[x]

WaitingWe are still waiting for the thunder from the distant stars,
The echo of mortality,
the whispers of a storm, half-remembered,
in sepia-coloured hallways in buildings that smell like books.
Time gets slow in waiting,
ghosts are formed from the wanting,
taking shape in the spaces where sunlight,
or moonlight doesn't touch.
The stars shake from the vibration,
and the ghosts shimmer in anticipation,
but we can't hear your voice in the dead of the night.

If I blinkA blink ago I was sitting on the playground
My sunny red hair pulled into two little pigtails
With the ribbons I had begged my mother to tie into my hair
Because I didn't know how to tie a bow yet
A blink ago I was hiding behind my mother's leg
My first time experiencing something new
A brand new world, a school of new people
But it was then, when I peeked around her knee
When my big brown eyes caught sight of my first love
A blink ago I was on the playground again
When my first love told me that he liked me
I ran away screaming "Gross!"
Because I still believed boys had cooties
A blink ago…
…he held my hand

Sea
Her love was bone white,
unblemished and
stunning

[ but never like diamonds. ]

Truth then became water to
pruning fingers and splitting lips,
while she drowned
in the mouth
of a liar like me.

Pisces Was A NeedlefishWith bloodshot eyes,
I await your stabbing kiss-
breath of hemlock,
cancer on your lips.
Give me gentle release
with each burning drip;
dizzying and damning,
the earth and sky will flip.

We'll fly into the ocean
and cast our lures amongst the stars;
though we catch only dark matter
and our rib cages collapse at such heights.
Red ribbons paint the water,
floating out our open mouths-
to inhale would be to choke;
exhaling was always more satisfying.

Ridding myself of the weight that nested
with claws in my throat and black feathers beneath my breast,
I will forget the way our mouths crashed
and how we weren't anything but a c

Little WarriorIf there is a God,
Little Warrior,
We’ve driven him mad with the sound
Of our hearts’ beating;
Seven billion pounding palpitations,
Hammering hollow screams against skin pulled
Taught across the midnight sky.
The breath of ten thousand heathen kings fills your lungs,
Ten thousand dreams from ten thousand ages.
But even now, the Living War rages.
Never have you known peace,
Though your too-short days are filled with mirth.
And even before your timely birth,
When the whole of creation
Was black-grey spaces, warm wet noises,
And the muffled cooing of matriarchs,
Existence was a struggle—hard fought, hard won.

The Concept of PerspectiveI unfurl with lavender,
wild and stretching possibilities
within velvet serenity.

I sway joyously with conducting trees
and fall with musical, tumbling leaves,
recognition whole;

and for once,
time does not govern
but witnesses.

I change like the seasons,
no complicated reason...
just that I do;

it is as they always say:
some things, they never change.

Quieting the Sparrow
"Release me, now…
   I desire wind's flight."

You do not yet understand
the thrashing of feelings—
the bite of crooning words;

You know not the cruelty of man,
nor the tip of  his arrow…

Man hunts and stalks
beauty with sardonic blatancy—
elated and brimmed with delight.
He snuffs it out with senses akin to savage beasts,
crippling  prey with fearsome teeth.

However, amongst fear and shattered aspirations,
there is no greater rush than to hunt
and be hunted…

but once caught:
reality wakes cold.

The SeductionGoddess, Temptress -

float
as if a cloud.

Black silk, porcelain,
smile like a siren's song,
hypnotist eyes...

awake in me a need -
I hunger.

Scotch is no companion.

The only poison
I want to touch these lips
is you.

UnfoundedI cram words within murky, hollow spaces,
replicating ways in which blood fills a wound.

I squeeze articles and adjectives—
supporting metaphors and similes—
into tight-fitting corners,
until that which is empty begins to bloat.

The ache of something missing,
the loss of one internal, now painfully unknown:
it finds no satisfaction within passion
and phrases so desperately created, upheld.

Why give transparent, misleading hope…
Does pleasure derive from humiliation—
the catalyzing of previously weakened hearts?
Where is the limit of cruelty defined,
if not in the cries and weeping of dreams:

Language wilts

DormantWinter is a blank slate,
but not like Rousseau's—
it cleanses
sucking out warmth like poison
leaving only windburnt frost
tacked to the window pane

all we remember
is the numbness
the shuddering
skittish steps across the ice
snowflakes pasted to our faces
smoke rising from our lips
dragged across bleak clouds

winter has us captured
bound by fur and walls
drifting in our eggshelled silence

bone cold until we birth ourselves by warmth
emerge from our shells wet and heaving
uncurl our fingers one by one
joints crackling like fire at our backs

until spring comes
drip by tender drip
old wounds thaw
we are found raw,

Of Random Thoughts and ThingsLast night, I thought of my first cat
when I was a child,

a jet black kitten with six toes on each paw,

and the lemon tree that grew
in the rear of my parents' backyard-

I couldn't climb that tree,
full of wicked thorns that tore my flesh.

So why did I think of the cat and the tree
on this particular night?

They came to me in a fog which
should have made me sad. After all-

five years later, I found my cat by the side
of the house in a pile of dried leaves.

I carried her to the back and sat vigil
under the lemon tree until she died.

It made me wonder, is it always this way
with all things, to romanticize years later?

I started t

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.

Her name was AmyHair the colour of rust and bones that fell apart
We’d eat rocky road ice cream bars
You perched on broken handle bars
And I would press down on the brakes
We were scabs and lacerations
Knobbly knees and smoke filled curls

I remember when you stole your father’s gin
And climbed out of your window
Throwing bed sheets tied like cherry knots
You were the one who taught me how to do that, you know
Brass heart palpitations from running down to the river
After stealing apples
From old wrinkled trees with knotted arthritic branches

Your cheeks were dusted with freckles in the summer
And your eyes changed from green to grey
We made

AwakeI was awake then.
Nothing told me I was awake but the scent
of unsent letters beside your coffee cup
yesterday morning,
or was it yesteryear?
I can't remember anything
but the smell of ink and paper
fighting for dominance
under the taint of coffee,
and the creaking sound of the chair under your weight.

Spring SkinWho told you that you were allowed to cry?
Pick yourself up.
Can't you feel the currents running,
electric through the ground?
The world is waking up again,
calling your name in the dead of night.
The sun is spinning faster towards life
and love, and you have to take it.
Hold on with both hands
The snow is no longer welcome here,
it vanishes like the shadows in your eyes.
They died.
You were never meant to cry
when summer is breathing under the skin of spring.

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MichaelYour story is compressed
into confetti and paper swans,
hidden between diary pages
and collapsed mattress springs --
I never read a single word
but I can still remember them all

Your halo is resting
on curtain rods of flesh and bone
with down feathers glistening
under pencil dust and black mold --
I hold it like a fragile lullaby
that promises to drown me in your blood

Janie, I love you
but the thorns of wild roses
are not thirsty in January
and I always swore
that I would go out in style

Bread and ButterI remember haloed globes on wet pavement
and trashcan-cardboard tables
with white crystals and rainbow pills --

like a dream only halfway dissipated
before consciousness and conscience return

I am circumscribed by white coats
forcing cold metallic against my tightened throat
and saline mixtures through swollen veins --

they provide free sustenance for my existence
because straight detox would suffocate me
and I live for that high

TheismThe black widow martyr
drips misery across the scenery
while the sky bleeds acid into unmarked graves
and headstone cracks
[[with worm hole veins]]

Her flesh is tissue paper
creased in four dimensions
but she remembers her prayers
and questions her motives
[[does she still believe?]]

Today, the rope is playing God

The Man with the Blue GuitarI.
My Father

He told me to find something worth living for.
Music cannot keep me fed
nor my children clothed.
Music would only kill me.

II.
My Mother

She told me that my music was to die for.
The passion would keep my lungs breathing
and my heart beating.
One day, music was going to save me.

III.
My Music

I sang my childhood blues
until they came from the throat of a starving old man.
I had a lifetime of broken bones and bankbooks;
each had its own rhythm to save me.

IV.
My Guitar

Guitar strings lust for the life beneath my surface.
My arteries stain its blue face red
with every beating from the world.
One day, this rhythm is going to

Freudian SlipsI [[desire]] your ability to hurt me.

Angel, let me love you with lips locked tight
between your knuckles and my teeth.
The copper on my tongue is just enough to sustain me
while pulling the knife from between my legs [[my lungs]]

Angel, my fragile body is shredding at the seams,
hairline fractures splitting my bones into weakened fragments.
This marrow in my blood stream may be just enough
to stop the hard beating [[my heart beating]]

I [[admire]] your ability to hurt me

QuartersI lost my rhythm on the game board,
swaying my hips to the roll of the dice
as the DJ played heads or tails with a deck of cards
and the kings beat the Queen
at her own drinking game

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Submitted: January 18
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Makar

by =EtherealMartyr, Jan 18, 2013, 7:24:05 PM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

I am discovering poetry in lines of genius --
fragments of a broken existence
where only misfit pieces build the puzzle
and discarding the words like carbon dioxide

They are drowning me in a dictionary of experiences --
inhale a panicked definition of life
and exhale an ocean of ink and paper
with no surface in sight

every artist should die for their passion

Makarby =EtherealMartyr

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

©2013 =EtherealMartyr

I am searching for my poetic genius

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*bloodawni Feb 13, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

This is absolutely breathtaking, very well captured.

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=EtherealMartyr Feb 14, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

thank you.

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*bloodawni Feb 14, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

You're welcome.

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`MagicalJoey Jan 24, 2013 Writer

This describes writing almost perfectly. Great job!

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*Hfeather53 Jan 19, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Oh, I love this. That's how I feel when I write.

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