  They put it up in their family lot at the cemetery, next to his grandparents.  I went to visit it after the funeral.  It had his name and a little inscription.  They left the dates off though.  After that they took him off the missing persons list too.  I know because I used to check it.  
I'll bet that everyone was real pissed when they found out the truth.  He got into town on Tuesday but nobody said a word until Friday.  Then on Satur
:thumb375631704:

The Bear Fact       People have their reasons for not wanting to engage in given activities.  Disregarding any moral questions about the activity, I disdain being a hunter for other reasons.  Such reasons include:  the contemptible hours that are spent scouting out a viable position, the spending of time and funds in preparation, the tediousness of waiting for the game, and my personal bane of waking up very early in the morning.  There is one experience that smote any potential for a desire to hunt for me.
       The incident began during my fifth grade year, when winter’s chill struck early in my area.  We suffered a turbulent ice storm for the entire day only a couple days after my birthday in November.  My grandfather was absent that morning, for he was out hunting on Ecallaf Mountain at the Terncur Dam on rather dim prospects for a bear in bear season.  I trekked to my bus stop, blinking snow out of my eyes as I t
Sacchariferousfor the Admiral
my dandelions speak of
the kitchen, brimming
with sun-streaked sugar
and mended-over smiles.
floured fingerprints cloud the sky,
but every broken egg is one more yellow flower.
in sweetgrass and flowers
i find white-leaf bandages for cracked shells. coils of
sky
fill the bowl to the brim-
the world is a clean smile
wrapped in sugar.
everything here is white and pale as sugar
gathered to mend your flowered
smile.
i wish you'd swallow always fields of
dandelions that brim
with every clean, clear sky.
i'll measure out the sky
in cups of sugar.
fogged upon the rim
of the flour bowl- your fingerprints in flowers.
i'll mix in as many gifts of
sun as you ask, feeling small
in the face of your bandaged smile.
willow leaves and tallgrass skies
tickle white-sun wounds of
cracked-egg dandelions coiled in sugar
caves. bandage bowls with flowers
and their fractured rims
will hold happiness to the brim.
i can't help but smile
when you wrap flowers
in the sky.
my eyes, filled w

Mature Content

:thumb372028934:

:thumb356069871: SenescenceYou were young and walked the world
That burns on the other side of time.
A few pictures make their way here
Every now and then.
But old is old and it comes like a mudslide
Impossible to stop and inexorable
Like a rickety typhoon of pills and orthopedic shoes.
And now you're old and on this side.
And all your summer dreams of gold
Are buried deep in the white of winter
And mounded over, with mud
Frozen underneath them.
But the sky is very blue here now
Do you see a cloud? spy a storm?
No, only blue and blue and blue
And of course the white.
Jukebox Cafe            A string of bells jingled obnoxiously against glass as Hugh entered the Jukebox Café. The first thing he noticed was the pepless fan rotating just enough to move hot air and the smell of grease from one side of the restaurant to the other. No one came for the food, or at least that’s what he assumed upon sight of the sticky red tablecloths and French fries that speckled the checkered floor. That and the fact that he was the only soul in sight.
            He walked up to the bar and squinted at a sign asking customers to “Please seat yourself or ring for service.” What kind of café required its customers to ring a bell for service? Not sure if there was an employee in the place, he rang it despite the sheen applied by dirty hands, and the shrill sound barely cut through an old tune produced by the jukebox in the corner.
            A
alannahlilting clouds in your glass of cabernet
are imagined weather conversations
with people you used to know,
used to know pretty well and
whether you should have left
the way that you did
all carpet bags and old clothes
the fog funneled through
holes in the train windows like
burned down cigarettes
uneven
you light your own and think
remembering is muscle
stretched taut over bone

a billion dollar industryeight by eight and four seasons
and I take my atypicals like vitamins
period-regular, clockwork
stable, and my days squish –
I'm looking for an edge
nights not shut down
but not sharp enough
to break me, not me
enough to cycle – one
by four, blue rocket fuel
will push the limits
unveil you, unravel you
until you find undefined
normalcy natural stability
conformity complicity
one by four, M-marked
will twist your fingers
tamp you down
temper you, tame the
wild thing, sleep it
silence it, slow your pen
peace patience penitence
open like a fruit, like
a cracked safe, spill
yourself on the table
you can pour your own now
your fingers are monitored
in a desperate walk for freedom
measure it out, if it
was a liquid you'd take
1.5 CCs of sanity
if it was a liquid it would be
terracotta and sage
white-marbled and malevolent
and if it was a shot
you'd knock it back just as hard
Radioromance Pt. 1Ghost transmissions: echo from the screen
in an empty theater now forsaken to chronology,
with broken pilasters, crooked seats, dead dust,
paint and gold peeling, and the rust
as layers from a dream.
Her face: vignetted and soft in the glow of studio lighting
slowly decays, erased with time,
a living film: always shifting, ever changing,
the infinite and steady stare
  of grey and hollow eyes.
Her coat shudders: outside,
   in the cold breeze of final night,
  and the sky shifts with broken verses,
revealing echoes of moonlight.
the fatal wound, the cigarette,
the silent noir
of the final scene.
the buildings -- corpses, monuments so decayed,
this steady architecture of movement,
these hollow roads: memory.
~

The distressingly well-heeled and ill-at-ease
Aristocrats of the old Europe, of the Old World
Are passing away
From the streets of Salzburg and Vienna
Geneva and Ljubljana
The places you dimly remember (hence how they are lit)
That have becom
Loss and the Five Stages of Grief                         
       The five of us bought two pipes on University of Houston dime in likely the only hookah bar in St. Louis, Missouri on a Sunday afternoon. Something we do as a team to calm our nerves after a long weekend of competition in a cold, damp city. They were real fancy pipes too – tall, glassy and gold. Two flavors for each pipe - watermelon-mint and strawberry-mint. David says mint keeps the smoke cool and flavor level. He was a red headed Syrian who had his own pipe at home and has been our debate captain for three weeks. Only a little while ago he had mustered enough courage to admit to everyone he “was conservative, but only a little.” Smoking hookah is very popular in Syria, embedded in the culture. We figured he knew what he was talking about. The bar was empty except for the owner who was happy to have customers but not desperate enough to forget carding us for use of his pipes and liquor. He showed us a room off to the side full of lar









Thank you :iconbigheartplz:

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